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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to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran from which Donald Trump had unilaterally withdrawn in 2018.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 World Politics

      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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      in World Politics

      Who Will Lead the Next American Insurrection?

      by

      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.”

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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

    • 88 Shares129 Views

      in World Politics

      US, NATO and the Question of Russia

      by

      If the question of a rising China and its possible collision with the United States is a central issue in world affairs today, then the rivalry between Russia and the US is the most pressing security challenge in the European theater. From the second half of the Obama administration, through Donald Trump’s first term and now President Joe Biden’s initial mandate, the US has ramped up pressure on Russia. Washington has imposed sanctions, expelled Russian diplomats, strengthened the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), rotated troops through Poland and the Baltic states and conducted military drills next to the Russian border. Defender Europe 2021, “One of the largest US-Army led military exercises in decades,” will run until June, with 28,000 total troops from 27 nations taking part.

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      If we are to believe the prevalent narrative that Beijing is Washington’s most dangerous rival, then the US and its allies who fear Russia and are hell-bent on defending Europe from supposed Kremlin interference are misguided — or are they?

      Security Dilemma

      Much like the tensions around the status of Taiwan, for instance, Ukraine is a hotspot for the complex power struggle between East and West on the European continent. Ukraine as a sovereign state and Taiwan as a self-governing entity share common features: Both are located in dangerous geopolitical regions on the periphery of the US-led order, and both are increasing their military spending. Furthermore, the US provides no explicit security guarantees for either. In somewhat different ways, both Beijing and Moscow do not think that Taiwan (in case of China) and Ukraine (in case of Russia) have a right to self-determination, especially in the domain of foreign policy.

      However, there is a major difference between the two. When it comes to Ukraine, events have probably passed a point of no return, especially with regards to Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014 in what some argue was a preemptive effort to prevent the peninsula from becoming a potential NATO naval base in the future.

      Supposedly defensive moves by Russia to increase its own security in areas along its periphery are perceived by the US and NATO member states as offensive, compelling countervailing actions. These include increased US military presence in the Baltics and elsewhere along NATO’s eastern borders and further expansion into southeastern Europe. The measures, in turn, provoked retaliatory steps from Moscow, such as nuclear military modernization, taking aggressive positions toward neighboring states or fanning the flames of internal crisis in Montenegro in 2015-16 and the Republic of Northern Macedonia in 2017-18. This month, Russia and Serbia launched joint military exercises to coincide with the Defender Europe drills being held in neighboring Balkan states.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The US-Russia dyad in Europe is not only about a security dilemma. Moscow keeps its adversaries in check with ambiguity as well. For example, Russian President Vladimir Putin has openly warned the West of undeclared red lines. He amassed and then begun the withdrawal of more than 100,000 troops from Ukraine’s border to demonstrate Russia’s capacity to both escalate and de-escalate the conflict in eastern Ukraine but without revealing Moscow’s strategic plans.

      Moscow is on a mission to correct “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century,” as President Putin once described the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia is seriously interested in replacing the existing US-led liberal order, primarily the one extended beyond the Iron Curtain, with favorable and less democratic European regimes that fit Russia’s mold. These ideas were widely propagated by Russia’s neo-Eurasian movement since the 1990s. Igor Panarin, professor at the Diplomatic Academy of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, advocated in favor of a Eurasian Union with four capitals, for example, including one in Belgrade.

      More recently, Anton Shekhovtsov, the director of the Centre for Democratic Integrity, has highlighted a critically important tendency: the growing links between Russian actors and Western far-right politicians to gain leverage over European politics and undermine the Western liberal order. In so doing, as David Shlapak writes for RAND, “Russia would seek to divide the [NATO] alliance to the point of dissolving it, break the transatlantic security link, and re-establish itself as the dominant power in Eastern and Central Europe.”

