According to The Guardian,

Police arrested 230 people and seized drugs, alcohol and 800 illicit CDs after raiding the event in Karaj, 12 miles west of Tehran. Those arrested included young women in skimpy and “inappropriate” clothing, officers said.

Reza Zarei, Tehran’s provincial police chief, said the operation also resulted in the confiscation of 20 video cameras, with which organisers allegedly planned to shoot “obscene” films and then blackmail female participants.

The event included rock and rap performers as well as female singers, who are banned under Iran’s Islamic laws. The authorities described the artistes as “satanist” without elaborating. Iran’s rulers routinely label much of western-style popular music and culture as decadent.

There are obviously some very interesting tensions within Iran at the moment between the forces of reaction and progress. One only has to watch Iranian film, like the one about the women football fans, to realise something powerful is stirring in Persia, and the reign of Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs is probably on the way out.

As Rageh Omaar points out in the New Statesman:

Some facts: two-thirds of this population of 70 million are under 30 years old. Iran is one of the youngest countries on earth. It is also one of the oldest civilisations on earth. The Islamic revolution led by Khomeini is only 28 years old. This means that the overwhelming majority of Iranians have no recollection of what life was like under the shah. They cannot remember the rejection of that period by their parents’ generation, and they have grown up knowing only the edicts of the Islamic Republic.

Like young people anywhere, they are restless, ambitious, unpredictable and often courageous in the face of authority.

Of course, this is rather different from the hysteria about Iran from Pastor Strangelove and the Christian and Zionist lunatic fringe:

“The head of the beast of radical Islam in the Middle East is Iran and its fanatical president, Ahmadinejad,” Hagee intoned. “Ahmadinejad believes if he starts a world war, the Islamic messiah will mysteriously appear and produce a global Islamic theocratic dictatorship. Ladies and gentlemen, we are reliving history. It’s 1938 all over again. Iran is Germany. Ahmadinejad is Hitler and Ahmadinejad, just like Hitler, is talking about killing the Jews.”

In case anyone thinks this is just coming from the Christian Right, here’s almost exactly the same quote from Benjamin Netanyahu:

“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.[Ahmadinejad] is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state.”

Of course, this viewpoint is rather undermined by the fact that there are 25 000 Jews living peacefully in Iran, despite being offered up to $60 000 per family by wealthy Jewish donors to settle in Israel. The Society of Iranian Jews was having none of it:

“The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradable for any amount of money. Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran’s Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews.”

Knowing that the Zionist and Christian crazies have the ear of the US government is cause for real concern. Let’s please not bomb Iran until we’ve seen the workings out of the internal opposition, OK?

According to The Guardian,

Police arrested 230 people and seized drugs, alcohol and 800 illicit CDs after raiding the event in Karaj, 12 miles west of Tehran. Those arrested included young women in skimpy and “inappropriate” clothing, officers said.

Reza Zarei, Tehran’s provincial police chief, said the operation also resulted in the confiscation of 20 video cameras, with which organisers allegedly planned to shoot “obscene” films and then blackmail female participants.

The event included rock and rap performers as well as female singers, who are banned under Iran’s Islamic laws. The authorities described the artistes as “satanist” without elaborating. Iran’s rulers routinely label much of western-style popular music and culture as decadent.

There are obviously some very interesting tensions within Iran at the moment between the forces of reaction and progress. One only has to watch Iranian film, like the one about the women football fans, to realise something powerful is stirring in Persia, and the reign of Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs is probably on the way out.

As Rageh Omaar points out in the New Statesman:

Some facts: two-thirds of this population of 70 million are under 30 years old. Iran is one of the youngest countries on earth. It is also one of the oldest civilisations on earth. The Islamic revolution led by Khomeini is only 28 years old. This means that the overwhelming majority of Iranians have no recollection of what life was like under the shah. They cannot remember the rejection of that period by their parents’ generation, and they have grown up knowing only the edicts of the Islamic Republic.

Like young people anywhere, they are restless, ambitious, unpredictable and often courageous in the face of authority.

Of course, this is rather different from the hysteria about Iran from Pastor Strangelove and the Christian and Zionist lunatic fringe:

“The head of the beast of radical Islam in the Middle East is Iran and its fanatical president, Ahmadinejad,” Hagee intoned. “Ahmadinejad believes if he starts a world war, the Islamic messiah will mysteriously appear and produce a global Islamic theocratic dictatorship. Ladies and gentlemen, we are reliving history. It’s 1938 all over again. Iran is Germany. Ahmadinejad is Hitler and Ahmadinejad, just like Hitler, is talking about killing the Jews.”

In case anyone thinks this is just coming from the Christian Right, here’s almost exactly the same quote from Benjamin Netanyahu:

“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.[Ahmadinejad] is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state.”

Of course, this viewpoint is rather undermined by the fact that there are 25 000 Jews living peacefully in Iran, despite being offered up to $60 000 per family by wealthy Jewish donors to settle in Israel. The Society of Iranian Jews was having none of it:

“The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradable for any amount of money. Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran’s Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews.”

Knowing that the Zionist and Christian crazies have the ear of the US government is cause for real concern. Let’s please not bomb Iran until we’ve seen the workings out of the internal opposition, OK?

Obviously, anything that destablises other regimes in the region, and strengthens US and Israeli hegemony, is going to act in their favour.

But this article in Haaretz sheds another interesting clue: the US is investigating the construction of an oil pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq, to Haifa, Israel:

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister’s Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.

Once again, it’s all about stealing Iraqi oil, and the US is prepared to arm some of the worst regimes in the region to ensure control of the energy markets.

And if anyone out there is still not convinced of the utter depravity of Israel society, try this for size: a banner advertisement in Haaretz – a liberal newspaper by Israel standards – offering war tours of Israel.

Yes, that’s right folks – for just $2,185 (plus a tax free donation of at least $500) – you too can experience an “inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings”.

