Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Gaza Burns: "Nineteen inhabitants of Beit Hanun were killed with malice aforethought. There is no other way of describing the circumstances of their killing. Someone who throws burning matches into a forest can't claim he didn't mean to set it on fire, and anyone who bombards residential neighborhoods with artillery can't claim he didn't mean to kill innocent inhabitants.," wrote Gideon Levy in Haaretz, 14 November. " The IDF has been behaving like this for months now," Levy added. Related articles: >> Ali Abuminah's letter ( Electronic Intifada ) >> 'No One is Guilty in Israel' by Gideon Levy ( Haaretz ) >> Listen to Rabbi Ahron Cohen >> 'Résistances irakiennes' by Nicolas Dessaux. Dessaux is an archeologist and president of the organization 'Iraq Solidarity', which since 2003 works for and supports women and social struggle in the occupied Iraq. His newly-released book raises the following ques...

The First World War Poppy Day: ‘What did our Boys Fight and Die for’? Nadim Mahjoub We are hearing and reading a lot just now about a war for civilization. In some vague, ill-designed manner we are led to believe that the great empires of Europe have suddenly been seized with chivalrous desire to right the wrongs of mankind, and have sallied forth to war, giving their noblest blood and greatest measures to the task of furthering the cause of civilization. James Connolly, A War for Civilization, 1915 ‘The Great War’ saw millions of people join the trenches and be slaughtered, up until that time, in the bloodiest carnage in human history? Poppy Day in Britain is a remembrance day that World War I ended in 11 November 1918. Initially, the war was expected to be short and by Christmas of 1914 it would be over and things return to ‘business as usual’. At the beginning there was a big patriotic enthusiasm of the masses in the streets of Paris, London and Berlin. The patriotic speec...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Nizar al-Issa: singer, songwriter and Oud (Arabic lute) player, accompanied on tabla by Kayed Hussien. Nizar's powerful vocals, skillful mastery of the Oud and passionate, original songs create a breathtaking soundscape. 'Authentic voice, masterful performance' – Al Arabia . The Middle East and international law by China Mieville. His last book 'Between Equal Rights' (2006) delves into the nature of law. Mieville joins the show to explore how the international law is applied to the Middle East context. "Miéville argues that "law is structurally indeterminate as applied to particular cases, and so the interpretation which becomes official is always a matter of force; the stronger of the contesting parties in each legal dispute will ultimately obtain the sanction of law. International law, therefore, is not only genuine law despite the ...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Kamil Mahdi , an Iraqi political exile and lecturer in the economics of the Middle East at Exeter university, England, director of MA Arab Gulf Studies, ME Studies and ME Policy Studies, argues that in Iraq 'The British army is just another militia' and that while "daily the media tells us about clashes between "insurgents" and Western troops in Iraq, we hear less about the unarmed resistance which is fighting the occupation with strikes and workplace walkouts. The General Union of Oil Employees in Basra (GUOE), or Basra Oil Union as it is commonly referred to, is in many respects leading in that struggle - continuously opposing international corporations that want to take over the national oil industry." By Friday 03 November Mohammad Khatami , Iran's 'President' from 1997 to 2005, would have visited to Britain and receive...

“I support compulsory transfer. I do not see in it anything immoral . . . The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.” David Ben-Gurion writing to his son, 1937. The 1948 Palestine-Israel War is known to Israelis as 'The War of Independence', but for Palestinians it will forever be the Nakba, the 'catastrophe'. Around a million people were expelled from their own country at gunpoint, civilians were massacred and hundreds of Palestinian villages were deliberately destroyed. Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing." Ilan Pappe is an Israeli Jew, a world-renowned expert and author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (2006) joins Middle East Panorama for an exclusive interview.  Don't Shoot the Clowns - Taking a circus to the children of Iraq . But what was a bunch of clowns doing in Iraq in the first place? What possible use could they be t...

Middle East Panorama show on Resonance FM 104.4 or www.resonancefm.com Every Friday 14:00 - 15:00 London Time (GMT) Featured in The Independent , 'Critic's Choice', 20 October 2006 Interview with Daniel Dor , author of The Suppression of Guilt . A former journalist, Daniel Dor teaches at the Department of Communication,Tel Aviv University, and is a graduate of Stanford University. A revised translation of an earlier book, Intifada Hits the Headlines , was published by Indiana University Press in 2003. He has worked as a senior news editor in two of Israel's leading newspapers. "Dor's book," commented Amira Hass, journalist for the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, "gives ample evidence of how the Israeli free press easily turned into an instrument of propaganda. ... Personally, the book helped me get over the frustration of seeing the reality I described totally marginalised in print." >> Listen here Also joining the show Lina Khatib to...

