Western Propaganda: So Simple But So Effective!

Andre Vltchek


When some time ago Noam Chomsky and I met at MIT, in order to write a book “On Western Terrorism: From Hiroshima to Drone Warfare” and to produce a film with the same title together,the topic we mainly aimed at discussing was that of the countless genocides the West has committed all over the world since the end of the WWII. The second topic was impunity.

But no matter what atrocities we re-visited, our conversation kept slipping towards one crucial theme: the propaganda that has been manufactured in media centers like New York, Paris, London and other North American and European cities; the propaganda created in order to twist both the past and the present. Without such brainwashing and the almost total indoctrination of the Western general public and the ‘elites’ in all of the ‘client’ states, no imperialist and neo-colonialist policies would have become trulysuccessful.

We spoke about US commercial advertising and its influence on German Nazi propaganda, and about Nazi propaganda influencing by returnboth the US and European propaganda-makers.Noam kept asking me about my childhood in socialist Czechoslovakia, and I explained to him, honestly, how indoctrinated I was as a teenager: not by the Communist dogmas, but by the BBC, the Voice of America and the Radio Free Europe – all of them relentlessly spreading the Western political and market gospel to all corners of the socialist world.

Both Noam and I have created dozens of essays on the topic, as well as several books. My latest one, basically written about all the corners of the world where the Empire is spreading destruction and followed by indoctrination, has more than 800 pages, and is called “Exposing Lies of the Empire”.

And I always feel that even this massive book just touches the tip of the iceberg, that it is only a beginning!

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Western propaganda is actually a perfect apparatus! It is effective and it is almost fully ‘bulletproof’. It ‘works’!

European empires have been refining it for many long centuries, and the European offspring – the United States –has elevated it to almost total perfection.

One precondition for its success is, of course, that the Western political and economic regime owns almost all the major media channels and distribution outletsof the world. Diversity can never be tolerated. It could smash the idiocy!

Once this prerequisite is completed, things get relatively relaxedand cozy for the demagogues in Washington, London and Paris.

Here is just an example of how easy it is to smear a world leader who resists the imperialist designs of the Empire:

Imagine that one sunny morning, some 10 major newspapers and television stations declare that various anonymous but highly reliable sources in Moscow have informed them that the Russian President Vladimir Putin is a vampire!

This ‘news’ would fly all over the world. Many readers and viewers wouldat first roll around on the floor laughing, but some would not. And even several of those who found the information thoroughly bizarre and unbelievable would at some point realize that seeds of doubt were beginning to grow inside their brains:“OK, it is absurd, of course, but what if? What if? How awful that would be!”

But how can one really prove that he or she is not a vampire? Or how can one prove that he or she has not been visited by some evil extra-terrestrial flying saucers on several occasions?

At some point, the Russian President would feel that he had enough of the charade. He’d go to the best university clinic in Moscow, and ask for a certificate that clearly stated that he is not a vampire.

Several leading academics and doctors would get involved and produce a complex and thorough scientific conclusion, resolutely stating that President Putin is not a vampire.

Shocked by and reacting to the vulgarity demonstrated by the Western propaganda tsars, most of the Russian media outlets would offer some commonsense and logic: “Can’t we all see clearly that he cannot be a vampire? All his teeth are of approximately equal length, he socialized during the day, he does not sleep in a coffin, he eats garlic and he is not scared of crosses; be they Orthodox, Protestant or Catholic ones!”

Others would argue that there are actually no real vampires inhabiting our Planet.

This is when the Western mass media would go into overdrive. Sarcastically it would declare that the Russian academia, Russian doctors and Russian media cannot be trusted – they are all under the heel of the state, and on top of it they have beeninfiltrated by nation’s secret services and former KGB agents.

“And doesn’t ‘Vlad’ sound somehow similar to ‘Bran’, which is the castle in Romania, which in turn used to be the home base of the commander-in-chief of all militant vampires – Count Dracula?”

There would still be some rational resistance: “No, ‘Vlad’ does not really sound like ‘Bran’, and anyway, nobody in Russia calls Mr. Putin ‘Vlad’ – only the Western media does.”

But such voices of reason would never reachthe general public all over the world!

And on it goes.

In the end, a few billions of human brains would register and subconsciously store the ‘vampire theory’, and they would never again look at the President of Russia, or at his country, with the same eyes!

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Of course the Russian leadership is not the only one that the West is targeting.

There is a relentless flow of ‘shocking’ rumors and derogatory remarks made by the mainstream media against the President of China, of Byelorussia, against the leadership of Iran, South Africa, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Syria, and North Korea as well as against all the left-wing governments of Latin America.

After being repeated hundreds of times, the rumors, at least for many people, get confused with facts, and get accepted as facts.

When still leading Cuba, Fidel Castro was constantly ‘dying’ or ‘disappearing’.The North Korean government has been relentlessly portrayed as a desperate gang of bloodthirsty sexual maniacs, executing and raping all that moves. The ANC and especially President Zuma have done ‘nothing to close that staggering social divide in South Africa’. In South America, the pro-Western media outlets invented and then perfected a new lucrative industry: manufacturing corruption scandals and implicating in them virtually all of the popular socialist leaders.

Nihilism, darkest ‘news’, and scenarios have been force-fed to the public, in order to eradicate all zeal and optimism that comes when one is building a great independent and egalitarian nation.

“I never forget that day,” an Eritrean cameraman exclaimed, during my visit to his country. “I had just finished an assignment inside the Presidential Palace. Then I met my friends and we were having coffee in front of the main gate. Suddenly the Western networks began broadcasting that ‘there is a coup in Asmara’. Social media went bananas. It was the “Breaking News” story everywhere. And here we were, right there, on a lazy sunny afternoon, in front of the Palace… I had just seen the President…. All was quiet! They just invented it, in order to get people out onto the streets! They were trying to manufacture a coup via their media outlets.”

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It is mainly fear,implanted into the brains of its subjects and slaves; fear that allows theEmpire to control almost the entire Planet. Often it is subconscious fear, but it is fear nevertheless. Fear can be that of the Empire as a whole, or of its might and brutality, or even of the alternatives, portrayed in the most unsavory and frightening colors by the propaganda.

In order to rule unopposed, one has to be feared! And one has to smear the alternatives. The task to spread fear, slander diversity and dissent, was given to the official media, academia and ‘artists’.

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Of course the biggest ‘threat’ to the Empire has beenthe two sisters who were born under the same star, from the same mother called Humanism. Their names areCommunism and Socialism. And I am not only talking about the Western Marxist concept. There are many great concepts that put life and the well-being of the people first, all over the world!

In fact, a few decades ago, it was becoming crystal clear that Western colonialism, imperialism and capitalism were finished. Their time was up! Socialism was the natural and logical way forward for most of humanity.

