Tag: Palestine

Where Did We Go Wrong?

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Is it possible to talk about anything else right now? Covid-19…Palestine…god forbid people remember Brexit is just around the corner…the spectre of climate change looming around the other. Our newsfeeds have been taken over by the finals of some political sports tournament which has forgotten to include a referee in the rules. The people have been given the honour apparently but we all know the fallacy behind that. It’s ticking along though. Georgia has just swung for Sleepy Joe, others will likely follow. This was always going to happen as the Democratic heavy postal vote count was done. It feeds into The Donald’s narrative but nobody except his support take that or him seriously. Unfortunately his support is seventy million people but lets not think about that. Actually we probably should.

It’s good to start on the point that even though Biden is on something like seventy-three million it doesn’t mean the country is split fifty – fifty. It’s not even my country but it has such a reaching influence we treat it as such in these moments. Of course not everyone with a political opinion votes and voter suppression is very real. Trump himself has been quoted as saying that if the entire country voted it would likely be the end of the Republican party. That doesn’t say much for conservative values, in fact it suggests these values are held by an active minority. The same accusation applies to the UK as we endure our own version of Trump with our departure from the EU. An unknown future of extreme neoliberalism, not that the EU isn’t neoliberal because it very much is, and tax haven UK. Not paying taxes sounds great until public services become underfunded and it’s never the lower or middle earners who ever really benefit from tax cuts.

But seventy million people believe he has done well. That is serious. To break it down some will just not like Biden, some the Democrats, a large number who have simply voted Republican for generations, some through economic hardship are desperate and of course those who see The Donald as some cult like demi-god. Regardless of their reasons, they’re still willing to vote for someone who is perplexing in his corrupt self-serving lies. I don’t think highly of centrist politics, of Democrats like Biden or Clinton, but Trump? How do you get in the head of people willing to support him to understand where the left have gone wrong. Because ultimately it comes down to that. Biden scraping over the line against someone like Trump isn’t a success, it should be the bare minimum. Has it got so bad we’re willing to celebrate the bare minimum as some kind of great success. Is that all we have left?

In the UK working class Labour heartlands are switching to a Conservative party that will only ever look after it’s own. Where have the left gone wrong, because they have. We have Trump and Brexit as proof of that. Yes the media are corrupt and capable of manipulating, think Sanders and Corbyn, and while they have the money to get their message further, maybe we just need a better and new message to counteract that. Something is not working. We need to find out what this is otherwise it will just repeat itself, or likely next time be far worse.

Split Peas & Split People

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This might end up being one of those pieces which becomes a few random thoughts that aren’t related but I feel are worth mentioning. To begin with I’m having a nightmare trying to cook split peas. I was hoping to make a nice soup with sweet potato and carrot but these bloody peas just won’t cook. I soaked them for over twenty-four hours and have now had them boiling away for at least an hour to no avail. I enjoy cooking. I also enjoy eating and this enjoyment of eating and of having no money over the years means I’m not a bad cook. I don’t make enough soups though. A split pea soup sounds just lovely.

I’m a total romantic. I’m listening to Spanish Civil War music and dreaming of what could have been. It was such a glorious and horrific time. We like to imagine antifa and the antifascist as some new phenomenon but it’s been going as long as the fascist gave themselves such a name. I have mentioned this particular war a few times but it really is another example of the people being screwed over by power. Not just power in Spain but through the neutrality of countries like the UK. Franco had Hitler’s Germans and Mussolini’s Italians, the Republic ended up having no choice but relying on the Soviets who took over as best they could and did more damage than help. France may have been a Republic but it was never built on the ideals of decentralisation and the anarcho-collectives. The European powers as ever showed their true colours, for old powers like the British, Fascism was infinitely more palatable than people having true power. These things are contagious, they must be quashed.