      Power Projection

      Some may argue that Russia’s goals are tangential. What really matters is Moscow’s capability to project hard power across the European continent. In this regard, skeptics largely question Russia’s ability to challenge the European nations in a scenario where the US stops extending protection to its European allies. Their typical point of reference is that Russia is but a “giant gas station” or that its annual GDP is “smaller than Italy’s.” However, what is usually overlooked here is Russia’s nuclear capability “to destroy the United States — and, not incidentally, its European allies — as a functioning society.” While it is highly unlikely that Moscow will ever resort to such an extreme, the fact that it does have the nuclear option should serve as a reminder of its power potential.

      Russia’s sheer size, vast natural resources and an impressive cyberweapons arsenal have also enabled the Kremlin to punch above its weight and pursue not just defensive policies, as we have seen in Georgia in 2008, and in eastern Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. Russia has sent troops into Syria and mercenaries into Libya, and provided support to Venezuela’s embattled president, Nicolas Maduro. Then there was the alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election and the more recent SolarWinds cyberattack attributed to Russian hackers. Moreover, according to Rand Corporation analysis, Russia could inflict a decisive defeat on NATO forces in the Baltic region and reach the outskirts of Tallinn and Riga within 60 hours.

      If the US decided to diminish its presence in the European theater, much like it has done in the Middle East under Donald Trump, Russia would face little pushback to the expansion of its sphere of influence in eastern Europe. The European continent would no longer be unified and free in accordance with collective security and liberal principles. Populist and nationalist governments in central and southeastern Europe would be tempted to seek other security solutions. One can only imagine a European subsystem in Russia’s image, divided between European poles trying to balance against each other.

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      Skirmishes over new borders in the Balkans, for example, recently discussed in a “disputed non-paper,” could potentially spin out of control and into new regional wars. America’s allies in western Europe would not only be disappointed but fearful for their own future. Finally, other US allies around the world, especially members of the balancing coalition in Asia Pacific, such as Australia, would also know that they could no longer count on Washington.

      So far, no US administration has shown any intention to leave Europe as a vital area of America’s global footprint in which it had invested a vast amount of blood and treasure over the past century. Russia also wants what every nation wants — security and the absence of competition along its borders. This brings us to what the historian Michael Howard once called “the most dangerous of all moods,” in which the US would not accept relegation to the second rank in the European subsystem. Russia would also never tolerate a similar outcome for itself in its own neighborhood.

      Thus, Ukraine, which the US is not treaty-bound to defend, will remain a hotspot. The most exposed states — Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia — to which the US does have an obligation under NATO’s Article 5, will remain vulnerable largely for reasons of their geography. Other central and eastern European countries, such as Poland, Romania or Bulgaria, will continue to harbor fears of Russian geopolitical ambitions. The only question is how long this strategic rivalry may mitigate the most dangerous outcome and evade a spiral toward a wider European disorder.

      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 World Politics

      America’s True Hyperreal Heroes

      by

      At the very moment that US President Joe Biden is busy demonstrating how little power he wields, whether in reigning in the neocolonial and militaristic behavior of the Israeli government or in attempting to push key legislation through Congress, Elon Musk, who has never been elected to any public office, is flaunting his unchallenged personal power over what may be the most disruptive force in today’s global economy: cryptocurrency.

      Can the US Really Rally Other Nations?

      READ MORE

      Gregory Barber, writing for Wired, notes that through his tweeting, Musk has become a self-contained agent of volatility. He can send the value of different cryptocurrencies north or south, whenever he feels like it. As Barber frames it, “Musk is creating and destroying small fortunes, 280-characters at a time.” In his email promoting the article, Barber speculates: “Perhaps it’s strategic, or just whimsy, or maybe it’s a kind of performance art to inspire us all to wonder at the value of things. We might never know Musk’s true motives.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      True motives:

      In the current society built on the principle of hyperreality, intentions that though detectable, will never be exposed in public, even by the media who understand that reporting on reality could only confuse their consumers who have become addicted to the manipulated representation of reality rather reality itself.

      Contextual Note

      Elon Musk is a true hyperreal hero, whose only serious rival on the world stage has been Donald Trump. Both are committed to finding ways to obscure the public’s ability to understand some serious public issues. But, contrary to Barber’s assertion, their true motives have never been in doubt. They can be summarized in two words — money and power — and two pathologies — greed and narcissism.