But then the West and its Empire fought back. They employed extreme violence and brutality, as well as cunning ‘divide and rule’ tactics. Tens of millions died, and progress was stopped, although hopefully, only for a limited period of time. And not everywhere!

One of many reasons why Russia isperceivedas a great ‘threat’ is because it inheritedthe humanist and internationalist foreign policy of the Soviet Union. But, also because it itself is actually becoming socialist again (although it is moving in that direction by taking extremely short steps). Russiais recovering irreversibly from those dark days of the free marketer and West’s lackey, Boris Yeltsin.

Russia is also hated because it is setting the ‘wrong example’; proving to the world that one can develop and prosper without taking orders from the West,without serving its governments and corporations. Or more precisely: it can do it exactly because it broke itself free!

The demonization of Russia is relentless. Every little negative detail is multiplied and magnified by the mainstream media and film industry. The world’s public is being nourished by bizarre stereotypes and fabrications.And so one of the most compassionate, deep, artistic and passionate nations on Earth, Russia, is depicted as being cold, robotic, heartless and inherently evil.

Massive NATO military forces are nowdispatched along Russia’swestern border, and they include German troops. Periodically there are maneuvers and exercises, not far from the borderline. It isclearly a provocation, and it all brings back thehorrific memories of the years right before World War II, the war in which the Russian nation lost between 25 and 30 million lives.A few hundred kilometers south, an old ally, in fact a Slavic sister, Ukraine, is being forced to confront Russia by its Western handlers, something that is being done against the will of the great majority of the Ukrainian people.

The US is heavily involved in the destabilizing of Central Asia, including a group of nations that used to form part of the Soviet Union.

But thanks to Machiavellian Western propaganda, it is actually Russia that is being portrayed as the aggressor and a danger to world peace!

And it is China, which is being depicted as some kind of a ruthless and unpredictable monster that is now ready to swallow the world! In fact China is an extremely predictable country, and any unbiased student of world history would clearly see how peacefully it has been behaving, for centuries!

But to ‘prove’ that China is not a Communist country, anymore, and at the same time that it is one of the greatest threats to world peace and ‘stability’ (read: to Western control of the World), is one of the most important tasks givento the Western media, academia and propaganda tsars by the Empire.

And they are succeeding! Indoctrination tactics are working flawlessly. The Western pubic is by now thoroughly brainwashed (at worst) or confused (at best) when it comes to China. In recent years I engaged hundreds of French, Italian, Spanish, German, British and Czech people in discussions about China, just to receive (with extremely few exceptions) a barrage of standardized, patronizing, mass-produced ‘opinions’. It often felt like talking tothe people who were forcedto live for decades under the Taliban or under the ‘spiritual guidance’ of some fundamentalist evangelical Protestant sect.

In fact, China is both Communist (Communism or Socialism, butwith Chinese characteristics) as it is breathtakingly successful! Analyzing this marvelous country, together with my China-based colleagues and comrades, I am coming to the conclusion that Beijing often uses “capitalist means in order to achieve socialist goals” (to borrow a quote from Jeff J Brown, which is actually the sub-title’ of his latest book).

And an enormous, independent, successful Communist or Socialist country – that is absolutely the worst nightmare for the Empire! It is something that has to be stopped, derailed, destroyed, isolated and demonized by all means!

China’s Communist success… You would never hear about that on CNN, BBC or Fox TV!

Just as you would never hear that Indonesia, India, Rwanda and any of the other Empire’s allies and client nations,are in fact the most brutal fascist ‘failed’ states, and that the genocides in Papua, Kashmir and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are the bloodiest extermination campaigns anywhere in the world. I have worked in all these countries, intensively, I can testify. As this is being written, the people of Kashmir are being murdered and tortured. Right at this moment! I am wondering how many of my readers are aware of it?

*

Perhaps I’m obsessed with “exposing lies of the Empire”. A second volume will soon follow my 820-page long book. I cannot stop travelling, investigating and amassing the evidence.Because I am shocked; because I am outraged and because there are so few, so desperately few people that are actually working in the most desperate parts of the world!

Virtually all stereotypes about the world that have been domesticated in the West are wrong, terribly wrong.

The story of the Russian Revolution is told in the most twisted way, and so is the story of the Ukrainian famine and of the gulags. Not everything is wrong, of course, but the facts and numbers are twisted. I will soon resume my work in the Russian Far East, to write on this subject.

The story of China is grotesquely wrong, from the Great March to the present day!

The story of Cambodia’s “Commie slaughter” under the Khmer Rouge is a thoroughly idiotic manipulation! The slaughter was there, but more people died from the US carpet-bombing, and then from being displaced from their farms by US mines and cluster ‘bombies’, than from Pol Pot’s atrocities. The great majority of Khmer Rouge men and women had nothing to do with Communism. They were just settling scores with the capital, which they saw as responsible for selling the country to the US, and for the bombing of the countryside. In the jungle, I recently met Pol Pot’s personal guard. He told me frankly that he was simply pissed off (the bombing killed his relatives), and had no clue what Communism was: “Pol Pot came and said ‘Communism! Let’s fight the traitors!’ And we did. How could someone call us a Communist country if we did not even know what Communism was?”

What we hardly ever hear is the most important story of mankind: the story of Western colonial plunders, of imposed slavery, genocides that lasted for centuries, of British-triggered famines that killed tens of millions in the Sub-Continent, of virtually the entire Europe and Christianity systematically committing global holocaust. We are not told that it actually happened, and that it is still going on and on and on!

In order to ‘shelter’ the Western public from the horrendous truth about the past and the present of their countries and culture, new and newer stories about those “evil others” are being invented and circulated.

*

Perhaps, soon, we will be really told that Mr. Putin is a vampire, or that Kim Jong Un is eating Korean virgins for breakfast. We may not be far from such a new wave of propaganda zeal.

It all makes sense: the more evil the Empire becomes;the more it has to smear its adversaries.

The mass media and Hollywood are asked to perform. And they do! Reality and fiction are now being systematically mixed, and everything gets blurred and finally the great confusion and intellectual chaos are managing to overwhelm both reason and logic.

The Empire is killing millions and destroying countries and continents. But California is falling offa cliff, and clouds of huge insects are invading the entire North America. While millions of alien terrorists are now engulfing the ‘tolerant’ and ‘democratic’ Europe! So what is more terrible? Plus there are those sinister monsters like Count Vlad and Comrade Kim, waiting with their daggers behind a corner!

Therefore, The Empire and its people have to ‘protect’ themselves. They have tobe tough, even tougher than before! And to put their interests first! America (North America) first! Germany first! France first!

