The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, perhaps the most ignominous moment in U.S. foreign policy history since the U.S. defeat in Vietnam. Analysis and prospects by Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince. Along with yet another failure – that of Yemen, key to the rising tensions of two key U.S. Gulf allies – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates
On YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8B_YOutBwI
On Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RobPrince1106/
(At a time when COVID-19 numbers – both those infected and those dying – are plummeting in the United States, the numbers are taking off in Africa. with the UK, India and S. African variants gaining traction on the continent. RJP)
Below, a guest columnist. Never met him, but we were on a panel together not long ago and I was impressed with his knowledge of the situation (Ethiopia).
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June 12, 2021
Lawrence Freeman
This brief study, “Lessons for Africa from India’s Deadly COVID Surge,” by the African Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), is extremely relevant for Africans today.
The Daily Telegraph reports: “Coronavirus cases across Africa have surged by 25 per cent over the last week, sparking fears that the continent of 1.3 billion people is unprepared to deal with a ‘third wave’. The rise in cases stands in stark contrast to all other regions where infection rates are falling, according to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) statistics.”
According to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, (Africa CDC) the death rate from covid-19 has increased 2% in the past week.
Clearly Africa is in danger of an upsurge of cases of the coronavirus with the potential of a third wave spreading across the African continent. African nations have only vaccinated between 1-2% of their populations.
United States President, Joe Biden, has pledged 200 million doses to be given to poorer nations desperately in need of the vaccine, like Africa, by the end of this year, and 300 million more by next June. However, to date, the U.S. has not delivered a single dose of the vaccine to underdeveloped nations. British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, has pledged 100 million doses of the vaccine, and the G-7 nations–U.S., Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and England, are expected to announce that 1 billion doses will be donated, with no delivery date. President Biden has already pledge $4 billion to COVAX, a worldwide vaccine distribution center based in Europe.
While these belated announcements of vaccine pledges by G-7 nations is good; it is not good enough. It has been six months since the U.S. began vaccinating Americans and has made progress towards vaccinating almost 290 million of its inhabitants 12 years and older. With Africa’s population nearing 1.5 billion, it will require 3 billion of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines to inoculate its people from the coronavirus. Predictions are that only 50-60% of Africa’s population will be vaccinated by the end of 2022! Vaccinating half of the people living on the African continent, a year, and a half from now, will not do. It is unacceptable if we are really serious about defeating this deadly pandemic.
What Has To Be Done, Now!
Let me summarize from my earlier article: Biden Must Lead All-Out Effort to Vaccinate Africa From COVID-19
- In order to fully vaccinate the expanding African population, African nations must be assisted in producing the vaccines locally. We have to develop vaccine manufacturing plants in Africa. This will also require waiving patent rights on the major vaccines.
- There must be a massive upgrading of the deficient health infrastructure in African nations. More doctors, more hospitals, more hospital beds, more ICU rooms equipped with advanced medical equipment are necessary to prevent Africans from dying, who contract this deadly virus.
- We should use the current emergency, the urgency of defeating this virus and saving lives, to do what we should have done 60 years ago; build infrastructure in Africa. Hospitals and manufacturing centers cannot run without electricity. High speed rail transportation for passengers and freight is a necessity. Distribution capacity of the vaccine to reach the population will require an expansion of existing infrastructure. Every nation must have medical schools to train nurses and doctors. Infectious disease and virology medical centers are also required. Increase food production is essential to build strong immune systems. Massive economic development especially in hard and soft infrastructure is required if we are going to prevent potentially millions of lives from needlessly perishing. To accomplish this mission, Africa needs a minimum of 1,000 gigawatts of electricity, and 100,000 kilometers of high speed rail.
Excerpts below from: “Lessons for Africa from India’s Deadly COVID Surge,”
“The surge in COVID-19 cases in India, spurred by a more transmissible variant and complacency, provides a stark warning to African populations to remain vigilant to contain the pandemic.”