That is sick.

Obviously, anything that destablises other regimes in the region, and strengthens US and Israeli hegemony, is going to act in their favour.

But this article in Haaretz sheds another interesting clue: the US is investigating the construction of an oil pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq, to Haifa, Israel:

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister’s Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.

Once again, it’s all about stealing Iraqi oil, and the US is prepared to arm some of the worst regimes in the region to ensure control of the energy markets.

And if anyone out there is still not convinced of the utter depravity of Israel society, try this for size: a banner advertisement in Haaretz – a liberal newspaper by Israel standards – offering war tours of Israel.

Yes, that’s right folks – for just $2,185 (plus a tax free donation of at least $500) – you too can experience an “inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings”.

That is sick.

Obviously, anything that destablises other regimes in the region, and strengthens US and Israeli hegemony, is going to act in their favour.

But this article in Haaretz sheds another interesting clue: the US is investigating the construction of an oil pipeline from Kirkuk, Iraq, to Haifa, Israel:

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister’s Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.

Once again, it’s all about stealing Iraqi oil, and the US is prepared to arm some of the worst regimes in the region to ensure control of the energy markets.

And if anyone out there is still not convinced of the utter depravity of Israel society, try this for size: a banner advertisement in Haaretz – a liberal newspaper by Israel standards – offering war tours of Israel.

Yes, that’s right folks – for just $2,185 (plus a tax free donation of at least $500) – you too can experience an “inside tour of the IAF unit who carries out targeted killings”.

That is sick.

Read the article here.

A SAMWU press release notes:

“SAMWU feels that it is very alarming that Israeli security has free reign in OR Tambo airport, with apparently even more power than customs officials. The union was under the impression that South Africa is a sovereign state and that our citizens are not accountable to the Israeli secret police. It is quite notable that no other country apart from Israel has their own offices, secret police and power to bypass customs at our airports.”

Can anyone explain this to me? What the fuck are Zionist spooks doing harassing our citizens at our airports?

Mr Nxu said that

“Israeli Apartheid is worse than South African apartheid. I cannot accept that the very people who were subjected to pogroms in Europe, who understand how it feels, are now doing the very same thing to the Palestinians that was done to them in Europe.”

It’s stupid behaviour on the part of the Zionists as it only reinforces the growing acceptance of the links between Israeli and South African apartheid.

Johnston said:

“The last 16 weeks were by far the worst days of my life. It was like being buried alive, removed from the world. It was occasionally terrifying, with people who were both unpredictable and dangerous,” he said.

“I dreamt about being free and then woke up to find myself in the same room. It’s hard to believe even now that I will not wake up again in the same room.”

He also said that intense pressure from the Palestinian people was a major factor in his release. Palestinians had been demonstrating for his release, and journalists around the world have been holding vigils for him.

Mr Johnston was held by the Army of Islam, which appears to be little more than a criminal gang linked to the Dogmush family. Hamas had vowed to clean up the Gaza strip and restore order, and Johnston’s release is certainly a propaganda coup for them: it will be difficult for the hostile Western media to create negative spin around this.

I feel a tremendous sense of relief: the world needs people like Johnston, reporting hard truths from dangerous places. When it becomes too dangerous for reporters to operate, the thugs and killers can operate with impunity, because they know there are no witnesses to tell the world, and ordinary people are isolated.

I am very glad to be able to take the “Free Alan” banner off my blog now. Welcome home to sunny Scotland, Alan, though I’m sure the weather’s a bit of a shock after Gaza.

I am not going to add much to the torrent of jubilation already written about that snake Blair leaving office today, except to say I am very glad to see the back of him.

Bastard. Or is that B’stard?

Tony – a Zionist – is to become Middle Envoy. That’s rather like having the foxes guard the chicken shed, isn’t it?

So no chance of a just peace there, then.

As Gabriel Ash points out, it’s all part of a right wing conspiracy to destroy everything that has been achieved by progressive forces since the end of World War Two:

“Support for Israel is an important pillar of an islamophobic, anti-immigrant and pro-war front, which includes many in the political leadership of Europe; their final prize is finishing off the welfare state.”

Read the whole article, it’s worth it.

Ash goes on to claim that….

…this quite natural alliance between Christian fundamentalists, market fundamentalists, billionaires, Zionists, islamophobes, and garden variety warmongers….

….are the true heirs to Europe’s historic anti-Semitism.

As I keep having to remind the Zionists, the Palestinians weren’t responsible for the Holocaust – that was the Germans, primed by centuries of Christianity.

Anyway, Gordon Brown’s not filling anyone with much excitement either. I was talking to a group of PCS union reps in Fife today, who were off to protest against Gordon in his home town, Kirkcaldy.

Many of them are already on minimum wage and have to claim benefits to be able to make ends meet, and now he’s slashing jobs.

So much for cushy civil service jobs.

Gaza is a prison run by rival gangs, at least one of which does deals with the jailer.

Virginia Tilley at Electronic Intifada:

“Having sacked Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas and dissolved his democratically-elected government, Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas has now installed Salam Fayyad as the new Prime Minister, to the clear delight of the West. Mutual accusations are hurled by Abbas and Haniyeh that the other side launched a coup against the legitimate authority. Nevertheless, now a fresh line of grave Palestinian faces has lined up before the cameras as Fayyad’s new “emergency government” is sworn in. That the new PA has virtually no power in the West Bank, and none at all in Gaza, is the first glaring problem with this pageantry.”

Here’s Juan Cole at Informed Comment, one of my favourite sources of news about the Middle East:

“The Haniyah Hamas government had come to power in free and fair elections, but was immediately boycotted, starved of resources, and actually often simply kidnapped by the Israelis; and is now being put out of office in a kind of coup. The people of the Arab world are not blind or stupid. If this is what the “Greater Middle East” looks like, it will too closely resemble, for their taste, the colonial 19th century, When Europeans dictated government to Middle Easterners.”

