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      Understanding Racism in All Its Forms

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      Twenty years ago, Amnesty International’s “Racism and the Administration of Justice” report warned that “unchecked racism can lead to tragedy on a massive scale.” Last week, as we remembered George Floyd and pondered over the meaning of his death a year ago, another aspect of unchecked racism resurfaced. On May 21, just as a cautious ceasefire was beginning thousands of miles away between Israel and Hamas, Joseph Borgen, a Jewish man reportedly on his way to a pro-Israel rally in Manhattan, was attacked by demonstrators attending a pro-Palestine rally, one of whom has since been charged with a hate crime.

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      The day after the attack, Borgen was interviewed by CNN anchor Don Lemon, where he said that he wanted to understand what made those who attacked him “act the way they did.” Prejudice, of course, comes in all shapes and sizes, all colors and cultures — as does violence. But the linchpin to unpacking the absurdity of this attack, of Muslim-on-Jew hate or Jew-on-Muslim hate, is understanding anti-Semitism and, through the drivers of that phenomenon, Islamophobia.

      Familiarity Breeds Contempt

      This attack, despicable as it was, should not surprise us given our understanding — or lack of it — of anti-Semitism, described as that “very light sleeper,” so easy to awaken. Such attacks are privileged acts of hate because the attackers consider their own particular cause to be exceptional and thus far from racist. Whether you are Jewish or Muslim, Arab or Israeli, the internet is a particularly convenient place to find vindication for what you think is the “truth.” 

      Embed from Getty Images

      What we encounter online is a cacophony of privileged hatreds. Jeremy Rosen wrote in his blog recently that, “In the age of social media and mass communication, so many people only believe one propagandist side of the argument and make no effort to hear another point of view.” He writes of how this saddens him in the same way that jihadism has given Islam a bad name “when it is only the most primitive, insecure, and misled who think that way.” But as he rightly states, “these are the tools of the prejudiced.”

      When otherwise peaceful demonstrations manifest themselves in brutal attacks by individuals, verbal or physical, on a perceived “other,” it is racism, pure and simple. But when the perpetrators of such acts are themselves from minority communities, it kowtows to only one agenda — that of white supremacy — which has no sympathy with any of them. The murder of George Floyd and the ensuing public awakening among so many diverse communities — of color, of faith, of culture, of economic disparity, of difference — should be a cue for communities everywhere to reexamine their own attitudes and get their priorities right.

      In relation to Jews and Muslims, a navel-gazing complacency has largely ignored the bigger picture, which is the fight against systemic, institutional or structural racism. The murder of George Floyd and the subsequent Black Lives Matter protests have reminded the world that all people of good conscience should be focused on this type of discrimination. However, the Middle East question continues to revolve around, perhaps fatalistically, over the relationship between Arabs and Israelis, Muslims and Jews, to the detriment of those communities themselves as well as that greater struggle for minorities — combating discrimination and all forms of racism within the societies they actually inhabit.

      Common Ground

      Can Jews and Muslims find common ground from the example of what the killing of George Floyd has taught us? It isn’t as though they have not had opportunities to focus on a more nuanced understanding of each “other.” Attempts in the past to do so have covered art, music, academic enquiry and dialogue. The British composer Roxanna Panufnik’s work, “Abraham,” for instance, is a beautiful musical example of bridge-building between religions that share the essential belief in one God.

      In 2008, “The Call for Peace, Dialogue and Understanding between Muslims and Jews,” an open letter with 40 Muslim signatories, highlighted how, “although many … only know of Muslim-Jewish relations through the prism of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there needs to be an awareness of other positive encounters at different stages of our history.”

      In 2004, I co-convened a remarkable initiative called Alif-Aleph with Dr. Richard Stone, a former chair of the UK-based Runnymede Commission on Islamophobia. The manifesto of that initiative remains relevant and ought to be revived in the context of George Floyd’s wider legacy. The initiative ambitiously aimed to create a new golden age in which Muslims and Jews in the diaspora would spread the example of working together to other communities, building on their mutually positive contributions to society. Living side by side in the West is a new situation that provides new opportunities.

      In practice, the initiative explored a unified purpose in addressing racism. Underlining it was “a common experience of having to address hostilities that derive from mistaken stereotypes of our religions and our cultures, leading to Islamophobia and Antisemitism.” It declared that those who wish to promote negative stereotypes of Muslims and Jews as people who hate each other will be recognized as extremists, because “What the world needs are Harmonisers, not Polarisers.”

      Violently attacking and verbally abusing an innocent person because of how you perceive a particular truth makes you anathema to that truth, makes you a hypocrite, a hater and a racist. It makes you as unjust as those you are trying to expose.

      So what made the attackers “act the way they did”? Don Lemon probably answered that question on his show when he earlier told fellow CNN host Chris Cuomo that “the issue is for people to understand their own implicit bias and racism. … There are different cultures in different places but that doesn’t change … what racism is.” That is the lesson the jury heard when convicting the racist killer of George Floyd. That is the lesson Jews and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis must hear in their own search for a meaningful resolution of what divides them.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Why Designating the Azov Movement as an FTO Is Ineffective

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      In early April, a member of the US Congress, Elissa Slotkin, sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking that 13 radical-right extremist groups and movements be officially designated as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) in the United States. This designation would, in theory, ban any American from providing “material support or resources” to any of these designated organizations, ban foreign members of these groups from entering the US, and freeze funds held in American banks belonging to these groups.

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      Some of the groups on the congressperson’s list are familiar names to any observer of transnational radical-right extremism over the last several years: the Nordic Resistance Movement, Blood and Honour, National Action and what Slotkin, a former CIA employee focused on extremism in the Middle East and North Africa, describes collectively as the “Azov Battalion” in Ukraine. Not surprisingly, as someone who has written extensively about the threat of the radical right in Ukraine, the mention of Azov caught my attention. But it wasn’t for the right reasons, and it shows that, when the radical right is concerned, group designations and proscriptions aren’t always the best policy tool.