“India’s COVID-19 surge is a warning for Africa. Like India, Africa mostly avoided the worst of the pandemic last year. Many Sub-Saharan African countries share similar sociodemographic features as India: a youthful population, large rural populations that spend a significant portion of the day outdoors, large extended family structures, few old age homes, densely populated urban areas, and weak tertiary care health systems. As in India, many African countries have been loosening social distancing and other preventative measures. A recent survey by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) reveals that 56 percent of African states were “actively loosening controls and removing the mandatory wearing of face-masks.” Moreover, parts of Africa have direct, longstanding ties to India, providing clear pathways for the new Indian variant to spread between the continents.”
“Ramping Up of Vaccine Campaigns. According to the Africa CDC, the continent has administered just 24.2 million doses to a population of 1.3 billion. Representing less than 2 percent of the population, this is the lowest vaccination rate of any region in the world. With the Indian and other variants coursing through Africa, the potential for the emergence of additional variants rises, posing shifting threats to the continent’s citizens. Containing the virus in Africa, in turn, is integral to the global campaign to end the pandemic. Recognizing the global security implications if the virus continues to spread unchecked in parts of Africa, the United Nations Security Council has expressed concern over the low number of vaccines going to Africa.”
Excerpts below from The Guardian: Third-wave-sweeps-across-Africa-as-Covid-vaccine-imports-dry-up
“The threat of a third wave in Africa is real and rising. Our priority is clear – it’s crucial that we swiftly get vaccines into the arms of Africans at high risk of falling seriously ill and dying of Covid-19,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Africa.”
“The WHO said the pandemic was now trending upwards in 14 countries and in the past week alone, eight countries had witnessed an abrupt rise of over 30% in cases. However, vaccine shipments to African nations have ground to a near halt.”
Read: “Lessons for Africa from India’s Deadly COVID Surge,“
Read my previous posts below:
Biden Must Lead All-Out Effort to Vaccinate Africa From COVID-19
Rising Covid19 Death Rate Threatens Africa. Vaccinations and Healthcare Must Be Provided
International Cooperation and Collaboration Needed to Save Lives in Africa From COVID-19
New Economic Order Required to Combat COVID-19 in Africa
Lawrence Freeman is a Political-Economic Analyst for Africa, who has been involved in economic development policies for Africa for over 30 years. He is the creator of the blog: lawrencefreemanafricaandtheworld.com. Mr. Freeman’s stated personal mission is; to eliminate poverty and hunger in Africa by applying the scientific economic principles of Alexander Hamilton
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Let Facts, Not Propaganda Guide Ethiopia Policy
Column: Let Facts Not Propaganda Guid Ethiopia Policy
This column appeared today in the Denver Gazette. Denver Gazette is sister publication of Coloradopolitics.com and the Colorado Springs Gazette, owned by Phil Anschutz and well funded.
As there is a paywall, I am submitting my draft, slightly different from the printed edition
FACTS NOT PROPAGANDA MUST GUIDE U.S. POLICY TOWARDS ETHIOPIA
Hoping that the upcoming June 21 national elections will strengthen national unity, Colorado’s own Ethiopian Community is riveted to the news and anxious to see the outcome. The election comes at a moment when both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives are considering bills that, if passed, would result in sanctions against Ethiopia, a rather startling punishment for a country that has been a longtime ally of the United States .
Although not generally known, somewhere between 30,000-35,000 strong, Ethiopians make up one of the fastest growing immigrant communities in Colorado, second in size only to Latin American immigrants in the state. This community has added so much to the vibrancy of urban life.
In August 2018, 7,000 – 8,000 Ethiopians in Colorado met at the Aurora High School football field to celebrate the end of decades of repressive rule at the hands of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Those in attendance hoped their celebration would be the beginning of a new era, one that would unify the nearly 100 ethnic groups and 80 major languages spoken there.
“For one shining moment” – they were all simply “Ethiopian”. A spirited and sizable Eritrean delegation was also present. The event was a breathtaking event full of hope for Ethiopia’s future.
Shortly thereafter, in October (2018(, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for having ended a twenty-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in which “tens of thousands” died on both sides.