The Twentieth Century was just a long list of outside interference with vested interests. Allende, Chile and Pinochet is always an easy one to bring up but let’s not forget Cambodia and Margaret Thatcher’s refusal to recognise the new communist government that replaced the genocidal maniac Pol Pot. She was also a bit of a fan of apartheid South Africa. Let’s not forget the British influence upon the overthrow of a democratically elected government in Iran that wanted to nationalise oil production, the dictatorship of the new Shah, a western puppet, more agreeable. General Suharto in Indonesia who killed a quarter of the population but who provided the Australians, as well as the US and Brits, with cheap access to natural minerals. Yugoslavia, the last Socialist country in Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union was never allowed to exist. It is always easier to control smaller broken up and angry states than one larger one.

Talking of apartheid, Palestine is another obvious one. Obvious because it is still going on not because it is ever really talked about. You wouldn’t know it if you just watched western media but Israel have been bombing the shit out of the Gaza Strip for eight straight days now. Apparently Hamas fired two homemade rockets out and the Israeli’s felt the need to obliterate them in return. Eight days and not a peep.

Anyway my split peas have burnt. I got carried away and forgot to check on them. I give up.

The Final Cries Of Empire

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Let’s be honest you’ll struggle to find many complaints from me about the toppling of a statue in honour of a slave trader in Bristol or the latest vandalism of a statue in honour of Winston Churchill, the aptly entitled ‘complex character’. I was chatting with someone today who seemed to agree with me on those points but who also mentioned that war memorials had been vandalised and that she disagreed with attacks on these as they honour people who fought for our freedom. This exhaustively well worn and manipulative word makes me cringe but I can understand why she felt it unnecessary. To understand why people may damage memorials then we must look beyond the obvious surface rational for these protests.

Clearly black lives do in fact matter and the police are responsible for excessive violence. This violence which comes in many forms only serves to exacerbate a systemic racist imbalance within society. This alone is worth rioting over. It’s abhorrent and urgent change has never not been required. The issue of how we are in this situation though relates to our imperial past as a nation. While the Americans may have been conquering the world for the last eighty years, Britain got there long before those upstarts from over the pond even existed. The statue in Bristol celebrated a slave trader who operated in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Britain used slavery in the same way modern corporations and their national protectors use Asian sweatshops and cheap African labour in mines. These modern corporate empires are built on the back of the economic descendants who died on the sugar plantations. They also mined the lithium for the battery in this laptop I’m writing on which mustn’t be overlooked even if I inevitably will with any tangible actions beyond sentiment. While war memorials honour those who fought Nazi tyranny or were massacred in the trenches of Verdun, they are also emblems of an imperial past, one which relied upon the extortion of other nations and played upon the notion of a supreme race of white Britons. While they may represent your Grandfathers, as they do for me in many ways, for others they’re nothing more than a constant reminder of the injustice inflicted upon their ancestors which is still being felt in communities across the country and the world today.

There will be narratives pushed on these issues, the Conservative MP’s making an embarrassing self serving show of scrubbing the graffiti from Churchill’s statue doing just that. This concept of freedom means nothing if it doesn’t apply to all, people need more than sentiments. Once you believe, even unconsciously, that there are a deserving free and an undeserving then you’ve already lost the argument. I’ll leave you then with the quote made by the previously mentioned ‘complex character’ in 1937 to the Palestine Royal Commission;

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger even though he may lain there for a long time…I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

Zion Train

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I listened to a podcast today on Israel, Labour and anti-semitism. It was a few months old from the glory days of Jeremy Corbyn prior to the election and before it was clear he would finally stand down and nobody gave a shit about anti-semitism anymore. In reality the podcast discussed Israel far more that Labour and this is more what I would like to focus on.