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Uri Avnery argues , "True, Muhammad called for the use of the sword in his war against opposing tribes - Christian, Jewish and others - in Arabia, when he was building his state. But that was a political act, not a religious one; basically a fight for territory, not for the spreading of the faith... When the Catholics re-conquered Spain from the Muslims, they instituted a reign of religious terror. The Jews and the Muslims were presented with a cruel choice: to become Christians, to be massacred or to leave. Not for the first time in history, a religious robe is spread to cover the nakedness of economic interests; not for the first time, a robbers' expedition becomes a Crusade. Interview with Uri Avnery in Israel. >> Listen to the interview Interview with a representative from Pakistan Trade Union Campaign in Pakistan about the ban of the Sin...

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Interview with Lawrence Pintak , author of Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens - America, Islam and the War of Ideas ( Pluto Books , January 2006). Journalist-scholar Lawrence Pintak, a former CBS News Middle East correspondent, argues that the Arab media revolution and the rise of 'patriot-journalists' in the US marginalized voices of moderation, distorting perceptions on both sides of the divide with potentially disastrous results. >> Listen From Don't Attack Iran , a joint public meeting of Action Iran and CASMII UK in London, University London Union, September 19, 2006. As the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, Hans von Sponeck provoked anger in Washington and London by calling for an end to UN sanctions on Iraq, imposed for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. He finally resigned from his position in protest against the continuati...

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Featured in The Independent 's 'Critics Choice', 22 September 2006 Hisham Matar , a Libyan living in the UK, speaks about his experience as a writer and his first novel In the Country of Men (Viking, July 2006). "I would have liked to write a book that had nothing to do with politics," he says. "I think ultimately I am a sensualist and an aesthete. I'm not really interested in politics, but politics was part of the canvas. I had to say something about it, otherwise all the different forces that are shaping these characters would be abstract," said Matar. >> Listen here Interview with Alan Woods , a leading founder of the International Marxist Tendency and editor of In Defence of Marxism website. Alan will be speaking about the Middle East (from Israel-Palestine to Pakistan and Afghanistan). “The situation in the Mi...

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Interview with Yoel Cohen , a British-born academic currently living in Jerusalem, where he is Senior Lecturer at the School of Communications, Netanya Academic College; and The Holon Academic Institute of Technology and at Holon Institute of Technology, Israel. He has written several books and articles concerning the news media and the Middle East, including The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Vanunu and the Bomb (Holmes and Meier, 2003) and Nuclear Ambiguity (Sinclair Stevenson, 1992), Whistleblowers and the Bomb: Vanunu, Israel and Nuclear Secrecy (Pluto Books, new edition, 2005). >> Listen here 9/11 - 'The War on Terror'. We asked some people to comment on the following statement: “Capitalism and the ‘war on terror’ not only help to sustain one another but they have this in common: they worship success but are nourished by failure.” (David...

Nadim Mahjoub Monday, 11 September 2006 Note: Much of the information in this article, including research, citations, and source material is based on information found in  Endless War , by David Keen. "I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth or not. When starting and waging a war it is not right that matters, but victory."  Adolf Hitler, speech to Wehrmacht commanders-in-chief, 22 August 1939 It has been said that September 11 th  portends something new; that the terrorist attacks carried out on September 11, 2001 against the USA have changed the world. "It stands to reason that 19 men cannot change history. But they did." ( The Economist , 31 August 2006) The so-called ‘war on terror', a continuum of the 1980s Reagan's war, has been designed to end ‘terror'. To achieve this it will require years of ‘counter-terroris...

Interview with a representative from Pakistan Trade Union Campaign in Pakistan about the ban of the Sindh Teachers' Union, the protests against the ban and the Musharef regime. Coverage of a Conference on Lebanon organised by The British Muslim Initiative (BMI) and the Lebanese Muslim League (LML), School of Oriental and African Studies, London. The confernce covers the humanitarian, environmental and health crisis and the Media and politics of the current situation in Lebanon. >> Terry Waite (former hostage in Lebanon) >> September 11 terrorist attacks, the "Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror'".

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) "The U.S. views Hamas as a terrorist organisation. Yet, to the great surprise of many, Hamas swept to victory in the 2006 Palestinian Authority elections. Hamas is now a democractically elected political party." Khaled Hroub is a Palestinian, born into a refugee camp in Bethlehem, and now part of the diaspora of educated intellectuals. Joins Middle East Panorama to give A Beginner's Guide to Hamas . Hroub is currently director of the Arab Media Project at Cambridge University, hosts a weekly book review programme for Al-Jazeera TV, and has written three previous books. The show was featured in the Independent newspaper (UK), 25 August 2006 ("Another of Nadim Mahjoub's takes on life in the Middle East. Here, he interviews Khaled Hrub about his new book, 'Hamas - A Beginner's Guide'.) >> Listen here Lebanon : Omar Na...

