With the Iranian situation quickly out of hand on all sides I thought that I’d share this video from CNN.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEtVRgZ3Szw

[I couldn't get the embed feature to work for some reason. It wouldn't load properly. Click the link instead.]

Note how extremely uncomfortable the interviewer gets when the woman demands that “you people” [Americans] do something about the Iranian government.

Any other revelations you want to take away from it, like her screaming “This is Hitler” or people getting axed at universities. Quite ridiculous.

“Obama refuses to ‘meddle’ in Iran“. I guess letting the world know that the President of the United States stands behind people who’re being beaten and shot by “security forces” for demonstrating against corrupt elections might run the risk of “offending” Iran.

The President is in full-on “grovel” mode, it seems. Martin Peretz has some related thoughts regarding the “Cairo Speech”.

On May 13, the Arab Student Union held a screening of the film “Occupation 101,” which is about the Israel/Palestine conflict. (Take a guess about which side it takes.) Anyway, a student unaffiliated with the ASU showed up and began distributing the t-shirt below:

I emailed the ASU, and they responded saying: “During this educational event, a student unaffiliated with the Arab Student Union began handing out shirts, which this student had individually produced. ASU budget money was not used, and the ASU was not affiliated with the shirts in any way.”

Which is good, but to Mr. Anonymous Student, a swastika on an Israeli flag? Way to keep it classy. You represent your cause well. I also enjoyed the horrible misspellings, especially “Zionest.” Is that the superlative of Zionist, as in “I am the most Zionest”?

For several years, as the the Somali state has spiraled down into deeper and deeper chaos, piracy in Somali and international waters around the failed nation has threatened to close off vital shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Piracy has only gotten worse in the last couple years as the political situation in Somalia has deteriorated even further.

This last year alone, there were over 40 successful hijackings and over 15 ships are currently being held for ransom, with over 250 crew members held hostage. The first mistake that the civilized world is not taking more forceful action against these pirates. It doesn’t help that the ships’ crews are lying down and waiting for the ships’ owners to pay up the ransom. The fact that these ransoms are being paid is encouraging piracy, because these impoverished young Somali men know they can get a (relatively) easy payout from this. (more…)

Imagine my surprise when I opened up today’s Daily Emerald, only to find a guest column by one George Beres, Pacifica Forum stalwart and one of Eugene’s more prolific writers of letters-to-the-editor.

For whatever reason, the Emerald saw fit to publish Beres’ latest rant, the somewhat cryptically titled “Fear of subduing conflict discussion“. Evidently unaware of the massive media attention given to protests around the world in response to Israel’s recent “Operation Cast Lead” (including coverage on this very blog and in the printed magazine of the student protest here on campus), Beres starts yammering about how Jews “Zionists” are silencing dissent:

Nothing has been more hotly contested than the policies of the new state of Israel in Palestine. I’ve found it raises a broader question: Can this subject even be discussed? Zionists and Israel sympathizers have said no and silenced such dialogue at some schools, threatening it at the University.

I’ve seen evidence of it – personal experience that suggests a growing pervasiveness of those willing to halt speech to stop such criticism. Much of it has come from the campaign designed by a writer for the New York Post, Daniel Pipes, who encourages students to create an aura of suspicion around anyone who questions Israel’s behavior.

[...]

I interviewed author John Mearsheimer on his book about Israel’s brutality in Palestine. It was at a news conference in the Portland Hilton prior to his public talk there. Not one other reporter attended. Mearsheimer told me he was not surprised, having seen Zionists influence the news media against him, as well as object to his campus appearances.

It’s a Jewish “Zionist” conspiracy, you see. And they’re in the media, orchestrating smear campaigns against their foes.

At the risk of being identified as part of the Jewish “Zionist” conspiracy, let me be the first to publically chastise the Emerald for seeing fit to publish such blatantly anti-Semitic rubbish. And let’s be clear here: what Beres is saying is anti-Semitic. Maintaining that Jews are part of shadowy conspiracies, pulling the strings behind the curtain to control the media and silence critics, and having dual allegiances are classic anti-Semitic tropes.