      What’s in a Name?

      For one, I’ve seen this play out before. In 2019, another member of US Congress, Max Rose, authored a similar letter demanding that the Azov Battalion be designated as an FTO. Rose’s letter was, ultimately, a complete failure. As I wrote from Ukraine in November 2019, it contained inaccurate information, including the unproven claim that the Christchurch terrorist admitted to training with Azov, and ended up being a propaganda boon to the radical right.

      Slotkin’s letter, fortunately, doesn’t make those kinds of sweeping, evidence-free claims. But it’s not without its major flaws. For one, the letter incorrectly refers to the Azov Battalion. The military unit once known as the Azov Battalion, formed in 2014 to combat Russian-backed insurgents in a still-hot war in eastern Ukraine, has been under the auspices of Ukraine’s National Guard and properly known as the Azov Regiment for years. While referring to it as the “Azov Battalion” could be excusable as something a commentator without experience in Ukraine might mention in passing, it’s not so excusable in an official letter demanding that said organization be designated as a terror group. In particular, how can a group be designated if it can’t even be named and identified correctly?

      Embed from Getty Images

      The accurate descriptor would, of course, be the “Azov Movement.” I’ve described the Azov Movement, which grew out of the original battalion and regiment, as a heterogenous radical-right social movement. At its core, the movement encompasses the regiment itself, the National Corps political party, the Centuria (formerly the National Militia) paramilitary organization as well as a number of affiliated subgroups and initiatives including a book club, youth camps, a “leadership school” and a (temporarily closed) three-story social center just off Kyiv’s central Independence Square.

      It also encompasses organizations and networks that are clearly led by and are made up of members of the movement who appear to function with some degree of independence, often without any stated relationship to the movement and who are more open or extreme in their rhetoric. There are also smaller radical-right organizations that are nominally independent but still appear to have at least some relationship with the movement and who circle around its orbit.

      Superficial Terms

      Slotkin’s letter, on the other hand, describes Azov in superficial terms. The movement is referred to solely as “a well-known militia organization in Ukraine [that] uses the internet to recruit new members and then radicalizes them to use violence to pursue its white identity political agenda,” with one sole reference to a relatively recent January 2021 article. Sure, there’s not enough space in a letter like this to discuss the Azov Movement in considerable detail. But there’s no shortage of material in English on the movement’s activities over the past several years (certainly not just from this author), and, what’s more, it is easily accessible and digestible to anyone who chooses to take a few minutes to read beyond a simple Google search.

      Having even a cursory understanding of what the Azov Movement actually is and how it functions would reveal just how difficult it would be in practice to designate it as an FTO, and, in fact, how difficult it is to proscribe these kinds of movements in practice. Even as the UK has moved to ban the violent neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, reports from Germany suggest that sympathizers are using still-existing networks to rebuild an offshoot of the group there.

      The question then turns to who would be designated as an FTO. Would it be the regiment alone, which is itself a member of Ukraine’s National Guard and thus a member of the country’s armed forces? As counter-extremism expert Kacper Rekawek pointed out last week in a blog post for the Counter Extremism Project, the US would surely never designate an official unit of an American ally’s military, whether one likes it or not.

      Moreover, and to move further into the morass, would the broader movement be proscribed as an FTO, and if so, whom would that include? One could see it encompassing the National Corps and Centuria, but does that include every single affiliated organization, from sports clubs to youth camps? What would be the legal criteria for determining whether an entity is or isn’t part of the movement? And, moreover, which individuals can even be described as being part of the movement? Trying to parse these questions would be a veritable nightmare.

      A Better Way

      Even worse, I can easily imagine how affiliated organizations within the movement would worm their way out of being part of the designation, which exposes a serious flaw with going after the radical right through the means of executive group proscription. Daryl Johnson, an American domestic terrorism expert and former senior analyst with the US Department of Homeland Security, told a journalist in Canada, my home country, that its government’s efforts to ban groups like the Proud Boys were “more of a symbolic gesture,” and that radical-right organizations facing these kinds of bans could simply just change their names and regroup under a new banner.

      Given that, in the Ukrainian context, radical-right organizations and affiliates have a history of changing their names and branding while maintaining the core leadership, one should expect this to continue if an attempt to proscribe the entire movement were to actually happen. If US and Ukraine’s other Western allies are seriously concerned about the Azov Movement — as they should be — there are far more effective means at their disposal than the clumsy if attention-grabbing mechanism of a foreign terrorist organization designation.

      They should consider, for one, designating specific individuals, with specific and justified reasons, instead of broader groups and movements. Visa and travel bans for specific prominent individuals, which would also encourage European allies to extend visa-free Schengen Area restrictions to those same individuals, would also be useful. There is also the option of placing pressure, both public and private, on Ukraine’s government and elements in the Ukrainian state to properly acknowledge and tackle the issue of the violent radical right in their country — pressure that could even include making some international funding and financial support contingent on tackling the problem.

      These would be much more effective starting points for the US or any other Western country worried about the activities of Ukraine’s Azov Movement than any attempted FTO designation.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Is Israel’s Bite as Strong as Its Bark?

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      At the end of April, days before the latest conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians surged into the headlines, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken held a meeting in Washington with two Israelis: the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, and the Israeli ambassador to the United States. The Israelis were seeking to prevent the US from returning to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran from which Donald Trump had unilaterally withdrawn in 2018. 

