Thursday, January 08, 2009

Who To Blame for this Israeli Ethnic Cleansing of the Palestinians?

Imagine This:

People are cornered in cities, towns, and villages; the army is bombing based on ethnicity and sect. The people have no space to run. Borders are closed for refugees, and the army has the orders to shoot to kill anyone who was not of their sect. Victims' bodies are carried by the hostile army in dozens, with bulldozers, and dumped in large holes; then the same bulldozers, carry the soil, hide the hundreds of bodies of normal citizens in the ground. No border was open for them, except probably for one, and starvation has spread around. The hostile army argued that they were defending themselves against the enemy, and always promoted that these Muslims cannot tolerate civilization. They live to rape their women. This was for them a battle, two races stuck in one border. That army refused to abide by international warnings against such ethnic cleansing.

The whole world, without exaggeration, was shocked. The UN called for immediate seize of fire. Bill Clinton was ready to send his airplanes to support the underdogs. London was prepared to send its forces. Eventually the army was bombed, and the man who gave the order for ethnic cleansing was sent to the Hague Tribunal. That man was Milosevic, and the people were the Muslim Albanians of Kosovo. Now, isn't that ironic if we compare the situation to Gaza and the Palestinians?
Lost their homes to a European form of racial colonialism, the Palestinians were stripped from their homes, their lands, and their basic rights. The Zionists came from Europe with the sole mission to expel the Palestinians out of their homes, committed the first recorded ethnic cleansing directly after World War II, and established a racist nation called Israel, where the Zionists argued they are restoring their homeland which they lost 2000 years ago, and they are still on a mission to re-unite a Diaspora that is even 2500 years old.

The Story of Gaza: A Twist of Events

For those who wonder how the Palestinians received self-autonomy, amidst Israeli brutality, in Gaza and The West Bank; the story rotates around Arab treason.
When the 'glorious' Arab armies entered Palestine to liberate the Palestinians from the genocidal policies of the Hagannah , the pre-infrastructure to the Israeli Defense Forces, they raised the banner of the Arab Cause. The Arabs at first overwhelmed the Israelis, and the Jordanians took over the West Bank. Surprisingly, the Jordanian Army, whose king was a puppet to the British Mandate, ordered his army to a halt, and started surprisingly negotiations. He took mandate over the West Bank. The head of the Egyptian Army, the soon to be president, Jamal Abdul Nasser, took a look at the Jordanian acquisitions, decided to do the same, and halted at Gaza. Unlike the Jordanian King though, with less fronts for the Israeli army to worry about, Abdul Nasser, had to pull an urgent defensive maneuvers, and sustained heavy casualties. Abdul Nasser blamed the Egyptian monarchs for supplying the army on purpose corrupt weapons. Nevertheless, Egypt got its control on Gaza till the 1967 wars. The rest is not important for the current research, but we will hop to the Oslo Agreement of 1993. Under the patronage of Bill Clinton, Israel's Isaac Rabin, and Yasser Arafat, the Palestinians were given Gaza and the West Bank, as a quasi state to run, in attempt to create two states within one borders of historic Palestine. I will not dwell also on my opinion of the Oslo agreement, but it is enough for me to accuse Arafat of treason for selling out most of the refugees' right of return to gain semi presidential powers, this includes also my mother's right to return to her home.

The Hamas and Fatah Dance

Back in the 1970s, the Israelis had a short run strategic management. Back in the 1970s, Israel's arch-enemy, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, were fought fiercely because the PLO brought international recognition for the Palestinians. The different factions then were Arafat's Fatah, George Habash's The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Ahmad Gibreel's Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine – General Command. Their funding came from some gulf and Arab nations, and the Soviet Union in terms of arms and weaponry. Fatah were dubbed as one of the most dangerous terrorist groups back then, and no US diplomat supposedly was allowed to meet with a terrorist group. As a matter of fact, during the 1982 Israeli invasion, the American Presidential Diplomat, Philip Habib, threatened Sharon to cut down on his bombing by meeting with Yasser Arafat face to face.

One of Israel's tactics to weaken Fatah's influence and their secular allies, the factions of the PLO, was to strengthen the Islamist groups. Hamas, at its moment of birth, was not an entity or a party of its own; it was and currently stills a military wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. As a matter fact, Hamas, during the first Intifada, was the alias name or a camouflage of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, in 1987. The Muslim Brotherhood started officially around 1943, their roots dated back much earlier, and as an influence from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt.

