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Last time, we more or less took care of the absurdity of the domestic situation, or at least Rocky Anderson did.
Now let's look at the Mideast. Tunisian people got rid of their dictator, a far more onerous individual than Saddam Hussein ever was. He systematically broke every liberation listed in the Code of Personal Status that was law in the country.
Now Egypt is about to go, as are Algeria, maybe Jordan, and perhaps a few others. All of these represented not only mismanagement and greed on the part of their rulers, but sycophancy towards the United States. Why not? We helped them to their status. Watch what happens on the 28th of January, 2011.
Even more obvious is the perfidy of the Palestinian Authority as discussed below. What is also shows, and this is not even pointed out in the coverage anywhere, including Al-Jazeera or the BBC, is that Israel has been offered so much that it is patently obvious that it will never negotiate seriously. The leaks constitute proof that Israel does NOT want any "peace plan" or agreement. The Palestinian Authority has given away almost everything, or offered to, and received nothing back. There is no longer any question why Hamas won the election George Bush forced on the Palestinians. It also proves that about the only thing that will help resolve anything is a full and complete boycott of Israel.
Finally, a Senator has called for an end to all foreign aid, including to Israel which would be a good step. One Senator with any integrity on this issue and he is nearly insane -- Rand Paul.
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Total Capitulation
January 27, 2011
By Tariq Ali
Source: LRB
Tariq Ali's ZSpace Page
The 'Palestine Papers’ being published this week by al-Jazeera confirm in every detail what many Palestinians have suspected for a long time: their leaders have been collaborating in the most shameful fashion with Israel and the United States. Their grovelling is described in grim detail. The process, though few accepted it at the time, began with the much-trumpeted Oslo Accords, described by Edward Said in the LRB at the time as a 'Palestinian Versailles’. Even he would have been taken aback by the sheer scale of what the PLO leadership agreed to surrender: virtually everything except their own salaries. Their weaknesses, inadequacies and cravenness are now in the public domain.
Now we know that the capitulation was total, but still the Israeli overlords of the PLO refused to sign a deal and their friends in the press blamed the Palestinians for being too difficult. They wanted Palestine to be crushed before they would agree to underwrite a few moth-eaten protectorates that they would supervise indefinitely. They wanted Hamas destroyed. The PLO agreed. The recent assault on Gaza was carried out with the approval of Abbas and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, not to mention Washington and its EU. The PLO sold out in a literal sense. They were bought with money and treated like servants. There is TV footage of Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton at Camp David playfully tugging at Arafat’s headgear to stop him leaving. All three are laughing. Many PLO supporters in Palestine must be weeping as they watch al-Jazeera and take in the scale of the betrayal and the utter cynicism of their leaders. Now we know why the Israel/US/EU nexus was so keen to disregard the outcome of the Palestinian elections and try to destroy Hamas militarily.
The two-state solution is now dead and buried by Israel and the PLO. Impossible for anyone (even the BBC) to pretend that there can be an independent Palestinian state. A long crapulent depression is bound to envelop occupied Palestine, but whether Israel likes it or not there will one day be a single state in the region, probably by the end of this century. That is the only possible solution, apart from genocide.
From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/total-capitulation-by-tariq-ali
Leaked Palestinian Files Have Put A Region In Revolutionary Mood
January 27, 2011
By Robert Fisk
Source: Belfast Telegraph
Robert Fisk's ZSpace Page
The Palestine Papers are as damning as the Balfour Declaration.
The Palestinian "Authority" – one has to put this word in quotation marks – was prepared, and is prepared to give up the "right of return" of perhaps seven million refugees to what is now Israel for a "state" that may be only 10 per cent (at most) of British mandate Palestine.
And as these dreadful papers are revealed, the Egyptian people are calling for the downfall of President Mubarak, and the Lebanese are appointing a prime minister who will supply the Hezbollah. Rarely has the Arab world seen anything like this.
To start with the Palestine Papers, it is clear that the representatives of the Palestinian people were ready to destroy any hope of the refugees going home.
It will be – and is – an outrage for the Palestinians to learn how their representatives have turned their backs on them. There is no way in which, in the light of the Palestine Papers, these people can believe in their own rights.
They have seen on film and on paper that they will not go back. But across the Arab world – and this does not mean the Muslim world – there is now an understanding of truth that there has not been before.
It is not possible any more, for the people of the Arab world to lie to each other. The lies are finished. The words of their leaders – which are, unfortunately, our own words – have finished. It is we who have led them into this demise. It is we who have told them these lies. And we cannot recreate them any more.
In Egypt, we British loved democracy. We encouraged democracy in Egypt – until the Egyptians decided that they wanted an end to the monarchy. Then we put them in prison. Then we wanted more democracy. It was the same old story. Just as we wanted Palestinians to enjoy democracy, providing they voted for the right people, we wanted the Egyptians to love our democratic life. Now, in Lebanon, it appears that Lebanese "democracy" must take its place. And we don't like it.
We want the Lebanese, of course, to support the people who we love, the Sunni Muslim supporters of Rafiq Hariri, whose assassination – we rightly believe – was orchestrated by the Syrians. And now we have, on the streets of Beirut, the burning of cars and the violence against government.
