Fatah vs Hamas part II

Good day all, been checking out the new blogger stats feature and it seems that the page about the Fatah and Hamas conflict is my most popular by quite a large margin so I felt a quick post highlighting an interview by the Real News Network with Palestinian Activist Omar Barghouti (pictured) that discusses the split would be welcome to some of you.

It also contains a brief update on the current successes of the Boycott of Israeli movement within the European Union Israel's largest trading partner though that isn't really surprising given that the EU is the largest trading partner to everyone else in the world including its self, In fact the only country that has bigger trade connections with non EU nations that I can think of is North Korea with China and South Korea beating the EU into third place.



I also came across a piece in Monday's Morning Star by Israeli peace activist and former Knesset (Parliament) member Uri Avnery about the growing anti occupation movement especially the growing Boycott movement.

I disagree with a number of his points and will be dissecting them below, but for the sake of fairness you can find his entire article here.

The first part of the article is an analysis of the national psyche of Israel which is not only very interesting and revealing but also depressing its own way. Given that Uri is an Israeli and lived in Israel and I have not I will defer to his greater wisdom and move on though I will include his quote from former Israeli Golda Meir for emphasis "Deputy Avnery thinks that they hate us because of what we do. He does not know the Goyim. The Goyim love the Jews when they are beaten and miserable. They hate the Jews when they are victorious and successful." Lovely.

In regards to the protests and boycotts Uri is much more sceptical and negative then I am. "These aims can be achieved only through peace between Palestine and Israel. And such a peace can come about only if the majority of Palestinians and the majority of Israelis support it. Outside pressure will not suffice."

This is a major theme of his argument, that the majority of Israeli's agreeing with him and like minded peace groups in Israel is the only way to end the occupation and give the Palestinians the space they need to build up the institutions necessary to achieve full state hood and bring stability to the region. And yes if it happened it would be great that would be by far the best way to achieve what we all want. However he argues as if that is the only way that could be achieved. Which is actually somewhat disingenuous, you see Israel is not and can not be completely close off from the world and self sufficient it is neither resource rich territorially large or populous enough to say to the world in the spirit of the old Israeli folk song says "go to hell". Further exacerbating its dependence on trade and aid is the legacy of almost constant warfare its geopolitical position forced it into (the 1948 war, the Sinai war,the six day war, the Yom Kippur war, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the 2006 invasion of Lebanon etc.) have left Israel with an entrenched technological and expensive military apparatus putting great strains on its economy.

All of this makes outside pressure a much more viable and realistic tactic then Uri is making it out to be.

Compare this with another nation that found itself in a similar position to Israel, Apartheid South Africa.South Africa's non Jewish white oligarchy found itself having to suppress a large domestic population and often resorted to violence, it alos had a colonising and occupation project occurring in Namibia, was surrounded by neighbours (Angola, Mozambique etc.) who while not continuously hostile to it clearly didn't approve of its policies and ideology. And often intervened in its regional neighbours affairs. And while the Africaans population had a number of brave activists and groups who opposed Apartheid at great risk to themselves including imprisonment the idea that the majority Africaans would just decide to end Apartheid on there own is ludicrous.

"Anyone who understands this must be interested in a worldwide protest that does not push the Israeli population into the arms of the settlers, but, on the contrary, isolates the settlers and turns the general public against them".

Ok Good where getting closer to same page now,but how do we do that Uri?

"The first thing is to clearly differentiate between the boycott of the settlements and a general boycott of Israel. The TV report suggested that many of the protesters do not see the border between the two."

Oh dear, the problem with this tactic of only boycotting settlement goods is two fold, first the settlements and the settlers have a strong hold on the Israeli right wing whom usually have no problem cobbling together a majority in the Knesset and thus form government. Even Israel's all weather friend the USA is getting sick of these settlements and yet there still being built. At best Israel has placed temporary freezes on settlement expansion (not including East Jerusalem) which quickly expire so what exactly will stop the Israeli government from stepping in and financially supporting the settlements since they already spend so much guarding them?