Unlike the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood had a national character while in Egypt they promoted the universality of Islam across borders. They collected funds based on the Quran in order to expand their spheres of influence in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. The Israelis, promoting then that their civilized citizens were under-threat from barbarians in order to hide their own atrocities. From this tactic, it is not surprising that a large population of the US citizens who are actually interested in Middle Eastern issues are pro-Israel and Zionism. Their media reports one side of the story, just as today. The International Media, at least the influential ones, do not show the 650 bodies of martyrs (at least the number last I checked), rather how one Israeli woman is crying. Only when Israel commits a big blunder live on an American or British TV, a reaction rises. Now, returning to the story of the Muslim Brotherhood, they were back then the quietest type. They never launched any activities against the Israeli, but they did fight the PLO with all they got, after all they were their rivals. The purpose of not doing any activities against Israel was the Islamic belief to win Israel in the long-run. Israel, turned a blind eye on the Muslim Brotherhood as they constructed their Islamist nodes, and expanded on the expense of the PLO, and primarily Fatah. In 1977, Fatah bluntly accused the Muslim Brotherhood as Israeli agents. What the Israelis didn't consider that the Muslim Brotherhood will be their archenemies, and definitely the Israelis last they expected was to be allied to Fatah in present times... something that I like to call an Irony of Situation.
In 1987, the Palestinian Intifada uprisal took place. The main trend was the circumstances the Palestinians were living in. While the PLO had little control over, an inner coup took place inside the Muslim Brotherhood. The younger generation decided to disengage away from the quietest approach of opposing Israel, and decided that the their time has come to be engaged. In order to safeguard the Israeli loose hand over their movements, they invented Hamas. Operations carried out by the name Hamas bluffed Israelis for a brief moment, but Hamas emerged as a powerful opponent to Fatah. Actually, Fatah turned a blind eye back in the early 1980s as Muslim Brotherhood extremists took out Habash's comrades, which allowed them greater strength on the ground. The end result of course for Fatah was victory in the end of the Intifada in 1993, whereby the Oslo Accords were signed. Fatah was successful in attracting international attention to Palestinian suffering, especially where children were captured live on TV being shot at while throwing stones. This allowed Fatah to emerge as the negotiators under the banner of Peace for Land, and got the current semi-autonomous state.

Yasser Arafat's relationship with the Israelis wasn't on the best of terms. At a one point, Ramallah was over-run by Israeli tanks, and he was under siege in his own office, and last two years in Ramallah. The Oslo Accords even got Arafat, along with Rabin and Peres the Noble Peace Prize, but other PLO factions, primarily the George Habash faction of the PFLP, accused him of being too softy with the Israelis. This trend started in 1988, when Arafat accepted UN Security Council Resolution 242, which was to recognize Israel's rights for existence. His main opponents were Hamas. By 2002, around 35% of the Palestinians were dependent on Hamas's welfare nodes, whom they attained through the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas and Fatah: The Collisions with Each Other instead with Israel

Third World Politics rotate around declining long-run strategic goals for short-run political gains. The same is applied on Hamas and Fatah, even though currently Hamas evolved to be the representative of the Palestinian will to survive, like Arafat's PLO in the 1970s, even though he always collided with George Habash and the pro-Syrian Ahmad Jebreel. The suicide bombings of Hamas always instigated Israel to go punish Arafat, but with his death, Hamas gathered the storm to balance out against Fatah inside the Palestinian grounds. It has to be noted that in Lebanon for example, the majority of the Palestinians, at least prior to their latest butcheries on the Palestinians in Gaza, are pro-Fatah and Yasser Arafat.

Hamas, instead of limiting their activities to warfare and welfare against the Israelis, they became involved in politics. They harvested more supporters that way because every time Fatah messed up in the Palestinian parliament (to be noted: almost half of the Palestinian Parliament currently are in Israeli prisons). Operations against Hamas leadership escalated where in broad daylight its leadership were bombed by Israeli planes in 2004, but, Hamas continued to gather opposition whether through their welfare networks, using the easiness of their location in the Opposition to criticize Fatah, and offer themselves as an alternative. This was facilitated to the Palestinians through the weakening of the PFLP party by Fatah, Hamas, and the Israelis. Furthermore, the latter contributed in imprisoning PFLP's Ahmad Saadat. Fatah lost a lot of figures as well after the Oslo Accords, the first to abandon the PLO was Edward Said, who denounced the Oslo Accords immediately. Other Palestinian intellects lost grounds as well. Finally, the large gap left by Arafat's death meant practically undisputed political figure in the scene died with a weakling like Mahmoud Abbass taking over. Even though Arafat declined a lot to the Israelis, Abbas was even worse. As a matter of fact, Israel paid for its non-strategic calculations of the 1960s and 1970s of giving free passage to the Muslim Brotherhood, and selected Abbas as its ally. As a matter of fact, they publicly supported Fatah, along with the White House in the next elections.

