Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

During a closed-door meeting  with the local Jewish community in Innsbruck on Thursday, Roet said that "there should be a death sentence" for teenagers for "holding a gun" or a "grenade".  He provided no evidence of children carrying weapons in Gaza.”  Has Austria expelled him? No. Envoy suggests executing Gaza children

“Tens of thousands of Britons are set to lose almost two-thirds of their income as a result of welfare cuts announced by Sir Keir Starmer’s government, according to Financial Times calculations.  “Tougher eligibility for personal independence payments (Pips) and incapacity benefits will mean some people now in line to receive £15,000 a year, excluding housing support, will instead receive just £5,400 — a drop of 64 per cent “Changes to the assessment for Pips will mean people qualify for the daily living payment only if they face major barriers to performing everyday tasks. Many who require assistance washing, or supervision or prompting to go the toilet, would no longer be eligible.” — Financial Times The UK private sector employs 26 million people. The public sector employs 6 million. The government wants to save money because there is a productivity crisis since 2008. The private sector has been responsible for that crisis as well ad the gernment's economic model pursued over th...

What Sinclair Lewis “is trying to do here is to trace the way these ideologies develop and how the negligence of liberal or tolerant ‘ordinary’ people allows monsters to emerge. What he’s also keen to do is to illustrate just how seemingly civilised, decent people can transform into brutal oppressors when they are given permission to behave in that way. “But this is not an issue that is exclusive to Trump’s rise in the USA. What Lewis has to tell us might well apply equally to the rise of the populist Right in Poland, Hungary, Holland, Italy and France. It should also have echoes for us here in the UK as we try and understand the way in which a populist Right is being allowed to set the political agenda – Brexit and all.”

Towards freedom or tyranny

History, or, to be more precise, the history we Germans have repeatedly mucked up, is a clogged toilet. We flush and flush, but the shit keeps rising. —Günter Grass, Crabwalk , quoted by Pankaj Mishra

“The book suffers from American exceptionalism that sees Trump as an aberration of the post-WWII order.”

   فرنسا و«الساحل العلوي»

A two-part essay from 2018 Secularists, Secularism and the Syrian Uprising Part 1 Part 2

The limits of right Gramscianism

A genocidal state says the truth: The "world map won’t change if all the people of Gaza were to vanish.” "No one will notice you, no one will ask about you. You are left alone to face your inevitable fate," the leaflets read . "Neither the US nor Europe care about Gaza. Even your  Arab states  don’t care, they are now our allies, they provide us with money, weapons and oil. They only send you shrouds."

The military is making a come back Related The BBC on Indonesia's 'democracy'

 Starmer says cost of sickness and disability benefits ‘devastating’ One of the richest economies in the world has been disable for a while: low or no economic growth. A capitalist economy which is dominated by the private sector and cannot resume growth. Who should the capitalist government go after to save money? The vulnerable.  Meanwhile, a man who used to earn 142 times the average salary of a nurse is lecturing British boys how to be ‘role models’ . Shouldn't he be at least attacking the British regime and the culture that is complicit in mass killing of Palestinians?

By  Brett Christophers  (Verso 2020) Who is a rentier? What is rentierism? “Arqiva, a private telecommunications company, “makes money, in other words, thanks to what it controls rather than what it does, and the money handed over by its customers is accordingly remuneration not for something received – a raw material, product or service – so much as for something accessed or used. The word typically used to refer to such an access or usage payment is rent (the transmission sites, spectrum and towers are essentially being rented out); and Arqiva, insofar as such rents are its lifeblood, is what is typically referred to as a rentier. “[I]n essence, rent, at least as understood in this book, is payment to an economic actor (the rentier) who receives that rent – and this is the key factor –  purely by virtue of controlling something valuable . The ‘something’, whatever it happens to be, is referred to generically as an ‘asset’: an ‘item of value owned’ (to borrow the st...

  يمكننا التذكير على الأقل بوصايا الخليفة أبي بكر الصديق لجيشه: «لا تخونوا، ولا تغدروا، ولا تغلّوا، ولا تمثّلوا، ولا تقتلوا طفلاً صغيرًا، ولا شيخًا كبيرًا، ولا امرأة، ولا تقطعوا نخلاً ولا تحرقوه، ولا تقطعوا شجرة مثمرة، ولا تذبحوا شاةً ولا بعيرًا إلا لمأكلة، وسوف تمرّون بأقوامٍ قد فرّغوا أنفسهم في الصوامع، فدعوهم وما فرّغوا أنفسهم له». أو وصايا عمر بن الخطاب: «إياكم والمُثلة ولو بالكلب العقور».