And second were exactly do you draw the line? this important as despite constantly reiterating that we must draw a clear line Uri fails to do so himself. For example what about the IDF and its military companies, should they be boycotted? the settlements depend on them to safe them from Palestinian backlashes but there also a key part of Israel as a whole. And what about Israel banks, pension schemes and insurance companies that serve clients in the settlements, a boycott on these companies international businesses would affect both settler and Israeli proper wouldn't? and what about construction Uri does concede that Caterpillar the company that supplies Israel with bulldozers that mostly see service levelling Palestinian homes during forced evictions, but since they to have a legitimate purpose in Israel that just muddies the water even further.

Anyway moving on.

"Today a large majority of Israelis say that they want peace and are ready to pay the price, but that unfortunately the Arabs don't want peace."

I think we've all heard this one before. The insincerity of it astounds me. What if any price have the Israelis paid to show they want peace? nothing. The Arabs on the other hand? well Fatah has been cooperating with Washington and Tel Aviv has not actively supported armed struggle for several years and is participating fully in the Palestinian Authority and supports the Two state deal, Egypt under Mubarak has effectively allied with Israel to the point that the two now regularly engage in joint military operations in the form of the blockade of Gaza and reaffirmed its acknowledgement of Israel's existence. Lebanon has a history of given government support to Israel (even when the latter is ending its military into the former)and Beirut is now a close ally of Washington with the only sticking point being the popularity of Hezbollah which the Israel sort of help with there 2006 invasion. So whose done more for peace here? well Uri doesn't say.

"The mainstream peace camp, which could once bring hundreds of thousands onto the streets, is in a state of depression. It feels isolated.

Among other things, its once close connection with the Palestinians, which was established at the time of Yasser Arafat after Oslo, has withered. So have relations with protest forces abroad.

If people of goodwill want to speed up the end of the occupation, they must support Israeli peace activists."

Err why? you said so yourself Uri not only have you lost the support of your own people as this report shows well as isolated yourselves form the global movement what good would concentrating are efforts into supporting you guys do? Especially when we take into consideration that back when you were a political force in Israel you were completely impotent and achieved little. Over the period your talking about Israel continued to expand the occupation as well as shift further and further to right and antagonise its neighbours through military clashes and disputes what if anything did your peace movement achieve? or was that the fault of the outside world not being clear in there distinction as well?

"They should build close links with them, break the conspiracy of silence against them in the world media and publicise their courageous actions, and organise more and more international events at which Palestinian and Israeli peace activists are present side by side."

Err we have time and again I can't think of a single Palestinian solidarity group or campaign that hasn't boasted of its ties with or support for a group in Israel. But again it hasn't achieved anything of substance your continually becoming more marginalised. Also doesn't this contradict your first points? if the average Israeli is close minded to the rest of the world then how is the global movement getting even more buddy buddy with there Israeli counter parts supposed to raise there esteem in the eyes of there fellow countrymen?

I'm sorry Uri but I'm not convinced.

Boycott Israeli oranges (and other stuff)

Its the last day of August and I try to make it a point of ending every month on a high for the sake of my own sanity. So heres a bit of news from Palestine which I feel is quite uplifting.

Remember the Palestinian non violent resistance movement I talked about earlier? well its growing, heres a two part summary of the current state of the movement.




And here we have news on the growing boycott of Israeli goods most of which are picked by poorly paid Palestinians anyway and grown on there stolen land.



Now this boycott movement is very important for a number of reasons. First a successful economic boycott as well as obviously damaging the Israeli economy thus meaning less money for settlement expansion and white phosphorous explosives, it was also further entrench Israel's political and diplomatic isolation further weakening the Zionist self confidence that is the glue that holds the present system together. Evidence of how worried the Israeli government is about this potential pariah status is shown by there attempts to turn there entire population into members of a propaganda ministry.

We all know of the history of the boycotts of both Apartheid South Africa and Ian Smith's UDI government of Zimbabwe both his books on the subject have very long diatribes against several British PM's (especially Wilson) for what he saw as betrayal of the White populations of Southern Africa. Of course several military defeats such as the rise of both the Zimbabwean African National Union and the Zimbabwean African Peoples Union and South Africa's disastrous intervention in Angola certainly hammered in the nails.

