This Real News Network video looks at the ceasefire just announced between Israel and the Palestinians and argues that despite the deaths and damage incurred in Gaza, that the Israelis did not come out terribly well in the terms of the deal.
Many commentators have pointed to the role that President Mohammed Morsi of Egypt played in negotiating the ceasefire (he could just as well have joined the Gazans). Funny how little mention is made of the fact that Egypt was seeking a loan from the IMF and it has been in play since the end of August, and was agreed a mere two days ago.
23 comments
Comments are closed.
“Funny how little mention is made of the fact that Egypt was seeking a loan from the IMF and it has been in play since the end of August, and was agreed a mere two days ago.”
To keep this short: It’s called Diplomacy.
It’s unfortunate, but true that the IMF and the World Bank are used as tools of the Western governments, and the US in particular. The loans which can’t be paid back are used as leverage to keep Egypt and other puppet nations under our control. He who controls the supply of money controls the nation. It’s one huge scam and it can get really ugly if they dare default. The outcome makes kneecapping seem like a trip to the beach.
A great book to read about this is “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” written by John Perkins.
There is a wonderful scene in the movie “The International” where an industrialist explains the role of banking and debt. It should be mandatory viewing by everyone.
For even more details, Google: IMF’s four steps to damnation
So, to summarize:
– Hamas strengthened among Palestinians and other Arab citizenry.
– The moderate Palestinian leader Abbas becomes even more irrelevant.
– A “rolling” cease-fire is in place.
– Israel is doubling down and looking to the US to pay for more advanced missile defenses.
Sounds like this is about as disastrous of a conclusion as you can get to short-term hostilities.
After viewing this, it seems that there is more potential for change in attitudes among US citizenry regarding this conflict. The amount of pro-Israel propaganda the average American is subjected is staggering (which is why you saw numbers about 50-60% of the population supporting the assault on Gaza). But those images played during this video of Gaza being bombed and resulting casualties are incredibly powerful as well. I wonder how profound a role this increased access to video will have in shaping the views of the average person to this situation.
Doesn’t surprise me that the Israeli instigation of the latest crisis has been airbrushed out of history. Look back at the past 60 years and you can see the same general narrative at play. The Israelis are the Good guys, never starts war, not aggressive except in defense, only wanting peace. The Palestinians/Arabs/Muslims are the Bad guys, intransigent, war like, not interested in peace — although I accept that the Palestinian leadership isn’t 100% squeaky clean.
This is why the crime of the occupation will continue as confronting the truth is too uncomfortable. It’s like having a child abuser blaming the child for his predilection (and his supporters sticking by him as to do anything else would force them to question their own judgement and morality with the abuser).
American understanding of the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis is negligible. Not unlike the conflict in Northern Ireland, one looks at a succession of skirmishes that last until both sides realize that a compromise is the preferred way. Siding with any side in the conflict misses the whole nature of the conflict.
American liberals tend to support the fundamentalist Hamas over the democratic Israel. Usually, they associate evil with the democracy and reason with the fundamentalists. If you drop the particular parties, i.e. talk about fundamentalist X and Democracy Y, liberals would blame X.
The US is interested in the Israeli developed anti missile system. We have not succeeded in developing one and we may need it. The picture of giving more money to WS doesn’t fit this story. Again, using X and Y, liberals would see the US self interest clearly.
After the 2006 skirmish with Hezbollah the verdict was Hezbollah won another fight over evil. Six years later, Israel has achieved exactly what it wanted; the Lebanese border has been quiet for six years. It’s premature to judge the Gaza skirmish today. As for Morsi, he operated skillfully, with the help of previously maligned by liberals Hillary, and the world should help Egypt much more than it does today. Egypt is 100 million very poor people.
As a lefty from childhood, it pains me to see my liberal colleagues’ prejudices.
Israeli expansion is ridiculous, Middle Seaman. It’s just pumping more and more air into a balloon until it pops. Israel’s loyal population is limited because it is severely racist – the conquered will never be accepted as a part of Israel.
The Roman Empire got big and stayed big because the Roman system spread justice throughout its realm and many of the conquered became fully fledged partners in the Empire. With Israel, all of the conquered are just so much bother to the regime.
Right now, Israel wants southern Lebanon, but only for its water resources. The intended beneficiaries are only the Jewish citizens of Israel proper, the Israelis would just as soon slaughter the Lebanese living there, where the water is. This rapacious thinking culminates in total disaster, not in a glorious expansion.