An article subject to subscription Summary “The main aim of some of these actors – particularly the Gulf monarchies – is to secure Sudan’s stability and stop the conflict from spilling over into neighbouring states. They are also protecting their food security, since some of them, such as Qatar, own or lease agricultural land in Sudan to feed their own populations. However, the top priority for the UAE and Russia remains control of Sudan’s gold trade, as the country is Africa’s third-largest producer. Qatar is also involved: my sources suggest Doha has transferred $1bn to Sudan’s central bank to support the Sudanese pound and boost the trade in gold between the two countries. In late 2023 the UN Panel of Experts on Sudan reported that the UAE was helping the RSF receive gold that sanctioned companies were smuggling out of Sudan. Similarly, a May 2024 report by the NGO SWISSAID identified the UAE as the primary destination of smuggled African gold. Many experts suggest that Russian econ...

In the logical mind, it might seem rational to disguise behaviors that we’re ashamed of. Human beings often avoid ideas that challenge assumptions that they accept as true but are prejudiced in reality…  When it comes to social ills, it makes people “determined to put their hands over their eyes so as not to be disturbed from an artificial peace. — Natalie Meade , an editorial staffer at The New Yorker

«عندما أرى هذه الوجوه الجميلة ممن أنعم الله بها علينا من الإخوة المهاجرين إلى أرض الشام المباركة. يخطر ببالي سؤال أتمنى أن أجد من يجيبني عليه : منذ بدأ ما يسمى بالجهاد العالمي في أواخر السبعينات من القرن الماضي. لم تكن فلسطين المحتلة في أي يوم من الأيام وجهة مفضلة للأخوة المجاهدين. فالجهاد العالمي بدأ مع التدخل العسكري السوفييتي في أفغانستان. يومها هب المجاهدون من كل حدب وصوب إلى أرض الرباط والجهاد في أفغانستان لقتال الروس الملاحدة بتخطيط أمريكي وتمويل خليجي وتنفيذ تولته المخابرات الباكستانية. ومن المضحكات المبكيات في الأمر أن فلسطينيين تطوعوا للقتال في أفغانستان من بينهم الأب الروحي للأفغان العرب عبد الله عزام وهو أخواني فلسطيني كان مقيماً في الأردن لكنه اختار جزاه الله كل خير أن يذهب للجهاد في أفغانستان رغم أن فلسطين أقرب وهي بلاده وبلاد آبائه وأجداده. على كل حال انتهى الجهاد الأفغاني وابتداء من التسعينات توزع الجهاد العالمي ما بين وجهات عديدة كان منها الشيشان والتي اشتهر فيها المجاهد السعودي سامر السويلم المعروف باسمه الحركي "خطاب" وهنا أيضاً لم تكن فلسطين على قائمة الوجه...

As anthropologist Giorgio Gristina  argues ,  there is a  more dark, disturbed, militaristic or violent tone that can be found in Israeli psytrance, in the names of albums, artists or events like Expression of Rage, Psycho Sonic, Deeply Disturbed, Becoming Insane, Smashing the Opponent, Conquering the Israeli Desert, Groove Attack, We’re Dangerous, We Must Evacuate, Ground Zero, NuClear Visions of Israel and so on. “The reality is that  psytrance  is the soundtrack to Israel’s genocide. “Australian doofs have a very different political aesthetic, which reflects the more progressive outlook of most organizers and participants. Most doofs begin with a welcome to country or smoking ceremony given by the traditional indigenous owners of the land on which the festival is held. Festival organizers draw on indigenous Australian practices and traditions to impress upon patrons a connection to the land and support for Aboriginal sovereignty, to encourage respectful behav...

“As a podcaster and freelance journalist, Ole Nymoen admits he enjoys freedom of expression and other democratic rights in his home country of Germany. But he would not want to die for them. In a book published this week, Why I Would Never Fight for My Country, the 27-year-old argues ordinary people should not be sent into battle on behalf of nation states and their rulers — even to fend off an invasion. Occupation by a foreign power might lead to a “shitty” life, he told the Financial Times . “But I’d rather be occupied than dead.” Refereshing in times of national chauvinism, rampant capitalism, neo-fascism… “A quarter of the 18,810 men and women who signed up in 2023 left the armed forces within six months. So far top officials “from the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, the two parties likely to form the next government, have ruled out a revival of traditional conscription. “Since Russia’s full-scale Ukraine invasion, Germany has had a steep rise in the number of conscie...