Primitive? Does it all sound primitive? Yes, certainly. But it works! At least for the Europeans and North Americans it does. And the rulers don’t give a damn what works or doesn’t for the rest of the Planet.

Kashmir: A Cry From Hell!

Fayaz Ahmad Bhat


I have heard that the life in the hell would be very tough, painful and torment. One punishment will be followed by another. There will be guards watching and patrolling the hell so that no body from the hell has relief and escape. The screams of the cursed will fall upon the deaf ears and nobody will be ready to listen and help. When I make an analogue between Kashmir and the hell, I feel no difference between the two, rather I see Kashmir the worst since it is practical and the hell is hypothetical.

In Kashmir (hell) people suffer irrespective of their socio-economic background. The cries go unheard and fall upon deaf ears. During the daytime protesters “watch and guard” the streets and don’t allow anyone to move even ailing are not allowed to have access to health care. During nights “security” forces don’t allow anybody to step out even they barge into houses to “avenge” the people. Both the parties (security forces and protestors) employ different means and methods to punish “violators”. Protesters don’t allow people to move even from one village to another. Sometimes they force the “violators” to chant anti India and pro-Pak slogans those who resist are dealt strictly with the volley of stones. On the other hand “security forces” punish everyone physically and sometimes even damage the property (vehicles, household etc). This is the way how they guard and patrol the hell so that “cursed” have no relief and escape. I am sure that hypothetical hell won’t be so pathetic and torment, the guards there won’t be so cruel and merciless.

It is more than a month now that Kashmir is burning and life is at standstill. According to local media reports more than eight thousand civilian got injured, near about seventy died and hunderends lost eye sight in the ongoing unrest. The rest of the population is in flames (in Kashmir/hell) and their screams go unheard. There are no traces of government and law and order especially in the rural areas of Kashmir Valley. Important entry and exit points and most of the streets in rural areas are fully in the control of unruled protestors. “Separatists” who come up with strike programmes and protest calendars even dance on the tunes of protestors.

The situation is worsening day by day and taking an ugly shape. Another generation of Kashmiris is being radicalised and becoming scapegoat. Interactions and observations suggest that situation in Kashmir is quite different from late 1980’s when young Kashmiris opted gun to challenge Indian rule over Kashmir. A large number of youth who opted for weapons had very humble socio-economic and educational background. They were almost unaware about the political past of the state. The “educated” lot who joined the militant ranks were either Jammaat ideologues or politically disgruntled or the both.  The present generation is altogether different. They are literate and well aware of the past especially of the blunders which New Delhi has been committing since late 1980’s in Kashmir. Above all the strategies adopted by New Delhi to handle the Kashmir issue are proving counter- productive, children from the very birth witness killings, protests, processions, mishandling of the issue and bear the brunt of violence. From the age of five and six years misleading and communal readings too reach out to children through oral lore and propaganda. This is one of the reasons that children belonging to the age group of nine to sixteen years are very active in the present unrest. It gives sleepless nights and restive days to see children from the mentioned age group blocking roads and not listening to anybody. They dare everyone; challenge “security” forces and respond bullet, pellet and tear gas shells with slogans and stones. They sometimes even try to barge into army camps and police stations. I remember my childhood days; we used to flee the village along with elders even after listening that vehicles in army camp some eight kilometers away from our village are faced towards our village. Today people (mostly children and young) march towards army camps and police stations to give vent to their anger and frustration. A good number of populace tries to be aloof but they too are not spared. They are labeled Indian agents, traitors, anti movement, anti Kashmiri by protestors and rented mob, pro-Pakistanis, fundamentalists and what not by the state (army, police, crpf etc).

Many Kashmiris want to know what their crime is. They shout they are neither anti Indian nor pro- Pakistani. They are simply Kashmiri who lost their childhood and schooling to curfews, crackdowns, chugs, strikes and cross firings. Their youth disappeared in depression, disappointment and hopelessness and they are longing for nothing but peaceful and harmonious future for their kids.

It is very painful but worth to mention that last Friday when I offered congregational prays I rushed home hurriedly to escape from any possible trouble but was traumatised to hear my three years old son asking her mother that he will go for stone pelting. The case may not appear serious and worth to be mentioned to many but being a student of sociology and misfortune of being brought up in a conflict zone I think, it is really exemplary, serious and alarming. I sense how cruel and merciless I was to my parents. By virtue of fatherhood, I am able to understand how grave wounds I have inflicted to my parents when I was young and death was dancing in every nook and corner of Kashmir. I understand why they (parents) were not only surrendering before my every adamant but bearing every absurd act of mine. Perhaps, they did so to see me alive and not to provide any “reason” for me to join militants. Now I understand despite they desired me to prosper in my studies why they turned mute spectators when I burnt my books.  I am sure besides their love and care, the peaceful childhood they had had determinant for their endurance and handling my nonsense and absurdity.

I cry! Can I too do the same? I am certain I cannot! Though I too love my son more than anything but I can’t prove myself to be like my parents as the childhood we had was different. I have been brought up in the environment which knew no tolerance, respect for teachers, neighbours and relations even for parents. More than two decades long conflict has negative impact on my attitude and mentality. I must acknowledge I am weak. I am intolerant. I never introspect and always try to identify the faults of others. I am and psychologically too weak, turns intolerant and violent over nothing.

I cry! The people of Kashmir cry! We cry for the future of our children. We cry in pain and agony but our suffering and misery goes unnoticed rather people pretend to deaf and blind. Our screams annoy our own brothers and sisters and we are looked down as damned and evil mongers.

A Kashmiri narrative very well narrates the state and agony of common Kashmiris; once upon a time there was a fisherman, starvation and misfortune had caught him very badly. One day his mother succumbed to misfortunes and hardships of life. The poor fisherman did not burry the corpse his mother and decided to sustain on the flesh of his mother. The people living nearby smelled “meat” and interpreted that fisherman was enjoying fried fish.

The fellow citizens while sitting in luxurious air-conditioned rooms watching Kashmiris participating in protests and stone pelting, most of which are mourning, funerals, or reaction to atrocities of “security” forces, do not look at these gatherings beyond anti India demonstrations. They curse, curb and labeled all Kashmiris as traitors, Pakistanis and what not.

What is happening in Kashmir and response to it from the rest of country is not different from the narrative. All the Kashmiris are like the fisherman who ate the dead corpse of his mother to survive and the fellow citizens are like the neighbors who mesmerized the event and “thought” he enjoyed fried fish.

Obama’s Legacy Of Failure In The Middle East

Nauman Sadiq


In order to create a semblance of objectivity and fairness, the American policymakers and analysts are always willing to accept the blame for the mistakes of the distant past that have no bearing on the present, however, any fact that impinges on their present policy is conveniently brushed aside.