Frankenstein

“Did i request thee, Maker, from my clay to mould me man? Did I solicit thee from darkness to promote me?”

Hello everyone. And if your wondering no I didn't read the book in one day, I just noticed that it was Mary Shelley's birthday to day so thought it'd be apt to dust of my old notes I took back when I did read Frankenstein and edit it a bit so I could cobble together a review, enjoy.

Frankenstein is very different to the classic film. There is no castle, no Igor (who was originally called Fritz) no lightning and no hammy and melodramatic “It’s ALIVE!”. What there is however is a tale about the follies of letting romantic notions about adventure control a man and that unbridled inquisitiveness can lead to disaster.

Victor Frankenstein becomes a brilliant student of sciences (presumably biology) at the Ingolstadt University, were his quest for intellectual prestige fuelled by his sorrow of the death of his very beloved mother, leads him to experiment with bringing the dead back to life. This proves to be a disaster as when he does finally succeed in conquering mortality he finds the creature he creates to be so hideous and big -in order to make the assembly of the body easier Victor made it from parts that were much bigger then the average so that the creature is around 8ft tall and extremely broad- that he immediately panics and flees, this leads to the creature escaping into the wilderness. And since it has the mind of a newborn spends a lot of its time(several years)wandering through the woods slowly learning about life and mankind. Unfortunately due to his grotesque appearance the creature is constantly met with lynch mobs whenever he tried to find companionship and is forced to constantly flee and hide while developing an intense hatred for mankind and his creator Frankenstein.

By coincidence the creature stumbles upon the Frankenstein home and Victors little brother whom in a fit of rage the monster kills and then frames the Frankenstein’s close family friend who is later executed. However in one of his many fits of self loathing -something he shares with his creator Victor- the monster abandons revenge in order to strike a deal with Victor were the beast will leave him and all humankind alone forever if Victor will construct for him an “eve” to go with him into isolation (see bride of Frankenstein).

The deal goes ahead after the monster recounts his hellish life to Victor including the time he spent several years observing a French family through holes in there walls, by doing this he slowly learns French,as well as the concepts of poverty, love and Islamophobia(that is not a joke)before finally being rejected when he tried to make contact with them. However Victor starts having second thoughts or more accurately third or fourth thoughts, he becomes afraid that if he does do what the creature -which he never gets round to naming despite having several lengthy conversations with- wants then he might just procreate and raise an army,(how two collections of corpses could possibly breed is not made clear though to be far there was little understanding of human reproduction in the early 1800's at the time this was published) and ends up smashing the corpse, this enrages the monster when he discovers Victors double cross and he begins a campaign of vengeance on Victor, first by killing his best friend and once again framing Victor for it and then he caps it off by beating Victors wife to death on there wedding day, the combine shocks break Victor mentally and after several nervous breakdowns decides to embark on a journey of revenge himself, and hunts the monster all the way to the North Pole, in a vane effort to correct his lifetimes worth of failures and mistakes. The End....... Or is it?

So there you go one of the earliest giants of the Victorian Gothic horror and one of the earliest pioneers of Scientific Fiction, though the science here is not only made up but also just a catalyst to get the plot going. Victor in one of the few acts of genuine thoughtfulness we actually read him doing in the book quickly destroys his resurrection secrets and refuses when asked to go into specifics.

New Model Army

“We don’t have Democracy, in the world of politics today; we have Oligarchy punctuated by occasional contests to determine who has the most effective control of the media”.

Hello all, been doing a bit of reading before bed in my preparations for moving. And I just realised that many of the books I've read about and "reviewed" are actually pretty old and thus either talked about enough already for everyone to be familiar with. A bit like how we all know that rose bud was his sled in Citizen Kane (still a good watch though).

So I figured why talk about some of thats still relatively new on the shelf of our local waterstones. So here we are New Model Army,(NMA) -not to be confused with the other New Model Army- by Adam Roberts who also wrote the excellent Yellow Blue Tibia and is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors. NMA is one of those 20 minutes into the future sci-fi books so there are no rayguns or teleporters, though they do have superior wiki's and googlemaps and faster internet access.