Unfortunately, this honeymoon period did not last long. Although Ethiopia today is a country with exciting economic and social potential, festering antagonisms came boiling to the surface threatening the country’s 2000-year political integrity. Preserving Ethiopia’s national integrity – and with it – the prospects for regional stability in the Horn of Africa as a whole – is the challenge at hand.
On November 4, 2020, as Joe Biden and Donald Trump squared off in the much-watched 2020 presidential election here in the United States, in northern Ethiopia, Tigray Province, armed elements of the TPLF stormed a national military barracks killing hundreds – many in their sleep – and confiscating a large store of arms. A TPLF rampage in the city of Mai Kadra followed. These events received virtually no play in the U.S. media. Curious.
The TPFL’s strategy was that their insurrection – akin to Confederate bombing of Ft. Sumner in 1861 – would trigger national uprisings elsewhere in Ethiopia, leading to the collapse of the current government and driving its leader, Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed from power. Instead, the national army of Ethiopia put down the Tigray rebellion in a few weeks.
Noted Dutch Scholar Jon Abbink reflects the views of many who have studied the conflict writing: Abuses were indeed committed on several sides, but incomparably more so on the side of the TPLF forces than on that of federal army or Eritrean forces. Claims of genocide by whomever made must be taken seriously – yet the claims of the TPLF do not withstand even the most cursory of investigations.
My concern is that the Biden Administration, with the best of intentions, is following a path that is not in the best interests of the United States and will in fact lead to more conflict and more destruction. As Ethiopia prepares to vote on June 21 the proper role for the United States is not to fall into a propaganda trap started by the TPLF but to stand up for American values and be honest brokers for a full and lasting peace.
Senators Bennet & Hickenlooper and Congressman Crow, representing one of America’s largest Ethiopian Communities owe it to these constituents to understand the conflict and stand up for a true peace. They should not and must not fall for the TPLF’s version of the truth which tries to masquerade a history of corruption and war. Your constituents particularly those of Ethiopian descent deserve more than that as you were elected to be public servants not to be rubber stamps for the TPLF.
Sanctioning Ethiopia would be a major step in the wrong direction.
Rob Prince is a retired Lecturer of International Studies at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies where he taught Global Political Economy for 23 years., retiring in 2015.
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Note how these Ethiopian friends (link below) had to fight to get a hearing in the media.
It is this kind of grassroots pressure from the mainstream Ethiopian Community along with their American friends – not those within it who claim to be its voice – that will make a difference in the long road ahead.
Once again the media is being weaponized against a movement – in this case a whole country, Ethiopia – trying to free itself from foreign – and imperialist – domination. Ethiopia seeks its own independent development path, one that threatens both regional and global hegemons. Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister is being vilified – as a pretext for regime change – as was Eva Morales, Hugo Chavez, Yaser Arafat, and many others have been over the years. At the very least, what is happening amounts to targeted character assassination meant to put pressure on Ethiopia for regime change of one sort or another.
A more honest, balanced explanation of what is happening in Ethiopia is needed.
Keep in mind two points
1. There are currently two bills – one in the Senate, the other in the House – that have set the stage for the State Department to slap sanctions against Ethiopia – they are based on misinformation
2. The term “Tigray People’s Liberation Front”, “TPLF” is misleading. It sounds like a progressive, anti-Imperialist “national liberation front” – instead it is Ethiopia’s version of the Nicaraguan Contras, no more, no less.
In the interview below done on “The Breakfast Club” three Ethiopians clear up misconceptions about what is happening in Ethiopia. Good interview – addresses much misinformation circulating in the media echo chamber.
Dawit Asghedom, Simon Tesfamariam & Lidet Muleta On Dangers Of Media Covering The Tigray Conflict
Although I do make a few initial points the commentary below is not mine but that of E. J. Magnier, a secular Lebanese journalist and political commentator of some repute who defends the Iranian presidential elections, not just the one taking place at this moment, but the whole history of these elections since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
I decided to post this after reading the NY Times headline this morning “Iran’s ultraconservative judiciary chief, Ebrahim Raisi, is set to become president after an election that many voters saw as rigged in his favor.” The article goes on to slam the election process in Iran in no uncertain terms – “poor voter turnout”, “rigged” etc. Just a part of the ideological warfare against Iran that has been going on for the past 42 years. Nothing less. Many more pieces of this ilk will appear in the echo chamber otherwise known as the Western media.