The main idea that entered my mind was how both side have such strength in belief that they are the ones on the right side of both morality and history. At one point they were discussing the concept of Zionism and what it means for both. For one the understanding is that zionism is merely a militaristic and nationalistic excuse for expansion, genocide and power under the guise of protecting a religion. Criticism of Zionism from this perspective has nothing to do with Judaism and accusations of anti-semitism are laughed off as attempts by right-wingers to deflect from the actions of the state of Israel. Proponents of the other side belief that Zionism and Judaism are intrinsically linked, that Zionism is connected to the very survival of the Jewish people. An attack therefore on Zionism is an anti-semitic attack upon the Jewish people, to attack the validity of Zionism is an attack upon the very existence of a people.

The podcast was a progressive one and it was interviewing a British Israeli man who seemed reasonably neutral. He believed that the majority in Israel linked Zionism with Judaism and were for that reason supportive of Israel strengthening it’s position in the region. It would create a safe haven for the Jewish people, something strongly felt in the national conscious after the horrors of the holocaust. Of course while that may be the majority it doesn’t mean that everyone believes this, and there is a large anti-zionist anti-nationalist movement in Israel, it does explain why people see attacks on Israel as anti-semitic though. I am not suggesting for a second that all the vitriol against Corbyn and Labour at the last election was justified, but it has made me understand another perspective in a way that I and I suspect many others haven’t fully comprehended before.

For me the idea I am being anti-semitic when I accuse Israel of doing wrong, and even when I question whether the state of Israel should exist considering events surrounding and since it’s establishment, I am in no way equating it with Judaism but merely the political ideology of Zionism. From that perspective it sounds so ludicrous to be accused of anti-semitism that it is dismissed as an illegitimate political attack and manipulation of fear around genuine anti-semitism. While I don’t doubt there is an element of that it doesn’t take into consideration that if people genuinely equate Israel, Zionism and Judaism all as one thing, holistically existing together and depending on each other, then an attack on one is an attack on all. While I may not necessarily agree with it it is understandable to link the three of them, especially Israel and Judaism, together, who am I to say that they’re not and cannot be.

My intention here is not to argue one way or another but merely to acknowledge that there is another way to view this and while that is obvious, it leads to a bit more of an understanding that being accused to anti-semitism for attacking Israel perhaps has more to it than dismissing it as just another political stunt. I can see why someone may believe something, not just what they believe; it doesn’t have to change your mind but it certainly allows for an understanding that yours is not the only one. And with that it’s time to acknowledge another groundbreaking event…stop the press…this man just discovered there is another side to an argument…

Jewish Iranians

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There is a real dearth of interesting and balanced reporting in these days of polarised corporate media. There is one magazine that I doubt can be classed as independent but which I have been enjoying recently and that is The Economist. It doesn’t appear to sit on either side of the spectrum and doesn’t seem to espouse a centrist position either which is even more reassuring. It reports world events and these can range from small pieces on which countries have the most dangerous roads to immediate and large stories about today’s corrupt attempt at bringing ‘peace’ to Palestine. They also have a pretty active podcast channel and it is this that is the driver behind my mentioning of them.

Today there was an interview with Nicolas Pelham, their Middle East correspondent, who when visiting Iran in July last year was detained at the airport and forced to stay for another seven weeks. It was an incredibly interesting interview and he gave a version of Iran that is rarely seen in the media. It seemed neither pro nor anti Iran, and while he explained the genuine dangers he was in and the realities of life in a dictatorship, he also painted a picture of a welcoming, hospitable and open people. This is the version I have felt having met Iranians in the past and from stories of those who have travelled the country. He was under a sort of house arrest; he had questioning in the morning and then would spend the afternoon and evening exploring Tehran. He was given a mobile phone, which he knew was bugged but which he could use to call home and he says that perversely he felt freer in those weeks than he did at any time in the week he had initially only planned on being there. He also admits that in no way was his ordeal comparable to other foreigners detained there such as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliff, the British Iranian woman who has been detained in solitary confinement in Iranian jail for nearly four years.