It looks like Hamas will be overthrown by a coup lead by Fatah, Israel and the US. So much for democracy, eh? But that’s what happens when Palestinians vote for people the Israelis don’t like.

Here’s Electronic Intifada again:

“It is not clear how long this flimsy diplomatic pretense can hold up to scrutiny by a skeptical world. Nor is it clear what political costs foreign governments will have to absorb if they try to play along with it — especially when the now-traumatized Palestinian people, in the territories and in Diaspora, begin protesting their government’s being hijacked by anti-democratic figureheads for Israeli and US agendas”.

For a more human perspective, here’s an excerpt from an email sent by Hisham Jamjoum of the ISM:

“Some think it is a conflict of who wants the control and power in the Gaza Strip, others think that it happened because some people want to fight the corruption in the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, others still think it is a result of pressure from other countries.

The result of this conflict is that Gaza is under the control of Hamas and the West Bank is under the control of Fatah.

As Palestinians, we believe that Hamas and Fatah are not representing the will of all the Palestinian people and because of this, we come to the big question. Why is Gaza under control of Hamas and the West Bank under Fatah if we do not feel they represent all the Palestinians?

The answer to this question is that nobody can deny that we are still currently under occupation. Because Hamas and Fatah are the only strong military groups in Palestine, it is easier for them to enforce their will upon the entire population. All of this happened while we are under occupation. The history of the Palestinian people shows, and we teach this in ISM training, that the majority of the population wants to live honorably and in a non-violent way. Even if part of the population supports military resistance to the conflict, it is only because we see the violence and injustice of a military occupation on a daily basis.”

So, a tragedy, but one engineered by the Israelis and the US. If anyone is interested in forsaking cheap soundbites about Palestinians being unable to rule themselves, a good place to start is this excellent analysis from Ilan Pappé of the University of Haifa.

I tend towards anarchism, so for me to call for a a single state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is quite a jump. I would like to see federated anarcho-communist collectives in the Middle East. I also wish Christmas was every day, and I didn’t have to work for a living.

After the revolution, comrade.

We seem to be quite a way from that, and I think the single state solution offers the best hope for peace in the medium term.

I write about Israel quite a lot, but struggle to stay balanced because I get so angry at what Israel gets away with. This makes the Zionists angry, and I appear to have even developed a Zionist fan club.

I have lived in Israel and know that there are political nuances that the media don’t pick up, that Israeli newspapers are often more critical of Zionism than British or American ones.

What is frustrating is that within Israel, vigorous critique is tolerated, and the debate can be quite stimulating if you move in the right circles. Outside Israel, the Zionists close ranks and attack anyone even mildly critical.

But over to Alister Sparks, who says it so much better than I can:

“That wall, that gigantic, hideous wall, which is supposed to be there for security, is in fact the most spectacular symbol of segregation the modern world has seen, like ancient Rome trying to shut out the barbarians.

“It makes Israel itself a ghetto. Was that really Theodor Herzl’s vision – to build a Jewish ghetto in the Middle East, in which Jews could preserve their own ethnic majority in perpetuity?”

Do yourself a favour and read the full story in the Pretoria News.

Israel’s victory in the Six Day War is the single biggest cause of conflict in the world today.

It’s the fortieth anniversary of the Six Day War, and the beginning of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. This war, probably more than any conflict, has poisoned world politics ever since. I would argue that it’s probably the single biggest cause of conflict in the world today, which is why I blog about it so much.

Here is an Amnesty International report about the devastating effects of 40 years of occupation.

I am as disturbed by the rise of militant Islam as anyone, but I think that it is the injustice done in Palestine that is the cause, and only creating a just solution will take away the Islamic fundamentalists reasons for existing. We are facing a so-called ‘clash of civilisations’, between Islamic and Western values.

But its Western hypocrisy that Muslims are rejecting, and the Israeli occupation – and US support for it – is what has made Islam the enemy of the West.

I had a scrap on the Zionist blog today. The readers of the blog find it impossible to concede that I can criticise Israel without being an anti-Semite. “This Palestinin crap is just another stick to beat Jews with“, as Gary puts it.

They paint me as a rabid anti-Semite, who won’t rest until every Jewish child is murdered. You just can’t debate with Zionists, because when you write “Israeli troops target Palestinian civilians”, they read “kill the Jew”. There’s just a total shut down, and inability to engage. Any media report about Israeli atrocities is down to media anti-Semitism, Palestinian lies, or both.

Most of the comments on the blog are written by hysterical ninnies, who claim that any attempt to establish a single, secular state will result in ‘a second holocaust’, that the Palestinians are this minute sharpening their knives for Jewish throats.

One of them claims that the occupied territories are being ruled by Israel through a UN mandate! And this is some one who wants me to ‘read more on the topic’ before I deign to have a say.

What other fantasies are lurking in the minds of the Zionists?

Well, a popular one is likening Palestinian fighters to the Nazis. One comment mentioned Arab collaboration with the Nazis before World War Two.

Yes, that’s true, and it’s a particularly unedifying bit of history. But guess what? The Zionists collaborated with the Nazis too!

There was even a medal struck to commemorate this:

The hypocrisy of it is nauseating too. The blog post was condemning COSATU’s call for a boycott of Israel. But Israel has called for a world wide boycott of the elected leadership of the Palestinian territories, just because they don’t like the outcome of the election.

I don’t like the outcome either, but you can’t claim to be a democrat and then refuse to accept the results of a democratic election.

When I likened Israel to apartheid South Africa – and their hysteria to Swart Gevaar – they assumed I was comparing the ANC to Hamas.

Do I need to spell it out? Criticism of Israel does not equal support for Islamists.