Israel is NOT “democratic”. Would it be a democratic country and not a racist colony, Palestinians would have the right to vote and the country would not be called Israel but (surely) Palestine.
Must I remind that 85% of the population dumped in Gaza Strip are refugees from what is usually painted as “Israel” in most maps (Jaffa, Askalon, etc) who were expelled at gunpoint (ethnic cleansing) in 1948 (and to lesser extent later on)? By all international law they have the undeniable right to return with full rights and the racist tyranny that calls itself “Israel” denies that.
Instead it gives full rights to people from all around the world with the only condition that they have some sort of formal or biological connection with a religious sect called Judaism. Notice that in “Israel” (i.e. Apartheid Palestine) only religious marriage is possible for example and that “Arab Israelis” (the Native Palestinian minority who managed to stay put) are not allowed to bring home their relatives from West Bank, Gaza or elsewhere.
Only Jewish Israelis have all the rights because “Israel” is nothing but the name of colonial Apartheid in Palestine.
“Democracy” in Israel? Nope, that’s a lie. Instead Hamas, we like it or not, was elected democratically by the Palestinian People and therefore it is so far the only legitimate and truly democratic authority from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
I’m not fan of Hamas but compared with the Zionazis and the pathetic Bantustan puppet dictator that is Abbas (no elections in so many years!!!) they are about the most legit faction.
It has some similitudes with Northern Ireland but only some. Most similitudes are with South Africa in fact.
Hardly anyone is actually pro-Hamas.
Agreed. “Middle Seaman’s” comment is an absurd exercise in knocking down strawmen.
Hamas won the last elections held in the semi-autonomous “Palestine” (West Bank and Gaza) quite to their own surprise. There has been no elections since (Abbas made a coup with Zionist support) but all points in the direction that the corrupt and treacherous Al Fatah, at least the leading cliqué of Abbas (there’s another sector mostly made up by political prisoners and guerrillas who has more legitimacy), has near-zero support nowadays and is only held in place because Israel controls most of the West Bank impeding any dissident move.
Support for Hamas may have increased: they are moderate Islamists (nothing to do with Al Qaeda, but rather like the Muslim Brotherhood of whom they used to be a local branch in fact) and they have not betrayed a comma of the Palestinian National reconstruction program. They are also seen as heroic (Israel has made many martyrs of them) and mostly not corrupt (unlike Fatah). Lack of normal political debate doesn’t really help third options.
When Israel cornered and killed Arafat, they created Hamas as we know it.
But worst of all is that they may have done that intently, in order to divide the Palestinian resistance. Divide and conquer, they say.
the naivete of Middle Seaman is so obvious. the ability to “look behind the curtain” is something Middle Seaman supposes we can’t do. after 50 years of the “it’s all the Palestinians’ fault”, a lot of cracks develop and the water of truth comes rushing through.
trust Hamas and Hezbollah? lol. i trust them like i trust the Israelis. boy how simple Middle Seaman pretends to be. i bet he is a troll for the “woe is Me” brigade.
facts always get in the way. and that does diminish and dimiss whatever Middle Seaman says. which is another reason MS’s full of it.
now if we only didn’t have to pay for Israel’s continual eradication of the Palestinians. but we don’t have a choice and are complicit with the ethnic cleansing of a people by the Isrealis. to also see the IMF be part of the collective scam on the people in that region just proves how well thought out and planned is this whole farce. without a just solution we shall see GAZA, next version, at a later date. it does get old. to watch this Giant of a Military kill more innocents, along with the culpable.
my tax dollars are being used to do what the “Nazis did to the Jews”
parable, current version. and apartheid is not a nice practice either. but i assume once the Israelis get rid of the Palestinians, apartheid will “disappear” once the “lesser” humans disappear.
clean hands, no, i am an American citizen who’s taxes are being used by the Empire to achieve its’ aim. just like in Avatar. the Na’vi are in the way.
i don’t hve to like what is being done in my “American” name and i don’t have to agree with the lies being spread about. even if i can’t do much about this, i don’t have to pretend it doesn’t exist. Rachel Corrie proves taht the American Empire crushed those who “stand” in the way.
another Faith Based Reality experience of the alternate universe Ozymandias Empire i live in. the sands of time will expose the truth for what it is. no matter what and no matter how hard the truth is denied.
The standard argument in Washington about Israel’s right to defend itself is, of course, total hypocrisy. If it were under attack by some powerful adversary, this would be a different situation. But no doubt, Israel is the aggressor, targeting innocent civilians in Gaza, a tiny strip of land where 1.7 million people live in horrendous conditions.