In the case of the creation of Islamic State, for instance, the United States’ policy analysts are willing to concede that invading Iraq back in 2003 was a mistake that radicalized the Iraqi society, exacerbated the sectarian divisions and gave birth to an unrelenting Sunni insurgency against the heavy handed and discriminatory policies of the Shi’a-dominated Iraqi government; similarly, the war on terror era political commentators also “generously” accept that the Cold War era policy of nurturing the Afghan so-called “freedom fighters” against the erstwhile Soviet Union was a mistake, because all those fait accompli have no bearing on their present policy.

The corporate media’s spin-doctors conveniently forget, however, that the creation of Islamic State and myriads of other Sunni Arab jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has as much to do with the unilateral invasion of Iraq back in 2003 under the previous Bush Administration as it has been the consequence of the present policy of Obama Administration in Syria of training and arming the Sunni militants against the Syrian regime since 2011-onward, in fact, the proximate cause behind the rise of Islamic State, al Nusra Front and myriads of Sunni jihadist groups in Syria and Iraq has been Obama Administration’s policy of intervention through proxies in Syria.

Leaving the funding, training and arming aspects of the insurgencies aside, but especially pertaining to conferring international legitimacy to an armed insurgency, like the Afghan so-called “freedom struggle” during the Cold War, or the supposedly “moderate and democratic” Libyan and Syrian insurgencies of today, it is simply beyond the power of minor regional players and their nascent media, that has a geographically and linguistically limited audience, to cast such heavily armed and brutal insurrections in a positive light in order to internationally legitimize them; only the Western mainstream media, that has a global audience and which serves as the mouthpiece of the Western political establishments, has perfected this game of legitimizing the absurd and selling the Satans as saviors.

It is very easy to mislead the people merely by changing the labels while the content remains the same – call the Syrian opposition moderate and nationalist rebels or insurgents and they would become legitimate in the eyes of the Western audience, and call the same armed militants “jihadists or terrorists” and they would become illegitimate. How do people expect from the armed thugs, whether they are Islamic jihadists or supposedly “moderate” and nationalist rebels, to bring about democratic reform in Syria or Libya?

For the whole of the last five years of the Syrian civil war the focal point of the Western policy has been that “Assad must go!” But what difference would it make to the lives of the Syrians even if the regime is replaced now when the whole country has been reduced to rubble? Qaddafi and his regime were ousted from power in September 2011; five years later Tripoli is ruled by the Misrata militia, Benghazi is under the control of Khalifa Haftar who is supported by Egypt and UAE and a battle is being fought in Sirte between the Islamic State-affiliate in Libya and the so-called Government of National Accord.

It will now take decades, not years, to restore even a semblance of stability in Libya and Syria; remember that the proxy war in Afghanistan was originally fought in the ‘80s and even 35 years later Afghanistan is still in the midst of perpetual anarchy, lawlessness and an unrelenting Taliban insurgency.

The only difference between the Soviet-Afghan jihad back in the ‘80s, that spawned the Islamic jihadists like the Taliban and al Qaeda for the first time in history, and the Libyan and Syrian jihads 2011-onward is that the Afghan Jihad was an overt jihad – back then the Western political establishments and their mouthpiece, the mainstream media, used to openly brag that CIA provides all those AK-47s, RPGs and stingers to the Pakistani ISI which then forwards such weapons to the Afghan mujahideen (freedom fighters) to combat Soviet Union’s troops in Afghanistan.

After the 9/11 tragedy, however, the Western political establishments and corporate media have become a lot more circumspect, therefore, this time around they have waged covert jihads against the “unfriendly” Qaddafi regime in Libya and the anti-Israel Assad regime in Syria, in which the Islamic jihadists (terrorists) have been sold as “moderate rebels” to the Western audience. It’s an incontrovertible fact that more than 90% of militants operating in Syria are either the Islamic jihadists or the armed tribesmen, and less than 10% are those who have defected from the Syrian army or otherwise have secular and nationalist goals.

Notwithstanding, unlike al Qaeda, which is a terrorist organization that generally employs anticolonial and anti-Zionist rhetoric to draw funds and followers, Islamic State and Al-Nusra Front, both, are basically anti-Shi’a sectarian outfits. By the designation “terrorism” it is generally implied and understood that an organization which has the intentions and capability of carrying out acts of terrorism on the Western soil. Though, Islamic State has carried out a few acts of terrorism against the Western countries, such as the high profile November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings, but if we look at the pattern of its subversive activities, especially in the Middle East, it generally targets the Shi’a Muslims in Syria and Iraq.

A few acts of terrorism that Islamic State has carried out in the Gulf Arab States were also directed against the Shi’a Muslims in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia and Shi’a mosques in Yemen and Kuwait. Moreover, al Qaeda Central is only a small band of Arab militants whose strength is numbered in several hundreds, while Islamic State is a mass insurgency whose strength is numbered in tens of thousands, especially in Syria and Iraq.

Additionally, Syria’s pro-Assad militias are comprised of local militiamen as well as Shi’a foreign fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and even Hazara Shi’as from Afghanistan. And Sunni jihadists from all over the region have also been flocking to the Syrian battlefield for the past five years. A full-scale Sunni-Shi’a war has been going on in Syria, Iraq and Yemen which will obviously have its repercussions all over the Middle East region where Sunni and Shi’a Muslims have coexisted in peace for centuries.

Regardless, it should be kept in mind here that the Western interest in the Syrian civil war has mainly been about ensuring Israel’s regional security. The Shi’a resistance axis in the Middle East, comprised of Iran, the Syrian regime and their Lebanon-based proxy Hezbollah, posed an existential threat to Israel; a fact which the Israel’s defense community realized for the first time during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War.

When protests broke out against the Qaddafi and Assad regimes in Libya and Syria, respectively, in early 2011 in the wake of the Arab Spring uprisings, under pressure from the Zionist lobbies, the Western powers took advantage of the opportunity provided to them and militarized those protests with the help of their regional allies: Turkey, Jordan and the Gulf Arab States.

All of the aforementioned states belong to the Sunni denomination and they have been vying for influence in the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis. Since the beginning of the Syrian civil war in August 2011 to June 2014, when Islamic State occupied Mosul, an informal pact existed between the Western powers, their regional allies and the Sunni jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a resistance axis. In accordance with this pact, Sunni militants were trained and armed in the training camps located in border regions of Turkey and Jordan.

This arrangement of an informal pact between the Western powers and the Sunni jihadists of the Middle East against the Shi’a Iranian axis worked well up to August 2014, when Obama Administration made a volte-face on its previous regime change policy in Syria and started conducting air strikes against one group of Sunni jihadists battling against the Syrian regime, i.e. the Islamic State, after the latter transgressed its mandate in Syria and overran Mosul and Anbar in Iraq and threatened the capital of another steadfast American ally: Masoud Barzani’s Erbil in the oil-rich Iraqi Kurdistan.