The Emerald, of course, has every right to publish whatever it pleases, and it’s certainly not for me or anyone else to say that the shouldn’t. One only wonders if their editorial policy would be so open-minded if it were instead a white supremecist talking about Muslims.

Somehow, this seems appropriate.

Briefly came across this on yahoo news.

The gist of the article is that President-elect Barack Obama is alienating himself from the liberals that supported him with such stances as:

-Letting the tax cuts of people who make $250,000+ expire in 2010

-A “responsible drawdown” from Iraq

-Appointing Hillary Clinton, keeping Robert Gates, and having a centrist cabinet

-Not taxing the windfall profits of oil companies

To sum up this article:

Now it’s Obama’s Cabinet moves that are drawing the most fire. It’s not just that he’s picked Clinton and Gates. It’s that liberal Democrats say they’re hard-pressed to find one of their own on Obama’s team so far – particularly on the economic side, where people like Tim Geithner and Lawrence Summers are hardly viewed as pro-labor.

Apparently, what they want is a cabinet made entirely of Nanci Pelosi.

Via Harry’s Place, a piece at the Z-Word blog examining centrifugal nationalist forces in Belgium. Quoting Ian Buruma:

“Belgium is in danger of falling apart. For more than six months, the country has been unable to form a government that is able to unite the French-speaking Walloons (32%) and Dutch-speaking Flemish (58%). The Belgian monarch is desperately trying to stop his subjects from breaking up the state.”

More interesting than the potential split-up of Belgium, however, are the insights they have about how “pan-European post-nationalism” has possibly had the unintended effect of promoting ethnic separatism:

Buruma argues that during the 18th and 19th centuries, when nation-states were formed, cultural, linguistic and national differences were frequently transcended in order to promote “common interests.” That was as true of Britain and Italy as it was of Belgium.

The EU has changed all that. As Buruma puts it, using another example of nationalist revival in supposedly post-national Europe, “[W]hy rely on London, say the Scots, if Brussels offers greater advantages?”

The Scottish example is one that I’ve been aware of for awhile now, but I’d never quite thought of it in the context of European unity. Whether or not it (and other cases, like Belgium) are really unintended byproducts of the EU I can’t say for certain. I’m sure there are those out there who are more informed than I am on the issue who might be able to offer some insight into the dynamics at play. That being said, it makes a certain amount of sense, at least superficially.

Finally, the author uses the case of Belgium as comparison for the situation in Israel/Palestine:

Whether or not Belgium actually breaks up, the current strife there will have demonstrated beyond doubt that the notion of a “post-national” Europe is wishful thinking. Yet many advocates of the single-state “solution” in Israel and Palestine base their thinking on precisely this premise.

…

Belgium is held up as the inspiration for a one-state solution in the Middle East at precisely the time when significant numbers of Flemish and Walloons are militating for a two-state solution in their own domain.

It is here, I think, that the argument gets simultaneously stronger and more far-fetched. On the one hand, the situation in Belgium versus what’s happening in Israel are extremely dissimilar — Belgium has historically been a pretty peaceful sort of place and the forces that seem to be jeopardizing its existence are rooted in economics that happen to be correlated to ethnicity (Wallonia is much poorer than Flanders), whereas the Israel/Palestine conflict, while undeniably posessing an economic element, carries with it the burden of religion, decades of bloodshed, a sense among Palestinians that their land was taken from them, and the prevalence of violent, hard-line parties on both sides, none of which are all that prevalent in Belgian politics, from what I can tell.

On the other hand, I think all of these extreme dissimilarities actually strengthen the argument that Belgium serves as a useful “canary in the coal mine” for any potential unified state comprised of Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Given that I think few would deny that the Walloons and the Flemish probably have more in common with one another than Israelis and Palestinians, it’s hard to see how the “one-state solution” could have any chance of succeeding.