The main plot of NMA is at first a some what straightforward military diary of the life of Tony Block (hes half Frisian) as he recounts to a mysterious Colonel whom we learn more about as things progress his last campaigns as part of the NMA known as Pantegral. An NMA is a new type army that organises itself Democratically as opposed to the traditional hierarchical or "Feudal" model current nation state armies employ. They get there name unsurprisingly from Cromwell's New Model Army which while nowhere near as egalitarian as these NMA’s, did introduce ideas such as voting for your officers and appointed a number of agitators to ensure the conditions and views of the men were expressed. Leveller Regiments flat out refused to take part in Cromwell's Irish Campaigns as its gaols conflicted with there commitment to liberty for example.

From the very first page its clear that Tony's views on the benefits of direct democracy will be extremely prevalent to the point of a lecture. For me this wedding the idea of Democracy so thoroughly to the narrative was both a strength and a weakness. It was and is refreshing to see a work outside of something found on the Marxism archive point out all the oligarchical tendencies modern parliaments and Senates are riddled with. But on the other hand the NMA characters are so self righteous about how they and they alone are true democrats that the fact they vote on everything alone justifies what ever they do (including maiming unarmed prisoners), this is especially irritating when you take into consideration that the NMA's are ultimately a band of a few thousand soldiers who quite simply can't hack it in civilian life. And essentially all the NMA are, there are no NMA style agri-communes or NMA municipalities, the only thing this global wave of true democracy is capable of doing is bring death and violence. ANd just because the NMA's are independent doesn't mean the people who hire them are either. For example Pantegrals most recent campaign was on behalf of the Scottish government in its bid to oust the British army over the formers refusal to acknowledge the new Kings legitimacy and desire for independence. But how do they know thats what the Scots really want since there was no referendum?

Though to be fair I suspect much of that was intentional. In Yellow Blue Tibia the only other Adam Roberts novel I've read, nearly every character who possesses strong beliefs about anything is made out to be a bit of fool when tripped up by a couple of ideological contradictions. And as the novel goes on there are more paragraphs and arguments made that shine a spotlight on the NMA's absurdities.

Anyway there was one other flaw that marred my enjoyment of it slightly. And thats the military side of it, the actually combat segments while not bad and possessed of professionalism don't quite gel. The NMA's are made out to be this big new threat that constantly defeat national armies wherever they clash. But the book only half explains while in a believable fashion. On one hand since there not a national army and as such have no desire to hold territory and are only concerned with bringing the UK gov to the negotiating table so it makes sense how there able to confound there opponents strategically. But tactically when the actually clash on the streets of Reading and elsewhere the NMA's wipe the floor with the sqauddies with every skirmish. Its explained that in future things like Wireless internet Wiki's and googlemaps have progressed to the point were they can be applied to military coordination effectively making each trooper a recon unit, and while this explains why groups are better at flanking manoeuvres and tactical withdrawals when necessary it doesn't explain while the Army (the guys who have pioneered these technologies) aren't capable of doing the same. Well they do explain it, its because there used to blindly following orders directly from there Generals which isn't even close to how urban warfare is waged. Then there is the NMA's unerring accuracy, we constantly see three or four NM soldiers casually pick of a dozen or so infantry, at first I thought they were using some kind of new hi tech private military rifles but nope they appear to use Ak's and other cheaper kit.

But these are rather minor gripes, another surprising point in the books favour is that Tony is Gay. and yet somehow isn't a flamboyant interior decorator or mincing sodomite. Which I personally found quite refreshing to see.

Once I'll refrain from getting into the specifics about the ending but thats owes a lot to the fact that the ending is extremely had to understand. When Tony was captured by the Americans they finally turn him round to a more cooperative state of mind. And develop some new type of AI called giant which they believe will do.... something, which they've planted in his head to use as a living bomb, they decide that it will be prudent to test first on a smaller NMA by the name of Schaferhund (shepherd dog)operating out of Alsace-Lorraine, so they do and activate Giant and it..... does something.