      Because most people in the United States have been taught to revere money and power — money as the key to power, power as the means of obtaining wealth — for all their obvious faults, their admirers not only continue to admire them but also celebrate their consummate ability to epitomize hyperreality. In the Calvinist tradition, wealth and power in the community were signs of divine favor. With the fading of the Puritan ethic of sober achievement, in their excess, Musk and Trump have attained the status of secular gods.

      Embed from Getty Images

      American culture struggles helplessly with the idea of truth. Where the condition for basic survival is to be constantly selling something to other people (ideally by creating a marketplace), truth tends to disappear into a misty horizon, spawning a destabilizing doubt that it even exists. But rather than resigning themselves to the absence of truth, Americans now want to reduce it to the question of facts. Fact-checking is all the rage.

      But serious philosophers and psychologists have always understood that the idea of truth means much more than establishing facts. Paradoxically, facts themselves can represent a convenient way of burying the truth. Journalists and public figures know this. A typical New York Times article on a potentially controversial issue typically contains a breathless series of short paragraphs citing facts, events and expert statements.

      The authors avoid providing logical connections between the paragraphs in an effort to let the facts accumulate. After aligning litanies of factoids and well-chosen quotes, the authors can be certain that no reader will be capable of stitching together anything that leads them towards an underlying meaning. “True motives” will be lost in the onslaught. Here at The Daily Devil’s Dictionary, we have cited examples of these logicless developments, for instance here and here.

      Both of our hyperreal heroes have been publicly disciplined for tweeting irresponsibly. Perceived as less dangerous, Musk still has a Twitter account whereas Trump had his taken away just before leaving the White House. Musk once declared that “Twitter is a war zone,” whereas Trump was accused of using it to foment civil war. His “true motive” appears to have been an attempt to create enough havoc to justify remaining in the White House. It didn’t work for Trump, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have been inspired by Trump’s example after failing to form a new majority earlier this year.

      According to Barber, Musk’s tweets “drop from the sky without warning. He controls the narrative, and thus the market effect.” This is not just hyperreal posturing or playing an expected public role with melodramatic or comic effect, as both Trump and Musk are wont to do on practically any occasion. Musk’s tweets concerning cybercurrency give him a power to make money instantly, at the expense of millions of other people. It sounds dangerous and downright unethical, but as a lawyer quoted by Barber explains, “You can’t police based on what you think is somebody’s subjective heart-of-hearts intent.” Is “heart-of-hearts intent” a synonym of “true motive”? In US culture, people tend to think so.

      Barber notes that only “a small number of people” possess something comparable to Musk’s hyperreal power. He cites Warren Buffett and the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell. Neither of them is addicted to tweeting. But what is the true source of irresponsibility in this story? Is it Musk himself? Or is it Twitter as an institution that facilitates manipulation? Could it be cryptocurrency, which, as a pure product of purchasers’ greed, with no direct link to anything of substance, might justifiably be called hypercurrency? All three combine to define the hyperreal landscape that surrounds us, along with our media who amplify the drama the others generate.

      Historical Note

      Throughout history, political leaders have managed to control events by influencing the behavior of tens of thousands, and sometimes millions, of people. Think of Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler. Whatever extraordinary narrative their culture invented for them and whatever personal charisma on their part contributed to their success, what these figures from the past did was rooted in the reality of government, administration, coercive force and concrete economic relationships.

      Hyperreality today sits atop all those features of power but thrives in an independent world of its own. It may be that without the example of Hollywood we never would have reached this stage. Musk and Trump alike are more like entertainment figures — both writing the script and playing the role — than to leaders of social, political or cultural movements.

      Two centuries ago, P.T. Barnum provided the model for hyperreality that would fully blossom in the 20th century thanks to the disruptive technology of movies, television and finally the internet. Barnum invented an entire sector of entertainment based on the misrepresentation of facts when, after purchasing an aging slave, Joice Heth, put her on display, claiming she was 161 years old and had been young George Washington’s nurse. Barnum understood how facts and symbolism combine to draw the public to his spectacles.

