Skip to main content

Posts

UK: What Being ‘Pro-business and ‘Pro-worker’ Means

“ Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said this week that she had boycotted P&O Ferries in recent years and would encourage others to do so, after the firm sacked hundreds of workers in 2022 and replaced them with lower-paid agency staff.” "[It] shows that Labour cabinet ministers have never been in business, don’t understand business and don’t know how to talk to business. They just haven’t got a clue,"  Conservative shadow business secretary Kevin Hollinrake said . It means capital accumulation through cheap labour and exploitation. It means ‘our values’ and ‘free market democracy’. 

The ‘New’ Israeli Mindset

‘ Israel lost its humanity ’. This is a very arguable statement. With the complicity of the majority of Israelis, what humanity has the Israeli state has shown since its establishment? “ Since when is the death of any person, even a bitter and cruel enemy,” asked Gideon Levy, “a reason to party?” It has been a few cases throughout history. ‘Humanity’ is not an abstract concept shrouded in innocence and purity. Humanity exists in contexts and governed by different power relations. 

Google Backed Israel’s Military

“The partnership, which focuses on cloud computing, provides services to various branches of the Israeli government, including the defence ministry and the army .” There is nothing wrong with doing business – even when it is with the Devil. Previous genociders did it.

Quote of the Week: How Private Property Is Defended

The constitution of a system of private property requires, as a necessary correlate, the constitution of a system of ‘defence’ or coercive power. . . . The analysis of the very ‘base’ of capitalist society, of its kernel of social  productive relations, requires not simply an ‘economic’ theory but equally a theory of jurisprudence, a theory of politics, and a theory of war. —Colin Barker, 1998

After Nasrallah

A good piece by Adam Shatz. “Hizbullah will slowly rebuild, and Nasrallah and his cadres will be replaced by a new and no less embittered generation of leaders who will remember the furies unleashed by Israel in Lebanon: the killings, maimings and displacement caused by one of the most intensive bombing campaigns in the 21 st  century. Nasrallah’s death is as humiliating a setback for his movement as Nasser’s defeat in 1967 was for the Arab cause. But nothing feeds resistance like humiliation .”

Israel: Controlling the Past to Control the Future

Cultural dispossession “Virgin  Atlantic caused an outcry in late 2017 with a new inflight menu that included ‘Palestinian couscous salad’. This was in fact maftoul, a popular traditional dish in the Middle East. An indignant passenger posted a photo on Twitter, accusing the airline of being ‘terrorist sympathisers’. Retweeted by pro-Israeli organisations, the image went viral, some furious social media users even claiming it was a ‘Jewish’ or ‘Israeli’ salad. Virgin apologised for causing offence and removed references to Palestine from the menu. Emirati economy airline Flydubai, which launched direct flights to Israel after relations between the countries were normalised in 2020, took care not to make the same mistake. Its online ‘Israel travel guide’   describes hummus, falafel, shakshuka and msabbha as Israeli dishes, though they are traditional in Palestine and across the Levant. Unlike Virgin, Flydubai disregarded the criticism this drew from Palestinians and other Arabs. These a

The Target Factory

“ By broadening who and what constitutes a military target, mass killings take place under the guise of legal and strategic necessity. Arguably, the fastest way to turn civilians into combatants and civilian infrastructure, such as bakeries, into military bases on a massive scale is through the use of AI.” “[F]or the first time, the army's AI systems are allowing it to generate new targets faster than it can strike them. He noted that in the 2014 and 2021 wars, the IDF had exhausted its list of targets. Previously, finding and justifying new targets seemed to be a bottleneck in Israeli military operations.” Like competition in the ‘free market’, a capitalist has to tap well for a new niche even when the market is ‘saturated’. “The question is not whether AI is good or bad for war, or whether it could be refined to be fairer. The bias in the ‘target factory’ is a political one, pre-existing the elaboration of its data models: that international law integrates an economy of violence

Iran’s Deterrence Against Israel

Joseph Daher, author of "Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God", said that Iran’s decision to once again launch a direct attack on Israeli soil – one that he said had had little impact on the country’s military capabilities – likely served more than one purpose. “We have to understand this 'retaliation' from Iran in two aspects,” he said. “Firstly, as a way to reaffirm a form of deterrence against Israel and in response to the numerous attacks of Israel against Iran directly or against Iranian-related targets. And secondly, to maintain this connection in the so-called Axis of Resistance by acting in favour of Tehran's network of influence in the region – especially Hezbollah. Because there were rising criticisms among Hezbollah’s popular base, basically asking, ‘What is Iran doing against the rising attacks, against this escalation of violence against Lebanon?’. That said, this ‘retaliation’ will not stop Israeli war on Lebanon.” Daher said t

State Violence in France

“Abdourahmane Ridouane’s deportation is not an ancillary phenomenon. It is a logical part of the inner workings of a system developed long before 7 October and whose vindictive activities continue despite the present political crisis. The power structure uses all available means and finds new justifications in current political events, be it public security during the Olympics or the repression of anti-Semitism - both perfectly legitimate.” A state that has a monopoly on the use of violence and uses it at home and abroad (imperialistically), finds scapegoats in its rule and divide policy and in its distraction from the social, racial and class issues. It manufactures an ‘enemy within’ and nurtures the far-right ideology. It goes as far as passing legislations akin to ones passed by a police state - example: the ban on wearing of the headscarf. When a French student last year admitted that he would be complicit in oppression if after university he would be working with the IMF, when an

حزب الله: قصة ضلال عام

    «حزب الله» ليس رصيد قوة في استراتيجية تحرير وتحرر فلسطينية ولبنانية وعربية، أو حتى إسلامية ، إلا بقدر ما تندرج في استراتيجية توسع وسيطرة إيرانية. والمرجع النهائي في كيفية تصرف التنظيم الشيعي المسلح ليس آلام الفلسطينيين ومحنتهم الرهيبة، ليس القدس والمسجد الأقصى، بل أمن إيران.