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      On April 29, Reuters reported that Blinken’s meeting with the two officials “followed talks … between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and his Israeli counterpart in which the Israeli delegation stressed their ‘freedom to operate’ against Iran as they see fit.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Freedom to operate:

      Impunity

      Contextual Note

      Israel believes in its “freedom to operate” as adamantly as some Americans do in their constitutional right to bear arms. It is difficult to understand Israel’s notion essentially of freedom to aggress in any other sense than that of seeing itself as above the law of nations. In one sense, the Israelis are right. There is no international law on the books that enforces compliance. In an era of rising populist nationalism, many leaders are tempted to claim the freedom to operate as a natural right. Only the military and economic might of the US threatens to hold some of them back. Assured of Washington’s support of any of its aggressive actions, Israel believes it has exceptional freedom to operate.

      The Israeli government made it clear in January that it would actively counter any attempt by the new Biden administration to return to the JCPOA. “Reiterating Israel’s position that it does not consider itself bound by the diplomacy, Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen said, ‘A bad deal will send the region spiralling into war,’” Reuters reported. Is this a bluff or a sinister threat? Or both? No one should feel surprised, given Israel’s aptitude to flex its muscles whenever it feels threatened and every US administration’s habit of regularly inclining to Israel’s will.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Every observer of the ongoing drama in the Middle East should be wondering whether it makes any sense at all to be asking such questions. The spiraling war in the Middle East Cohen evokes would not resemble in scale or catastrophic consequences the kind of skirmish that last month’s 11-day conflict over the Israel-Gaza border turned out to be. Iran is a large and powerful oil-producing nation that does not yet possess nuclear weapons but has extensive resources. It has significant potential allies in Asia, including China, though it would be utterly unlikely that in the event of a shooting war between Israel and Iran, China would allow itself to be drawn into a military conflict.

      Israel, of course, has the advantage of being a nuclear power, though no one acknowledges that in official circles. That non-acknowledgment has conveniently spared Israel the duty of taking a position on non-proliferation. As its government refuses, in Cohen’s telling, to be “bound by the diplomacy” while at the same time expecting the United States to support even its most aggressive initiatives taken in the name of self-defense, Israel’s threat of a spiraling war should offer a lot of people cause for concern.

      Most observers believe that everything will depend on the role the US may or may not accept to play if there is an eventual conflict. In its first few months, the Biden administration has, perhaps artfully, disguised its deeper inclinations. At the same time, it has given some people the impression of being rudderless. That has added to the overwhelming uncertainty that makes prognostication about future events in the region a particularly delicate exercise. But given the stakes — according to Israel, a possible third world war — it may be time to address the underlying problems.

      Israel appears to be invoking the logic of MAD (mutually assured destruction) that reigned during the Cold War. But what was true of the US and the Soviet Union is difficult to imagine applying to a state the size of Israel.

      Despite Israel’s belief in its “freedom to operate,” the idea that it could unilaterally start a war with Iran simply because it didn’t like the deal the US agreed to is on its face absurd. It would be tantamount to declaring war on the US simply because the Americans failed to respect Israel’s wishes. This degree of geopolitical absurdity illustrates the specific kind of diplomatic hyperreality Israel has successfully cultivated, thanks in large part to the pattern of accommodation exhibited by every recent US administration.

      Al Jazeera published its own version of the Reuters’ piece from April, reprinting most of its substance before adding some remarks of its own. After expanding its commentary on the various threats and hypotheses, including Cohen’s vision of  “spiralling into war,” it adds this troubling conclusion: “The source declined to say how Blinken and his aides responded.” As with so many of President Joe Biden’s real intentions, on both domestic and foreign policy, and his capacity to deliver on promises and commitment, the pundits for the moment are condemned to wait and see. 

      Historical Note

      Despite the current vacuum of power in Israel itself, likely to be provisionally resolved by a new coalition government, all of the nation’s current and future leaders — including the military — are opposed to the idea of the US revitalizing the JCPOA. But does Israel still have the clout to influence US policy? Donald Trump solidified the belief among the Israelis that the US is capable of betraying its own interests to please Israel. It played the same game reasonably successfully with Barack Obama, who consistently vowed to defend Israel’s interests. But it couldn’t prevent Obama from promoting and signing the JCPOA in 2015.

      Just before leaving office, Obama broke with another tradition by abstaining from using the US veto on a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding a halt to Israeli’s construction of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. To counterbalance the effect of the affront, two months earlier, the lame duck president signed off on a historic and astonishingly generous promise of military aid for Israel to the tune of $38 billion over 10 years.

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      Daniel Sonnenfeld, writing for The Media Line, an American website specialized in coverage of the Middle East, offers his update on the state of negotiations around a revitalized JCPOA. “While all the signatories have expressed their desire to see the deal revived, American allies in the Middle East have voiced concerns about this intention. Most notable is Israel, which opposed the deal strongly when it was first signed in 2015,” he writes. This sentence is remarkable for the carefully crafted reference Sonnenfeld makes to a group of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia. Calling them “American allies” avoids evoking either the stigma associated with the autocratic Arab regimes, the most prominent of which has dramatically exercised its “freedom to operate” by murdering and dismembering a Washington Post journalist.

      By the end of his article, Sonnenfeld resigns himself to concluding that, despite Israel’s objections, the US will return to the JCPOA. He cites Dr. Raz Zimmt, an Iran expert at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies, who affirms that “Israel has ‘no chance’ at changing the US approach to the deal.” Unlike the Israeli officials threatening to throw the region and into a catastrophic war, Sonnenfeld sees no prospect of the Israelis carrying out such a move or even challenging the Biden administration’s decisions on the matter. Instead, citing Zimmt again, he describes a future diplomatic ballet in which Israel will simply “focus on ‘formulating agreements with the Americans about what comes next.’”