When Hamas won the majority of parliament, they didn't sweep in a landslide. The matter remains that Hamas remained Islamist in nature, despite the fact it distinguished itself from other Brotherhoods by stressing on Palestinian identity and nationalism. The primary factor, on the other hand, for Hamas's victory bottoms down to the fact that people were fed up from Mahmoud Abbas's acceptances of Israeli pressures and even adopted speeches promoted by the Pentagon, such as "Peace, and Democracy". Since the options are similar to the US electoral dual competitive coalitions, Hamas in its position as the Opposition, made it as a majority block to the Parliament. Hence, there was a Fatah President (Palestinian Authority) represented by Abbas, and a Prime Minister represented by Ismael Haniya.

Just like in Lebanon, both factions didn't agree with each other. Peace treaties pop up, which are automatically are accompanied with Israeli brutality in East Jerusalem, bulldozers to expand on settlements, and mostly, day to day atrocities. Just like Lebanon, both sides accused each other with treason. Fatah accused Hamas as being a pawn for Iran, and Hamas accused Fatah of being US agents. Fatah received reinforcements when Israel arrested the Palestinian Parliament, and also Israel on different occasions released Palestinian prisoners that are members of Fatah. On one day, Hamas succeeded in kidnapping an Israeli soldier, which caused the entire Palestinians to live under hell, ironically, after the bombing, they decided to seek negotiations, leaving several Palestinian citizens dead. The exact scenario replicated itself in Lebanon when Hezbollah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, and Israel bombed the hell out of Lebanon. Only difference though between the two incidents, that the ground forces of the Israeli Defense Forces appeared weak compared to Hezbollah's paramilitary operations; Hezbollah even inflicted severe damage on their naval power.

Same Butchery, Different End Results

The tactic of bombing citizens, and inflicting maximum damage on the Palestinians had been the same tactic of Israel for three decades. Israeli genocidal warfare is usually covered by media blackout on the 'other side'. The Europeans and Americans in general receive 5% of the overall story of what is going on. The bombing of the Palestinians in retaliations of the kidnapped IDF soldier was probably to support Fatah and encourage Palestinians to seek the peace option. Peace so far, with the Israelis, had been fake. No peace is followed by racism, and reaction would trigger another reaction, in here means the Qassam and Grad Rockets. When Hamas and Fatah finally had a military show-down, Hamas over-whelmed Fatah, which caused Mahmoud Abbas to expel Ismael Haniya as the Prime Minister. Shoot-outs were bloody, and the Palestinians were shocked on the notion how two mighty Palestinian factions were shooting on each other, instead the Israelis. When the Gulf nations succeeded in reconciling Hamas and Fatah, the streets of Gaza and the West Bank were flooded with Palestinians hugging each other, and raising their fingers in a V form. This reflects the will of the Palestinians, to seek unity. Fatah till this very day is still incapable to compete with Hamas's welfare networks, and actually do not complain about it since these nodes save a lot of money on the tiny budget of the autonomous regions.

This was followed by a breakdown of further collapse of negotiations between Fatah and Hamas, Israel again enforced a blockade on Gaza, whereby over 50 citizens died in hospitals due to lack of electricity. The blockade lasted months. Israel remained expanding in East Jerusalem to compensate the dismantlement of certain settlements in autonomous grounds, after Israel disregarded the International Community. Again, Israel always failed to generate a real peace treaty. The current Palestine genocide, where the final round of missiles were shot by Hamas in reaction to Israeli brutality triggered the bombing of Gaza where we see about 75 to 80 citizens killed per day, and over 200 wounded a day.