My own take on these elections briefly – Kazerooni and I will discuss them in detail on our KGNU program on June 29 – can be summed up as the following:
a. It was more democratic than presidential elections here in the United States and by a long shot.
b. Even with the low voter turnout there, that turnout is higher than in the 2020 U.S. presidential election. It is not the important point that the NY Times claims.
c. This election is essentially a response to the U.S. refusal via the JCPOA to remove sanctions against Iran as agreed to in the 2015 completion of that agreement. The Iran Nuclear Deal is essentially – and very unfortunately – dead in the water.
d Since Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (the Iran Nuclear Deal), essentially destroying in one fell swoop any possibility of the United States from normalizing relations with Iran, it has been predicted on many quarters – left, right and center – that Iran’s flirtation with Washington represented by Rouhani and Zarif is over and that the country would move more definitely into strengthening its ties with Russia and China. If the Iranian populace is moving towards a more hard line position towards Washington, the primary responsibility for the failure of this reconciliation lies with Washington.
e. The NY Times piece is the opening salvo for a yet even more frenzied U.S. attitude towards Iran. It corresponds to American hypocrisy on foreign elections – be they in Bolivia, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Palestine (Hamas in Gaza), and the like. Washington pontificates about how “democracy’ is about electoral politics – unless Washington doesn’t agree with the results and then it charges – without evidence – that the elctions are fixed, rigged etc. Usual imperial approach – ie, “you” (other countries) can and should have elections as long as Washington approves of the results.
Anyway, E. J. Magnier’s piece below gives a much more honest picture of Iranian elections. It was written a few days prior to the election itself
Read more…Modern Ethiopian Timeline..
1820s – Egypt’s ruler Mohammad Ali Pasha had imperial designs on Ethiopia and tried to privatize and monopolize the Nile and capture the Ethiopian port city of Massawa. He was defeated.
1868 -the British sent an expeditionary army consisting of “13,000 soldiers, 40,000 animals, including 44 elephants trained to pull the big artillery guns” against Emperor Teodros. They attacked his fortress only to discover that he had taken his own life than become a prisoner of the British colonial army
The British colonial force quickly retreated but not until they had kidnapped Teodros’ seven-year-old son Prince Alemayehu, and stolen the royal cap and great seal and looted many other Ethiopian treasures. The British colonial thieves even stole a lock of Emperor Teodros hair which was returned to Ethiopia in 2019.
As Britain colonized nearly a third of Africa, it never conquered or occupied Ethiopia. (Al Mariam Commentaries)
1869 – Suez Canal Completed. Egypt was prized for the Nile Delta by the colonialist, a region unsurpassed in agricultural productivity. After the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt also offered access to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. For the British, control of Egypt meant more profitable trade with India, one of its richest colonies. For the French, the Canal offered quicker access to Indochina, its very lucrative colony.
1875-6 – In 1875-76, Egypt repeated its blunder of the 1820s by trying to militarily subjugating Ethiopia and control the Blue Nile once and for all. Egypt deployed a large well-equipped and trained army led by European and American officers. The Battle of Gundet and Gura in present-day Eritrea where Ethiopians delivered a humiliating defeat to the Egyptian army. Egypt fails to dominate the Nile River Basin,
In the Battle of Gundet (1875) and Battle of Gura (1876), Ethiopian forces “completely annihilated” the Egyptian forces. According to one historian:
The Battle of Gura abolished any practical opportunity for Egypt to gain control over Ethiopia. The heavy Egyptian losses (almost 14,000 men died in three months), the economic damage to the Egyptian economy and, above all, the Egyptian depiction of the Ethiopian warriors as having a demonic character, prevented any future Egyptian invasion of Ethiopia.
1890 – The border between Ethiopia and Eritrea was formed by the extent of Italian penetration from the coast and officially founded.
1892 – July 23 – Tafari Makonnen, later known as Haili Selassi, emperor of Ethiopia was born near Harer, Ethiopia.