      Since the end of the 11-day conflict in May, things have dramatically changed for both the Israelis and Palestinians. As The New York Times reports, the latter now feel they “are part of the global conversation on rights, justice, freedom, and Israel cannot close it down or censor it.” Even The Times has taken a solid interest in their plight. Israel is struggling to close the chapter on Benjamin Netanyahu’s seemingly perennial premiership. Joe Biden has an open field in front of him to clarify some of the complex issues in the Middle East. The world is waiting to see how he handles it.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      In an Increasingly Paranoid World, Do Allies Actually Exist?

      by

      A breaking story this weekend had the British media breathlessly informing the world of the shocking fact that US intelligence has been in the habit of spying on some of its closest allies, including Germany’s respected chancellor, Angela Merkel. Of course, Edward Snowden’s leaks had already revealed the facts of US spying on allies back in 2013. This time around, the news was no longer focused on who spied on whom (clearly the Americans on everyone else) but on which third party in Europe was involved. The designated culprit is Denmark, whose “military intelligence agency helped the US to spy on leading European politicians.”

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      The Guardian’s Europe correspondent, Jon Henley, cites the testimony of the Danish defense minister, Trine Bramsen, who though “reportedly informed of the espionage in August last year” has now decided to speak up and reveal the contents of a classified report. According to the BBC, Bramsen was unhappy with the news, leading her to  complain to Danish public service broadcaster DR that “systematic wiretapping of close allies is unacceptable.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Close allies:

      The usual suspects, as opposed to unusual suspects (enemies)

      Contextual Note

      To bring home the point that American spying was systematic and that more than one ally was concerned, the BBC helpfully adds: “Intelligence was allegedly collected on other officials from Germany, France, Sweden and Norway.” This was followed by a reminder that this might be old news dating from that moment eight years ago when Edward Snowden spectacularly helped a benighted humanity understand the specific ways by which the National Security Agency (NSA) conducted its essential business. It apparently consists of making the US more secure by making individual leaders of other countries feel less secure.

      The reason such old news may now be considered new news has to do with the history of Washington’s denials and its promise to reform its sinful ways: “When those allegations were made, the White House gave no outright denial but said Mrs Merkel’s phone was not being bugged at the time and would not be in future.”

      Curiously, The New York Times editorial team apparently relegated the story to the category of “all the news that isn’t quite fit to print.” Some may surmise that the “paper of record” avoided printing it not because it was old news but because doing so might displease its most reliable source of all its news about the outside world, the intelligence community. All the intelligence agencies have been in the habit of sharing with The Times their special version of the truth, providing the publication with its most exciting copy, from Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction to Russiagate. The risk of upsetting that vital source would be too great. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      On the other hand, it may be that like former UN ambassador and Trump loyalist Nikki Haley waxing indignant because Vice President Kamala Harris failed for a moment to pay her sanctimonious respects to past military heroes on Memorial Day, The Times deemed inappropriate to call attention to American dirty tricks targeting allies. And this on a day dedicated to celebrating those Americans who have sacrificed their lives to defend “our freedoms,” one of which appears to be the freedom of our intelligence agencies to unceremoniously violate the freedom of our allies.

      Paradoxically, The Times did publish a story in April revealing, with no sense of alarm, that “the nation’s surveillance court has pointed with concern to ‘widespread violations’ by the F.B.I. of rules intended to protect Americans’ privacy when analysts search emails gathered without a warrant — but still signed off on another year of the program.” This reassuringly tells us that the intelligence services are treating close allies no differently than they treat fellow Americans.

      Unlike the Times, The Washington Post did cover the story but put the gentlest shine on it, highlighting Merkel’s statement that “I’m reassured that Denmark, the Danish government and the defense minister have said very clearly what they think of these matters” as well as implying that the Germans themselves might have been complicit. The message? Everyone cheats. No one is innocent. It’s important to forgive and forget. 

      The Germans reacted with vigor to the story, which concerned not only Chancellor Merkel but also Germany’s foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, as well as Peer Steinbrück, the opposition leader at that time. Steinbrück called it “a political scandal.” 

      Since France was also concerned, Le Monde also weighed in on the story. While quoting French President Emmanuel Macron, who deemed that such practices were “not acceptable between allies, and even less between European partners,” referring to Denmark’s complicity, Le Monde highlighted the insistence of the French political class that reflection was required before deciding on actions to be taken. With regard to what they describe as a “potentially grave” crisis, they prefer to take the time to review the facts. Clement Beaune, France’s secretary of state in charge of European affairs, requested more information before jumping to conclusions. Interestingly, the French seemed much more concerned by the implications of Denmark’s complicity than by American spying.

      What this scandal reveals above all is the uncertainty that exists concerning what it means to be an ally, let alone a close ally. During the Cold War, there was never any ambiguity. We are now living in the era of nation-state individualism. Can any nation trust any other nation? Furthermore, can any nation trust the US to act any differently than to spy on everyone else as if they were an enemy? By insisting that the problem lies with Denmark, France appears to be resigned to the idea that American paranoia is so pervasive that rather than call it out, it would be more rational simply to define it as the norm and find a way of living with it.

      Historical Note

      Two decades ago, when drumming up support for his global war on terror, US President George W. Bush famously framed his sales pitch in these terms: “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” This is a variant on the old Biblical chestnut, “If you are not with us, you are against us.” Few remember that two days after 9/11, Hillary Clinton scripted the line Bush would use later when she intoned, “Every nation has to either be with us, or against us.” If Clinton and Bush think in precisely the same terms, it explains a lot about the continuity of US foreign policy under the two supposedly opposing parties, Democrats and Republicans.

      For the intelligence services of nations with imperial reach — and the US in particular thanks to its “exceptionalism” — rather than insisting that if you are not with us, you are against us, it would be more accurate to express their true thoughts with this variant: “If you are not us, you are against us.” But The Times story about the FBI spying on Americans tells us that even if you are us, you may be against us. Everyone is a suspect. Only the ruling elite can trust its own.

      George Bush apparently had his own criterion for judging whether any other nation was “against us.” The president who has been the most successful in promoting fear as the prime motivator of foreign policy described the minds of the terrorist enemies: “With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us because we stand in their way.” The world may someday pardon Bush for his circular logic. The terrorists stood against the US not because the US stood in their way, but because — if Osama bin Laden’s testimony is believed — the US stood and marched, with booted feet, on their lands.

