Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

 4 episodes with Antony Loewenstein and his guests

For this a leading American professor has been placed in leave. “Who could not feel energized seeing oppressed people bulldozing the fences enclosing them, taking to the skies in escape, and flying freely through the air? Imperialists and Zionists reduce October 7 to a list of horrors not simply to block from view the history and reality of colonialism, occupation, and siege. They do it to prevent the gap of the disruption from producing the subject that caused it. Hamas wasn’t the subject of the October 7 action; it was an agent hoping that the subject would emerge as an effect of its action, the latest instantiation of the Palestinian revolution. More often than not, though, left intellectuals echo the condemnations that imperialist states make the condition for speaking about Palestine. In so doing, they take a side against the Palestinian revolution, giving a progressive face to the repression of the Palestinian political project, and betraying the anti-imperialist aspirations of a...

" This fantastic state of mind, of a humanity that has outrun its ideas, is matched by a political scene in the grotesque style, with Salvation Army methods, hallelujahs and bell-ringing and dervish-like repetition of monotonous catchwords, until everybody foams at the mouth. Fanaticism turns into a means of salvation, enthusiasm into epileptic ecstasy . . . and reason veils her face." —Thomas Mann, “An Appeal to Reason” in  The Berliner Tagg,  October 1930 Julia is just one of the faces in the British gutter media Her first question really makes her complicit in crime, ‘encouraging assassination’ as Barghouti said. Full interview

“The  written record of Israel’s cut-and-paste  Nakba  policies on the Palestinian people is longer and deeper than the past five days. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is not a momentary or one-off attack: it is the latest stage of an anti-colonial struggle for self-determination. Expectedly, the immediate reaction to these words from Western academia, human rights groups and funding organizations will be to demand a condemnation of the killing of Israeli civilians, women and children, by Palestinian fighters in the uprising. In our respective spaces, Palestinians, activists, students, scholars, artists and human rights defenders alike, will again be asked to declare their opposition to violent resistance, and the direct targeting of Israeli civilians and civilian institutions. By extension, the friends of Palestinians and voices of solidarity will be asked to tell an occupied people how to resist their oppressors, and dictate acceptable methods for their liberation movement.”

A free ebook by Ilan Pappe

“ A meticulous examination of the messages coming from the spokespersons for and participants in these demonstrations, however, reveals that their true purpose is to turn the clock back far enough so that the apartheid regime in Israel can once again be  marketed as a functioning democracy , allowing the international community to continue turning a blind eye to the crimes it commits.” —  Orly Noy, the chair of B’Tselem – The Israeli Information Centre for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.

British newspapers fall dramatically short Related Barcelona freezes ties with Israel

I did not know that it was so good until I started watching. Plot summary . With English subtitles , but you may need a VPN.

“A demonstration for equality turned into an all-Jewish, Zionist demonstration advocating for Jewish supremacy in Israel. Once again, demonstrators said: don’t bother us about the occupation. We are dealing here with the judicial system; let’s not confuse the issues - as if the occupation does not overshadow everything and define the Israeli regime more than any of its other components. The hypocrisy and double standards of the Zionist left were once again revealed in all their ugliness.” Zionists only

“ There was no reference to apartheid , and no reference, even, to a fifty-five-year-long illegal occupation. Worse, he drew on racist anti-Palestinian tropes about Israel having been founded in an empty land, in wilful denial of the Nakba. To add insult, all of this was delivered in the presence of Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli ambassador, with her own  track record  of egregious racism—including opposing Jews marrying Palestinians.”

To the Russian anti-war movement

The Telegraph calls it an invasion , the BBC calls it a coup . A 20-years war, an election organised under occupation and during bloodshed, with a president elected by 923,000 votes out of 9.7 million registered votes out of a population of 30 million. No, it is not a coup. The Taliban were overthrown by a US-led invasion and then Taliban won that war. There was no government or Afghan army to speak of. It was a regime kept alive by the American forces ruling over about 30% of the population. But those who always scream about fair and democratic elections, do not care about facts. Ironically, the BBC is one of the proponents of ‘Fact-check’. 

A meeker approach and false parity

Defying Fragmentation and the Significance of Unity

How the Jewish state’s founding ideology shapes it to this day Related Even the liberal Ban Ki-moon is better than the ‘liberals’ in power: “The starting point of a new approach must be to recognise the fundamental asymmetry between the parties. This is not a conflict between equals that can be resolved through bilateral negotiations, confidence-building measures or mutual sequencing of steps — the traditional conflict-resolution tools.  The reality is very different: a powerful state is controlling another people through an open-ended occupation, settling its own people on the land in violation of international law and enforcing a legal regime of institutionalised discrimination. Calls for a return to unconditional bilateral talks every time there is a fresh flare-up in fighting will only serve to perpetuate the status quo if these root causes are not addressed.  What has become increasingly clear in recent years is Israel’s intent to maintain its structural domination a...

 

 The BBC: It’s not a conflict. But we have seen headlines similar to this one, about Syrian children, for instance.  Now let’s change the headline above to “Animals feared killed and missing in Israel-Gaza conflict” and see how many likes we get. Or, let’s have those mothers and their children seeking refuge at the gates of civilised England, Poland, France or Hungary and see what happens. and On the land of  Liberté, Égalité,  Fraternité An Arab problem?

 Why the Australian state supports Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians

How One Palestinian University is Remaking "Israel Studies"

Liberal Ghandi Fetishism and the Problem with Pop Notions of 'Violence'