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Mai Ghoussoub on "music as a healing element, as a universal language in time of war." Mai is from Freemuse - the World Forum on Music and Censorship . Mai is a Lebanese artist living in the UK and she is the founder of London's Alsaqi Books . >> Listen here Bahrain: This small island in the Persian Gulf in unknown to many people. Rauf, a Bahraini, from Bahrain Freedom Movement joins MIddle East Panorama to reveal a hidden side of the Kingdom. The officla spokesman for the National Committee for Martyrs and Victims of Torture and the General Secretary of the Movement of Liberties and Democracy in Bahrain join Middle East Panorama to reveal a hidden side Bahrain. >> Listen here From the heart of the Arab world four young writers on tour. Through performance-readings and live discussions, poets Joumana Haddad from Lebanon and Abed...

" Whether the Western world wishes to acknowledge them or not, Hezbollah and Hamas are resistance movements, no different to that of the French resistance, " says Ishmahil Blagrove . While the American historian Howard Zinn argues that "Terrorism' is used the way 'communism' was used all through the Cold War," Ishmahil Blagrove argues that " The so-called 'Red Scare', or threat of Communism, has conveniently been replaced by the irrational fear of Islam. Muslims have now become enemy No.1." >> Listen

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Interview with Zeina Abou Al-Hosn , a Lebanese living in London. Zeina works at a production company called Out There News and trying to make some radio/video stories from Lebanon and the area to make up for the lack of coverage in the news. Interview with Roni Ben Efrat from the Organisation for Democratic Action, Tel Aviv, Israel. Ben Efrat argues that "When Israel seeks to effect political changes, it relies on military might. The logic of force has always been the central factor in determining its policy." Ben Efrat speaks of two hidden strategic goals of two Israeli withdrawals: south Lebanon in May 2000 and Gaza in August 2005. >> Listen Sounds from the 22 July demo in London. Interview with two evacuees who arrived in the UK from Beirut, via Cyprus, on 20 July 2006. Middle East Panorama met them in a Lebanese restaurant in Lond...

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Starry Night by Mazen Kerbaj, a musican, a comic and blogger from Beirut. Israel-Gaza- Lebanon and beyond: The ReaL Aim . Interview with Yossi Schwartz from Haifa. Listen here Eurabian Nightmare by Matt Carr, journalist and author of the forthcoming Unknown Soldiers: How Terrorism Transformed the Modern World . Matt Carr is one of the first thinkers to explore and explode the myths underpinning the dangerous concept of Eurabia - being popularised by a range of authors including Melanie Phillips (in Britain) and Oriana Fallaci (in Italy). The speech derives from an article on Eurabia in the current issue of Race & Class (vol. 48, issue 1, July 2006). To order click here >> Listen to the speech

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) "Endless War? Hidden Functions of the 'War on Terror'" (Pluto Books 2006) by David Keen. A Live interview. David Keen explores how winning war is rarely an end in itself; rather, war tends to be part of a wider political and economic game that is consistent with strengthening the enemy. Keen devises a radical framework for analysing an unending war project, where the "war on terror" is an extension of the Cold War. >> Listen “There is a different and progressive voice and a promising alternative to both the US occupation and political Islam in Iraq” says Samir Adil a co-founder and the president of The Iraq Freedom Congress - IFC. >> Listen Iraqi Tradional Music Revisited in a War Era .

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) Interview with Greg Palast "He is the best journalist in North America", according to Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela. Invistigative reporter for the BBC, Media Channel advisor, journalist for the British newspaper the Observer. He went undercover for the British newspaper and worked his way inside the Prime Minister's inner circle and busted open Toni Blair's biggest scandal 'Lobbygate' . He is also known for his New York Times bestseller "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" published in 2003. The book deals with corporate corruption, finance, globalization, political corruption, and the 'stolen' United States presidential election of 2000. His recent articles include: "Unreported: the Zarqawi Invitation", "The Assassniation of Hugo Chavez", "Was the Invasion of Iraq a Jewish Consp...

Middle East Panorama radio show on Resonance FM 104 or http://www.resonancefm.com/ Every Friday 14.00 - 15.00 London time (GMT) In The West Bank Wall , Dolphin explores the Palestinian experience of the Wall and places the debate in its international context. Dolphin's writing is informed by his work for the UN, where for three years he monitored and compiled reports on the Wall's impact on the humanitarian conditions in refugee camps, towns and villages. What are the real intentions behind the Israeli security argument? Is it a means of securing territory permanently through an illegal annexation of East Jerusalem? Ray Dolphin provides some answers, offering a unique critical account of the impact of the wall and how it affects plans for a Palestinian state and for future peace in the Middle East. >> Listen World Cup 2006: "German hotel removes alcohol, porn for Saudi team", "Islamists denounce 'evil' world cup" and "Iranian film directo...