      American imperialism — from Iran and Guatemala in 1953 to Vietnam a decade later, to Iraq 50 years later and to Libya another decade further on — has consistently insisted on standing in other people’s territories. With a foothold in nearly every location considered critical, not only is the US standing in the way of other peoples and nations, we now know that it is also listening to and recording their conversations.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Biggest Threat to Democracy in Israel Comes From Within

      by

      Dear Mr. Netanyahu, 

      What’s the end goal? 

      Many in the Jewish diaspora feel we should never publicly criticize Israeli state actions regarding the country’s defense. I disagree. I’m writing this to call for a change of heart before it’s too late. My fear is that anti-Semitic attacks in the diaspora will continue to rise while one of the biggest long-term threats to the democratic state of Israel grows from within.  

      Rebalancing the Power Asymmetry Between Israel and Palestine

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      I grew up in London, in an Ashkenazi Jewish family where the horrors of persecution lived on through the generations. My bubbeh (grandma), like your zayde (grandad), was born in Poland. She ran from the pogroms and was agoraphobic until the day she died. Mum didn’t know what happened to our family living in Berlin in the 1930s. From a young age, I was taught the horrors of anti-Semitism, including the Holocaust. For many years, it was drummed into me that you stay in your group because, when push comes to shove, no one but Jews helps Jews.  

      Defensive Violence

      As a child in the 1970s, I joined Habonim-Dror, a Zionist youth organization that encouraged Jewish kids in 20 countries to live on a kibbutz in adulthood. I was taught to love the idea of the socialist community where the means of production and property were shared equally among members. I was sold a colonial dream of the muscular sun-tanned Sabra working the land to turn desert into lush agricultural land.   

      My group leaders framed Israeli violence as purely defensive. War training games in the dark, at camp, were exciting. We were woken in the middle of the night to “attack” the other group in a thrilling game of chase in which no one got hurt. The endgame as kids was hot chocolate by the campfire. It was fun as an idealistic teenager to design utopian communities on a Sunday afternoon, to learn about the children’s houses on kibbutzim, depicted like an Enid Blyton novel with midnight feasts and limited interference from parents. We spent hours creating songs and improvising skits that a couple of my youth leaders turned into the successful television show, “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”  

      Embed from Getty Images

      I spent a year in Israel at 18, following the path that my Zionist youth movement had encouraged me to take since I was nine years old. Though I loved meeting loads of people from around the world, the parochial realities of living on a kibbutz didn’t match the hype.  

      It was 1982. Israel invaded Lebanon in the misguided belief that it would enhance the security of Israeli’ citizens. My boyfriend on the kibbutz was called up to fight. We stood amidst a million Israeli citizens in Tel Aviv, protesting. I can still picture standing in a huge demonstration among Israelis’ placards with Hitler on one side and Sharon on the other. At 6 a.m. the following morning, my boyfriend left to participate in a war he didn’t believe in. This unedifying war killed thousands of innocent civilians. It seeded the birth of Hezbollah.  

      Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Netanyahu, I also fear Hamas and Hezbollah firing rockets on my family across Israel. They’ve made their anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic goals clear. The following excerpt from Hamas’s charter is worth repeating: “The Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realization of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said: ‘The day of judgment will not come until Muslims fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jews will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say ‘O Muslims, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.”

      While this stance may make negotiation feel like a futile tool today, political compromise between Palestinian and Israeli leaders is the only route to peace. What’s your strategy to prevent the ongoing substantive conflict over land from continuing to escalate as an intractable holy war? Israel’s actions fuel recruitment to this ideology. Support for Hamas is increasing, even from those who are usually adamantly against what they stand for. 

      Screaming at Each Other

      I watch in horror as Palestinian gangs attack Jews as Jewish gangs attack Arabs, both marching in the streets with placards screaming death to the other. The Zionist dream sold to me didn’t mention endless evictions of Palestinian families from their homes or police trampling over prayer mats during Ramadan. I was taught that Israel’s control of Jerusalem was in the interests of religious tolerance. But you know that’s not what many hard-line Jewish settlers want. One of the biggest threats to human rights and democratic, Western values of Israel might come from within.

      Successive Israeli prime ministers have tolerated the extremes of Jewish fundamentalism. You, Mr. Netanyahu, were even prepared to go into coalition with an openly racist Jewish party to hold on to political power. In essence, Jewish racism is no different from anti-Semitism. As the chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance stated recently, “We strongly condemn the antisemitic violence and hate speech that has taken place in response to the recent escalation of violence in the Middle East. While freedoms of speech and protest are essential pillars of all democracies, nothing can justify hate speech.” That’s right: Nothing justifies hate speech in Israel either.  

      Mr. Netanyahu, you were quick to urge French Jews to come to Israel after the deadly anti-Semitic attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris. Do you bear any responsibility for the rise of violent antisemitic attacks in the diaspora now?   

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      In Israel’s version of proportional representation, a political party only needs to secure 3.25% of the vote to achieve representation in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament. The consequence of this in a highly fractured society is a politic where the tail too often wags the dog in political decision-making. Disinterested in the state of Israel in its inception, Jewish religious fundamentalists have grown and organized politically.

      Only 13% of Israel’s Haredi ultra-orthodox boys take school exams that guide university entrance, rendering their belief systems devoid of secular education. Their political representatives are guiding government policy that drives settlements on occupied land, thereby preventing a two-state solution that many of them don’t want. Israel’s Haredi community grows at three times the rate of the rest of the Israeli Jewish population and twice the rate of the entire population. Forming a stable government has been impossible, with four elections in two years, and a fifth looming. Could the incoming Israeli prime minister use his political capital to take an honest look at Israel’s political system toward further electoral reform? 