After that reversal of policy in Syria by the Western powers and the subsequent Russian military intervention on the side of the Shi’a regime, the momentum of Sunni Arab jihadists’ expansion in Syria has stalled and they now feel that their Western allies have committed a treachery against the Sunni jihadists’ cause; that’s why, they feel enraged and they are once again up in arms to exact revenge for this betrayal.

If we look at the chain of events, the timing of the Paris and Brussels attacks has been critical: Islamic State overran Mosul in June 2014, Obama Administration started bombing Islamic State’s targets in Iraq and Syria in August 2014 and after a long time first such incident of terrorism took place on the Western soil at the offices of Charlie Hebdo in January 2015 and then the November 2015 Paris attacks and the March 2016 Brussels bombings.

CIMO Doctoral Fellowship for International Students Finland

Application Deadline: There are no annual application deadlines in the CIMO Fellowship programme. Applications may be considered at all times. However, candidates should note that applications should be submitted at least 5 months before the intended scholarship period. Decisions will be made within approximately 3 months after receipt of application.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Open to applicants from all countries.

To be taken at (country): Finland

Brief description: CIMO (Centre for International Mobility) offers a number of scholarship programmes for Doctoral levelstudies and research at Finnish universities.

Eligible Field of Study: All academic fields with the exception of the scholarships for advanced-level degree students of the Finnish language, which are specific to that particular field.

About the Award: Master’s level studies or post-doctoral studies/research are not supported in the programme.

The primary target group in the CIMO Fellowship programme are such Doctoral level students who will be doing their Doctorate (or Double Doctorate) at a Finnish university . Visiting Doctoral-level students and researchers who are doing their Doctorate degree at some foreign university can also be considered eligible, provided that the motivation letter of the hosting Finnish university department presents exceptionally good grounds for such an application.

The programme is open for applicants from all countries. However, when decisions on scholarship are made, emphasis is given to applicants from Russia, China, India, Chile, Brazil and North America.

Offered Since: Not known

Type: Doctorate level

Eligibility: The visiting researcher must have established contacts with a Finnish host university

Number of Awardees: Not stated

Value of Scholarship: 1500 euros. The scholarship is intended to cover living expenses in Finland for a single person. No additional allowance for housing is paid. Expenses due to international travel to and from Finland are not covered by CIMO.

Duration of Award: 3 to 12 months

How to Apply: The application form for the CIMO Fellowship can be downloaded below. Additionally, the following attachments are required for a CIMO Fellowship application:

• A motivation letter from the applicant (the hosting university), max 1 page
• Complete CV of the scholarship candidate
• Research plan (3-5 pages)

Two printed and signed copies of the application with required attachments should be submitted to the following address:

CIMO, PO Box 343, 00531 Helsinki.

Candidates should mark the envelope with “CIMO Fellowships”.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Centre for International Mobility (CIMO)

Important Notes: The CIMO Fellowship is a start-up grant not a full degree scholarship, so if a candidate receives a CIMO Fellowship for 12 months, after that period the candidate is free to seek other sources of funding for the remaining period of their studies/research.

Eric Bleumink Funds for Developing Countries at University of Groningen 2017/2018 (Masters) – Netherlands

Brief description: The University of Groningen is offering research grants to students from developing countries wishing to undertake their masters programme in Holland.

Application Deadline: 1st of December, 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kiribati, Laos, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Tanzania, Togo, Tuvalu, Uganda, Vanuatu, Yemen, Timor-Leste, Sudan (Rep.), Congo (Dem Rep.), South Sudan, Central African Republic, Zambia

To be taken at (country): Holland

Eligible Field of Study: All

About the Award: The Holland Scholarship is financed by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science and Dutch research universities and universities of applied sciences. The scholarship is meant for international students from outside the European Economic Area (EEA) who want to do their master’s in Holland.

Type: Masters programme, Masters (MSc/MA/LL.M.)

Eligibility: Candidates for the Eric Bleumink Fund should:

1. Have obtained conditional admission to the program of choice(see:www.rug.nl/masters/alphabetical )
2. Have excellent academic performance, preferably to be confirmed by letters of recommendation
3. Have excellent grades during their bachelor/undergraduate studies;
4. Have excellent English language proficiency, in accordance with the admission requirements of the program of choice
5. Be available for the whole period of the programme and be able to take part in the entire programme
6. Be in good health, so that health insurance in the Hold the nationality of a country appearing in Appendix 1.
7. Have no other means of financing the study in question

Number of Awardees: Limited

Value of Scholarship: The grant covers tuition fee, costs of international travel, subsistence, books, and health insurance.  Please note that a considerable number of students apply for this scholarship each year, whereas the University can issue only a limited number of grants.

Duration of Scholarship: The grant is awarded for a 1 year or 2 years Master’s degree programme.

How to Apply: The University of Groningen Admission Office, in consultation with the Admission Boards of its faculties, will determine which applicants will be nominated for an Eric Bleumink Fund scholarship.

Only applicants that have received a (conditional) admission offer for a master programme before February can thus be considered. In order to allow for enough time to process the application to a master programme by the Admission Office, such a master application should be completed by the applicant before 1st of December.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: University of Groningen

Clark University Global Scholars Programme for International Students 2017/2018

Brief description: Clark University offers undergraduate scholarship to international students through the very prestigious programme, the Global Scholars Programme.

Application Deadline: 15th January, 2017: for 2017 Fall academic session

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: All

To be taken at (country): Clark University, Massachusetts, USA

Eligible Field of Study: All

About the Award: The Global Scholars Program builds on Clark University’s long-standing commitment to provide a challenging education with a global focus. The Global Scholars Program (GSP) is a special program for incoming international students who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their home communities before attending Clark. Global scholars receive guidance and opportunities to build on their leadership skills so they can make a difference at Clark, in the Worcester area, and in the global community.

Offered Since: Yes

Type: Undergraduate taught

Eligibility: To be eligible, candidate must:

• be a first-year applicant (not a transfer student) who has attended school overseas for at least four years. Clark also will consider international citizens attending school in the United States.
• also have demonstrated the potential to provide leadership in your community and the world and to commit to making a difference.
• maintain an annual GPA of at least a 3.0.  Failure to do so may result in a decrease or loss of Global Scholar scholarship.

Number of Awardees: Several

Value of Scholarship: Successful candidates will receive:

• a scholarship of no less than $5,000 per year ($20,000 for four years, contingent upon meeting academic standards for renewal).
• a guaranteed $2,500 taxable stipend for a paid internship or research assistantship taken for academic credit during the summer following your sophomore or junior year.
• and participate in the Global Scholars Mentor Program, including an annual buffet dinner hosted by the president of Clark University. You will be assigned to a faculty adviser, as well as receive guidance from staff or alumni leadership mentors.

