Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

Why I have not taken part in protests for years. In UK alone hundreds of thousands demonstrated prior to the war on and invasion of Iraq. They were sent/went back home on the same day. They did not stop the British regime from being part of the crime, and the destruction of Iraq that ensued and lasted for years. May times demonstration/protests in support of the Palestinians took part in London. They did not change the British regime’s policy in supporting the Israeli state. In this regard, Mark Fisher’s argument is still valid : radicals in Britain should direct their efforts to mobilise working people around social issues at home and attack the British regime’s socio-economic policies.  A regime change at home is the way forward. We have seen that even with a self-proclaimed socialist like Bernie Sanders , leaders can side with the oppressors and be complicit in crime. Sanders would have not changed American imperialist support of the Israeli state. Social movements in the beginn...

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.  The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.  Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.  Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”  ― Arundhati Roy ,  War Talk

A geopolitical summary and ‘forecasts’ “Rather than transforming the Middle East … the war may leave intact the ‘security architecture’ built by Trump and Biden. Yet the instability of this edifice has been proven. It would only be a matter of time before it buckles once again.” The US and the war on Gaza Illustrasjon: Knut Løvås, knutlvas@gmail.com

A liberal criticism of a social democrat . There is no grounding of Sanders’s general position within the U.S. imperialism. Compare his double standard in his position towards Israel’s war on Gaza and the one in the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine .

Targeted for their stance on Israel. Yet they won.

Impartiality has always been the claim of corporate outlets like the BBC, for example. It is a myth. Morgan’s case is illustrative and reflective of the British regime’s complicity in crimes and its ‘imperialist values’, and the regime’s support of the Israeli state is just one example.

This was three weeks ago. Youssef : … those Palestinians are very dramatic, ‘Ah, Israel is killing us.’ But they never die, they always come back. They’re very difficult people to kill. I know because I’m married to one. I tried many times, couldn’t kill her. Morgan : There’s a dark humour there, and I understand why… / Youssef : Oh, it’s not dark humour: I try to get to her every time but she uses our kids as human shields. I can never take her out. Morgan : Again, I understand the humour, but to be serious, Bassam, about this… Youssef : Okay, I will be serious. I was watching your interview with Ben Shapiro, and I will tell you one thing: I think Ben Shapiro is one of the smartest people who ever walked this earth. He’s very, very smart. I follow him and I believe everything he says. And… his solution was, the solution for this is for “Israel to annex Gaza and to kill as many sons of bitches as possible to make sure this will never happen again”. And anyone who called for a c...

Related Intersectional struggles against big tech and Israeli apartheid

"We need to keep quiet on the whole issue of strategic ambiguity, while arming Taiwan to the teeth."

A review of the play Falklands Sound

A must-read analysis

Where are those liberal Westerners – especially the feminists – who want to ‘empower oppressed Muslim women’ ? From Aljazeera.com: A female garment worker uses a mobile phone while coming out of a factory during her lunch hour at the Ashulia area on the outskirts of Dhaka, Bangladesh, on November 8, 2023 [Mohammad Ponir Hossain/Reuters]

  The Hundred Years' War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi

“No one who has paid attention to Biden’s political career and his position on Israel has been shocked at his full-throated support for Israel's action in Gaza. I’ve closely watched Biden for decades, and following his election in 2020, The Intercept conducted a deep-dive, multipart investigation into Biden’s foreign policy record. That reporting revealed a man best described as an ‘empire politician’, someone who believes that questions of war don’t really matter on a moral level, but only how they affect America’s own power and prestige. On Israel, Biden has earned a reputation as ‘Israel’s man in Washington’ going back to his earliest days in the Senate in 1973. At times, even some Israeli officials have been shocked at how radical his positions were, including on the killing of civilians in Israel’s invasion of Lebanon.” —Jeremy Scahill, The Intercept email of 04 November 2023.

From  a BBC correspondent based in Beirut, Rami Ruhayem, to the Director General of the BBC, Tim Davie, voicing ‘the gravest possible concerns’ about BBC coverage of unfolding events in Gaza .

Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza

From Thermopylae to the Twin Towers

“According to media reports, since 7 October, hundreds, and potentially thousands of British citizens have left the UK to fight for the Israeli Defense Forces in Israel’s war on Gaza. Many of these Britons may already be complicit in potential war crimes and crimes against humanity, and could face future prosecution should these matters go to trial.  ICJP has urgently asked the government to clarify its position on the legality of British citizens going to fight in Israel or Gaza, noting the difference with its policy on Ukraine.” ***** In a panel discussion in London ,  emeritus professor Avi Shlaim, lecturer of International Relations at the University of Oxford  spoke about how Palestinian resistance has been “decontextualised” and that Palestinians are engaged in a decolonial struggle. During the panel discussion, Wadah Khanfar spoke about a “shameless, explicit hypocrisy” from Western politicians. “Every kind of mask has dropped. And we see the faces of these leader...

This an adapted rewriting of Heinrich von Treischke’s statement. “International law becomes meaningless when any attempt is made to apply its principles equally to barbarian nations. The only way to punish the Palestinians  is to make them pay tens of times for what they did; it is the only sort of example they understand. For the Israeli state and its backers to apply international law in cases like this would not be either humanity or justice; it would be shameful weakness.” The original quote: In 1898, the German political scientist Heinrich von Treischke stated what many of his contemporaries would have regarded as the obvious: “International law becomes meaningless when any attempt is made to apply its principles equally to barbarian nations. The only way to punish a black tribe is to burn their villages; it is the only sort of example they understand. For the German empire to apply international law in cases like this would not be either humanity or justice; it would be shame...

available in 5 languages The eleven  BRICS  countries now control nearly 20% of the  IMF ’s capital, in other words, the equivalent in voting power.