      I hope that the next Israeli government will hear the Arab and Jewish voices in the Knesset seeking peace. Approximately 21% of the Israeli population are Arab or Druze, the majority of whom identify as Sunni Muslims. Perhaps there’s something to learn from New Zealand. Indigenous Māori comprise about 17% of the population; seats in Parliament are reserved exclusively for Māori in proportion to the percentage of the population. 

      Dehumanizing the Other

      For now, we have a ceasefire. It worries me that you may have ramped up the violence in your own political and personal interests. There was a range of political and military response options to Hamas firing rockets into Israel, given the effectiveness of the Iron Dome as a protective shield. One could forgive the cynic for wondering whether part of your strategy is images of blown-up buildings underpinning the next election campaign to harness the fear and anger of Israeli citizens.  

      Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas appears to have little influence or control in the West Bank, and Hamas has successfully exploited the horror in Gaza to win the hearts and minds of the world. They are willing to sacrifice the lives of civilians in Gaza because they think that the ends justify the means. From where I sit, the Israeli state did a great job of helping them by the extreme nature of your retaliation, not to mention your settlement policies and conditions in Gaza.

      The world watched the Israeli army destroy the building that housed the Associated Press and other media organizations. Even if some of the current Hamas leadership were killed and the infrastructure for attack on Israel destroyed, the Israeli state also demonstrated its willingness to sacrifice other people’s children as collateral damage. Surely our history has taught us the importance of not dehumanizing the “other.” Increasing the numbers of traumatized extremists eager to take the place of the leaders killed today looks like a disastrous strategy long term. When will we learn that violence won’t end this war?

      In Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s words, “Military cemeteries in every corner of the world are silent testimony to the failure of national leaders to sanctify human life.” You know that Rabin, a warrior turned peacemaker, was assassinated by an individual Jewish extremist in Tel Aviv in 1995 in opposition to the Oslo Peace Accords. The extremist ultranationalist views of the perpetrator are far more visible under your watch than Rabin’s legacy and search for peace.  

      Embed from Getty Images

      Emboldened by President Donald Trump, your government has tried to remove resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from the domestic political agenda. Palestinian leadership remains divided and weak. Jewish fundamentalism has flourished in its bubble of righteousness. You have ignored peaceful protests while Palestinians are evicted from their homes. You have condoned expansion of illegal settlements on occupied land, and you’ve invested much more in Jewish communities than Arab ones, within the legal bounds of the state. What options do Palestinians have? Yitzhak Rabin’s words again resonate today: “No Arab ruler will consider the peace process seriously so long as he is able to toy with the idea of achieving more by the way of violence.”  

      The vacuum of visible wise leadership on all sides is dispiriting. The China-Iran Strategic Partnership is likely to secure Tehran’s funding of Hezbollah for years to come. The challenge is for moderate Israeli and Palestinian leaders to build the political capital to compromise over legitimate needs and conflicting rights to land and resources. Perhaps some young Mizrahi Jews (descended from North Africa, Central and West Asia) and Israeli Arabs and Druze serving in the Knesset will help to bridge the gaps.

      Perhaps Israelis and Palestinians will reinvigorate the peace movement as they circle the wall of the Old City of Jerusalem in the peace chain. Perhaps more peacemakers will also emerge in the Palestinian and Jewish diasporas. They’ll need wisdom and charisma, skilled international facilitation and ongoing economic development.  

      Options to establish a Palestinian state are already on the table. Both sides have tried to compromise before. But as you well know, ramped-up fear and anger are powerful. Cynicism and hopelessness among moderate Israelis and Palestinians, alongside the determination and political power of Jewish and Islamist fundamentalists, is alarming.  

      We’re all relieved to see a ceasefire. Nevertheless, your decisions have not only killed innocent civilians, but also traumatized the next generation so that they are more likely to find refuge in ultra-nationalism and religious fundamentalism. Neither will solve this conflict. Thoughtful people, religious and secular together, hopefully will.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Who Will Lead the Next American Insurrection?

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      The expanding cracks running across the surface of society’s veneer in the US have never been more apparent nor, in the past 150 years, have they ever plunged so deep. The diversity of a patchwork culture initially fueled by immigration implies that a certain disorder would become a permanent feature of a society stitched together from so many different threads. Thanks to its dynamic economy, the nation’s leaders developed the skills required to conduct a complex political and cultural balancing act. For most of the past century, they have avoided approaching a tipping point. There are signs today that that may no longer be the case.

      Reporting on a survey of public opinion in the US, Giovanni Russonello appends a disturbing subtitle to an article that appeared last week in The New York Times: “Fifteen percent of Americans believe that ‘patriots may have to resort to violence’ to restore the country’s rightful order, the poll indicated.”

      The Loneliness of Matt Gaetz

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      The Public Religion Research Institute and the Interfaith Youth Core poll reveals that “15 percent of Americans say they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.” It would be reasonable to object that that figure also means 85% think otherwise. In a democracy, where the majority is expected to rule, the fact that only one out of six or seven Americans believes utterly nonsensical theories should not be the problem. But that perception changes when Rusonello tells us that the same 15%, in a nation with more firearms than people, maintain that “’American patriots may have to resort to violence’ to depose the pedophiles and restore the country’s rightful order.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Resort to violence:

      In US culture, the traditionally privileged solution to all pervasive problems, implying not just the right but the duty to eliminate ideas, beliefs, people and, in some cases (“the only good Indian is a dead Indian”) entire populations that fail to conform with the authentic values espoused by a group of citizens certain of their shared beliefs

      Contextual Note

      The “only good Indian” quote has traditionally been attributed to a Civil War general, Philip Sheridan. The historian of language, Wolfgang Mieder, notes that even today, “it is used with surprising frequency in American literature and the mass media as well as in oral speech.” We could call it “the only good X” mentality. According to the historical circumstances, X may equal “Gook,” “Taliban,” “Arab,” “Negro.” That has, in some people’s eyes, proved useful to motivate soldiers in wartime by assuaging their conscience about killing. But, especially in a society built on diversity, the very idea should be absent from civil conversation.