It’s at times like this that anti-Zionist Jewish voices are important, whether they are Marxists like Yossi Schwartz, anarchists against the wall, religious groups or just Jews sans frontieres.

I saw something yesterday that fully illustrates the insanity of capitalism. I wish I could have taken a picture, but I was passing trucks on the A9 to Inverness and couldn’t get my camera out.

It was a truck carrying Eden Spring mineral water, beautifully silhouetted against snow-topped Highland mountains.

What’s insane about that?

Well, Eden Spring is an Israeli company, and the water comes from the Golan heights, Syrian land which Israel illegally occupies.

So, think about this: Israel occupies another country’s land and steals their water. They bottle it, put it on a truck and deliver it to Haifa. In Haifa, it gets loaded onto a ship, and taken to Eden Springs’ European depot, from where some of it gets sent to the UK. It gets loaded onto another truck and driven up to the Scottish depot in Lanarkshire, from where this particular shipment was dispatched.

Just think of all the human effort involved, from Israeli soldiers to bottling plant workers, to the various truck drivers and stevedores, the marketing company that ensures everyone drinks the stuff, the admin staff in the office taking orders. All for a drink of what God gives freely?

So you have stolen water from a drought-ridden part of the world being imported to one of the most drenched. Water is already a major source of conflict in the Middle East, with Israel ‘making the desert bloom’ by stealing most of the Jordan.

The Highlands of Scotland are saturated with clean fresh water. It falls from the skies, it squelches underfoot, and streams, burns and rivers are full of it. If you need to drink from a water cooler, it’s not as if Scottish companies don’t bottle the stuff.

But I’m sure it makes good market sense.

I saw something yesterday that fully illustrates the insanity of capitalism. I wish I could have taken a picture, but I was passing trucks on the A9 to Inverness and couldn’t get my camera out.

It was a truck carrying Eden Spring mineral water, beautifully silhouetted against snow-topped Highland mountains.

What’s insane about that?

Well, Eden Spring is an Israeli company, and the water comes from the Golan heights, Syrian land which Israel illegally occupies.

So, think about this: Israel occupies another country’s land and steals their water. They bottle it, put it on a truck and deliver it to Haifa. In Haifa, it gets loaded onto a ship, and taken to Eden Springs’ European depot, from where some of it gets sent to the UK. It gets loaded onto another truck and driven up to the Scottish depot in Lanarkshire, from where this particular shipment was dispatched.

Just think of all the human effort involved, from Israeli soldiers to bottling plant workers, to the various truck drivers and stevedores, the marketing company that ensures everyone drinks the stuff, the admin staff in the office taking orders. All for a drink of what God gives freely?

So you have stolen water from a drought-ridden part of the world being imported to one of the most drenched. Water is already a major source of conflict in the Middle East, with Israel ‘making the desert bloom’ by stealing most of the Jordan.

The Highlands of Scotland are saturated with clean fresh water. It falls from the skies, it squelches underfoot, and streams, burns and rivers are full of it. If you need to drink from a water cooler, it’s not as if Scottish companies don’t bottle the stuff.

But I’m sure it makes good market sense.

The guns have fallen silent, and Lebanese are streaming back to their homes in the south, cheering Hizbullah for giving Israel a bloody nose.

Considering that the aim of the conflict was to

• destroy Hizbullah militarily
• get the Lebanese to reject them politically

I think we can safely say that, for Israel, this campaign was an abject failure:

Hizbullah 2 – 0 Israel.

It seems that the whole thing was cooked up in advance by Bush and the Israelis, perhaps hoping to neutralise Hizbullah before a possible US attack on Iran. Or maybe they just wanted to kick some towelhead ass to make themselves feel better for the humiliation they have suffered in Iraq.

I am not a supporter of Hizbullah at all – in fact, the radicalisation of Islam scares me. The world is polarising and that is not good for anyone. But the Israelis deserved to lose this one, so please permit me a little schadenfreude.

They failed to factor in the fact that Hizbullah has been preparing for this, and the attack is just what they wanted: they lured Israel into a trap, knowing exactly which buttons to push to get them to behave the way they wanted. The Israelis are arrogant, self-righteous and aggressive, and the only language they understand is violence. Unfortunately for them, this is a language Hizbullah is fluent in.

Once the attack had started, and Israel realised it wasn’t going to be the turkey shoot they had planned for, they had three options, none of them good:

• Continue with the aerial bombardment. They would have like this the most, because it doesn’t put their troops in danger. If you destroy the whole of south Lebanon, presumably you will destroy Hizbullah along with it. But this option would make Israel an absolute pariah – already there has been unprecedented condemnation from all over the world, and Israel’s PR machine has suffered what I believe is a permanent setback. No one is going to believe their stories about poor, beleaguered little Israel any more.
• Send in ground troops. This is the only thing that might have worked to eradicate Hizbullah, but it would have been long and messy, and resulted in the deaths of a great many Israeli soldiers. Too expensive.
• Call a ceasefire. This would have been tantamount to admitting defeat, which would have been psychologically devastating for a country that bases its self-esteem on its military prowess.

The UN brokered ceasefire – and the fact that they couldn’t resist a last bombing raid on Beirut a few minuted before it began – has allowed them to save face a little.

But they have lost, and have been humiliated. Since Israeli aggression is a cancer that has been poisoning peace in the world, this is a good thing.

Veteran Israeli peace campaigner Uri Avnery writes an excellent analysis of the failure of the Israeli army. For a more irreverent and humorous take on the whole debale, try War Nerd.

The fact that the Army of Darkness has been defeated, and the dogs of war reigned in, is cause for celebration. I’m off for a pint.

That’s all very well: but instead of trying to patch up the victims, why is the world not standing up to the aggressor? Why is no one speaking of regime change in Jerusalem, of bombing Israel back into the stone age?