Unlike the last bombing, this one is different. The Israelis for sure do not seek to dismantle Hamas; rather they always need an enemy. That is the case of every extremist nationalist ideology, like Zionism. While the people think that Hamas's very existence in Gaza is threatened, Israel wants Hamas, just as Hamas needs Israel. This is the very important tactic of demolishing reformist alternatives. Israel is certain that Hamas will emerge stronger after these collisions, and actually that suits their 'defensive' policies. Israel is not that stupid to wage a war that is clearly against Hamas, bomb randomly citizens, of whom, according to today's statistics: 215 children were killed,89 women murdered, with a total estimate of 680 killed in less than two weeks, and 3075 severely wounded. Entire families had been eradicated by a single bomb. Now of course, freaks like Bush, Levni, and Rice would call it "fighting terrorism". Yet how can a country, that was established on the expense of others, based its existence on ethnic cleansing, and form blockades on the most crowded region in the world (and poorest I might add), is natural. Israel was formed out of the blues. Its very existence is not natural, and there is nothing called "Natural Rights". Again, this proves that Zionism is the biggest bad news to Jews of the world, whereby they are a minority. Israel requires wars in order to receive funding, justify its on-going atrocities, and probably will never seize till that racist nation succeeds in attaining complete control of Palestine Proper. Finally, the notion of towns in Israel is totally ironic if that country is genuine, there is no country in the world that calls its urban centers as "settlements".

Arab Nationalism is Opium of the Masses

Just as the Arab countries sold out Palestine in the great Palestinian rebellion of 1930s and 1948, they are doing it again, and probably will continue to do it again and again in the future. The reason for this again lies down for Arab regimes in selecting short-run goals, which is the society's elites maximizing power for their own welfare at the expense of their people. This was applied on Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the 1930s; also Iraq then was included. Their entire rulers were under allegiance to the British Empire then, and it was no coincidence the rebellion then lost its momentum. The idea of giving false promises and empty words to maximize their own strength with stronger nation states had been the name of the game. The elites of these nations led the Palestinians to disasters, and of course, that was followed by dictatorships and poverty on their own people.

Just like the July War on Lebanon in 2006, the 2008 Holocaust of the Palestinians also was followed by Arab rulers who do not want to risk their personal interests at the expense of the murdered children of Israeli artillery. This includes almost every nation state except probably for Yaman who hit the streets in less than 24 hours to demand the halt of Israeli butchery, and protect the Palestinians. The other country is definitely Lebanon. The second most bombed country by Israel after the Palestinians. Several Lebanese had flashbacks of horrific Israeli brutality in 2006, 1996, 1993, and the 1982 invasion. This also doesn't exclude the people of the South suffering on daily basis from the Southern Lebanese Army and their masters, the different Israeli Prime Ministers.

The term Arab nationalism lost its value for almost two decades ago. Chomsky himself in the American University of Beirut said: "Which Arab and Israeli War, currently there are the Lebanese and Syrians." Even Syria itself is seeking its own interests at the expense of the Palestinians, by trying to get the Golan heights, not to forget how Bashar el Assad used the defeat of the Israeli infantry in the July War to maximize his bargaining cards (note: The Israeli airplanes flew above his head one month prior to the war in 2006).

Arab Nationalism, like most cross-nation states nationalism, are a thing of the past. Solidarity between the Arabs had been simply restricted on the potential level. It had been used between between rival politicians to distinguish themselves from each other. For example, the two dictators of Syria and Egypt had been competing with each other to argue who is more Arab.

Arab Nationalism on its first roots rose as a unified concept to face the different European Colonialist powers in Northern Africa and the Middle East. To others, Arab Nationalism was a great factor to block the rise of extremist Islamist movements. The first people to embrace Arab Nationalism in Lebanon for example were the Lebanese Christian Maronites, to counter the Ottoman Empire and specially during its final stages of existence: Post-Young Turks revolution. As a matter of fact, one naively argued that the ideological idea of Antoun Saadi's Greater Syria by Christians is due to the fear of the rise of extremist Islamists. To what extent that is true, we cannot have a concrete materialistic measurable output. Nevertheless, Arab nationalism was the banner for dictatorship leaders to rule. Abdul Nasser's entire logo was to unite Arab nations into a single nation. Something that is impossible to happen.

One major error in pro-Zionist supporters' is to assume that Arabs are the same. The some Western pro-Zionists wonder: "You Arabs have so much land, you can give Palestine to the Jews." That sounds rather plain stupid. It is as if saying, Europeans have so much land, why don't we give Hungary or Belgium to the Jews." To this I can say two errors:

1) The first error is to segregate the Jews as a single entity that doesn't belong in Europe, or Arab lands, whereby we both no there are European Jews and Arab Jews. Just as prior to the Balfour promise, there were Palestinian Jews, Lebanese Jews, Polish Jews, the same applies to Palestinian Christians, Lebanese Christians, or Polish Christians.