      Representative Matt Gaetz, a prominent Donald Trump supporter currently under investigation after being accused of sex trafficking and pedophilia, has been promoting themes dear to the QAnon believers, including the idea that the time has come to resort to violence. At a rally in Georgia, accompanied by loose-tongued firebrand Marjorie Taylor Greene, Gaetz lambasted Silicon Valley companies which he accuses of censoring conservatives. He preached not just resistance but action: “Well, you know what? Silicon Valley can’t cancel this movement, or this rally, or this congressman. We have a Second Amendment in this country, and I think we have an obligation to use it.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      Playing the role of a high school history teacher, Gaetz then clarified what he meant: “The Second Amendment — this is a little history for all the fake news media — the Second Amendment is not about hunting, it’s not about recreation, it’s not about sports. The Second Amendment is about maintaining, within the citizenry, the ability to maintain an armed rebellion against the government, if that becomes necessary.” 

      That could be called Gaetz’s attempt to replace fake news by fake history. When the Constitution mentions the eventual need for states in the 18th-century economy to deploy a “well-organized militia,” the only concern it expresses relates to policing. Historians have identified a particular focus on legitimizing citizen patrols to capture runaway slaves and especially to counter eventual slave insurrections. Gaetz sees guns as necessary for rebellion, whereas the Second Amendment posited their use to prevent rebellion. Today, every state has a plethora of well-organized and well-armed police presumably capable of dealing with rebellion. What they no longer have is the problem of slave insurrections.

      Gaetz’s demagogy reveals how easy it is today to invoke and distort the reality of history in a nation where people are taught to believe that the only purpose of history is to inspire patriotic sentiment. And patriotic sentiment serves the purpose of identifying those who aren’t patriotic enough. Because the US is a forward-looking nation, most people consider the knowledge and understanding of history a waste of precious time. It can only distract from the nation’s mission to mold the world into the ideal represented by American exceptionalism.

      The media and even the educational system appear to view history not as a drama putting in play complex cultural, political and economic forces, but as an endless series of isolated facts to be cited for anyone’s selfish political purpose. The Second Amendment has become a mere slogan. Even the Supreme Court in recent decades has aligned with that supposed reading of history that denies historical reality.

      One former chief justice of the US Supreme Court, Warren Burger (appointed by Richard Nixon in 1969), dared to look history in the face and clearly explain the meaning of the Second Amendment. In 2012, legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin observed “it was simply taken as a given in constitutional law that the Second Amendment did not give individuals a right to bear arms.” But the power of Burger’s reasoning was no match for the sloganeering promulgated by the National Rifle Association (NRA). Following Burger’s retirement in 1986, the majority on the Supreme Court fell in line with the NRA, turning individual gun ownership into a sanctified right. Toobin attributes the change to “the rise of the modern conservative movement in the ’70s and ’80s.” And now, thanks to Matt Gaetz, we have an idea of where this change in interpretation may be leading.

      Historical Note

      The last government to be overthrown on American soil dates back to 1776 when the Yankees dismissed British rule. On January 6 of this year, a mob incited by President Donald Trump made a vain attempt at maintaining what they considered the legitimate Trumpian order. The mob came close to physically assaulting members of Congress. Though it effectively amplified the chaos fomented by Trump’s celebration of political hooliganism, it had no chance of “restoring the country’s rightful order.”

      A far more interesting and politically revealing attempt at the overthrow of US democracy took place in April 1933. Curiously — which is another way of saying “understandably” —  most traces of this attempt have been erased from Americans’ active understanding of their own history.

      A year after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election, a group of some of the most prominent bankers and industrialists in the US — fearful that the new president was undermining what they considered as their private economy — devised a very serious plot. These men had been following events in Europe. They openly admired and even abetted Hitler’s politics. Convinced that the hour of fascism’s global triumph had rung, they recruited celebrated Marine Corps General Smedley Butler to lead a force of 500,000 soldiers with the intention of deposing Roosevelt. Instead, Butler decided to expose the fascist conspiracy that became known as the Business Plot.

      Butler later authored a truly instructive book on US imperial history, “War Is a Racket.” He describes how, as a soldier, he had become the puppet not of the national interest but of American business interests. The Business Plot is mentioned in no school curriculum. Butler himself has now been largely erased from America’s historical memory. More surprisingly (meaning “understandably”), the congressional investigation of the plot never revealed the identities of the plotters themselves. Doing so would have been deemed an intolerable injustice, since, as conservative Americans like to insist, they are the “makers” and not the “takers” in the US economy.

      Today, the US business community is aligned behind the establishment, including the current Democratic president. Their loyalty is ensured, on condition that establishment Republicans prevent Biden’s nefarious plan to raise taxes on the wealthy, which they will be sure to do.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Arrest of Migrant Activist Puts Qatar in the Spotlight

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      Amnesty International recently called for the authorities to reveal the whereabouts of Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan national who worked as a security guard in Qatar. According to Amnesty, he was “forcibly disappeared since 4 May, when he was taken from his labour accommodation for questioning by the state security service.”

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      Bidali, who blogs under the name Noah, has been a critic of the treatment of migrant workers in Qatar, a small Gulf state that is hosting the 2022 FIFA World Cup. “A week before his arrest, Bidali gave a presentation to a large group of civil society organizations and trade unions about his experience of working in Qatar,” Amnesty noted.

      Migrant Workers in Qatar

      For Qatar, his story draws unwelcome attention to the treatment of migrant workers in the run-up to the World Cup. The Qataris had won praise for scrapping the notorious kafala sponsor system, which ties workers to their employers with terms similar to those of indentured laborers or, as some critics say, to slavery.