What is interesting though is that he is Jewish and has spent time reporting from Jerusalem. He believed at first that this may have been a factor in his arrest but questioning never followed that route in any serious way. While there he visited the Jewish community in Tehran. It numbers about eight to ten thousand, which is about ten percent of it’s peak prior to the Arab-Israeli War, and is the largest Jewish community outside of Israel in the Middle East. When speaking with members of the community he discovered they feel safer there than in major western cities such as Paris or London and are largely left alone. He himself said it was more dangerous for him being British than Jewish in Iran.

The importance of this cannot be overlooked in regards geopolitics. The Press reports that Iran has vowed to obliterate Israel, doesn’t recognise their right to exist and that Israelis and Jewish people are in constant danger of Iranian attack at any moment. This is portrayed as anti-semitism and that the Iranian government simply hates Israel existing because they are Jewish. This seems to be at odds to the reality of this comparatively large Jewish community within Iran. Really it’s another indictment of a corrupt media, that to attack Israel is to attack Judaism, but evidently it can’t be further from the truth. We saw this recently in the UK with the constant anti-semitic slurs against pro-Palestinian Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. He refused to agree to include as part of a definition of anti-semitism in the party’s charter; that criticism of Israel and anti-semitic attacks on the Jewish community were one and the same thing.

This was a rare and honest conversation on Iran, and one with someone who was in danger of experiencing their worst tendencies. It left you in no doubt of the potential perils which can await within the country but also gave a wonderful endorsement of the people and culture, which also included his minders and guards incidentally. This is a link to the podcast for anyone interested in listening to it. Sometimes it is refreshing to experience reporting that doesn’t appear to be pushing any one thing more than the truth.

An Ignorant Act of War

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What is it that goes through peoples minds when they act in a way which will inevitably have a detrimental affect upon other people. I ask this because all over the news today is the assassination of the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by the United States. In the UK the coverage is generally subtly supportive or cautious but without ever condemning, which is predictable given the geopolitical framework in which this incident exists. The caution comes from the clear retributive dangers of inevitable actions by the Iranian government. There have been calls from across the world wide spectrum of governance about the dangers of this and calls for the deescalation of further violence. Were this to have happened in reverse the US would have already dropped the bombs in retaliation. This is an act of war and by those same rules the Iranians can justifiably fight back. The question then is that given the consequences whether this is exactly what this current US administration want, and judging by their behaviour since coming to power the answer seems pretty obvious. The Iranians have vowed revenge of equal measure, which would mean killing America’s most powerful General, or Israel’s.

Which leads to Israel. It seems the current US administration have been doing all they can since coming to power to support Israel – recognising the capital as Jerusalem, recognising the illegal settlements in Palestine as legitimate, Trump kissing some holy wall and then licking the soles of Netanyahu’s feet. The Israelis have been desperate to take on Iran for years and successive US governments have always held back from doing so. They’ve finally got what they want. If I was a betting man, the attack from Iran will not be directed at any Americans but straight at the heart of Israel. I just hope that whatever happens civilians are not caught up in it because the only constant of war is that innocent people suffer. If they take out a few Israeli generals well then so be it, they signed up for it and already have the blood of innocents on their own hands.

It is scary though. But is it scary for those making the decisions. And when they make the decisions what do they feel. It is very easy to look through the polarised lenses of good and bad, unfortunately this seems to be all that current rhetoric is made up of. The Iranians are the bad guys, they should die. The Americans and Brits the good guys, they should be applauded for their heroism in defending freedom. I’m making assumptions but I suspect those making these decisions to pull triggers do not think that what they are doing is wrong in any sense of the word. We view these people as evil in some ways but they’re not, they are just trying to make the world, or maybe more precisely their own world, a better place. I think it is important to remember that ultimately in everything people do they just want to be happy. Nobody acts in ways counter to that, not consciously at least, and he might be a cunt, but Trump just wants to be happy. The problem is though that he is going about it in such an immoral and mistaken way that there is no happiness coming for anyone out of this, least of all the innocent civilians who will inevitably bear the brunt of such monumental ignorance.