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      George Washington was already known as “the father of the nation.” Barnum provided an exotic, black mothering figure for the father of the country. At the same time, the supposed relationship served to justify slavery and racism by promoting the idea that blacks in a situation of service could nurture whites, and whites would protect and nurture blacks.

      Barnum later became famous for organizing his three-ring circus, but before that he built his reputation around presenting facts or the appearance of facts. He created the American Museum in Manhattan. It featured both authentic historical artifacts and a freak show, prolonging the spirit of deception he developed around Joice Heth. With his partner James Bailey, he launched hyperreality’s ultimate theme with a circus they called “The Greatest Show on Earth.” Barnum himself never sought to be a hyperreal hero. He simply propagated the values of the culture of American hyperreality that would be refined by a later generation of architects of hyperreality.

      William Randolph Hearst modeled the modern idea of the news. Sigmund Freud’s American nephew, Edward Bernays, invented the art of public relations built around the science of advertising designed as a form of mind control. Trump and Musk have come to represent the ultimate hyperreal heroes, but they have built their identities around the culture created by geniuses like Barnum and Bernays combined with the culture of Hollywood’s larger-than-life screen heroes. They are not alone. There are plenty of hyperreal supporting actors and extras who give depth to the representation. But they are the ones talented enough and sufficiently narcissistic to occupy center stage and ultimately influence the audience’s behavior.

      *[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 World Politics

      Radical Republicans Are Not Conservatives

      by

      The House Freedom Caucus is routinely described as conservative, by its members, by the mainstream media and by Wikipedia. The caucus, which draws together 45 Republican Party members of the House of Representatives, is the furthest to the right of any major political formation in the United States. The most extreme and flamboyant politicians in America, like scandal-plagued Matt Gaetz of Florida and gun-toting Lauren Boebert of Colorado, are proud to call the caucus their political home. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, after threatening to form an explicitly racist “America First” caucus, chose ultimately to continue promoting her nativist, QAnon-inspired beliefs from within the Freedom Caucus.

      By any reasonable measure, the Freedom Caucus and its members are not conservative. Because of their disruptive tactics and rhetoric, their contempt for bedrock conservative values like the rule of law and their embrace of the most radical populist in modern US history, they are more akin to European far-right politicians like those in the Alternative for Germany and Fidesz. Traditional Republicans recognize that the caucus and its members have nothing to do with the party they joined many years ago. Former House Speaker John Boehner, a more traditional Republican, gave an apt description of the caucus when he said in 2017, “They’re anarchists. They want total chaos. Tear it all down and start over. That’s where their mindset is.”

      Can the US Really Rally Other Nations?

      READ MORE

      The misidentification of the Freedom Caucus as “conservative” is not the only example of the misuse of this term. At various points over the last four years, Donald Trump was called a “conservative” president. Certain policies, like the dismantling of environmental regulations or the promotion of laissez-faire economics, have also been erroneously called “conservative.” Various media outlets and personalities, from One America News to Glenn Beck, have likewise been mislabeled “conservative.” When The Washington Post tries to rectify the problem by labeling far-right activist Ali Alexander an “ultraconservative,” it only makes matters worse. An ultraconservative should be even more determined to uphold the status quo rather than, like Alexander, trying to undermine it.

      The recent ouster of Liz Cheney from her position as the third highest-ranking Republican in the House has only further muddied the waters of this definitional quagmire. True, Cheney has upheld law and order in defending the integrity of the 2020 election against the revolutionary fervor of the “Trump Firsters” in her party. Prior to her recent stand, however, Cheney herself flouted many of the principles of conservativism by embracing the more radical policies of the Trump-inflected Republican Party, voting with the former president over 92% of the time on such issues as gutting the environment.

      The misuse of the term “conservative” is the result not only of a structural quirk of American politics, but also the evolution of political ideology in the United States.