1894 – March 9 – Emperor signed a decree granting Alfred Ilg, the Emperor’s advisor and a Swiss engineer, and Léon Chefneux, a French engineer, to work on a railway between the port of Djibouti and the capital of Ethiopia. The railway was intended to open up the Ethiopian Empire, which is landlocked, to further trade on the Red Sea
1896 – March 1 – Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia defeated the Italian colonial power at Adwa on March 1, 1896, and initiated a major railway line project during the first Italian War. The Ethiopian forces defeated the Italian invading force on Sunday 1 March 1896, near the town of Adwa. The decisive victory thwarted the campaign of the Kingdom of Italy to expand its colonial empire in the Horn of Africa.
Read more…
I don’t know how many times we’ve passed it entering the mountains on I-70 heading into Colorado’s high country over the past 52 years. 1000 times? Probably more. I did stop about thirty years ago, when the geological markers had not yet been trashed with graffitti by whomever trying to deny the reality of evolution – human or otherwise. Now the paths are in a state of disrepair, those information signs helping a visitor navigate through some 80 million years of geological history have either been removed or seriously and systematically written over by graffiti, the remaining signs themselves bludgeoned with either hammers or axes, as if violence could erase the earth’s 4.5 billion year history.
But still, that cut in the road remains – a breathtaking manifestation of Mesozoic sedimentology and Cenozoic tectonic plate activity, evidence by its very existence that the age of the earth is a gazillion times older than the 5200 years right-wing religious wackos of all faiths would have their followers and the rest of us believe. If the geology of the area is intensiviely studied it is in part because of its dramatic geological history but also because it is believed that some 10,000 feet below the surface are petroleum bearing strata containing potentially huge volumes of oil and gas.
Thinking that it was, once again, time to take a stroll down geological memory lane, I headed back up to the 400 high, half-mile long road cut by the Morrison exist of I-70 to poke around that slice of some 40 million years of geological formations that are visible today as clearly delineated strata ranging in hue from bright yellow and orange to red, green, brown, tan, gray and black. The oldest strata on the western side of the cut date from around 145 million years ago, the youngest at the eastern end some 95 million years old when Colorado was “a broad flat plain populated by dinosaurs.”
“The cut” revealed to as the Dakota Hogback, a steeply sloped ridge that extends for southern Wyoming across the Front Range of Colorado at the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains into Northern New Mexico. It includes such geological wonders as Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison, Colorado, the Red Rocks Amphitheater, the Flat Irons of Boulder and Colorado Sprongs’ Garden of the Gods.. The Dakota Hogback is a remnant from a period of mountain-building that occurred approximately 70 million years ago, when the modern Rocky Mountains were uplifted in a process that tilted and exposed older, underlying rock strata — some fossil-bearing.
During the 1971 construction of I-70, an estimated 25 million tons of rock were removed from the road cut, revealing some 40 million years of geological formations that are visible today as clearly delineated strata ranging in hue from bright yellow and orange to red, green, brown, tan, gray and black.
As Pueblo Chieftain reporter Lynda La Rocca noted in a 2017 article:
Walkways along both sides of the road cut are lined with interpretive signs (many, however, have unfortunately been defaced and vandalized) explaining the origins of this sedimentary sandstone, mudstone, limestone, siltstone and shale, and illustrating how different strata represent different paleoenvironments, including freshwater marshes, beaches, tidal flats, tidal plains and sea bottoms.
Indeed, at a certain point one could smell the odors of past organic materials, still seeping their way to the surface.
A Wikipedia article notes that prior to the emergence of the Rocky Mountains, some 67 million years ago, the region was a shallow sea. As sediments fell to the bottom of the water, they were compressed into soft sedimentary rock. Thus, oyster and clam shells, sand, and mud built slowly into layers of sandstone, shale, limestone, and “mudstone.” As the Rocky Mountains rose over the last 67 million years, up to nearly 30,000 feet above sea level, the soft sedimentary rocks were quickly weathered and washed away from the high mountains. That soft matter, deposited in the layers visible in the cut was kept from eroding by a top layer of hard sandstone, the Dakota Sandstone, from which the ridge gets its name. This sandstone “cap” protects the softer shales and limestones beneath it from weathering and erosion.