2) Just as Europe is divided into unique countries with their own complex dynamics, the same is about the Arabs. To deny the Palestinians' right to claim justice is a fatal error, and even worse, to deny them the right for existence, and practice the process of genocide on them under the banner of "natural rights" without giving history any real meaning.

Having said this, the notion "We are Arabs" had been an over-rated country. If you go to the US, the first thing that hits you is to see "the Lebanese Communities living together, Syrians together, and others together." By this , several distinctions can be separated. Now , when the Arab nation states say "We are Arabs", it means that they are simply alienating their people from real activism, which is developing class awareness and overthrowing those same corrupt rulers. Moubarak still hails Egypt as the defender of the Arab cause. Moubarak practically is a living proof why Arab nationalism is dead. His justification for not opening his borders with Gaza is "not to divide Gaza from the West Bank." When Nasrallah accused Moubarak with treason, his reply was "Everyone can testify to the sacrifices of Egypt", which according to my knowledge dates back to 1973. Probably, if his son manages to continue his father's reign like the Assads and the Saouds, our grandchildren will hear the same logos. Although I doubt that will happen as everyone knows that the Moubarak regime is close to erupt into a revolution any day within the decade or so.

What challenged the Islamists back in the 1940s and 1950s were the Arab Nationalists. The Arab Nationalists forced the Islamists to be marginalized. Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Pre-1948 Palestine were such an example. As those leaders delivered force promises on the "Arab causes", several people became alienated in order to earn their daily bread or out of fear from retribution from the leaders' oppressive regime. When the Arabs failed to demolish Israel, whereby only Syria and Egypt were involved in the 1960s and 1970s, this gave rise to the Islamists. The Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Syria demanded that Arab nationalism is to be nullified in the consciousness of their supporters, only to have Islam as a perfect substitute, because the ones who die in such a cause, end up in heaven. As Palestinian suffering continued, Arab defeats increased. The Arab defeats were also accompanied with dictators who purged their own educated classes in order to remain undisputed in power (like Moubarak two years ago sending his goons to beat up and arrest a peaceful demonstration of Judges against corruption). In response to Moubarak, no one is asking him to go to war, but at least he can expel the Israeli ambassador, a heroic act done by the reactionary Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. But there are reasons why his regime will not. Nevertheless, the failure of Arab leaderships to have a single victory till the year 2000 were Lebanon successfully expelled Israel outside its borders, and the group to expel them took the hegemony of resistance is an Islamist group, like Hamas, with a nationalist twist: Hezbollah.
It is not a coincidence that King Abdullah the first was shot dead in the early 1950s, under the banner of punishing a traitor. It is also not a coincidence that the Jordanians and the Egyptians pay lip-service to the US under current circumstances. They just camouflage their betrayal of the interests of their normal citizens with "Arab Nationalism" and how four decades ago they sacrificed a lot. Just as the British Empire realized back in 1917 that by securing Palestine into their Commonwealth in order to secure both flanks of the Suez Canal, so did the US Administration. While Israel is by far the most funded country from tax payers' money, the second and the third trailing way behind Israel, are Egypt and Jordan. Egypt's brutal regime caused the Muslim Brotherhood to expand supporters while Nasser's regime and Sadat demolished secular movements such as Unions, Communists, and Socialists. The Jordanian King wouldn't hesitate to bomb anyone in Jordan that challenges his authority, the current king's father did so in collaboration with Israel. No way Egyptian and Jordanian dictators will lose their short run interests, at the expense of having Muslim Brotherhoods stretching their own strengths who would become a real replacement to them.

The other traitor to the cause of the Palestinian Proletariat is the Syrian regime. Assad Sr. did his best to gain monopoly over the Palestinians, marginalize Arafat, in order to promote himself as the sole representative of the Palestinians. Ahmad Jibreel's loyalty to Assad is one example, while the expulsion of Arafat from Tripoli is another. The Palestinian factions are just a pawn for a dictator to expand his own sphere of power, marginalize opponents as traitors to the regime, and alienate activists. Of course, I wouldn't like to exclude the gulf nations who live in a separate world of their own.