      The Europeans

      In Europe, multi-party systems allow for greater nuance in political labeling. Thus, conservatives in the various Christian Democratic parties compete for votes against far-right populist parties that embrace anti-democratic, racist and even fascist positions. America’s two-party system, on the other hand, collapses such distinctions into a binary opposition between a single “liberal” and a single “conservative” party. If a faction emerges within the Republican Party, therefore, it is by definition “conservative” even if it so obviously isn’t. It’s as if politics in America is digital — either one or zero — while European politics reflect all the messy gradations of the analog realm.

      At the same time, ideologies have evolved considerably in the United States over the last half-century. “Conservative” once stood for preserving traditional arrangements in society such as family, faith, community and small business against the modernizing forces of the market. Conservatives have also adopted the British philosopher Edmund Burke’s distaste for the Enlightenment project of human rights and egalitarianism. Conservatives were also once conservationists (remember: it was Richard Nixon who, in 1970, created the Environmental Protection Agency and signed the Clean Air Act Extension).

      Embed from Getty Images

      The Reagan/Thatcher revolution changed all that. Conservatives suddenly became ultra-liberal in the economic sense. They wholeheartedly embraced the free market in their eagerness to deploy any powerful force against what they considered to be the primary evil in the world: big government. They supported laissez-faire economics — essentially, no government controls on the economy — even though unrestrained market forces tear apart communities, break apart families, undermine faith, destroy family farms and sweep away small businesses. But since such a market served as a counterforce to government authority, the neo-liberal conservatives prepared to throw out whatever babies were necessary in order to get rid of the bathwater.

      A further revolution in conservative thought came with the neoconservatives. These foreign policy hawks discovered a fondness for human rights and a taste for revolutionary change, as long as it was in countries the United States opposed. Overthrowing the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi, which required a revolutionary destruction of the status quo, became a new addition to the conservative agenda.

      In some respects, Trump attempted to purge the conservative movement of these two newer tendencies through his rejection of both the cherished free trade of the neoliberals and the “forever wars” of the neoconservatives. In their place, the new president reverted to the older right-wing ideology of nationalism, populism and racism of the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s and the America First movement of the 1940s. At the same time, however, Trump retained the allegiance of these newfangled conservatives by slashing government involvement in the economy and championing higher Pentagon spending.

      As a result, the current Republican Party features a dog’s breakfast of right-wing ideologies. You can still find ardent neoliberals like Senator Rob Portman of Ohio who espouse free-trade economics and a few neocons like Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas who rail against neo-isolationism. A solid majority of the party, Cheney notwithstanding, backs Trump no matter how much he deviates from conservative values.

      The Media

      Given the inability of Republicans to define themselves with any degree of precision and their preference for hiding behind labels like “conservative,” it’s no wonder that the media has difficulty parsing right-wing terminology. If the Freedom Caucus calls itself “conservative,” and the American Conservative Union agrees, should it really be the job of The New York Times to correct the record?

      And yet, that’s precisely what the mainstream media does for other ludicrously inapt designations. No major newspaper believes that North Korea is democratic simply because its official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. No mainstream journalists would mistake the far-right Sweden Democrats for the US political party of the same name. As for Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party, it is nothing of the sort, since it’s only the personal political vehicle of the raving extremist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and pity the poor reporter who takes the party at face value.

      It’s long past time for the mainstream media to apply these common-sense rules of nomenclature to American politics.

      There are several efforts ongoing to wean the Republican Party of its addiction to Donald Trump. Perhaps a more important first step would be to reclaim the term “conservative” so that it applies in the United States to the same system of values that inspires conservative parties in Europe. Only then will the Republican Party have a chance of becoming once again a defender of the status quo rather than its chief wrecking ball.

      *[This article was originally published by FPIF.]

      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 World Politics

      Can the US Really Rally Other Nations?

      by

      On May 25, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effusive demonstration of love and mutual admiration. The show the two men put on in the aftermath of a shaky ceasefire looked like a private celebration of a threefold victory for Israel thanks to its aggressive show of force. The rockets from Gaza have stopped; Israel is still in control; the US will stand by Netanyahu, thick or thin.

      Is Israel an Apartheid State?