“I hardly ever see anyone here.” These were the words of Roy Johnston, a local artist I mt there, exploring the formations on the north side of I-70 where I was also probing. We stopped and talked, shared a few observations about evolution – human and more general, both enjoying the wonder of it all. It was obvious from his red MAGA cap and my KGNU hat that had the circumstances of our meeting taken place in a different milieu that we might not have had such a friendly connection, but there we were before the enormity of geological history where those more mundane political differences didn’t amount to much, if anything. Had me thinking about how context “is everything.”
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As we noted, the cause of peace will not be advanced unless and until Washington and the Israeli government negotiate with all of their adversaries – and that includes Hamas. Hamas is a reality in Gaza (and the West Bank and Israel of 1948) now even more so than prior to the fighting. It’s about time the United States recognizes this reality, enters into talks with Hamas and all Palestinian elements to work towards a political settlement and peace
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The fighting between the Israeli government and the Palestinians – in Gaza, the West Bank and within Israel of 48 has temporarily in place. A ceasefire has gone into effect, one that, immediately, after it came into effect, the Netanyahu government brazenly – once again – violated by letting loose vigilantes on the al Aksa Mosque – third most holy site for Islam and by continuing its ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Palestinians from the Sheik Jaffer neighborhood of Jerusalem. This is nothing new but par for the course. Israel has a long history of signing ceasefires and then immediately violating them, especially where it concerns the Palestinians.
The problem is that this time, Netanyahu is risking the war escalating to a regional level. He seems to prefer that than to implement a cease fire and momentum towards negotiation which almost certainly will result in his political demise.
The United States, through its Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, is trying to organize some kind of cease fire and for that he has traveled to Israel, spoken with the Netanyahu government (and Netanyahu himself) and also visited Ramallah in the West Bank where he met with Mohammed Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authorty, which these days has very littl authority indeed. Blinken has made a point of not speaking to Hamas or Islamic Jihad although the influence of these organizations in Gaza and beyond has soared in the wake of this round of military confrontation.
As we noted in this program, the cause of peace will not be advanced unless and until Washington and the Israeli government negotiate with all of their adversaries – and that includes Hamas. Hamas is a reality in Gaza (and the West Bank and Israel of 1948) now even more so than prior to the fighting. It’s about time the United States recognizes this reality, enters into talks with Hamas and all Palestinian elements to work towards a political settlement.
Negotiations don’t mean anything unless you talk to those with whom you are in disagreement.
In the midst of war, yet another terrible, indiscrimate bombing of Gaza by Israel, what is becoming clear, is despite Israeli’s superior firepower, it is incapable of destroying the resilience of the Palestinian people, in the search for justice, a political state of their own and the “de-zionization” of Israel. From where did Zionism emerge? Where is it headed
On YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHsrCr0vggw
On Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/live/producer/schedule/10158757711608884
In the midst of war, yet another terrible, indiscriminate bombing of Gaza by Israel, what is becoming clear, is despite Israeli’s superior firepower, it is incapable of destroying the resilience of the Palestinian people, in the search for justice, a political state of their own and the “de-zionization” of Israel. From where did Zionism emerge? Where is it headed
Ibrahim Kazerooni and Rob Prince
Kazerooni and Prince have been political commentators of Middle East Affairs at KGNU – Boulder, Colorado – Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues now for eleven years.
(Ibrahim Kazerooni has a joint phd from the Iliff School of Theology and the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Relations. Originally from Najaf, Iraq, he is currently an imam at the Moslem Center of North America in Dearborn, Michigan). He lives in Detroit, Michigan, USA
(Rob Prince is a retired Senior Lecturer of International Affairs at the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies.) He lives in Denver, Colorado, USA
This article is reprinted from MondoWeiss
Zionism – an ideology that has run its course?
Last week the Guardian newspaper in London expressed shame over one of its worst errors of judgment: that in 1917 it supported and facilitated the Balfour Declaration, the imperial document that awarded Jews the “right” to make a homeland in Palestine. This counter-declaration was met with rage by Israel supporters.