If Belgium is as on the rocks as it’s made out to be (and I have my doubts, personally), it’s hard to see how a united Israel/Palestine could hold itself together, given that the situation there is on the order of magnitudes more extreme than anything we’ve witnessed in Brussels.

Seumus Milne — “thick as a post”:

And now they’re reduced to writing Chin Up, Lads memoranda to the Taliban in the pages of the Guardian, and pretending it’s journalism, all the while reiterating the same vile, stupid, reactionary position they began with, all those years ago, as Milne does, even now: “The only way to end the war is the withdrawal of foreign troops as part of a political settlement negotiated with all the significant players in the country, including the Taliban, and guaranteed by the regional powers and neighbouring states.”

Which is to say: 1. Cut a deal with the the slaughterers of the Afghan people. 2. Veil your foetid complicity in lies. 3. Cover your tracks with the footfalls of like-minded despots and cowards from Afghanistan’s “neighbouring states.” 4. Run away. 5. Run away. 6. Run away.

[EDIT]

Incidentally, I’ve seen numerous references to Milne supposedly having supported the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the pages of the journal Straight Left, for whom he served as a Business Manager. However, I have not been able to verify this, as Straight Left doesn’t appear in JSTOR or have any other online archives that I can find.

Hot on the heels of the Mark Steyn/Maclean’s case in Canada, a British law firm, acting on behalf of Mohammed Sawalha, the President of the British Muslim Initiative and mastermind of “much of Hamas’ political and military strategy”, has filed suit against UK blog Harry’s Place:

Mr Sawalha claims that we have “chosen a malevolent interpretation of a meaningless word”. In fact, we did no more than translate a phrase which appeared in an Al Jazeera report of Mr Sawalha’s speech. When Al Jazeera changed that phrase from “Evil Jew” to “Jewish Lobby”, we reported that fact, along with the statement that it had been a typographical error.

Mr Sawalha says that the attribution of the phrase “Evil Jew” to him implies that he is “anti-semitic and hateful”. Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas.

…

A member of Hamas has no reputation to defend.

…

If Mr Sawalha persists in attempting to silence us with this desperate legal suit, we will need your help.

We won’t be able to stand up to them alone.

Over at the always-excellent Harry’s Place, I ran across this thought provoking piece about modern anti-Semitism which I thought was particularly illuminating, given this University’s continuing controversies surrounding the Pacifica Forum and certain of their guest lecturers.

The author, Anthony Julius, makes explicit a crucial distinction that I think has long been missing from the debate over anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism, that of the “fellow traveler”. The out-and-out anti-Semite is usually not difficult to spot. These are the David Irvings and Hassan Nasrallahs of the world. Their distaste for Jews is barely concealed, if at all.

The “fellow travelers”, on the other hand, are like their counterparts who rooted for the Soviet Union (and the author makes clear that the comparison is deliberate) in that they dissemble and downplay actual instances of anti-Semitism, often unconsciously. Sometimes, as in the case of Palestinian terrorism, anti-Semitic acts are explicitly justified as being appropriate (or even automatic) responses to “oppression” at the hands of Zionists (read: Jews). In many cases, however, the very same people would find, say, the vandalizing of a synagogue here in Eugene appalling. As with the Soviet Union’s fellow travelers, a distinction is draw between what is considered normal and acceptable elsewhere and what is intolerable at home.

The article is especially timely, as the Register Guard has, within the last week, published letters like this one today (July 8) by George Beres (you might have to scroll down… the RG’s letter’s page doesn’t allow linking to specific letters) and this one on July 5 by Valdas Anelauskas, who should already be familiar with readers of the Commentator for his comments regarding a piece written by former Oregon Daily Emerald columnist Deborah Bloom:

Even if the author’s name wasn’t Deborah Bloom, after reading your opinion piece in the Emerald (Feb. 7) there is no doubt that it was written by someone who is Jewish. Because only from people of that peculiar tribe can we expect such Talmudic hatred for humanity. There is even a famous saying that wars are the Jews’ harvest.