So who needs Arab nationalism? It got disintegrated between Islamists, dictatorship pawns, and local nationalism. This of course adds to the Zionist segregation of Jews and non-Jews of the Proletariat. A real socialist perspective in my opinion is the salvation for this region where all the people should unite as part of the global collision, away from nationalism. The diversion of bad economies of dividing people into sects, extremists, and ethnicities is that the solution although it appears to be the easiest at a first glimpse.

Repercussions for the Present and Future

Other than the divide between the Jews and Non-Jews will increase in Palestine proper, the Zionists enjoy this growing rift between the people there. After all, segregationist nationalism doesn't support interactive society. Zionism, like al-Qa'eda's obsession of fighting non-Muslims, is involved with fighting non-Jews in the region.

Israel got what they wanted, get Hamas alive and kicking undisputedly. If they targeted Hamas alone, they wouldn't have committed the greatest butchery so far in the 21st century. For this, they secured more funding from the US Administrations to come (yes, that includes Barack Obama), more reasons to carry out building hilarious settlements that have 30% of population, and deny the Palestinians their right to go back home.

This also meant that the Israelis will feel more pressured and boxed inside their own borders. As tensions are building up throughout the Arab countries, the Israelis will have no choice but to opt for war options as their regime's activities strengthens extremist Jews, ie Zionists.

Now of course, the saddest part of the whole story is the death of the citizens, mainly those 680 martyrs who died under the banner of fighting terrorism (personally, Israel has the highest record of butchering civilians, and they always claimed they are patient). These citizens are also blamed for the war, but as one conspiracy theory goes: Israel wants Gaza in the long run empty for themselves. For now, assuring that Hamas wins elections gives them momentum. Of course, Hamas will have more recruits since citizens, whether Hamas or not, will be bombed.

This also gives Hezbollah a refreshing momentum as well. Now Hezbollah's victories against the IDF made convincing arguments the legitimacy of Hezbollah to their supporters and allies, compared to Hamas's weak performance in facing the Israeli war machinery. Israel also sent a message that Hezbollah will receive the same brutality, although history always proved that the IDF, other than the 1948 victory in building Israel's existence, are always weak on the infantry level.
This also weakens Moubarak's regime, where the Opposition gathered new material to weaken the legitimacy of Moubarak, a person wonders how long that man can remain in power. The Leftists and the Islamists both are on a roll of reaching grassroots level. Moubarak enjoys faking different elections results. Poverty had been increasing more and more, and Moubarak simply says it is Hamas's fault. Not the blockades, and not the day to day atrocities.

The Israeli brutality also blew off a lot of efforts for the progressives like myself. All our activities in fighting racism against the Jews were pushed back, and personally I feel I lost 10 years of my life for nothing while being involved in such a cause. Several people through out the years that I reached out their stubborn minds that "no, not every Jew is a dirty Jew" went down the drain. While I was Marxist line of a Communist revolution where the Jews of Israel are part of it, now a lot of people that I got through want to do what the Zionists did to the Palestinians, practically: every Jew coming from Europe since 1920 to be dumped in the sea because they are as savage as Hitler. The road for this struggle continues. At least not all Jews in the world are dubbed traitors.

Finally, Israel has itself to blame for the Islamist groups, because it suits its policies to have such groups. Zionism is a war machinery ideology that constantly requires blood to continue running. With the international media swaying international opinion by providing only repetitive snapshots of Israeli victims, (yes I did say victims, victims to Zionism), instead of placing pictures of the other side, and the whole story as well, instead of angry bearded men burning the Israeli flag.

This is a class war par excellence where religion and ethnicity plays a role to preserve themselves in power. Hamas currently are the underdogs, and of course as always Israel places non-applicable goals so that a weaker Hamas pops up and the war option remains alive. It is not the first time Israel bombs UN havens and schools on purpose in order to "reconsider" seize fires. Reconsider means more time to bomb innocent victims, 685 victims is still not enough for them.

The Tribunal, during the Yugoslav crisis, sent soldiers to the Tribunal for simply firing artillery, what about Israel's 680 victims and 3075 wounded (so far)? Or These victims to be blamed for allowing Hamas to operate? Who demolished the alternatives in the first place? And who allowed Hamas's Muslim Brotherhood to grow stronger for decades? No Comment

No War but Class War

MFL

PS: Is there anyone else finding Mahmoud Abbass pethatic for threatening Hamas to cut out the launching of the Rockets or else the Peace Process will Collapse? What Peace?