And well it should, for it represents another blow to the legitimacy of Zionism in the west. All around us today we hear these blows falling on the central creed of Israel: the supposed right of a Jewish collective to national self-determination in a land populated by others.
I’ll remind you of some of those blows: Human Rights Watch has issued a report saying that Israel is guilty of the crime of “apartheid and persecution” against its Palestinian subjects, and millions of Palestinians have the right to return to the homes from which they were expelled in 1948. The leading human rights group in Israel, B’Tselem, said that Israel is an “apartheid regime” of “Jewish supremacy” from the river to the sea. The Carnegie Endowment has called for America to use pressure for equal rights for all in the land, and an author of that report, Zaha Hassan, echoes the “apartheid” finding. A leading Jewish writer (with AIPAC on his resume), Peter Beinart has thoroughly apostacized in the last year, calling for an end to the two state model and equal rights for all between the river and sea, and in today’s Times Beinart says that Palestinian refugees “deserve to return home.”
The social justice movement that has rocked the United States in the last year is crashing up against the door of apartheid Israel, which of course only gets more rightwing politically. At the J Street conference last month, Isaac Herzog, the head of the Jewish Agency, pleaded with young American Jews not to abandon their state, the Jewish state. But that abandonment is going on before our eyes. You can’t be opposed to white nationalism in the United States and support Jewish nationalism in Israel. Israel’s most effective propagandist in the United States over the last 20 years, Jeffrey Goldberg, has checked out of Hotel Zionism. He is nowhere to be seen as Israel pounds the Gaza Strip for the third or fourth or 500th time.
Of course the news headlines are the greatest source of delegitimization: Israel’s own brutal conduct. Yesterday Benny Gantz, the former general who earlier bragged of bombing Gaza back to the stone age in a campaign to be prime minister, threatened to do even worse to Gaza in a video message that blames 2 million people under siege for their own destruction. “This is it, this is what Israel is. Pridefully threatening (even worse) murder. And then glibly transferring all responsibility for it to its victims,” writes an ally.
Bear in mind, this Gantz was once the American liberal Zionists’ hope for saving Israel from Netanyahu.
And the liberal Zionists’ current favorite, Yair Lapid, if he helps form the next government, will not depart at all from the Gantz line. Yes, this is what Israel is. If you watch i24 News, you will see one Jewish Israeli after another justifying massive violence against Gaza because the people there have dared to defy their imprisonment– for 13 years, with no freedom of movement, and their fishing boats shot at, and sewage in their water supply.
The simple truth of Israel’s existence is that it has never found an answer to its core constitutional problem: It is a “Jewish state” though half the population it governs is not Jewish. Its answer to that problem has never been greater freedom for Palestinians, it has always been violence. Ethnic cleansing. Shooting the refugees who wanted to return. Putting them behind barbed wire and worse. Bombing their apartment buildings. Burning their olive trees.
The simple truth of Israel’s existence is that it has never found an answer to its core constitutional problem: It is a “Jewish state” though half the population it governs is not Jewish. Its answer to that problem has never been greater freedom for Palestinians, it has always been violence. Ethnic cleansing. Shooting the refugees who wanted to return. Putting them behind barbed wire and worse. Bombing their apartment buildings. Burning their olive trees.
And Israel’s leaders and its apologists in the United States have struggled to remove the problem by changing the subject. The problem is Not what Israel is doing to Palestinians, but Islamic terrorism, or Iran’s desire to destroy Israel, or some other fiction. Lately they were able to maintain their claim that the Palestinian problem will disappear by signing several diplomatic/bribery deals with Arab neighbors who were willing to overlook Palestinian rights in order to gain an audience in Washington.
These lies are crumbling in plain sight. We are all witnessing yet another violent attack by Israel on its Palestinian citizens and subjects, yet another demonstration of Israel’s failure to give Palestinians rights. The violence began with valiant protests over the continued ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem. And today the only thing that is retarding Israel’s violence against Gaza is that Palestinians who are citizens of Israel have risen up in solidarity with the other Palestinians, and so Israel fears a “civil war.”