I can’t believe that Israel is being allowed to get away with such blatant acts of war. The Zionist Right want to drive the Arabs back to create a Greater Israel, presumably with lebensraum for the Jewish people. How is this not fascism? And how can the world not stand up to fascism?

UPDATE: Here is a good article from Autonomy and Solidarity on the history of the conflict.

That’s all very well: but instead of trying to patch up the victims, why is the world not standing up to the aggressor? Why is no one speaking of regime change in Jerusalem, of bombing Israel back into the stone age?

I can’t believe that Israel is being allowed to get away with such blatant acts of war. The Zionist Right want to drive the Arabs back to create a Greater Israel, presumably with lebensraum for the Jewish people. How is this not fascism? And how can the world not stand up to fascism?

UPDATE: Here is a good article from Autonomy and Solidarity on the history of the conflict.

Whenever it comes up, my instinctive reaction is to run through the streets throwing petrol bombs and shouting ‘Death to Israel, Death to America!” I don’t think this will help, so generally I shut up.

The reason I get so upset, and want to go off the deep end, is that the rest of the world tolerates what the Israelis do.

Israel is a terrorist state backed by America. It engages in murder, genocide, ghetto clearances, territorial expansion and acts of collective punishment against ordinary people. In an era when the world needs to unite to avoid environmental meltdown and destruction through war, it is building – for God’s sake – a wall to steal Palestinian land and keep out the people.

Building walls? Has humanity learned nothing?

America seeks to control the world through client states like Israel. In effect, they try to outsource their terror operations to avoid accountability.

Yet even the progressive media are afraid to attack Israel too openly. The Guardian, which is supposed to be a left-leaning paper, today is calling for all sides to ‘halt the slide to war’. Palestinian leadership, they say, should reign in ‘extremists’. They are pretending that Palestine is a functioning state that can and should control ‘extremists’.

If Palestinians attempted to control ‘extremists’, it would only result in creating civil war in Palestine which would benefit Israel and smoulder for a hundred years. This is what the British succeeded in doing in Ireland in 1922 when they split the Irish freedom fighters by recognising Irish Home Rule within the empire. It created a conflict that is still not settled.

The answer is not peace between Israel and Palestine. The war against Israel must be won, and the Zionist state must be destroyed.

It is a classic liberal mistake to say there are two sides to any story, and that we must mediate between them to reach settlement and peace. Justice versus injustice and oppression versus freedom are not two sides of a story. You need to take sides against injustice and name terrorism when you see it.

Israel killing 20-odd civilians in Lebanon this morning is terrorism. Bombing the airport is an act of war against a foreign state.

Israel’s recent incursion into Gaza, killing 70 civilians so far, is an act of terror, a collective punishment of ordinary people for the taking of an Israeli soldier as a ‘hostage’.

The Israeli soldier is no hostage, he’s a prisoner of war. He was captured within Gaza. Israel has thousands of Palestinian fighters in prison.

There will be no justice in the world until Israel is destroyed, both physically and as an idea. This will not happen while America continues to bankroll this brutal oppression, and while the Western media are too frightened to speak out against injustice.

If Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was considered a threat to world peace, why not Israel, that cancer? Israel should be totally and utterly isolated by the rest of the world, until her citizens wake up and get rid of their war-mongering government.

Note that by destruction of Israel, I don’t mean the destruction of Israelis, or Jews, or any other people. I mean the destruction of the State and its army. I believe that anyone should have the right to live anywhere they want in the world, and that includes Jews in Palestine.

But that also means that Palestinians have the right to stay in Tel Aviv, and Muslims in New York. No one has exclusive right to any territory.

What makes me angriest of all about the whole situation are that most Jewish Israelis are ‘Mizrahim’, meaning Jews of eastern origin. A generation ago, they were living in Arab countries in relative peace and prosperity. Many of them still speak Arabic as a first language. Culturally, thay have far more in common with the Palestinians than they do with Jews from Europe or America (‘Ashkenazim’).

Very broadly, Mizrahim tend to be working class, and the ruling class is made up mostly of Ashkenazim. Religion and manufactured notions of culture have been used, very effectively, to divide people and make them fight against their own best interets.

Israel and Zionism must be destroyed, and replaced with a Palestinian territory where Muslims, Jews, Christians, Druze and atheists can live together in peace and harmony, sharing humus recipes and enjoying the sunshine and unique history. Until then, no platform should be given to Israel to put her side of the story. There isn’t one – it’s just racism and imperialism.

UPDATE: Here is a really good article from Counterpunch by former CIA analyst Kathleen Christison.

I have really mixed feelings about Egypt. My first thought, when arriving at Cairo airport and climbing into a 30 year old taxi held together by wire, was “wow, it’s great to be back in a third world country”.

This is because it is so much more relaxed. Britain is such an uptight, controlled and monitored society. There’s monitoring in Egypt too, but it’s done by bored and corrupt humans who check papers unenthusiastically. In the UK, you are conscious of CCTV watching your every move, and it’s enough to give you paranoid fantasies, or at the very least have you self-censoring your behaviour. It was great to disappear in to the anonymous chaos of Egypt.

And Egypt is living proof that there is a self-organising principle in nature, that letting go of the Eurocentric need to control every situation does not mean the world will fall apart. Egypt, to the casual observer, is pure chaos, yet it is friendlier, safer and more human than any Western country.

But sometimes I feel like the entire country is one massive scam designed to rip off foreigners, that the pyramids were built millenia ago to lure tourists from the ancient world and cheat them out of their money, and that everyone from the president down to the lowliest shoe shine boy is out to sell you some worthless tat as ancient art.

Take the Egyptian museum, which is controlled by the State. It is expensive, by Egyptian standards, to get in, and you have to go through three disorganised and uncoordinated security checks. At the last check point, they tell you you are not allowed to bring a camera into the museum (why not?), and you have to go back to the first check point to check it in.

Once you are in the museum, you find that you will have to pay again – a fairly substantial amount – if you want to go into the section where the mummies are kept.