In any case, the piece is rather long (11 pages + 9 pages of footnotes), so I won’t attempt to summarize it any further; it really does merit reading all the way through. Julius’ recognition of the “fellow traveler” is, I think, an important and useful addition to the lexicon of the debate.

[UPDATE]

Here’s a fine (if somewhat nauseating) example of the “fellow traveler” phenomenon, though it’s not really so much about anti-Semitic themes as an apologia for Islamic fundamentalism from a hardcore Marxian perspective. (Also via Harry’s Place)

With Israel’s 60th birthday coming up (May 14th), both our friendly neighborhood Jews, their proponents, and their opponents have been making a lot of noise. I’m not the biggest fan of Israel’s operations in Palestinian land, and I think a lot of the settlers use the victim mentality to justify pushing injustices on others. And no, criticism of Israel’s foreign and domestic policies does not equate to Anti-semitism.

But signs like “Israel @ 60: Celebrating Genocide” do not help the discussion of a convoluted and complicated issue. And yes, I saw those over campus today, including other ones that said “Celebrating Racism” and “Celebrating Terrorism”. I’m interested to see what else these clowns come up with.

In Sean Jin’s post about Zach Besaraba’s characterization of the furor over Tibet amounting to little more than “propaganda with the aim of maintaining US imperialism (for his part, Besaraba makes an attempt to clarify his position in the comments section), I suggested that the “anti-imperialism” crowd (substitute “anti-war”, if you like) has little time to waste on protesting against “imperialism” on the part of anyone besides the United States and Israel.

Well, I’m glad to say that in a letter to the editor of the Eugene Weekly, Pete Mandrapa has proven me wrong, taking China to task for its “deplorable” “actions” in Tibet. Indeed, “some human rights activists’ calls for the boycott of Beijing Olympics and disruption of the Olympic torch travels across the globe”, he says, are “understandable. Good for Pete Mandrava for joining the ranks of the decent left and unequivocally condeming totalitarian aggression wherever he sees it.

But wait! What’s this?

Not satisfied to merely take a principled stand against Chinese imperialism, Mandrapa cites actual horrors like Abu Ghraib alongside such hoary old chestnuts as the “hundreds of thousands of Iraqis” “slaughtered” by American troops (la resistance presumably murders civilians for a higher cause) and the “physical destruction” of that country to argue that as awful as the annexation and decades-long Chinese occupation of Tibet might be it isn’t nearly as bad as the American invasion of Iraq. Evidently, Mr. Mandrapa doesn’t spend much time reading the news, since the only way his comparison would really hold is if the Tibetian “resistance” was butchering mourners with suicide bombs and the Chinese military was working with the UN to restore habitat for oppressed minority populations as well as repairing decaying infrastructure and opening schools.

But never mind all that. This is the Eugene Weekly we’re talking about, and high rhetoric (not to mention high drama) is de rigueur.

Expect this meme to become increasingly common as the Olympic trials draw ever nearer. When moral equivalence is the name of the game, it’s safer to suggest that perhaps American athletes should be barred from competing than it is to risk your activist cred by looking like you’re siding with the neo-con imperialists. China might be bad, but the U.S. is always worse.

[edit]

A similar dodge, this time from The Guardian.

So, as I sit here, watching the last 2 and a half hours of my teenage years ago by, I had a thought regarding Islamic extremist suicide bombers. My brother had told me earlier today about how the ancient Chinese military used oxen with explosives strapped to them as the first, primitive weapons delivery vehicles. Unfortunately for the oxen, they were used only once.

The oxen idea got me thinking…how long will it be before Islamic suicide bombers think…”Wait a minute! We don’t have to do this! We’ll get something like goats…or PIGS! Yeah, we hate pigs anyways, we’ll send them to blow up the infidels.” I’m surprised they haven’t figured it out yet. Hopefully they don’t find this blog and take my invention.