Duration of Scholarship: 4 years

How to Apply: To apply for this program, international candidates must submit the College Board Profile form by 15th of January 2017

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: Clark University

Could a Russian-Led Coalition Defeat Hillary’s War Plans?

Gary Leupp

Joe Scarborough this morning on MSNBC was inveighing against the “ransom” the U.S. supposedly paid to Tehran in return for the release of U.S. prisoners (“hostages”) in Iran. Two other talking heads also used that term “ransom” matter-of-factly to describe what happened while acknowledging that the money had been owed to Iran by the U.S. since the days of the Shah. Just more knee-jerk anti-Iran, anti-nuclear agreement rhetoric.

Then Joe turned to Syria, bemoaning the U.S. “silence” and lack of action to end the carnage, absolutely ignoring the fact that the U.S. has repeatedly tried and failed to recruit and train Syrian allies to fight the regime, is bankrolling rebel groups, and has provided them with arms that have wound up in the hands of al-Nusra and ISIL. He acts as though further U.S. action in Syria (which he imagines the world cries out for, from this last best hope of mankind) would produce better results than it did in Iraq or Libya. It is frightening to see the mainstream media line up with the 51 State Department “dissidents” and Hillary on Syria, while it continues to promote crude anti-Russian and anti-Iranian propaganda.

The representation of Russia as an “existential threat” to the U.S. is preposterous fantasy. Just like the depiction of Iran as a nuclear threat is preposterous, and the notion that Bashar al-Assad’s secular government in Syria is the cause for the emergence of ISIL is sheer delusion.

Russia with 12% the U.S. military budget has military bases in precisely 8 foreign countries: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, Tajikistan (all nations bordering Russia, and former soviet socialist republics) plus Syria and Vietnam. Its only foreign naval facilities are in the latter two countries. The Sevastopol base in Crimea used to be on Ukrainian territory, but Russia has of course annexed the Crimean Peninisula to ensure continued control of the headquarters of its Black Sea fleet.

The U.S. in contrast has over 650 military bases abroad, and five naval bases on the Mediterranean coast alone, in Spain, Italy and Greece. There are 10,000 sailors stationed at NSA Naples. In that same region the Russians have only their resupply station in Tartus, Syria operative by treaty since 1971, typically with a tiny garrison.

The Russian air force base in Latakia, Syria is a modest operation, incapable of supporting those Tupolev-22M3 long-range bombers and Sukhoi-34 fighter bombers used to bomb ISIL and al-Nusra targets a few days ago in Aleppo and elsewhere. Those took off instead from Sahid Nojeh air base near Hamadan, Iran, causing some Pentagon concern and (false) accusations that the mission somehow violated a UNSC resolution about arming Iran. Moscow is boasting of mission success. (Morning Joe’s upset about that true.)

Russian forces have already done more damage to ISIL, dismissed in January 2014 by President Obama as a minor problem, than the U.S.  The U.S. started its bombing of ISIL months before the Russians but Russian strikes have turned the tide of battle in Syria.

One is struck simultaneously with Russia’s relative weakness vis-a-vis the hyperpower, and its creativity in reacting belatedly (just since September 2015) to the U.S.-orchestrated destruction of the Middle East.

Moscow is well aware that pro-Hillary forces in the State Department are rallying in favor of short-term, Libya-like regime change in Syria. But everybody knows there will be no UN fig leaf this time, as there was in 2011. Russia, (and as looks likely, China also) active in the Syrian skies will not accept a “no-fly zone” unilaterally proclaimed by the Exceptional Nation, restricting a sovereign government’s right to deploy aircraft in its own air space.

Moscow has basically carved out a coalition against regime change in Syria, united in abhorrence of ISIL and al-Nusra (now Fateh al-Sham) but pledged to the defense of the existing secular Syrian state and specifically to support for its professional, mostly Sunni and Sunni-led army. The pro-Assad forces now include the Syrian Arab Army and assorted militia, Lebanese Hizbollah fighters, Iraqi Shiite militia fighters, Russia, and Iran.  India has repeatedly offered support for the government, and China has just vowed to provide aid and military training.

The Kill Assad Now Coalition on the other hand consists of the Hillary wing of the U.S. State Department, absolute monarchs of Gulf nations where Sharia is the law, and some NATO allies including Turkey. They want to prioritize the destruction of the Assad regime over the destruction of terror groups in Syria.  But Turkey’s president Erdogan is reconsidering his foreign relations generally. After the recent coup attempt in which he believes the U.S. was complicit he has has met with Putin in Moscow and mended relations strained by the Turkish shooting down of a Russian fighter plane over Syria last November.

Turkey’s foreign minister has intimated that a normalization of relations with Syria is also in the cards. Especially if Turkey shifts (perhaps in return for Russian help in preventing the establishment of a Syrian Kurdistan), it might become well nigh impossible for Hillary to bomb Assad out of power.

Unless of course she wanted to show how strong she is and start World War III. That could be even worse than a Trump presidency, arguably, don’t you think?

Let’s Build A Regenerative World

William Hawes


The current state of American politics must make us question whether any of our leaders in the Beltway can be described as “grown-ups”, i.e., fully mature and sane individuals. Between the endless war crimes, corporate corruption, lobbyists who bribe congressmen and write legislation, and the ineptitude of federal entities who are supposed to protect our health such as the FDA, EPA, and CDC, it would appear that leaders in all three branches of government, as well as the leaders of the corporate world, are either insane, suffer from various psychological disorders, as well as suffering from a type of collective hallucination, the common denominator being an utter lack of empathy for others humans, or respect for the Earth.

Further, we must at least question whether collectively, we the citizenry, are as susceptible to mass delusions as our psychopathic leaders are. Our society can be effectively generalized as forming what Paulo Freire calls a culture of silence, many of whom see no problems with exploiting and despoiling other countries, looting wealth, and killing millions; and many more that are simply afraid to speak out against the indignity of the US empire, in fear of socio-cultural reprisals. This culture of silence, which we are taught at a young age, indoctrinates and effectively eliminates the ability of people to form critiques of our rotten political and economic systems. This is who Richard Nixon was really referring to, when he spoke of the “Silent Majority”: citizens too naïve, dumb, childlike, and afraid to confront the injustices inherent to our system were exactly who Tricky Dick was appealing to.

While many of us pretend that something as silly as “American exceptionalism” exists, and fall victim to the myth of rugged individualism that permeates all aspects of civic life and economics, the sad truth is that we’ve become a nation of petulant children. While we fantasize about Jeffersonian notions of small businesses and republicanism guiding our way of life, transnational conglomerates control our agricultural output (killing us slowly with GMOs and pesticides) and our media landscape (brainwashing us with neoliberalism and black propaganda).