And so where are we going? Could it be, perhaps, that the Arab world is going to choose its own leaders? Could it be that we are going to see a new Arab world which is not controlled by the West? When Tunisia announced that it was free, Mrs Hillary Clinton was silent. It was the crackpot President of Iran who said that he was happy to see a free country. Why was this?
In Egypt, the future of Hosni Mubarak looks ever more distressing. His son, may well be his chosen successor. But there is only one Caliphate in the Muslim world, and that is Syria. Hosni's son is not the man who Egyptians want. He is a lightweight businessman who may – or may not – be able to rescue Egypt from its own corruption.
Hosni Mubarak's security commander, a certain Mr Suleiman who is very ill, may not be the man. And all the while, across the Middle East, we are waiting to see the downfall of America's friends. In Egypt, Mr Mubarak must be wondering where he flies to. In Lebanon, America's friends are collapsing. This is the end of the Democrats' world in the Arab Middle East. We do not know what comes next. Perhaps only history can answer this question.
From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/leaked-palestinian-files-have-put-a-region-in-revolutionary-mood-by-robert-fisk
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Thousands Protest in Egypt in Largest Popular Challenge to Mubarak in 30 Years
January 27, 2011
By Hossam El-Hamalawy
Source: DN!
Hossam El-Hamalawy's ZSpace Page
(1/26/2011) AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Egypt, where tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets across Egypt in the largest popular challenge to longtime president Hosni Mubarak since he came into office 30 years ago. Drawing inspiration from the recent uprising in Tunisia, an estimated crowd of 15,000 people packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The demonstrators were forcibly removed from the square at around 1:00 a.m. Police fired tear gas and rubber bullets, filling the square with a cloud of smoke and chasing protesters into nearby streets. Protests were also held in the port city of Alexandria and the northeastern city of Suez. Three people were killed in the unrest: protesters and a police officer.
We go now to Cairo, where we’re joined by independent journalist and blogger Hossam el-Hamalawy. He was at the protest yesterday.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Can you describe what has happened in these almost unprecedented protests, Hossam?
HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY: Well, it’s an honor to be on your show. And I think I need to make it clear in the beginning that I was not in Tahrir Square yesterday, but I was monitoring the situation and following it with my fellow journalists and activists on the ground.
Egypt yesterday witnessed its strongest protests in probably four decades, since 1977, where tens of thousands have taken to the streets in virtually all the cities of our country, chanting against Mubarak, chanting against the U.S., which is backing Mubarak, calling for internal reforms and for democracy. Others were chanting for a revolution and saluting the Tunisian people.
The police have responded with iron-fist tactics we’re used to, although they showed some self-restraint in the first few hours, by using rubber bullets and tear gas and mass arrests against the protesters both in Cairo and in other provinces. As I am talking to you now, there are at least 200 political detainees locked up in the notorious state security facility in Nasr City. The government has blocked Twitter and has blocked, just in less than an hour ago, Facebook and has blocked yesterday also Bambuser, which is an online live-streaming video platform on the internet.
These protests, more or less, have settled down after midnight. But today, more protests took place around the Press Syndicate and the Lawyers’ Syndicate in downtown Cairo. And we’re receiving reports that the secretary-general of the syndicate, of the Press Syndicate, Galal Aref, has been detained. There are also waves of arrests for activists in the Nile Delta, both in Tanta and in Mahalla. The government, fearing similar unrest to what happened in April 2008 in Mahalla, had actually given the Mahalla workers yesterday a vacation, a holiday. And today they’ve let them leave work pretty early. But the situation is still tense. Those demonstrations were spontaneous, and we expect that they will be resumed anytime soon, because the reasons for which those protests have broken out are still there.
AMY GOODMAN: Something went around Twitter very quickly yesterday, Hossam. I wanted to ask if you know if this is true: the son of Mubarak, who was considered a possibility for running, has left with his family to London. Have you heard about this?
HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY: We have heard about those rumors, but I can’t really confirm them.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the effects of Tunisia, the uprising there, on what’s happened in Egypt and about what Secretary of State Clinton said, that Egypt is stable.
HOSSAM EL-HAMALAWY: Revolutions spread by the domino effect. And the Tunisian revolution against Ben Ali proved to be a major source of inspiration to the Egyptian people, in the same way that Egyptian dissent over the past five years has proven also to be a catalyst for other Arab people to step up their fight against their dictators and also in the same fashion that the Palestinian intifada in 2000 steered the Arab street into action. We are living in the age of satellite TV stations and the age of social media. Whenever dissent explodes in one area, the imagery can be transmitted to other areas. And people here in Egypt can draw parallels between Ben Ali and Mubarak. We don’t have only one Ben Ali in the Arab world; we have 22 Ben Alis, and they all need to go. And the chants yesterday that the people were chanting in Cairo and in the provinces were very similar to the chants that our Tunisian brothers and sisters have been chanting over the past few weeks in their uprising. We salute their struggle, and we hope that we can pay them back by overthrowing our dictator.
AMY GOODMAN: Hossam el-Hamalawy, I thank you very much for being with us. Of course, we will continue to follow what is happening throughout Egypt right now, not to mention what is happening in Tunisia.
From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/thousands-protest-in-egypt-in-largest-popular-challenge-to-mubarak-in-30-years-by-hossam-el-hamalawy
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