US politicians are cowards and hypocrites, not to say, traitors. Why traitors? They put this nation at high risk by putting Israel’s interests over those of the American people – a people sick and tired of war. Give aid and comfort to such a parasite as Israel, while millions of our own citizens are losing their homes and going hungry on a daily basis? This is an atrocity in itself. Shame on them. They must go back to their caves and allow fresh air back into DC.
Gaza is an open-air prison camp; maybe ghetto would be a more fitting word. The Israeli position is an intolerable status quo, conceptually the same as South African apartheid. Any time the natives rise up, gun them down. Kill one of mine and I’ll kill ten or a hundred of yours. It is tragic what Israel has done to the Jews.
I’ve asked this question before, but no one seems to answer it, that being: just where did the term NAZI come from, as it’s part of the Ashkenazi name? Is there some connection there? Seems that collateral dammage is part of the play, though shooting fish in a barrel is more to the point in Gaza.
“Nazi” = NSDAP = National Socialist Democratic Arbeiters’ (Workers’) Party
Ashkenazi = “The name Ashkenazi derives from the biblical figure of Ashkenaz, the first son of Gomer, and a Japhetic patriarch in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10). In the rabbinic literature, the kingdom of Ashkenaz was first associated with the Scythian region, then later with the Slavic territories,[6] and, from the 11th century onwards, with northern Europe and Germany.[7] The Jews living in these regions associated with Ashkenaz’s kingdom thus came to call themselves the Ashkenazi.[7] Later, Jews from Western and Central Europe also came to be called Ashkenazi because the main centers of Jewish learning were located in Germany.”
Mere coincidence. In Hebrew medieval “mythology” Ashkenaz is Germany (Sepharad is Spain), so Northern European Jews of German language (Yiddish) and German rite were known as Ashkenazi (pl. Ashkenazim) and Southern European and other Mediterranean Jews of “Spanish” rite (and in some cases language) were kown as Sephardi(-m), also Sephardite.
Nothing to do with “Nazi”, which comes from Nazional Sozialist Deutsche Arbeiter Partie (National Socialist German Workers’ Party), NSDAP or Nazi Party for short.
And then there is this:
“Mohammed Morsi grants himself sweeping new powers in wake of Gaza”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/9697347/Mohammed-Morsi-grants-himself-sweeping-new-powers-in-wake-of-Gaza.html
” Mr Morsi declared unilaterally that until a new constitution is decreed all presidential decisions would be immune from legal challenge.
“The president can issue any decision or measure to protect the revolution,” said his statement, read out on television by his personal spokesman, Yasser Ali.
“The constitutional declarations, decisions and laws issued by the president are final and not subject to appeal.”
The announcement caused outrage. Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who returned to Egypt ito become a leader of the liberal opposition, accused Mr Morsi of declaring himself a “new pharaoh”.
“Morsi today usurped all state powers and appointed himself Egypt’s new pharaoh,” Mr ElBaradei said on Twitter. “A major blow to the revolution that could have dire consequences.”
Sounds like the Egyptians just got played. The Telegraph article linked here today says Morsi boxed himself in:
“Because Mr Morsi is affiliated to Hamas, however loosely, he cannot avoid responsibility now for its actions. If he wants to carry on receiving western subsidies and loans, as he does, and to benefit from the wider technological advances that the West has to offer, he will have to make sure his hostility to Israel remains purely diplomatic.”
I am no ME analyst. Anyone care to parse this further? I luvz me some good analysis!
This is more rambling than parsing. Like most all of us, I pretend not to repeat myself, but I do. If we think of Paris in the Iliad as an agent with a golden apple to entrap the gods, I thought that could be a useful metaphor for contemporary events. Merkel is definitely Hera (with all her qualities(?)). Lagarde is a perfect Athena (a “brain” appropriately born from the forehead). The mysterious unknown is Aphrodite (we call her the future). Who gets the apple? Is Israel Agamemnon and Palestine Priam? Is ZEUS the US? Where does Morsi fit in? So many questions.
Looks to me like Obama traded an IMF loam and the green light for coup to Morsi in exchange for the cease fire (and maybe some players to be named later?) Kick the can down the road….
I wouldn’t say that the seculars should support Morsi as if he were an Obama (look where that got us). They did help mightily to get an election, which they unfortunately lost. The most reactionary opponents of Morsi, IMO, who want a judiciary in their pocket and immunity for Mubarakism are secretly smiling as their worst enemies fill the square. Of course, I could be wrong.
the slow rolling revolution mixed with war in the middle east is still
.
moving forward