Marx and Engels tuned us into the ideological war imposed by capitalism, which distorts and confuses workers’ belief systems, alienates workers from themselves and their work, and attempts by subterfuge to shift the blame of ruthless exploitation away from the ruling class. This was called false consciousness, and later, Sartre used the term mauvaise foi (“bad faith”). Gramsci defined the ideological control of capitalists over the socioeconomic system as cultural hegemony. Many readers are intimately familiar with these ideas. So why does this critique of the left from John Steinbeck still ring so true:

“I guess the trouble was that we didn’t have any self-admitted proletarians. Everyone was a temporarily embarrassed capitalist.”

As Paul Goodman explained so lucidly, we’ve all been Growing Up Absurd for generations, trapping many in the chrysalis of adolescence for their entire lives. As he pointed out:

“The accumulation of the missed and compromised revolutions of modern times, with their consequent ambiguities and social imbalances, has fallen, and must fall, most heavily on the young, making it hard to grow up.”

There is no mystery why Goodman entitles his chapter on missed revolutions in the fields of the physical environment, the socioeconomic model, political and constitutional reform, morality, and reforms dealing with children and youth, “The Missing Community”. For youth today, just as in his day, have few responsible role models, a repressive and prison-like atmosphere in schools, with consumerism and technology determining every aspect of a child’s search for joy and wonder, and now, the artificial edifices of social media and “augmented reality” is replacing genuine interaction. Indoctrinated to fit into a system of war, corporate monopolies, vapid pop culture, and not encouraged to think critical about their country or world cultures, children become jaded as soon as they realize that the notions of freedom, equality, and sharing that their parents and teachers taught them were based on lies. We must reverse this tide, lest we forget Walter Benjamin’s saying that:

“Behind every fascism, there is a failed revolution.”

As Derrick Jensen says, our society suffers from a form of complex PTSD:

“PTSD is an embodied response to extreme trauma, to extreme terror, to the loss of control, connection, and meaning…Faced with any emotionally threatening situation, these people may freeze, failing to resist even when resistance becomes feasible or necessary”. 

This condition permeates every aspect of society, and reinforces our deepest ideological confusions: the line between personal property and coercive private property is purposely blurred by the bourgeoisie, fulfillment is replaced by “fun”, civic duty is replaced by retreating into the shell of private life, and diplomacy is usurped by war. Brought up in such a totality of fear and violence, it is no surprise that many never progress psychically beyond the stage of the child, or to seek out fulfillment instead of base entertainment.

The wit of the novelist Trevanian is instructive when addressing the Western symptoms of ennui and anomie:

“It’s not Americans I find annoying, its Americanism: a social disease of the post-industrial world that must inevitably infect each of the mercantile nations in turn, and is called ‘American’ only because your nation is the most advanced case of the malady, much as one speaks of Spanish flu…Its symptoms are a loss of work ethic, a shrinking of inner resources, and a constant need for external stimulation, followed by spiritual decay and moral narcosis. You can recognize the victim by his constant efforts to get in touch with himself, to believe his spiritual feebleness is an interesting psychological warp, to construe his fleeing from responsibility as evidence that he and his life are uniquely open to new experience. In the latter stages, the sufferer is reduced to seeking that most trivial of activities: fun.” 

This is corroborated by Jean Liedloff, whose experiences with the Yequana and Sanema tribes of Venezuela allows her to contrast their indigenous traditions and child-rearing with the failure of civilized parents, and the resulting insipid, infantile behavior of Western adults and general culture:

“Novelty…is so much a part of the present phase in our culture that our natural resistance to change has been distorted…Nothing is ever allowed to be good enough, nothing ever satisfactory. Our underlying discontent is channeled into desire for the latest things…Among the things high on the list are those that save labor…When success as a passive baby has not been experienced, there is a penchant for button-pushing, for labor-saving, as an assurance that everything is being done for, and nothing expected of, the subject…The impulse to work, necessarily a strong one in a healthy continuum, is stunted…Work becomes what it is to most of us: a resented necessity. And the labor-saving gadget gleams with a promise of lost comfort. In the meantime, a solution to the discrepancy between the adult desire to utilize one’s abilities and the infantile desire to be useless is often found in something aptly called recreation.” 

The implications are clear: our culture does not allow us to grow up, because to do so would invoke a critical response and a revolution against the forces of tyranny. Recently, Henry Giroux asked:

“Where are the agents of democracy and the public spaces that offer hope in such dark times? What role will progressives play at a time when the very ability of the public’s ability to translate private troubles into broader systemic issues is disappearing? How might politics itself be rethought in order to address the pedagogical and structural conditions that contribute to the growing intensification of violence in all spheres of American society? What role should intellectuals, cultural workers, artists, writers, journalists, and others play as part of a broader struggle to reclaim a democratic imaginary and exercise a collective sense of civic courage?”

First, we must accept the fact that each of us is an agent of democracy, and we must reclaim the public spaces, and smack down the harmful myth regarding “The Tragedy of the Commons”. The answers to Giroux’s plea lie in our ability to raise healthy, strong children who are not seduced by the siren calls of capitalism and patriotic-approved state violence. This should be supplemented by alternative education programs for children and adults, and basic life and practical lessons passed down from parents, grandparents, etc.  This doesn’t mean each parent has to teach their kid trigonometry. It means each town has to model itself to promote a viable village atmosphere, and foster a sense of community, with renewable energy, grassroots arts and music, and small to medium scale organic agriculture. It will mean embracing the truth that industrial civilization is destroying the world, and rather than wallowing in self-pity at having our illusions destroyed, rising up and embracing a culture based on ecology, enlightenment, and virtuous edification of our youth.

Inside the Middle East – Making Sense of the Most Dangerous and Complicated Region on Earth

Jim Miles


Reading Inside the Middle East is quite an adventure. I learned that I probably am a fairly quixotic fanatic tilting at windmills; that I need to learn how to be a critical thinker “demanding that concepts and narratives be replaced with facts and reality;” that I “need to fine tune [my] critical thinking and analytical capacities; all that so I can be an “informed advocate for Israel.” [italics added]

An important word: advocate.

Avi Melamed says his career has “been heavily shaped by my need to help Westerners understand the unfolding events” vis a vis the unfolding events of “the chaos in the Middle east.” In the preface he describes his career as “working in the fields of counterterrorism, intelligence, civil policy, and policy development and implementation.” The epilogue contains a similar descriptor, having had a “very long career in intelligence, policy development, entrepreneurship, and education.” His career as parsed throughout the work has been one of manufacturing consent for the Israeli government.

In the Preface and in the Forward Melamed sets the standard by introducing his superior qualifications stating that his “analysis is subject to the rigorous standards of professionalism…I have adhered to throughout my intelligence, advisory, policy, and educational careers.” While he talks facts about the Middle East, westerners knowledge is based mainly on the “cultural, emotional, and psychological environment that gave birth to the involvement of Westerners in the campaign to delegitimize the State of Israel.” His most recent work was as “an independent Middle East strategic analyst for the Eisenhower Institute’s Fellow of Intelligence and Middle east Affairs” with a “long and proven record of precise analysis and interpretations concerning developments in the Arab world.” Thus he sets the stage that his superior knowledge over rides the readers lack of rigour and analytic poiwers.

It is interesting to note that throughout this work there is no indication that Melamed actually experienced any military fighting – his Arab language skills and advocacy work were clearly needed far more than his marksmanship. Two other items not mentioned in the work are the Old Testament and Zionist ideology – so talking about “cultural, emotional, and psychological environments” is not a two way street, it only seems to apply to the irrational west.

Questions of context and truth.

The essential context of this presentation is that the problems of the Arab world are caused by the Arabs themselves. In counterpoint it is a “disease” in the “deeply-rooted belief” that Arabs “are victims of of things like imperialism, colonialism, and racism”. Another disease is “the ocean of demagoguery, fiery speeches, rhetoric, and slogans” spewing forth. In the preface he also talks about the inadequacy of the “constitutions in the Arab world…not strong enough to secure the states’ integrity and social fabric.” Applying my critical thinking skills would that mean that Israel, without a constitution has an insecure integrity and social fabric? The ‘facts’ would say, yes, that is true. Are there no fiery speeches, rhetoric and slogans coming from the Israeli Knesset? Nothing about killing Palestinians, or removing them from Eretz Israel? Nothing about putting them on a starvation diet?

Melamed gives the standard Israeli line:

Israel, as a democratic society, enables freedom of speech and pluralism, even if it is hard to swallow and offensive to many people.

It is a strange democracy that keeps the Palestinians in the West Bank under arbitrary military rule protectiing the settlers ambitions but not the international standards of occupation relevant for the Palestinians. It is a strange democracy that has laws discriminating against Palestinians in areas such as housing accessibility and marriage regulations. It is a strange democracy that uses starvation and overwhelming military force in order to control its unwanted Palestinian population. Please tell me where my critical thinking skills are challenged here….

The real miss in the context is that there is nothing about the influence of the west, in particular of Great Britain, France, and the U.S. in both the creation of Israel and the current embattled environment throughout the region – nothing about their imperialist, colonialist, and racist mentalities for both domestic and foreign policies, historically and currently. Melamed argues that the “real enemies of the Arab world are corruption, lack of good education, lack of good health care, lack of freedom, lack of respect for human lives….” without at all addressing the historical geopolitical context of how all that came about. Sure all that may be true but what are the precedents that set that up?

According to Melamed it is of course the Arabs antiquated thinking, their religious divisions, and tribal mindset, you know, sort of like Israel with its tribal mindset (just ask Michael Oren) and its religious divisions (Orthodox versus secular versus a whole confusing array of religious fanatics). But again, that is a diversion from the contextual problems of the region.

At this point I must admit to being guilty of Melamed’s accusation that “Placing the blame on Israel for what was happening in the Middle East…is a quintessential expression of a distorted reading of reality.” Well, aren’t I the disillusioned one! But then I like to consider the historical geopolitical factors as well, not just the manufactured view of someone working within the Israeli information networks.

So far I am only into the first chapter, when Melamed states one of the stronger elements of Israeli mythology/narrative saying that the “Arab armies…suffered a humiliating defeat in the 1967 Six Day War against Israel [true] which had been launched by Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser” and Syria and Jordan. The latter is distinctly a clear lie. Has Melamed not read the IDF records? Nor perhaps has he read Miko Peled (The General’s Son, Just World Books, Virginia, 2012) nor any of the volumes by Ilan Pappé, or even Benny Morris where it is clearly indicated and referenced that Israel pre-emptively attacked Egypt even while recognizing that Egypt’s military in the Sinai were in purely defensive mode?

Another lie is the that Hamas perpetrated a “violent coup” in Gaza in which it “violently overthrew the Palestinian Authority.” The background to that is large, involving the Hamas’ win in the 2006 elections, the rejection of its legitimacy by Israel, the U.S. and other western states. At that point in time the Abbas government had no actual electoral legitimacy, only the legitimacy of being a quisling government supported by the U.S. and Israel.

For all his pretensions about critical thinking skills and precise analysis, these two bold faced lies simply support the idea that Melamed’s position is that of advocating for the Israeli view being as they are the wonderful “light on a hill” society while all around them is chaos created by the inner vicissitudes and ineptness of the Arab peoples. From that point I skim read the work, as it ignored the great majority of geopolitical contextual factors while it rolled out numerous anecdotes and statistics to create a ‘fog’ of rhetoric rendered meaningless by that very lack of context.

In the second to final chapter, Melamed gives his views on Israel itself, and reveals simply that he supports the narrative, rhetoric, and slogans promulgated by the Israeli state. Revealingly he pays attention only to Hamas and Gaza, and mentions Abbas infrequently and in accepting terms – why not, he is doing Israel’s security work for them in the West Bank. He takes the familiar red-herring route of asking why the critics are not concerned about violence elsewhere in the world and why are they picking on Israel. This diversion does not take away from the reality of Israeli violence in Gaza and the West Bank, nor does it deny it.

There is much to be argued with in the Israeli chapter, but two points are salient. One is a simple contradiction wherein he states that “hundreds of Israelis have been killed or injured” but later states that Hamas attacks have caused “forty Israeli deaths of both soldiers and civilians.” Contradictions in critical analysis should obviously be avoided.

A second is his reference to the Goldstone retraction of the UN sponsored examination of the 2014 Gaza War. True, Goldstone made a retraction – from who knows what pressure – academic, personal, or judicial – but the other judges did not make a similar retraction. However, Goldstone never made a formal statement of retraction (meaning the report still stands with the UN) and the other authors of the report – Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin, and Desmond Travers – issued a statement “to dispel any impression that subsequent developments have rendered any part of the mission’s report unsubstantiated, erroneous or inaccurate…nothing of substance has appeared that would in any way change the context, findings or conclusions of that report….We firmly stand by these conclusions.” (Guardian, April 14, 2011, cited in Obstacle to Peace, Jeremy Hammond, Worldview Publications, Michigan, 2016.)

Much more could be critiqued but enough said, it is simply a work of self-satisfied advocacy for the traditional Israeli narrative, devoid of context. Still I wonder – are my “critical thinking and analytical capacities” “rigorous” enough or am I still tilting at windmills in my fanaticism?