The Egyptian government does absolutely nothing to improve the museum – it is pretty much in the state it was in when it was created over a hundred years ago, with hand-written labels and so on. While this is charming enough, you will certainly not come out of the museum with any greater knowledge about ancient Egypt, since no attempt is made to enlighten you.

You can of course hire a guide, who will tell you “very big, very old”, and then hold out his hand for baksheesh, something travellers to Egypt have been complaining about for around a thousand years.

Or, having paid your entrance fee, you might find the lights are switched off, and you have to tip some one to switch them on.

If you feel the need for some refreshment during your frustrating trip around the museum, you can go to the museum cafe, where you will be overcharged by a factor of ten. You will be charged London prices in one of the cheapest countries in the world.

By way of comparison, I went to the British Museum in London two days later, and checked out the Egyptian exhibit. It is free to get in, and you can take as many pictures as you like. If you get thirsty, the cafe will charge you standard prices for a drink.

The exhibits are well organised and plenty of information is available.

Of course, Britain has more money than Egypt, but it is about more than this. To the Egyptian government, Ancient Egypt is merely something they can make money from, whereas the British Museum is something of a shrine to knowledge and culture. It used to anger me that Egyptian treasures had been taken to Europe to be exhibited, and I felt that they should be returned to Egypt. But at least in Europe you have access to them, and they are treated with due respect.

It is almost not worth visiting the pyramids at all because of the frustration that results from various people, official and otherwise, trying to extract money from you.

Then there is the famous haggling, which is supposed to be part of the colour of Egypt. I just find it really irritating though, because the buyer is always at a disadvantage, especially since the merchant will feel perfectly justified in lying to you. He knows exactly what he paid for each item, while you have no idea whether it is worth £100 or £1.

And the Egyptians will say, “but in your country this is cheap!”, and mostly there are right – but this is not Britain, it is Egypt, where a meal costs 6p and a bus ticket 7p, and it cost me £300 to fly here, and I don’t see why I need to pay expontentially over the going rate to enrich one corrupt merchant.

I know Egypt is poor. I really don’t even mind paying double what something is worth, but I get really angry when everyone tries their luck and charges prices that would make a London cabby blush.

So I had moments in Egypt where I wanted to hop straight on a plane and leave. It seemed like the entire country was trying to cheat me and I couldn’t get an honest answer from anyone.

And just when you reach this point, you have some amazing serendipitous experience, when you meet some one who is genuinely friendly and interested in your life and wants nothing from you but to share something across cultures, and you get invited into a secret private world and have experiences which are both priceless and free of charge, and it makes all the hassle, lies and scams worthwhile.

The problem, exactly, is this: 98% of Egyptians are wonderful, warm, friendly and welcoming people who wouldn’t dream of ripping off a foreigner or doing anyhting to create a bad impression. The trouble is, unless you speak the language and spend a fair amount of time in the country, you’ll never meet them.

Unfortunately, the 2% of the population that makes it’s money from tourism are, mostly, corrupt, lying scum who will take your last penny from you if they can and abandon you in the desert as soon as you stop pulling notes from your pocket.

What’s frustrating is that I would be inclined to spend a lot more in Egypt if I felt I wasn’t being cheated. I like the country and want to bring money into it, rather than spend it in the UK. I am willing to hand over baksheesh quite freely to anyone who is helpful. Having it extorted from me really makes me angry, though. The cheating makes me suspicious and inclined to keep my wallet firmly in my pocket. So, in the end, they shoot themselves in the foot.

So, Egypt’s vice is cheating and dishonesty. It has to be said, it could be worse: South Africa’s vice is rape, murder and armed robbery, while Britain’s is racism and arrogant imperialism, so I guess they’re doing better than us. But it’s still irritating.

I have really mixed feelings about Egypt. My first thought, when arriving at Cairo airport and climbing into a 30 year old taxi held together by wire, was “wow, it’s great to be back in a third world country”.

This is because it is so much more relaxed. Britain is such an uptight, controlled and monitored society. There’s monitoring in Egypt too, but it’s done by bored and corrupt humans who check papers unenthusiastically. In the UK, you are conscious of CCTV watching your every move, and it’s enough to give you paranoid fantasies, or at the very least have you self-censoring your behaviour. It was great to disappear in to the anonymous chaos of Egypt.

And Egypt is living proof that there is a self-organising principle in nature, that letting go of the Eurocentric need to control every situation does not mean the world will fall apart. Egypt, to the casual observer, is pure chaos, yet it is friendlier, safer and more human than any Western country.

But sometimes I feel like the entire country is one massive scam designed to rip off foreigners, that the pyramids were built millenia ago to lure tourists from the ancient world and cheat them out of their money, and that everyone from the president down to the lowliest shoe shine boy is out to sell you some worthless tat as ancient art.

Take the Egyptian museum, which is controlled by the State. It is expensive, by Egyptian standards, to get in, and you have to go through three disorganised and uncoordinated security checks. At the last check point, they tell you you are not allowed to bring a camera into the museum (why not?), and you have to go back to the first check point to check it in.

Once you are in the museum, you find that you will have to pay again – a fairly substantial amount – if you want to go into the section where the mummies are kept.

The Egyptian government does absolutely nothing to improve the museum – it is pretty much in the state it was in when it was created over a hundred years ago, with hand-written labels and so on. While this is charming enough, you will certainly not come out of the museum with any greater knowledge about ancient Egypt, since no attempt is made to enlighten you.

You can of course hire a guide, who will tell you “very big, very old”, and then hold out his hand for baksheesh, something travellers to Egypt have been complaining about for around a thousand years.

Or, having paid your entrance fee, you might find the lights are switched off, and you have to tip some one to switch them on.

