Tuesday, February 10, 2009

A LIKUD VICTORY IS A VICTORY FOR PEACE

Despite the efforts to portray Kadima and Labor as moderate parties this latest Israeli election is a contest between the extreme right and the ultra extreme right. Genuinely moderate parties like Meretz have no chance at taking power and only the intervention of the courts prevented the banning of the nation's only two Arab parties. Short of unapologetic genocide its hard to imagine policies more right wing than those of the current "moderate" Kadima leadership. To be fair, some of those allied with Likud such as Avigdor Lieberman have proposed this, but it unlikely that even Netanyahu would risk Israel's friendship with its only real ally over such a policy.

The real difference between Likud and the Kadima faction which broke away from it is not policy, but perception. Kadima and Likud want the same goals, a pure Jewish state on as much land as possible free from the ethnic contamination of Palestinians, when in power Likud has been more aggressive in pursuing these policies, but only slightly. Kadima is PR savvy, Likud is more honest towards its objectives. Kadima is willing to carry on sham peace negotiations and offer noble rhetoric (in English) about the importance of compromise. Likud makes no such pretenses. Under these circumstances a Netanyahu victory is the best outcome for the peace movement.

The actions and statements of an openly neo-fascist government in Israel will illustrate the situation to both the American and Israeli public better than any activist could and it will give breathing room for those silently sympathetic to the Palestinian cause to finally raise their voices without the fear that deters criticism of the "moderates". What is certain is that the winner will continue the policies of repression and land seizures, what is not certain is whether the new government will be led by pragmatists capable of accomplishing those objectives or by short sighted reactionaries who will set them back. Give us Netanyahu!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

FREE PHILIP RIZK


Philip Rizk, a German-Egyptian human rights activist and journalist working on behalf of the Gaza's besieged population, was abducted Friday night by Egyptian security forces while returning to Cairo from a solidarity demonstration in the northern suburbs. Police detained a vehicle carrying activists for several hours before transferring Rizk to a second vehicle without license plates and speeding off. The twenty six year old activist had previously lived among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip for two years, more recently he has produced a film detailing their non-violent resistance and worked to bring medical supplies into the region after Israel's latest invasion.

Anti-torture campaigner Aida Seif El Dawla who runs the Nadim Center commented that Rizk “is in the custody of State Security, which means illegal detention and a high probability of torture and ill treatment." Although no charges have been filed his kidnapping comes as the regime is cracking down on criticism of its decision not to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza in the wake of devastating attacks. The government raided two peaceful pro-Gaza rallies organized by the banned Muslim Brotherhood detaining over seventy people including Gamal Abdel Salam, head of the Egyptian Doctors' Syndicate Relief Committee. Critics of the government are regularly detained. Some such as blogger Kareem Amer have remained in custody for years.

Despite its horrific human rights record and repression of democracy Egypt is a key American ally and receives billions of dollars every year as the world's second largest recipient of American aid after Israel. The Egyptian police state, presided over by a kleptocratic band of thugs, is entirely illegitimate. This is a government so corrupt that the state-run newspaper felt it a newsworthy item when President Hosni Mubarak paid an import tax, it is a government so dictatorial that its leader openly acknowledges having rigged his way to victory in multiple elections, and it is a government so repressive that the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights believes that up to 16,000 people are being held without charge where they face torture, lack of medical care, poor sanitation, overcrowding, and other deplorable conditions.

The level of support that the U.S gives to the clique of thugs running Egypt is entirely unjustifiable, but given the U.S is unlikely to relinquish its relationship with the puppet President Hosni Mubarak Americans need to insure their government utilizes that influence to mitigate the damage this regime causes to human rights. The first step in that process is education. Please spread the word about Rizk's case. You can read his blog here.

BBC
Reuters

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

POLITICAL COMPASS

I just took the Political Compass test which has devised a much more intelligent way of assessing political views than the traditional left-right spectrum. Take the test and post your results here. I ended up pretty far in the anti-authoritarian leftist quadrant. Here are my results:

















Economic Left/Right: -8.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.87

DEMMAND THE VOTE

"We are approaching the point where more and more Palestinians will say: we have
been won over. We agree with Liberman. There is no room for two states between the Jordan and the sea. All that we want is the right to vote. . . and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights. As soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished. The Jewish organizations, which were our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us, because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights
for all its residents. "


-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert