American Jews And Israel: A Divorce In The Making?

Alan Hart

In a very interesting piece on his web site (Mondoweiss) Philip Weiss has speculated that the day is coming when American Jews will divorce Israel.

If it really happens the president of the day will be free to use the leverage America has to cause or try to cause Israel to end its defiance of international law and denial of justice for Palestinians. And if an American president gave that lead European governments would follow him or her.

According to Weiss an important “sociological trend” is underway.

“American Jews, even mainstream ones indoctrinated to love Israel, are breaking more and more publicly with the Jewish state. The Netanyahu government is proving to be embarrassing to American Jews; they do not want to be associated with rightwing apartheid policies… The divorce that we have long predicted on this site is now on the horizon; and in years to come this separation will yield an even bigger reward: mainstream American Jews will declare themselves anti-Zionist.”

In support of his speculation Weiss quoted Gary Rosenblat. He’s a hard-core supporter of Israel and the editor and publisher of The Jewish Week. In an article for it and as summed up by Weiss he revealed that Jewish leaders are saying that it’s getting impossible to sell Israel to young Jews.

“American Jewish leaders confide that generating support for the Jewish state is becoming increasingly difficult these days – even within the Jewish community, and especially among younger people.

“The hard fact is that Israel’s leadership is moving in a direction at odds with the next generation of Americans, including many Jews, who want to see greater efforts to resolve the Palestinian conflict and who put the onus for the impasse on Jerusalem. It is not only President Obama who feels that way… Whether or not it is fair, the strong perception today is that the Israeli government is moving further right, and intransigent, at a time when the rest of the world is fed up with the Israel-Palestinian impasse.”

A related point made in Weiss’s article was that when the present generation of major Jewish funders passes raising substantial dollars for Israel will be much harder.

Weiss concluded with this prediction.

“This crisis will not end until American Jews declare Zionism is racism. And one day they will.”

Serious consideration of whether Weiss is guilty of wishful thinking and being naively optimistic or could be proved right by events to come requires the asking and answering of this question.

Why, really, have the overwhelming majority of the Jews of the world, American Jews especially, supported Israel (the Zionist not Jewish state) right or wrong and/or remained silent even when they were deeply troubled by its policies and actions?

It’s worth recalling for starters that prior to the Nazi holocaust, and as I document in detail in my book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, most Jews of the world did not support Zionism and many were opposed to it. Those who voiced their opposition believed the Zionist enterprise was morally wrong. They also believed it would lead to unending conflict. But most of all they feared that if Zionism was allowed by the major powers to have its way it would one day provoke anti-Semitism.

Though it was Britain that gave Zionism a spurious degree of legitimacy with the Balfour Declaration in 1917, if there had been no Nazi holocaust it is most likely that there would have been no Israel because without Adolf Hitler as its best recruiting sergeant Zionism would probably have failed to command enough financial and political support to impose its will on the Palestinians.

Also to be recalled is that from the creation of Israel mainly by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing in 1948 until the Six days War of 1967 most Jews of the world were not much interested in Israel. At an early point in its life Prime Minister Ben-Gurion was very concerned that not enough Jews were coming in to start a new life there and give Israel the manpower needed for territorial expansion. One consequence of Ben-Gurion’s concern was that Mossad agents posed as Arab terrorists and bombed Jews out of Iraq and into Israel.

It was the 1967 war that dramatically changed how most Jews of the world thought about Israel and that was because they believed without question the big, fat lie Zionism told in the countdown to the war.

The lie was that the Arabs were intending to attack and that Israel was in real danger of being annihilated.

The truth was that despite some stupid Arab rhetoric to the contrary which played into Zionism’s hands, the Arabs were NOT intending to attack. It was a war of Israeli aggression not self-defense.

For those readers who still believe that Israel’s Jews were in danger of being driven into the sea I recommend Chapter 1 of Volume Three of my book which is titled America Takes Sides, War With Nasser Act II and the Creation of Greater Israel.

In this chapter I quote a number of Israeli leaders who years after the events in most cases said on the record that they knew that Arabs were not intending to start a war. Here are just five examples.

In an interview with Le Monde on 28 February 1968, Yitzhak Rabin, who was Chief of Staff in the 1967 war, said:

“I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.”

On 14 April 1971, a report in the Israeli newspaper Al-Hamishmar contained the following statement by Mordecai Bentov, a member of Israel’s wartime national government.

“The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory.”

On 4 April 1972, General Bar-Lev, Rabin’s predecessor as Chief of Staff, was quoted in the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv as follows.

“We were not threatened with genocide on the eve of the Six Days War and we never thought of such a possibility.”

In the same newspaper on the same day, General Ezer Weizman, who was Chief of Operations during the Six Days War, was quoted as saying:

“There was never any danger of annihilation. This hypothesis has never been considered in any serious meeting.”

In an unguarded public moment in 1982, Prime Minister Menachem Begin said this:

“The Egyptian army concentrations did not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We decided to attack him.”

But the vast majority of the Jews of the world (probably 99 percent of them) believed Zionism’s pre-war propaganda. They were absolutely convinced that the Arabs were about to attack and that Israel’s existence was in real danger. In the absence of the truth, which was not on the mainstream media’s agenda, they were brainwashed by Zionist propaganda.

One result of Israel’s stunning military victory was that most Jews of the world were not only greatly relieved, they were proud like never before to be Jewish and campaigners for Israel. Some took Israel’s victory as indication of Divine Intervention, proof that the Jews were indeed the Chosen People and evidence that God would be with Israel whatever it did.

And that was the beginning of the real love affair between most Jews everywhere and Israel.

Now to my answer to the question of why, really, the overwhelming majority of the Jews of the world, American Jews especially, have supported Israel right or wrong and/or remained silent even when they were deeply troubled by its policies and actions.

For starters it has to be said that criticism of Israel can and does tear Jewish families apart. And that alone seems to be reason enough for some (many?) American and European Jews to remain silent.

But there’s much more to it.

The root cause of American and European Jewish support for Israel right or wrong and/or silence on the matter of its defiance of international law and denial of justice for the Palestinians is the unspeakable fear that Holocaust II may at some point be inevitable.

This fear is the product of persecution on and off down the centuries which climaxed with the Nazi holocaust and Zionism’s propaganda to the effect that the world has always hated Jews and always will. Zionism’s message to the Jews of the world is in effect, “You will need Israel one day so don’t question whatever it does to keep itself secure.”.

It is therefore not surprising that very many Jews of the world believe that in the event of another great turning against them Israel will be their refuge of last resort, so, they tell themselves, say nothing and do nothing that could assist Israel’s enemies and put this insurance policy at risk.

Despite all of that I think it’s not impossible that Weiss could be right and that time and events will see American (and European) Jews breaking with Zionism and all its represents. But in my view it won’t happen as a consequence of more and more Jews becoming “embarrassed” by Israel’s policies and actions. Embarrassment is not a strong enough motivation to cause the Jews of the world (American and European Jews especially) to do what they must if they are to best protect their own interests.

What is it that they must do?

Short answer – they must open their closed minds to the truth of history as it relates to the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel.

If they did they would discover that Israel’s existence has never, ever, been in danger from any combination of Arab military force and that it could have had peace with the Palestinians many years ago on terms which any rational government in Israel would have accepted with relief.

In other words, exposure to the truth of history would prove to them that Zionism’s version of it – a version to which most Western politicians and the mainstream media are still attached – is, generally speaking, a pack of propaganda lies.

Perhaps even more to the point is that exposure to the complete truth of history would make American and European Jews of today aware of the warnings that were voiced by Jewish leaders who opposed Zionism before the Nazi Holocaust. As I indicated above, their main fear was that if Zionism was allowed by the major powers to have its way it would one day provoke anti-Semitism.

What it has been provoking for many years is a rising, global tide of anti-Israelism, but the danger for American and European Jews is that this could be transformed into anti-Semitism if American and European Jewish support for Israel right or wrong is interpreted as complicity (even if by default) in Zionism’s crimes.

The most explicit warning of this danger was delivered by Yehoshafat Harkabi, the longest serving Director of Israeli Military Intelligence in his 1986 book Israel’s Fateful Hour. In my book I quote him at length but here in one paragraph with my emphasis added is the essence of his warning.

“Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots.

Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.

If Harkabi was alive today (he died in 1994), and given that Israel is not going to change course and that its brutal oppression of the Palestinians will only get worse and worse, I think he might agree with me that unless the Jews of the world divorce themselves from Zionism, anti-Israelism will be transformed into anti-Semitism at some point in the future.

It’s that vision of the future that ought to motivate American, European and other Jews of the world to come to grips with the truth of history and the conclusion it invites – that Zionism is their real enemy.

The problem for some and perhaps many American, European and other Jews of the world is that divorcing Zionism would mean that they were saying, in effect, that they no longer had need for the insurance policy of Israel as a refuge of last resort. And that would raise a perfectly valid question. How can they be certain they will be safe and secure in their American, European and other homelands if they do abandon the Zionism?

My answer (as in my book) is this.

After the Nazi holocaust, and because of it, the giant of anti-Semitism would have gone back to sleep, remained asleep and, in all probability, would have died in its sleep – IF Zionism had not been allowed by the major powers, first Britain and then America, to have its way, as Balfour put it “right or wrong”.

In that light I say there is every reason to believe that the Jews of the Western world will remain safe and secure if they demonstrate by divorcing Zionism they are not complicit, even by default, in its crimes.

Putin Calls Out Obama On A Big Lie

Eric Zuesse

“In 2009, US President Obama said that the missile defense only serves as protection from Iranian nuclear missiles. But now there is an international treaty with Iran that bans Tehran from developing a potential military nuclear project. The International Atomic Energy Agency is controlling this, the sanctions against Iran are lifted – but still the US are working on their missile defense system. Only recently a treaty with Spain was signed, a deployment in Romania is being prepared, the same will happen in Poland in 2018, and in Turkey, a radar unit is being installed.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that in an interview with Germany's Das Bild, published on January 11th, but the press has ignored this very serious charge — an accusation of deception, bad faith, outright lying, on the part of the U.S. President. 

So: here is what the record says about that allegation:

Here are links to the complete interview:

Part One, Jan. 11: http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/wladimir-putin/russian-president-vladimir-putin-the-interview-44104378.bild.html

Part Two, Jan. 12: http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/wladimir-putin/russian-president-vladimir-putin-the-interview-44096428.bild.html

Here is the historical record:

On 17 September 2009, the White House issued “Remarks by the President on Strengthening Missile Defense in Europe.” He said there: “This new ballistic missile defense program will best address the threat posed by Iran's ongoing ballistic missile defense program. … Our clear and consistent focus has been the threat posed by Iran's ballistic missile program, and that continues to be our focus and the basis of the program that we're announcing today.”

All the rest of Putin's account is likewise entirely accurate.

U.S. President Barack Obama lied, about a very important matter. The people calling him out on it should be more than just the Russian President. This is an issue — World War III — that affects the entire world. 

There is no issue that's more serious than this. But, where is the press on it?

Only one English-language site carried Bild's English-language translation — the rabidly anti-Russian Business Insider, which was founded by the Wall Street fraudster, Henry Blodgett. Wikipedia says of him: “In 2002, then New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer published Merrill Lynch e-mails in which Blodget gave assessments about stocks which allegedly conflicted with what was publicly published.[6] In 2003, he was charged with civil securities fraud by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.[7] He agreed to a permanent ban from the securities industry and paid a $2 million fine plus a $2 million disgorgement.[2]” His site's headline for this article was “Putin defends Russia's recent aggression, blames US and Europe for rising tensions.” The headline for the same article at Bild  was: “PUTIN — THE INTERVIEW: ‘For me, it is not borders that matter.'” The Blodget site posted five reader-comments to the interview: all were rabidly anti-Putin, such as, “The man is a Machiavellian sociopath. Just what Russia has always had, and probably needs”; nothing was commented about the lie that Putin alleged to have been asserted by Obama. All of them ignored it. 

In other words: There was no press-coverage of the U.S. President's lie. Obama had asserted a globally mega-important lie, which displays Obama's building up toward a war between the United States and Russia, and doing it under the false pretext that the U.S. is preparing for a war against Iran (instead of for a nuclear WW III against what is actually the world's other major nuclear power, Russia — and while constantly demonizing and lying about Russia's leader); Putin called the U.S. President on that single mega-lie, and the press ignored this entire mega-important matter, which could end in global annihilation.

What kind of ‘press' is this? What kind of ‘democracy' is this?

It's even worse than that:

Here is another passage from the interview that Germany's Das Bild  published on January 11th, of Russian President Vladimir Putin:

BILD: In your last interview with BILD, ten years ago, you said that Germany and Russia had never been as close as in 2005. What is left today of this special relationship?

Putin: The mutual sympathy of our peoples is and will remain the foundation of our relations.

BILD: And nothing has changed?

(Before speaking the next sentence, the President starts to sneer.)

Putin: Even with the help of anti-Russian propaganda in the mass media, Germany has not succeeded in damaging this sympathy…

BILD: Do you mean BILD?

Putin: I do not mean you personally. But of course Germany's media are heavily influenced by the country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

BILD: That's news to us.

It's not news to Udo Ulfkotte, who had for decades been a very successful journalist in Germany, working for the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, and other leading media, but recently quit and went public about his having long secretly helped the CIA and worked for them as a regular propagandist against Russia. Ulfkotte said that it was the only way to get ahead in the ‘journalism' profession in Germany. 

He was heavily criticized, at the time, for having given this interview with Russian Television. However, the highly respected political and economic blogger who goes under the name of Tyler Durden, headlined on 9 October 2014, “German Journalist Blows Whistle On How The CIA Controls The Media,” and he explained that there was lots more evidence, from other leading journalists, confirming Ulfkotte's allegations, just not quite so specific to the anti-Russia angle. It seems that the same propaganda operation of which Ulfkotte had once been a part, was now aiming to smear him by means of the operation's other ‘journalists', but his charges can hardly be denied — they're an undeniable part of post WW II history, starting with the Cold War but continuing right into our own time. In fact, the CIA had (and maybe still has) an entire operation codenamed “Mockingbird,” which was proud of its success in controlling virtually all international ‘news' ‘reporting' in the United States and, to a large extent, also in Europe.

There was even a case in which a soaring news-reporting star at CNN, who had already won three Emmy Awards, was fired and blacklisted for having reported that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were sending tanks and troops into Bahrain slaughtering peaceful Shiites who were demonstrating for equal rights with Bahrain's Sunni minority, in that nation where a sectarian fundamentalist-Sunni royal family rule the country. Unlike in Syria, where a non-sectarian and anti-fundamentalist Shiite leader, Bashar al-Assad, rules (and enjoys majority support from his nation's majority-Sunni public), and where the U.S. President, Barack Obama had been planning his overthrow from the moment when Obama had become President in 2009, these demonstrators against Bahrain's royal family were actually spontaneous, and the United States and its Saudi royal family ally were determined to crush it. But this CNN reporter simply refused to cover up and sugar-coat the ugly reality, that the U.S. were working with the Sauds to crush incipient democracy in Bahrain. So, she was fired and blacklisted for that. No matter how terrific a reporter she was, and even despite her being also the prettiest news reporter on television, and the one that her professional colleagues expected to have a stellar future, she couldn't even get a job in the field afterwards, because she had refused to deceive when and as required to, and that's the cardinal sin in ‘journalism,' in what American PR calls ‘the Free World' — as if, after the end of communism in Russia, any basic sense still remains to that now-lying phrase, other than to serve as a basis for the secret war that the United States has continued against Russia after the end of communism there.

Could it really be that the ‘reporters' for Bild  don't know the score, as they were pretending?

To judge by their ‘reporting' (so biased there as to ignore the reality to which the facts that they were reporting were responses, reacting to — especially Putin's reacting against Obama's overthrow of the Russia-friendly democratically elected President of Ukraine in February 2014 and against Obama's ethnic-cleansing to get rid of the people in the area of Ukraine that had voted more than 90% for him), they know it all too well.

They know the reality; only their readers don't — and, apparently, won't.

Obama's entire case against Russia, and especially his cases regarding Ukraine and regarding Syria, are lies, but they're ceaselessly spread throughout the West. On January 17th, at the final Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Debate before voting starts in the Presidential primaries, even the least-hostile-to-Russia candidate in both of America's political parties, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, started from the assumption of Obama's lies as being truths. For example, he said, “And we all know, no argument, the secretary [former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the leading candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination] is absolutely right, Assad is a butcher of his own people, man using chemical weapons against his own people. This is beyond disgusting.” But actually, Obama, and his then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and the Saudi King, and President Erdogan of Turkey, and Emir Thani of Qatar, had organized that sarin gas attack so as to make it seem to have come from Assad's forces, in order to provide an excuse for the U.S. to bomb Syria to remove Assad from power. An MIT study of the evidence concluded “The US Government's Interpretation of the Technical Intelligence It Gathered Prior to and After the August 21 Attack CANNOT POSSIBLY BE CORRECT.” (Their emphasis.) Is it possible that even Senator Sanders didn't know that? Or was even he  lying?

Anyone who doubts that the claim to be ‘democratic' ‘news' media in a ‘democracy,' is such a hoax, needs to see this (and especially its pie-chart at 18:20 on that video), from the brilliant Sibel Edmonds, explaining how profoundly corrupt it actually is, so that one can understand how the current reality really works.

What kind of ‘democracy' is this?

US blizzard: At least 27 dead, hundreds of thousands without power

Nick Barrickman & Eric London

A strong winter storm system (named “Winter Storm Jonas”) moved through the eastern United States over the weekend, burying major cities and towns from the Carolinas to New York under record-setting amounts of snow. So far, 27 people have been confirmed dead from car crashes, hypothermia and other tragedies that would have been prevented had there been fully funded safety response programs and a safe transportation infrastructure.

As in Flint, Michigan with its lead-poisoned water, people are killed because the social needs of the population are entirely subordinated to the corporate drive for profit.

Eighty million people were impacted by the storm, roughly one quarter of the population of the US. The mid-Atlantic and southern Appalachian states of Virginia, West Virginia and Maryland were hit the hardest, with some areas reporting three feet or more of snow. The coastlines in New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia were battered by hurricane-force winds, causing significant flooding and power outages. In New Jersey and the Carolinas, over 190,000 homes reported power outages. Thousands remained without electricity on Sunday. Tens of thousands of flights were canceled and thousands of car crashes were reported from state to state.

Governors in 11 states declared states of emergency, while major highway closures and travel bans were put in place. Preparations were largely limited to police measures as practically all transit was brought to a halt. In New York City, police officials warned motorists to “Stay off the road… We don’t want to have to arrest you.” Similar warnings were given in Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia. In Virginia, Democratic Governor Terry McAuliffe ordered the mobilization of 700 members of the US National Guard.

In a country that is supposedly the most advanced in the world, the ability of storms to bring life to a standstill for a vast portion of the country is an indictment of an economic system devoid of any rational planning. Despite the fact that storms are common features of life (increasingly so today due to climate change), the ruling class has neglected basic infrastructure and disaster planning to such a degree that dozens of preventable deaths occur each time a major storm hits.

Many of those who were killed in the most recent storm were workers attempting to drive to or from work. One Kentucky transportation worker was found keeled over in his snowplow after likely freezing to death while seeking to clear the roads.

A Greenville South Carolina couple died in their homes after suffocating from carbon monoxide. The couple, 87-year-old Robert Bell and his 86-year-old wife Ruby, lived through the Great Depression and World War Two but died after losing power during the storm. They had set up a generator in the garage, and although they left the door open to protect themselves, the door closed during the night likely due to wind or snow.

A 23-year-old New Jersey mother and her one-year-old son died of carbon monoxide poisoning while sitting in a car they had left running to stay warm. The tailpipe became blocked with snow, and when the car was discovered by the woman’s husband, he found that only his 3-year-old daughter was alive. She remains in “very critical condition.”

The death toll likely does not take into consideration unaccounted-for homeless people, despite efforts by charities to shield the homeless from the storm. In New York City, more than 3,300 of the city’s homeless population of 60,000 are not able to find spots in the city’s shelters. In Philadelphia, there are roughly 4,000 homeless people on a given night, only some of whom are able to find spaces in shelters. Homelessness in the state of Massachusetts rose 40 percent between 2007 and 2014, while funding for homeless families fell by 6 percent in the same period.

For the most part, the wealthy do not suffer from these catastrophes, though they were inconvenienced by the most recent storm. The New York Times published an article yesterday lamenting how theatergoers were disappointed because the storm prevented them from seeing a $1,000-a-ticket Broadway show.

“For the 2,600 people who had tickets to the Saturday matinee and evening performances of ‘Hamilton,’ the cancellations were a particularly low blow,” the Times wrote. The investment website Bloomberg reported pleasantly that “stock, bond, and commodities markets in New York are planning to operate on regular schedules Monday.”

Though storms may be natural phenomena, the death tolls are almost entirely manmade. In the United States, a neglected, crumbling infrastructure is to blame. The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the US a “D+” in infrastructure in its 2013 report card.

1,836 people died in Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and another 195 were killed during Hurricane Ike three years later. 285 perished in Hurricane Sandy, which passed through the East Coast in 2012. Blizzards are also commonly deadly in North America. In 2010, the North American Blizzard left 41 dead—28 in Mexico and 13 in the US. The “Storm of the Century” led to the deaths of over 350 in the Eastern United States in 1993, with the Blizzard of 1996 killing over 150 people in the same part of the country.

Yet despite the regular occurrence of storms, nothing is done to prepare major American cities for their inevitable impact.

In October, the US House passed a bill that would slash $20 million from the Federal Transit Administration. In particular, the bill targeted transportation funding to public transit in “high density” states across the mid-Atlantic. From 2010 to 2012, Congress slashed funding for Federal Emergency Management Agency preparedness grants in half—from $3.05 billion to $1.35 billion. From 2003 to 2014, spending on transportation and water infrastructure has decreased by 4 percent as a share of GDP, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Spending by the federal government on transportation and water infrastructure declined by 19 percent over the same period.

State governments have also slashed their funding for transportation as well. Republican presidential candidate and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, whose administration slashed $175 million from his state’s transportation budget in Fiscal Year 2015, sought to transform the blizzard into an election promotion, declaring “What you see in New Jersey today are results… And that’s why the people of the United States should strongly consider supporting me for president of the United States, because when the chips are down, I deliver.”

The ruling class’s funding priorities reveal their parasitic social character. Earlier this month, the US Navy announced that over $80 billion would be spent upgrading its nuclear submarine fleet.

Global slowdown to deepen attacks on jobs

Nick Beams

Global share markets recovered some of their losses at the end of last week, staging a partial recovery from the slide that saw as much as 20 percent wiped off asset values in the first three weeks of the year.

However, the uptick does not indicate any confidence in the state of the world economy as it took place largely on the back of a pledge by European Central Bank president Mario Draghi that the bank was set to inject still more cash into financial markets.

Last Thursday Draghi indicated that the ECB would extend its quantitative easing policy when it meets in March, declaring in the face of the slowdown in China and falling oil prices that the ECB had “the power, the willingness, the determination to act and ... there are no limits to our action.” Markets lifted in response to his comments after being hit by their worst opening for a new year in history.

But the underlying trend in the global economy is slowing growth, outright recession, and major attacks on jobs coupled with the danger of financial turbulence, especially in highly-indebted emerging markets.

In its annual survey of employment, issued last week, the Geneva-based International Labour Organisation (ILO) warned that global unemployment was set to rise over the next two years.

“The significant slowdown in emerging markets coupled with a sharp decline in commodity prices is having a dramatic effect on the world of work,” the ILO director-general Guy Ryder said in issuing the report.

The ILO said total global unemployment stood at 197.1 million in 2015—27 million higher than the pre-crisis level in 2007. It could be expected to rise by nearly 2.3 million in 2016 and by a further 1.1 million in 2017. In other words, almost a decade after the onset of the global financial crisis, unemployment will still be on the increase.

The unemployment figures themselves significantly understate the true situation because so-called “vulnerable employment,” involving a self-employed worker, often with the non-paid contribution of his or her family, accounted for more than 46 percent of total global employment, or almost 1.5 billion people.

The ILO said that while the number of unemployed people in developed economies was expected to decline slightly it would remain close to historical peaks in a number of European countries. And where there has been a decline in jobless numbers it is often due to continuing or rising underemployment, with a rise in temporary or part-time work.

It estimated that the world economy expanded by 3.1 percent in 2015, half a percentage point lower that had been projected a year earlier, and if current policies were continued “the outlook is for continued weakening, posing significant challenges to enterprises and workers.” Over the next two years the world economy was expected to grow by around 3 percent per annum, “significantly less than before the advent of the global crisis.”

The report was something of a warning to the global ruling elites. Calling for a shift in economic and employment policies, it said that in emerging economies the rise of the middle class had slowed down and there were “renewed risks of social unrest associated with slower growth.” In the developed countries, it noted that the Gini index, measuring inequality, had “risen significantly in most G20 countries,” with top incomes continuing to rise and the bottom 40 percent of households falling further behind. The incidence of what it called “working poverty” was also on the rise in Europe.

However, there is no prospect of the ILO’s call for a “shift” in current to policies to be met. On the contrary, every report issued by the International Monetary Fund, the OECD and other major economic and financial organisations emphasises the need for further “structural reforms” in the labour market—that is, attacks on employment conditions and job security.

The worsening global economic outlook is being translated into a wave of job cuts in energy-based and mining industries, in banking and finance, and heavy industries such as steel. Last week Schlumberger, the world’s largest oilfields services company announced it was to cut a further 10,000 jobs, bringing to 34,000 the number of jobs it has cut since November 2104, or 26 percent of its workforce.

On Friday the credit rating agency Moody’s listed 175 energy and mining companies as being at risk of a credit downgrade, including major global firms Royal Dutch Shell, Total and the gas producer Chesapeake Energy. The notice was the largest single warning of a potential credit downgrade since the financial crisis. It said the slowdown in China was responsible for the gloomy outlook and warned that there was a “substantial risk” that oil prices would recover only slowly from their 12-year lows of less than $30 per barrel. And even with a “modest recovery” producing companies would experience much lower cash flows.

In another warning as to the state of the oil industry, the value of high-yielding or junk bond debt issued by US energy companies has fallen to its lowest point in two decades. The Financial Times reported that investors were bracing for a “wave of bankruptcies” as companies which took out loans in the shale oil industry when the price was over $100 per barrel are struggling under a weight of debt.

Debt problems are not confined to particular industries but extend to whole economies. The level of stressed debt—defined as bonds which are trading at yields of between 7 and 10 percentage points above comparable US treasury bonds—has passed the peak reached during the 2008 global financial crisis.

The combined level of stressed and distressed debt, those bonds where yields are more than 10 percentage points above comparable US treasuries, reached $221 billion this month, compared to the previous record level of $213 billion in December 2008.

While the absolute level of stressed and distressed debt is higher than seven years ago it is has fallen as a share of the total because of the increase in emerging market corporate debt over the past seven years. But there are fears that this will not count for much if there is a rush for the exits and markets suddenly become illiquid with few buyers to be found. Earlier this month the Institute for International Finance said that the capital outflow from China and other emerging markets was $759 billion last year, significantly more than had been previously estimated.

While its proportion of total output has declined, the US economy remains decisive for the world economy as a whole. And here the trends are pointing down. Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded its risk of the US entering a recession from 15 to 20 percent and warned of “the lack of policy ammunition to deal with a shock.”

The bank’s economists said they did not think the economy would plunge as in 2008-9 but cut their estimate for US growth to 2.1 percent from 2.5 percent. While the full statistical picture has yet to emerge, it appears that the US economy slowed down significantly in the last three months of 2015, with areas of manufacturing experiencing a contraction. If these trends continue they will have a major impact on the world economy as a whole.

CSIS report: A blueprint for US war with China

Peter Symonds

A major new report by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) has laid out detailed plans for the Pentagon’s preparations for war in Asia. The report, entitled “Asia-Pacific Rebalance 2025: Capabilities, Presence, and Partnerships,” examines the range of threats to US dominance in Asia, but there is no doubt that its chief preoccupation and target is China.

The CSIS document, released last week, has a semi-official status. It was commissioned by the US Department of Defence at the instigation of Congress under the 2015 National Defence Authorisation Act. The report is a follow-up to a similar CSIS study conducted for the Pentagon in 2012 following President Obama’s formal announcement of the “pivot” or “rebalance” to Asia in November 2011.

Since 2012, last week’s report declares, “the international security environment has become significantly more complicated. China has accelerated the frequency of its coercive activities and the pace of its island building in the East and South China Seas.” After noting that US military interventions in Eastern Europe against Russia and in the Middle East have “competed with the Asia Pacific for attention and resources,” it stresses the importance of countering China. “Militarily, the Pacific Command has fully embraced the rebalance, but the [Chinese] anti-access challenge is worsening and China’s tolerance for risk has exceeded most expectations,” it states.

The very terms used in the report are designed to present China as an aggressive, expansionist power and obscure the dramatic US military build-up throughout the Indo-Pacific over the past three years as part of the pivot. The phrase “China’s tolerance of risk” really means China’s failure to bow to sustained US pressure and provocations in the region and accept Washington’s demands.

The Pentagon’s overall strategy for war against China, known as AirSea Battle, involves massive air and missile strikes on the Chinese mainland aimed at destroying key military assets, bases and infrastructure, as well as disrupting the country’s communications, economy and political leadership. It also involves an economic blockade of the country by cutting off shipping lanes, particularly those bringing vital supplies of energy and raw materials from the Middle East and Africa via the Indian Ocean and South East Asia.

These operations are premised on US control of the air and seas near the Chinese mainland from US military bases in South Korea, Japan, Guam and Australia, as well as the ability to launch strikes from aircraft carriers and submarines. The report’s summary of the current US force posture in the Asia-Pacific underscores these aims:

“Current US capabilities resident or routinely deployed in the Asia-Pacific include power projection from carrier strike groups, strategic bombers, and guided-missile submarines; ballistic missile defence from a network of installations and platforms in Japan, Korea, Guam, and forward-deployed Aegis-equipped navy ships; anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capability resident in ships, submarines, and patrol aircraft operating throughout the Asia-Pacific theatre; air superiority from fourth- and fifth-generation fighters deployed to Japan and Korea; and ISR [Intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] capabilities from space-based to tactical systems to provide early warning and support to warfighters.”

If China were to “forward-deploy” military forces on this scale permanently to waters off the Californian coast and openly discuss plans to annihilate forces on the American mainland, it is not difficult to imagine the belligerent and aggressive US response. Yet that is exactly what Washington is doing in the Western Pacific and more broadly in Asia.

Not surprisingly, Beijing is seeking the means to counter the US threat through what is referred to as “anti-access/area denial” or A2/AD—that is, the military capacity to restrict or deny access to US naval and air forces to sensitive waters off the Chinese mainland and to attack US bases, particularly in South Korea and Japan. The CSIS report reflects concerns in the Pentagon that China might be able to disrupt US plans to devastate Chinese bases and cities and “at the current rate of US capability development, the balance of military power in the region is shifting against the United States.”

After assessing the potential threats, primarily from China, as well as Russia and North Korea, the report bluntly declares: “We reject the option of withdrawal from the Western Pacific because of these new challenges. Such a withdrawal would lead to rapid deterioration of the security environment and render operations more difficult rather than easier.”

The 275-page CSIS study is devoted to a detailed and comprehensive analysis of what is required to speed up the US military build-up in Asia, to ensure maximum military support from regional allies and strategic partners, and to research and build new weapons systems to neutralise Chinese defence capacities.

The report is nothing less than a master plan for an accelerating arms race in Asia in preparation for a conflict that would inevitably draw in the entire region and the world. It is critical of the Obama administration for failing to articulate “a clear, coherent or consistent strategy for the region, particularly when it comes to managing China’s rise,” and for making cuts to the defence budget that have “limited the Defence Department’s ability to pursue the rebalance.”

One element of the CSIS’s solution to the budgetary difficulties is to place new demands on other countries. The study examines in detail and in turn the role that each of the US allies and partners would be required to play, as well as the necessary expansion of their military forces and facilities. While focusing considerable attention on Japan, South Korea and Australia, it appraises a long list of countries, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, as well as the potential for political resistance and opposition to US plans. Its recommendations include mechanisms to ensure the interoperability and integration of the various military forces into a US-led conflict against China.

At the same time, the CSIS study foreshadows a huge expansion of US military spending, involving trillions of dollars, to fund its recommendations. These recommendations include:

* Restructuring and consolidating US military forces in Japan and South Korea, including the completion of new bases, a major extension of military facilities on Guam, and the expansion of the American Marine, air and naval presence in Australia.

* Stationing a second aircraft carrier strike group to complement one already permanently stationed in Japan, as well as “additional surface force presence,” such as Littoral Combat Ships, four of which are due to be stationed in Singapore.

* Improving “undersea capacity,” such as the “near-term” stationing of two additional nuclear attack submarines in Guam and the future basing of advanced Virginia class nuclear submarines elsewhere in the region, including at Stirling naval base in Western Australia and the Indian Ocean base of Diego Garcia.

* Expanding and reorganising the US Marine and Army forces throughout the region.

* Diversifying air bases to counter potential Chinese attacks, including to “the Philippines, Australia and others.”

* Boosting anti-missile systems throughout the region to neutralise China’s ability to respond to a US attack—nuclear or non-nuclear.

* Stockpiling “critical precision munitions” in secure locations to ensure the US military’s ability to engage in “large-scale and high-intensity conflicts.”

* Undertaking major research aimed at countering any potential Chinese military response to US attack, such as a new generation of advanced, long range anti-ship, anti-surface and anti-air missiles, and the development of new weapons, including “three promising options”—railgun, directed-energy and upgraded conventional guns. Other projects include a new long range strike bomber, greater payload capacity for nuclear submarines, and augmented space, cyber and electronic warfare capabilities.

The Pentagon’s watchword is that US forces must have the ability to “fight tonight.” In other words, the military must be able to launch a major war against China within hours and sustain it for whatever time is necessary.

The massive expansion of the military budget required for this arms race will necessarily take place at the expense of the working class. This means the gutting of what remains of social programs and infrastructure and the further impoverishment of the working class. Both in the US and in each of its allies and partners, the turn to militarism will only intensify the class struggle. While the CSIS study makes no mention of the political consequences of its proposals, the boosting of the military abroad takes place alongside the build-up of the police-military apparatus, and police-state measures at home aimed against the eruption of social unrest.

Five years of the Egyptian Revolution

Johannes Stern

Five years after the eruption of mass revolutionary struggles in Egypt that led to the ouster of long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak, the counterrevolutionary military junta headed by General Abdel Fatah al-Sisi fears another social explosion.

In the lead-up to today’s anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, the regime intensified its brutal crackdown against workers and youth. According to the Associated Press, police raided 5,000 apartments in downtown Cairo in recent days as a “precautionary measure” to ensure that Egyptians do not return to the streets. Throughout the country, hundreds of thousands of heavily armed security officers, police and soldiers will be deployed.

In a rare show of political insight, the New York Times pointed to the underlying social conditions that once again threaten to drive the Egyptian masses into struggle. “The sense of panic has been attributed to concerns that the public is losing patience with the government amid high unemployment, rising prices and a persistent militant insurgency that, among other things, has devastated Egypt’s tourism industry,” the newspaper wrote.

It added: “But those factors alone were not sufficient to explain the overheated response… From the perspective of the security services, the date—Jan. 25—was itself a danger, as a reminder of their catastrophic, if momentary, loss of control.”

Al-Sisi, a US-trained general and former head of Mubarak’s military intelligence service, has ruled Egypt with an iron fist since he took power in a bloody coup against the elected president, Mohamed Mursi, and the Muslim Brotherhood in July 2013. On Saturday, he delivered a threatening speech at the police academy in Cairo. Marking Egypt’s National Police Day, al-Sisi hailed the security forces that have been killing and torturing people by the thousands, and asked “all Egyptians, for the sake of the martyrs and the blood, to take care of their country.”

Obviously shaken by the events in Tunisia, where renewed mass protests erupted last week and a nationwide state of emergency was declared on Friday, al-Sisi issued the very same threat to the Tunisian masses, who had toppled Tunisian autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali only weeks before Mubarak’s ouster in February of 2011. “I do not mean to interfere in the internal affairs of our neighbouring country Tunisia,” he declared, “but I call on all Tunisians to take care of their country.”

According to the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, the dictator also warned that “the economic situation all over the world is ‘deteriorating’ and that no nation could endure any more unrest.”

Al-Sisi and his bloody regime are terrorizing all opposition and seeking to rewrite the history of the Egyptian revolution. The Egyptian state media are portraying the revolution as a foreign plot aimed at undermining and destabilizing the great Egyptian nation. Nevertheless, the memory of the historic 18-day uprising that inspired workers and youth all over the world will not be erased so easily.

The Egyptian Revolution, following the mass upheaval in Tunisia, represented without question the resurgence of revolutionary struggle. It was a harbinger of growing struggles by the working class internationally. In its immediate aftermath, workers and youth around the world—including workers in Wisconsin who carried signs with the slogan “Walk Like an Egyptian” in protests against the hated governor Scott “Hosni” Walker—were stirred by the monumental struggles in Egypt.

On January 25, 2011, tens of thousands for the first time took to the streets in Cairo and other important cities such as Suez. Despite ruthless repression by the US-backed dictatorship, even more turned out on January 28, the so-called “Friday of Anger,” to engage in pitched battles against Mubarak’s notorious antiriot police. In the ensuing days, millions took to streets all over Egypt. Cairo’s Tahrir Square was occupied and became the symbol of the Egyptian Revolution.

As always in a revolution, the efforts of the besieged regime to intimidate protesters only sparked greater resistance. Following the infamous “Battle of the Camels” on February 2, when Mubarak’s thugs attacked workers and youth on Tahrir Square, ever greater numbers of people entered the square to defy the dictator, whom the imperialist powers sought to defend till the last.

As dramatic as the events on Tahrir Square were, even more important was the intervention of the working class, which dealt the final blow to Mubarak on February 11. The wave of strikes and occupations sweeping factories all across Egypt both before and after Mubarak’s ouster had been prepared over many years by the Egyptian working class.

Especially after 2005, strikes and protests had increased dramatically. What began on January 25 was in many respects the culmination of a long period of anger and resistance building up among Egyptian workers against social cuts, privatizations and the looting of state funds by a criminal and corrupt ruling elite.

In the wake of Mubarak’s ouster, the working class emerged even more powerfully as the decisive revolutionary force. In the days immediately following the fall of the dictator, there were between 40 and 60 strikes per day, and in February 2011 alone there were as many strikes as during all of 2010.

Strike action continued to escalate in the ensuing years despite the repressive measures adopted by the regime. According to a report by the Egyptian Centre for Social and Economic Rights (ECESR), 3,817 strikes and social protests took place in 2012, a higher figure than all the protests recorded by the ECESR between 2000 and 2010. From January to May 2013, the Egyptian Centre for International Development counted 5,544 strikes and social protests.

After 30 years of the Washington-backed Mubarak dictatorship, this represented an immensely significant upsurge of the working class with vast international repercussions. However, from the start of the revolution, the basic problem of the Egyptian working class was and remained the absence of political leadership.

The day before Mubarak’s ouster, the chairman of the World Socialist Web Site International Editorial Board, David North, warned in a Perspective column that “the greatest danger confronting Egyptian workers is that, after providing the essential social force to wrest power from the hands of an aging dictator, nothing of political substance will change except the names and faces of some of the leading personnel.”

The article continued: “In other words, the capitalist state will remain intact. Political power and control over economic life will remain in the hands of the Egyptian capitalists, backed by the military, and their imperialist overlords in Europe and North America. Promises of democracy and social reform will be repudiated at the first opportunity, and a new regime of savage repression will be instituted.

“These dangers are not exaggerated. The entire history of revolutionary struggle in the Twentieth Century proves that the struggle for democracy and for the liberation of countries oppressed by imperialism can be achieved, as Leon Trotsky insisted in his theory of permanent revolution, only by the conquest of power by the working class on the basis of an internationalist and socialist program.”

The basic problem of the Egyptian Revolution was to establish the political independence of the working class from all of the different bourgeois forces. That meant overcoming illusions in the supposedly “progressive” character of the military led by Mubarak’s generals and rejecting any adaptation to the bourgeois Muslim Brotherhood or so-called “liberal” bourgeois movements such as Mohamed El Baradei’s National Association for Change.

In this situation, the petty-bourgeois pseudo-left played a sinister and thoroughly reactionary role. It is beyond the scope of this commentary to analyse in detail all the twists and turns in the policies of the Revolutionary Socialists (RS) grouping and similar outfits, which never represented anything more than the outlook of reactionary and affluent middle-class layers and the machinations of the US State Department.

Initially, the RS claimed that the SCAF military junta led by Tantawi, which replaced Mubarak, would grant social and democratic reforms to the Egyptian workers. Then, as working class opposition to the military mounted throughout 2011, the RS promoted the Muslim Brotherhood as “the right wing of the revolution,” and in 2012 hailed Mursi’s election as “a victory for the revolution.”

When working-class opposition to Mursi and the Muslim Brotherhood rose in 2013, the RS promoted the pro-military Tamarod campaign as “a road to complete the revolution.” It thus helped pave the way for the July 3, 2013 military coup (which the RS initially welcomed as a “second revolution”) and the counterrevolutionary terror that has gripped Egypt ever since. Now, driven by the fear that the junta’s repression could spark a new revolutionary explosion in the working class, the RS is seeking to renew its alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood.

With the emergence of new stirrings of working-class opposition both in Egypt and internationally, basic lessons have to be learned. The fundamental question is the building of a revolutionary party on the basis of Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution. Only on this basis can the unequivocal political independence of the working class from the bourgeoisie and its allies in the middle class be established and an internationalist socialist program elaborated. The International Committee of the Fourth International sees as one of its fundamental tasks in the coming period the construction of such a party, as a section of the international movement, in Egypt.

Wave of youth suicides in Oklahoma town

Naomi Spencer

Four young people have killed themselves in the small town of Anadarko, Oklahoma in the past two months. Ranging in age from 22 to just 11 years old, all took their lives with guns.

“It has brought us to our knees,” Anadarko Police Chief Jason Smith told the media. “They’ve been violent and they’ve really shook the community to the core.”

The first was Jaidon DuBois, a 16-year-old sophomore at Anadarko High School. His father, who spoke to local television station News 9, said his son was being treated for depression and was meeting with a counselor, but suffered from “an inner depression that he just could not overcome.”

The suicides of a 21-year-old and a 22-year-old followed. On January 19, an 11-year-old boy killed himself.

On January 20, police took a child into custody at the school because staff thought he was trying to harm himself.

“It’s been difficult for my police department and my firefighters who are the ones who have to arrive on the scene,” Anadarko city manager Kenneth Corn told news station Fox 25. “To see an 11-year-old is very difficult.”

There are no obvious connections between the tragedies. “If we could put it under a category, like bullying, we’d put our resources toward addressing bullying,” Smith said. “That’s the problem right now. There are so many causes. Suicide is a feeling of helplessness and that there’s nothing you feel you can do about it.”

Smith added that while the police were investigating the spate of suicides, “it’s not so easy to put a finger on it and say ‘this person was bullied.’ It is just not that easy.”

Town officials have sought to prevent further suicides, opening training centers and “care stations” with assistance from the state’s Department of Mental Health. City manager Corn told the media that many young people grew up in the area suffering a sense of hopelessness. “We have a lot of young people here who feel they don’t have any hope. We need to make sure that they know we’re here and we care about them and we want to help them.”

“I knew every single one of them,” former educator and pastor Lynn Bellamy told the media. “I taught every single one of them or I was their principal and all of them are loved and they didn’t have to choose the course.”

“Just seems to be like it’s spreading and kids are feeling like this is a way to make it better,” Bellamy said. “You have young people who are hurt and they feel hopeless, helpless, but there are people who love them.”

What is the social context of these tragedies?

Anadarko is a town of 6,700 about an hour south of Oklahoma City. Half the population is American Indian, according to the Census Bureau, and more than one in three residents live in poverty. Per capita income for 2014 stood at $14,500.

In many respects, Anadarko is a typical town in rural America. Unemployment, drug addiction, poor health and lack of medical care—and all other manner of isolation and brutality are rife. Good-paying jobs are scarce, and working families struggle to survive.

Young people have few economic or social options. In small towns and rural areas across the country, the population is aging as youth leave to pursue educational and job opportunities in urban centers.

All of America is beset with the impact of a deep social inequality and decades of attacks on the living conditions of the working class.

In fact, a leading factor in suicides internationally is the economic crisis, and particularly lack of job prospects and unemployment. From New Zealand, to China, to Italy, suicides express a sickness of the social order, which considers huge numbers of people unnecessary and expendable to the capitalist system. Young people just entering the job market or education are forced into desperate, alienating situations, and the most vulnerable sometimes see no way out but through death.

In the United States, the political establishment has long declared a state of economic recovery. Meanwhile, living conditions have worsened precipitously, especially for youth. An individual’s educational opportunities are predicated on tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. Basic medical care is out of reach, and mental health care resources are woefully scarce. Millions of people are living one car breakdown or medical emergency away from financial ruin. Youth unemployment is pervasive and long-term, resulting in a growing section of the population that is socially unattached.

Ignorance, crime, addiction, mental illness, homelessness, disease, hunger … all are inevitable consequences of such a state of affairs. Among young people, drug overdoses have driven a drastic rise in mortality rates, particularly in the period of the so-called recovery after 2010.

Like these other indices of social breakdown, youth suicides have also risen dramatically in the past decade and a half. For young whites, the suicide rate has risen from 15 per 100,000 in 1999 to 19.5 in 2014.

Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the US. In 2013, 41,149 Americans took their own lives.

The Centers for Disease Control keeps no complete count of suicide attempts, but CDC-aggregated hospital data indicates that Americans made a staggering 836,000 visits to a hospital emergency room for “injuries due to self-harm behavior.” This suggests that for every suicide in the US, 19 other people may be considering taking their own lives.