If you feel the need for some refreshment during your frustrating trip around the museum, you can go to the museum cafe, where you will be overcharged by a factor of ten. You will be charged London prices in one of the cheapest countries in the world.

By way of comparison, I went to the British Museum in London two days later, and checked out the Egyptian exhibit. It is free to get in, and you can take as many pictures as you like. If you get thirsty, the cafe will charge you standard prices for a drink.

The exhibits are well organised and plenty of information is available.

Of course, Britain has more money than Egypt, but it is about more than this. To the Egyptian government, Ancient Egypt is merely something they can make money from, whereas the British Museum is something of a shrine to knowledge and culture. It used to anger me that Egyptian treasures had been taken to Europe to be exhibited, and I felt that they should be returned to Egypt. But at least in Europe you have access to them, and they are treated with due respect.

It is almost not worth visiting the pyramids at all because of the frustration that results from various people, official and otherwise, trying to extract money from you.

Then there is the famous haggling, which is supposed to be part of the colour of Egypt. I just find it really irritating though, because the buyer is always at a disadvantage, especially since the merchant will feel perfectly justified in lying to you. He knows exactly what he paid for each item, while you have no idea whether it is worth £100 or £1.

And the Egyptians will say, “but in your country this is cheap!”, and mostly there are right – but this is not Britain, it is Egypt, where a meal costs 6p and a bus ticket 7p, and it cost me £300 to fly here, and I don’t see why I need to pay expontentially over the going rate to enrich one corrupt merchant.

I know Egypt is poor. I really don’t even mind paying double what something is worth, but I get really angry when everyone tries their luck and charges prices that would make a London cabby blush.

So I had moments in Egypt where I wanted to hop straight on a plane and leave. It seemed like the entire country was trying to cheat me and I couldn’t get an honest answer from anyone.

And just when you reach this point, you have some amazing serendipitous experience, when you meet some one who is genuinely friendly and interested in your life and wants nothing from you but to share something across cultures, and you get invited into a secret private world and have experiences which are both priceless and free of charge, and it makes all the hassle, lies and scams worthwhile.

The problem, exactly, is this: 98% of Egyptians are wonderful, warm, friendly and welcoming people who wouldn’t dream of ripping off a foreigner or doing anyhting to create a bad impression. The trouble is, unless you speak the language and spend a fair amount of time in the country, you’ll never meet them.

Unfortunately, the 2% of the population that makes it’s money from tourism are, mostly, corrupt, lying scum who will take your last penny from you if they can and abandon you in the desert as soon as you stop pulling notes from your pocket.

What’s frustrating is that I would be inclined to spend a lot more in Egypt if I felt I wasn’t being cheated. I like the country and want to bring money into it, rather than spend it in the UK. I am willing to hand over baksheesh quite freely to anyone who is helpful. Having it extorted from me really makes me angry, though. The cheating makes me suspicious and inclined to keep my wallet firmly in my pocket. So, in the end, they shoot themselves in the foot.

So, Egypt’s vice is cheating and dishonesty. It has to be said, it could be worse: South Africa’s vice is rape, murder and armed robbery, while Britain’s is racism and arrogant imperialism, so I guess they’re doing better than us. But it’s still irritating.
]]> http://redstarcoven.wordpress.com/2006/03/25/red-sea-paradise-2/ Sat, 25 Mar 2006 05:21:00 +0000 Walton Pantland http://redstarcoven.wordpress.com/2006/03/25/red-sea-paradise-2/ I am blogging from an Internet cafe in Dahab, in the south Sinai. We left Cairo a few days ago, and got a bus to Nuweiba, and then went to stay in the Bedouin village at Tarabin. I was here 12 years ago, and it was a little hippy paradise.

It’s not so great anymore, though, since 9/11 and the intifada have meant that the flow of free spirited travellers has dried up a bit, and although the bay is beautiful, Tarabin itself has a rather desultory air.

After a couple of days in the sun, we moved on to Dahab – ‘gold’, in Arabic. I didn’t like Dahab much before, it was like a bad trance party that had gone on too long and got a bit out of hand.
It’s been cleaned up now, and some people say that’s a bad thing and I can understand why – some of the life and spirit and independence of the place has gone.

But it is absolute paradise. For South Africans who have never been here, I’d say imagine a three kilometre strip of places like Cool Runnings, only better. There’s a paved promenade, with beach bungalows (from GBP 0.5 – GBP 4 per night) on one side, and sheltered spots on the beach on the other side, serving food, drink and shisha.

The food at these places is expensive by Egyptian standards, but still good value and worth every penny – a meal costs around GBP 2. The service is the best I have come across anywhere in the world, the people are genuinely friendly, and you are made to feel really welcome.

Apart from sitting in the sun, days are spent snorkelling along the coral reef, which is absolutely incredible. Today we went to a reef called the blue hole, which is a circular reef with an 80 metre hole in the middle. Unbelievably beautiful. And being in the desert, it’s hot too.

Tomorrow night we are taking the night bus back to Cairo for our last few days before heading back to icy Glasgow. The thought does not appeal. The warmth of Egypt – both literal and metaphoric – is a stark contrast to grey, repressed Britain.

“Mister, where you from? Ah, South Africa, many friend, Nelson Mandela Bafana Bafana! Come I make you special price: whan’ see byramid? Know how much? 100 bound!”

I am writing this from Miramees Hotel in downtown Cairo, after two days back in the victorious city. Egypt continues to confound me. It is the most wondrous, exasperating, fascinating, irritating place I have ever seen.
One travels the full emotional journey from fury and despondency to joy in minutes, many times a day.

Just when you are convinced that you will never find an honest Egyptian, when everyone is trying to take every last penny off you, you meet some one who gives the most wonderful hospitality and wants nothing in return.

I have just come back from an evening walk around Islamic Cairo, taking in the markets and coffee shops.