In conclusion I would highly recommend New Model Army warts and all (teehee). Especially if you're an Anarchist interested in seeing a truly democratic and egalitarian military force. Or a Celt who would like to indulge in a little nationalistic anti monarch wish fulfilment, what with the whole succession wars. Also futurists might be interested in the novels use of internet technologies to bring about global change.

Mikes helpful tips for students

Hey everyone, been a bit quiet lately and I'm sorry for that but its getting pretty close to the start of my final year at Uni (hopefully) and I've been busy moving about and packing my bags, then there was my frequent attempts to find temporary employment of this summer which only yielded temporary one or two day jobs.

Anyway I thought since I do like to help my fellow man and woman it might be a good idea to list off a few tips and tricks I've found that helped me with my studies.

This will be most relevant to those studying for degrees in politics, history, and international relations mind but there should be a few tips that can work across the board.

Number One: Get at least one book that is a brief and yet concise outline on the topic your discussing. I personally recommend the Oxford A Very Short Introduction When writing essay's or answering exam questions it helps to be specific, and it helps you be specific and keep a confidant argument when your sure what year your example happened happened and what the figures were in at least an approximate form. It also helps keep your thoughts grounded on the right trail.
I've lost count of the times I've heard some brain box base his arguments around something he just skimmed.

Number Two: Set your own much more punishing deadlines as they are crafty bastards when left to there own devices. I've been at University for two years now and while not as unprepared for it as I was when I first started I am still constantly being caught out by this feeling that I've got a whole month left thats four weekends and I don't have lectures on Wednesdays plenty of time etc. And I ain't the only one, I'm safely in the majority on this one. The funny thing is this seems to get worse the more work I actually do before zero hour. Last time I did half my workload early and then sat on it for awhile so trust me the shorter the time limit the less you'll suffer in the long run.

Number Three: Keep an open mind, short of mankind evolving to the point of developing into some sort of hive mind or gestalt entity there will never be a man who knows everything and has considered every possibility. You will encounter many people from diverse social cultural political backgrounds etc. And even you never know who you'll be forced to work with nor in the case of a debate/argument what they'll come up with. I once had to explain how knives and swords actually work to a bloke who was extolling the virtues of Japanese sword craft, and another time I had to call someone out on how they knew nothing about nuclear devices when the suggested a viable strategy in war was to detonate nuclear bombs in the atmosphere to disable a cities electricity, in the middle of the Cold War, as this would cause less of a stir.

There we go hope someone out there will find this useful.

Nuclear Proliferation and 21st Century Real Politik

It recently been discovered that the United States has been working on a deal to supply Vietnam with access to Nuclear fuel as well as the benefit of US nuclear information and reactor parts in a bid to weaken China's political clout in the region.

Ever since Vietnam embraced "Market Socialism" in a economic restructuring similar to China's under Deng Xiaoping, it has enjoyed economic growth but had a hard time combating inequality and the new demands on its energy networks and turned to nuclear power to fill the holes. A number of companies including from Russia and China were in negotiations for the contracts at the time the US stepped in.


You might notice that this agreement makes the US protestations over the Iranian nuclear program and there "fears" over nuclear proliferation seem farcical would that that were the end of the US and the West's hypocrisy on this matter.

Below is the news story that Turkey and Brazil were able to not only get Iran to agree to a deal that was nearly word for word what the official Western policy was with the exception that Iran could seek compensation if Turkey did not deliver on its part within a certain time. Naturally this deal was seized on by a rejoicing Whitehouse right? Wrong. Obama and Cameron refused to recognise the deal and continued scare-mongering about Islamic atom bombs.

But why you might ask? its simple the US won't accept the deal because it was not present at the talks and neither were any other Western nation safely tucked away in its sphere to look like America's interests were being served. To give there blessing to a deal not brokered by the West or a big power like the old USSR, new Russia or the PRC sets a dangerous precedent for are world hegemony, it will say that the world can run itself without guidance or support thereby weakening US influence globally as nations no longer have to choose a "us or them" style in international relations.

Impending NHS Privatisation

The Other Tax Payers Alliance has released a step by step guide to how the ConDems white paper will result in the privatisation of the National Health Service.



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