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great reading! Thanks for your effort!

Anonymous said...

Finally!!! Welcome back, MFL.

Anonymous said...

Good thing u remembered u have readers following ur blog. Good account I liked it

MarxistFromLebanon said...

Dear Anonymous,

I was not able to write due to different reasons, now I am back :)

Miss Tee and MAS, thank you for the work welcome ...

MFL

Memet Çagatay said...

Hello MFL,

Welcome back and thank you for detailed analysis of the critical issues on the agenda.

Your account about the trap of totality of considering words "Jew" and "Arab" as homologous all-encompassing denominations is similar to Alain Badiou's objection to the application of the word "Jew" as a name.

As regards to nationalism, isn't it paradoxical that while nationalism claims the unity of a nation it generally ends up with violent disintegration accompanied by shameless treachery?

Best,

Frank Partisan said...

Last week 10,000 Israelis marched against the incursion in Gaza in Tel Aviv. Israelis never marched against what the government did in Lebanon, for weeks after the invasion. In addition in Tel Aviv, the Communist Party got 35% of the vote.

Hamas only wants to negotiate with Israel. Its pathetic tactics prove it.

Much of Islamism comes from the US and Saudi funding. They were funding Islamists in Afghanistan before the Russians invaded.

When did Chavez become reactionary? Typo?

Liliane said...

yes, welcome back MFL :)

and for now I will only comment on one small part of the media and what they broadcast in the US, I was there during the July 2006 war on Lebanon, and I kept getting shocked time after time, of how they sent the messages to the billions of americans, of how Lebanon is so beautiful, how the terrorist group Hezbollah was ruining it, and how Israel is trying to save it, all this while showing nice mountains in Lebanon, and how Israel is losing casualties, by showing bombings on South Lebanon, the nature of mountains and rocks are the same as North Israel's of course, no one can know the difference except a person who does live in Lebanon, and then showing scenes from a funeral of a soldier who died protecting and defending its country from the terrorist... for almost 5 minutes...

If that's not Hollywood, then what is?

Liliane said...

and really, it's a nice read. I really liked the part about the Arab Nationalism, we are arabs ... hah

MarxistFromLebanon said...

Hi Renegade

I always had issues with Chavez, although compared to other Latin American 'socialists', he is a darling angel.

Practically, the idea of escalating threats in regards of the oils, and he needs the US refinary to use it...

I do not deny Chavez's activities are not important as they are triggering shock waves in latin america, but he has other errors...

Liliane, been a while my friend, how have you been ...

Mehmet, Arab nationalism rose as an alternate means in nations that were part of the Ottoman empire, or as a substitute to non-Arab rule in the 20th century... till this very day, I notice that Arab nationalism had been bad news to everyone...

MFL

Frank Partisan said...

Chavez is contradictory, but he was called reactionary in the post.

The Venezuelan oil company bought 10,000 copies of Alan Woods's book about Venezuela, against reformism.

Memet Çagatay said...

Hello MFL,

I wasn't talking about Arab nationalism or Ottoman idiots in particular, I was just trying to point out the natural consequence of nationalism in general by the reason of the recent tendency towards hostile nationalism among some segments of the Turkish left which is really pissing me off.

MarxistFromLebanon said...

Hi Mehmet,

Trotsky once said that all forms of nationalism are reactionary capitalism... Nationalism simply divides the people, diverts the workers' attentions from others, and the sort

Renegade,

Chavez is probably one of the best leaders in Latin America and to be honest I wouldn't mind him being the ruler of Lebanon or Syria, but for a marxist hardliner like myself, he has other traits related to other leaders as well. The man did trigger a shock-wave in Latin America, but he, as comrade Mariam Namazie said, also allied with regimes that are simply opposing the US Administration. The fact he is allied with Syria and Iran, had been an insult to a lot of comrades who rotted in their prisons (and some of them do, if you research Riyad Turk). From this perspective, he is reacting to the US administration; nevertheless I can fully comprehend his methods of playing the cards.

Chavez had been also very supportive of the Defence for Marxism , as a matter of fact, I remember once our comrades in Canada were telling me that he used to dedicate half an hour every week on national TV and discussed comrades Alan Wood and the late Ted Grant's Reason in Revolt...

Finally, it had saddened me deeply the death of Cilia Hart, she is a great loss to our cause...

No War But Class War
MFL