      In August 2020, the government announced reforms that included a minimum wage. The changes to labor law were hailed as a landmark in a region with an appalling record of mistreatment of migrant workers. Had the amendments been fully implemented, the conditions for migrant workers would have improved significantly. But more than a year and a half after the reforms were introduced, it is clear that little has changed for many migrants in Qatar.

      An Al Jazeera investigation in March 2021 revealed that “the majority of those interviewed experienced delays in the process as well as threats, harassment and exploitation by the sponsor, with some of the workers ending up in prison and eventually deported.” The report cited the case of a migrant from the Philippines who worked at a food stall. When she told her boss she wanted to leave and get a new job, she faced threats and harassment. Her ID was canceled and she had a court case brought against her, none of which should have happened with the new laws in place. “I thought the new laws were there to help us. All I did was try and seek a better job. I don’t think I’ve committed a crime to be facing these problems,” she said.

      Writing About Rights

      Bidali’s problems arose as a result of his blogs, which challenge the rosy narrative projected by the government. In a post titled, “Minimum Wage, Maximum Adjustment,” he writes:

      “‘Peanuts.’ That’s the first thing that comes to Simon’s mind when I ask him about the changes to the minimum wage. A security guard from Kenya, toiling in Msheireb Downtown Doha, a slave to the elements for the better part of 12 hours a day. He earns [in a month] QR1250 (USD340). Paid a recruitment agent QR4400 (USD1200) to get the job, and spent a further QR1100 on related expenses. ‘There’s no difference for us (security guards). What they should have done is stipulate the specifics, like working hours, working conditions… things like that. When you take away the food and housing allowance, compensation for the work we do isn’t considered at all. We work so hard. Long commutes, long hours on-site, sweating like crazy with this heat, stress, fatigue… we don’t even eat properly.’”

      Bidali writes the following in a blog titled, “The Privilege of a Normal Life”:

      “Qatar, like all [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, makes it virtually impossible for the spouses and partners of low-income migrant workers to accompany them for the duration of their contract. Over an extended period of time devoid of affection and intimacy, desire manifests, ever so intense. The situation isn’t made any easier when you look around and all you see are other couples of privileged nationalities, strolling side by side, holding hands, or having a meal together, enjoying each other’s company. After a magical day or night out, they retreat to their homes, where they enjoy the luxury of privacy.”

      In other blogs, he writes of the crowded and unsanitary dormitories that workers, despite some improvements, are still forced to endure.

      Amnesty told Arab Digest that since his arrest, the migrant rights activist has been allowed one short phone call to his mother. He said to her he is being held in solitary confinement, which Amnesty described as “incredibly worrying.” He is being held in an unknown place, and there are fears that he may be subjected to torture.

      Claims by Qatari Authorities

      The treatment of Bidali by Qatari authorities stands in stark contrast to their claims of change in the Gulf state. In 2020, Yousuf Mohamed Al Othman Fakhroo, the labor minister, said Qatar is “committed to creating a modern and dynamic labour market.” He added that the reforms “mark a major milestone in this journey and will benefit workers, employers and the nation alike.” That thought was echoed at the time by the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Sharan Burrow, who described the changes as “a new dawn for migrant workers.” Both the ITUC and FIFA, world football’s governing body, had pushed hard for the reforms, using the World Cup as leverage.

      Last week, Amnesty provided Arab Digest with the following statement:

      “Three weeks after his arrest, we still have very little information on Malcolm Bidali’s fate. Despite our appeals and those of Malcolm’s mother, the government has continued to refuse to disclose his whereabouts or to explain the real reason for the ongoing detention of this courageous activist who risked his own safety to try to improve life for all migrant workers in the country. … If he is detained solely on the basis of his legitimate human rights work he must be released immediately and unconditionally, and at an absolute minimum he should be granted access to a lawyer. Such practice by the Qatar authorities sends a clear signal that it will not tolerate migrant workers speaking out and claiming their rights, and can spread fear amongst activists and other workers.”

      The ITUC and FIFA have not commented publicly on the detention and disappearance of Malcolm Bidali. For weeks, the government had only confirmed his arrest and that he was being investigated for “violating Qatar’s security laws and regulations.” He has since been “charged with receiving payment to spread disinformation in the country,” Al Jazeera reports.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest, a partner organization of Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      Russia warns US of ‘unpleasant’ messages ahead of Biden-Putin meeting

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      Russia’s foreign ministry has put the US on notice ahead of a meeting between American president Joe Biden and and his Russian counterpart.Sergei Rybakov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, warned president Vladimir Putin’s government would send “unpleasant” messages to the US if they did not discuss a range of issues at their upcoming meeting.“The Americans must assume that a number of signals from Moscow … will be uncomfortable for them, including in the coming days,” he said, according to reporting from Russian news agency RIA.Biden and Putin are expected to meet on 16 June in Geneva. Biden has publicly said he press Mr Putin on the importance of human rights. This will be their first meeting of Biden’s presidency. Mr Rybakov said Russia could be willing to discuss human rights, in exchange for discussing the increase of NATO and American forces in the western regions of Russia, bordering Ukraine. “The actions of our Western colleagues are destroying the world’s security system and force us to take adequate countermeasures,” said Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minister, according to the Interfax news agency.Biden made reference to his upcoming talks with Putin on Sunday. “I’m meeting with President Putin in a couple weeks in Geneva, making it clear we will not stand by and let him abuse those rights,” Mr Biden said in a Memorial Day weekend address in Delaware.A Human Rights Watch report in 2020 on Russia found numerous human rights infringements. In 2019, the human rights situation was “deteriorating”. They cited torture and degrading treatment, election protest crackdowns and issues when it comes to freedom of expression. An additional complication to better relations between the two countries is Biden announcing sanctions on Belarus after they arrested Raman Protasevich, a 26-year-old dissident journalist and his girlfriend Sofia Sapagea, a fellow journalist. More