Israel is having a rendezvous with democracy. On i24 News, Israeli reporters are expressing the “shock” that instead of uniting Israel, this war is exposing the fundamental inequity in that society.
Crumbling in plain sight? We are witnessing the end of the Oslo delusion, as Mustafa Barghouti explained, and American supporters/defenders of Israel are being forced to reckon at last with its core problem. Peter Beinart has been a real leader; and he acknowledges that it is apartheid. Eric Alterman says it’s apartheid. Nicholas Kristof, a champion of human rights, highlights the recent apartheid findings in the New York Times today and all but accepts the term.
Kristof reflects the new Democratic normal: He says that U.S. aid should not go toward “bombings of Palestinians.” It is clear that conditioning the billions we send to Israel– what John Whitbeck calls “tribute” — is the next step in U.S. liberal Democratic discourse. And BDS will be sure to follow.
Even rightwing supporters are getting tired of the self-defense lie. Neocon Max Boot confesses this is not about Iran, it’s about an expansionist Israeli government pushing Palestinians out of their houses: “Israel’s continuing land grab in East Jerusalem + West Bank.”
While Yaacov Lozowick, the author and former archivist for the state of Israel, says Israel must face its constitutional issue:
Here is an idea we have not tried in 74 years: a Jewish party leader will emerge and announce that if he wins the election he will strive, first and not in retrospect, to form a government that will include representatives of Arab citizens; Its purpose will be that they will feel equal citizens in their country.
But the news is that the Israeli government is only going to be more rightwing.
There is no going back in the global discussion. Zionism created apartheid rule in one state; the U.S. establishment is finally beginning to acknowledge this. Palestinian resistance has never stopped. Ultimately there is only one answer to that resistance, equal rights. These truths are becoming clearer to all outside observers thanks to the struggle over a few houses in occupied East Jerusalem. Just as Ali Abunimah said we would, we are entering the last phase of the Zionist story. It has run its course, we’re in the endgame.
Interview – Part Two…
The first part of this interview was more political. It dealt with what is shaping up to be a campaign of hybrid warfare against the Ethiopian government of Prime Minister – and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Abiy Ahmed starting with misinformation and the gorwing Congressional call for sanctions against Ethiopia..
It this segment Part Two) I talk about the need to establish something along the lines of an Ethiopian-American Friendship Association as well as the typical challenges of immigrant communities to life in the USA.
(Part one – Ethiopia: Senator Coon’s Fact-Fining Vs. Ultimatum Rendering with Professor Rob Prince. Part One of a two part interview)
CFJ-Colorado Interview with Yara M. Asi: A Tale of Two Covid-19 Responses – Israel & Palestine
In this live interview (done Thursday, May 13, 2021) Dr. Asi discussed the discrepancy between how Israel dealt swiftly and effectively with the COVID-19 pandemic within Israel’s borders but has largely failed to do likewise among Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories (West Bank and Gaza). Yara M. Asi is a non-resident Fellow at the Arab Center Washington D.C., a Policy Member of Al-Shabaka, and a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Central Florida specializing in health in fragile and conflict-affected states.
Thursday, 6-7:15 pm Mountain States Time
This demonstration this coming Friday, has been called by the Palestinian Community of Colorado. Come, bring a friend! Bring ten friends
A number of local peace and church groups have been asked to join in, participate, support, and the like, among them the Center for Freedom and Justice – Colorado – an informal sister city project with the Palestinian town of Beit Ummar, in the West Bank Area C. Area C is the part of the West Bank completely under Israeli military control and is a microcosm of life under Israeli occupation.
We will be there – at the State Capitol – on Friday at 4 pm, brushing off our old “End othe Occupation” poster that is still in the garage, and making more.
Join us – in solidarity with the people of Palestine, against Occupation, forced expulsion and for the realization of the political and human rights.
Join us – in calling for a change in U.S. policy, to an end of American one-sided military and economic support for Israel, for a dismantling of U.S. foreign bases in the Middle East, for an end of the maximum pressure campaign against Iran, and a removal of U.S. trrops from Syria …
For peace… with justice…
View from the Left Bank: Rob Prince's Blog 