After 12 years, I am both pleased and frustrated to say Egypt hasn’t changed. There are cellphones and computers now, but it is the same chaos it was last time I was here. It’s a welcome change from Britain, which for all it’s advantages must be one of the most controlled, anal societies in the world. But it’s still a massive emotional stretch to let go of all expectation and just let this glorious place carry you away.

Enough now. I am not making sense. Too much coffee and shisha.
Good night.

I ended up in Egypt, where I stayed for 4 months, relaxing in the Sinai and working as an English teacher and film extra in Cairo.

It was a really important time in my life and the experience influenced me in many ways that I still feel. I loved Egypt, and the whole Arab world.

I had to leave really abruptly: I went to renew my visa at the Mogamma building, waited in queues for hours before being sent in to see Colonel Tawfik Al-Masri.
“Inta eh? Aiz eh?” He scowled at me: “Who are you and what do you want?”
He took my passport and stamped something in it and flung it out of his office and down the corridor.

I took it to the coffee shop across the road to get the stamp translated – deported: leave within 7 days.

And so the Egyptian adventure ended. As I shook the dust from my boots at Taba border post, going into the Zionist Entity – the only place I could afford a fare to – I promised myself I would go back to Egypt one day.

It’s taken a long time, but I am keeping that promise: I am flying to Cairo tomorrow on holiday.

I ended up in Egypt, where I stayed for 4 months, relaxing in the Sinai and working as an English teacher and film extra in Cairo.

It was a really important time in my life and the experience influenced me in many ways that I still feel. I loved Egypt, and the whole Arab world.

I had to leave really abruptly: I went to renew my visa at the Mogamma building, waited in queues for hours before being sent in to see Colonel Tawfik Al-Masri.
“Inta eh? Aiz eh?” He scowled at me: “Who are you and what do you want?”
He took my passport and stamped something in it and flung it out of his office and down the corridor.

I took it to the coffee shop across the road to get the stamp translated – deported: leave within 7 days.

And so the Egyptian adventure ended. As I shook the dust from my boots at Taba border post, going into the Zionist Entity – the only place I could afford a fare to – I promised myself I would go back to Egypt one day.

It’s taken a long time, but I am keeping that promise: I am flying to Cairo tomorrow on holiday.
]]> http://redstarcoven.wordpress.com/2004/05/30/the-invisible-union/ Sun, 30 May 2004 11:40:00 +0000 Walton Pantland http://redstarcoven.wordpress.com/2004/05/30/the-invisible-union/ When I finished high school, I was conscripted to the South African Defence Force, and ordered to report to First Infantry battalion at Bloemfontein at the end of January 1993. At the time I saw myself as a pacifist, and beyond this was not willing to put on a uniform to defend apartheid, so like many young white men, I left the country and waited for political change from beyond the border.

I spent a year and a half overseas, and returned shortly after the country’s first democratic election in April 1994, when the threat of conscription (or imprisonment for failing to report for duty) no longer existed. I spent that period within the Zionist entity, as well as in Egypt and Turkey.

Towards the end of 1993, I found myself in the Israeli port city of Eilat. Eilat is on the Red Sea, just a few kilometers form the Jordanian city of Aqaba and Taba in Egypt. The city is a tourist resort, and brash hotel developments were mushrooming up along the beach front – the city, perched between the red rock mountains of Negev desert and the azure depths of the Red Sea, was experiencing a construction boom.

For this reason, it was something of a focal point for travellers, especially those, like myself, who had been on the road for some time and made our money as we travelled. Because the Israeli Shekel was a stronger currency than the Egyptian pound, it was possible to work for two weeks on the construction sites of Eilat, and then use the money earned there to spend a month or more living the life of a bohemian king at some hippy resort on the Egyptian side of the border, smoking hash, drinking Turkish coffee and snorkelling.

I made the most of this, and worked construction for as long as 12 hours a day. When I finished work, I would allow myself one pint of the cheap local beer – Maccabi or Goldstar – before starting my second shift as a dishwasher at a local restaurant. The added benefit of this was that it was usually possible to steal a meal or two while working: For serious travellers, there was a lot to be had for free, and it was possible to save a relatively good amount of money. We raided dumpsters at night, and took bread, fruit and sealed products that had passed their sell-by date, and we lived off these.

At times I slept on the beach, at other times in a cheap ‘youth hostel’ that was really just a dormitory for itinerant workers. But although all of us were living from manual work, we didn’t see ourselves as workers but as free spirits.

Those of us who wanted a day’s work lined up in the early morning outside the inappropriately named Peace Café – it had the cheapest beer in Eilat and was home to a very rough crowd. We would line from around seven. Most of the workers were working class lads from England and Scotland, with a good contingent from the rest of Europe. But there were also other South Africans, and Aussies and New Zealanders, as well as Africans, Palestinians, and Israelis on welfare who were doing black work to make some extra money. Some mornings there were also Koreans, and Philipinos, and South Americans.

It was here, amongst this ragbag, motley collection of people from all countries, that I first experienced the spirit of what I later learned to call class solidarity, the consciousness of what we have in common that keeps the otherwise disparate and diverse working class together. I call this the invisible union, because although we never used the words ‘solidarity’, ‘union’, ‘socialism’ or ‘collective action’, we acted according to the purest of union principles – and what amazes me today is that this all came naturally.

I first experienced it at about eight one morning, when I was lined up outside the Peace Café with the other workers, hoping for a day’s labour. Building contractors would come by in trucks, hold up fingers for the number of workers they needed, and shout what they were paying.

The first truck of the morning came past, and the driver wanted ten workers for a full day at eight shekels an hour.

“No one moves for less than ten”, said a working class British man, sotto voce, and no one did. We didn’t need it explained to us that by accepting a lower rate – no matter how badly we needed the money – we were undermining conditions for everyone.

A real union would have been divisive and disastrous. We didn’t need it. But our invisible union pushed our wages up and protected us.