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      What has emerged from Blinken’s visit for Americans is a “mission accomplished” feeling. The US will now be able to write the entire event off as insignificant and return to their normal activities. These include arguing about how much not to spend on infrastructure, discovering the truth about UFOs or getting vaccinated so that people can start partying again as summer approaches. Hamas has been disarmed. The disaster in the Holy Land has been avoided.

      The problem for any serious observer is that their comforting discourse is in total dissonance with the historical context. The media across the globe have noticed that for the Biden administration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a low priority, an unwanted distraction from the real business of the hour: creating a positive image for the recently elected president, young in the office (a mere 125 days) but old in years and inevitably stale in his thinking.

      Embed from Getty Images

      What does all this tell us about President Joe Biden’s policy with regard to Israeli-Palestinian relations? Some have hinted that, under pressure from progressives and some centrist Democrats, the Biden administration might consider modifying its ever-forgiving relationship with Israel by, for the first time, imposing conditions on the generous military aid the US provides year after year. No trace of that pressure appeared in Blinken’s discourse. Instead, the policy he hints at sounds like an anemic version of the Trump-Kushner peace plan. Biden talks about achieving stability by encouraging trade and investment. This essentially means the US will release enough cash for the rebuilding required for the Palestinians to function minimally within the Israeli economy.

      In his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Blinken evoked a gift of $360 million, not quite half of the appropriation of $735 million in supplementary military aid to Israel the Biden administration requested earlier this month and which some Democrats in Congress are currently contesting. Despite meetings with leaders in Egypt and Jordan, there is no indication that Washington may seek to address the historical causes of a never-ending series of conflicts. That will be left to others. Blinken summed up his intention in these words: “The United States will work to rally international support.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Rally:

      Incite a group of people and, in extreme cases, a mob to back or participate in a project that may or may not be in their interest but which reflects the goals and interests of the one who incites

      Contextual Note

      The style section of The New York Times features an article about a high school student named Adrian in California who, on May 17, produced a flyer to invite kids from his school to an open beach party for his 17th birthday. A friend spread the invitation to Snapchat and TikTok, whose “For You” algorithm turned it into a national event. Thousands of people responded and arranged to travel to Huntington Beach to be part of the event. The response ballooned uncontrollably, leading the two young friends to seek a willing commercial partner and turn it into an organized, paying event in Los Angeles, simply to avoid being accused of provoking a riot. It ended with a fracas on the beach, clashes with the police and hundreds of unhappy customers when no party materialized in Los Angeles. It did, however, instantly turn Adrian into an internet influencer.

      Adrian now understands what it means to rally his contemporaries and indeed how easy it is to do it with the right plan. The Biden-Blinken plan to rally international support not only seems more modest and vague than Adrian’s, but it is far less likely to succeed. Blinken’s promise contains the principal themes of the discredited Trump-Kushner plan, without the ambition. The countries he appears to be rallying are either part of last year’s Abraham Accords initiated by Donald Trump or sympathetic to its goals. They essentially consist of Israel’s neighbors to the south: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt.

      The Trump-Kushner plans rallied these nations around the idea of collaborating with Israel to create a prosperous business zone in the Middle East. It promised to turn the Occupied Palestinian Territories into a prosperous tourist attraction, allowing it to participate in the kind of glitzy commercial culture that has triumphed in Dubai and provided a model for Neom, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic city in the desert. Jared Kushner and friends imagined that Gaza could become one giant beach resort like Waikiki, Acapulco or Cancun.

      Historical Note

      This may be what was at the back of Antony Blinken’s mind when he proposed to “promote economic stability and progress in the West Bank and Gaza, more opportunity, to strengthen the private sector, expand trade and investment, all of which are essential to growing opportunity across the board.” The underlying logic is the same as the Trump-Kushner peace plan, once touted as the “deal of the century,” a game-changer destined to transform the economy of the Middle East, consolidate an objective alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia and isolate Iran. For historical and cultural reasons that should have been obvious to anyone familiar with the region, no one apart from the ruling class of those Middle Eastern countries took the plan seriously. Even they did so mainly out of diplomatic politeness toward Donald Trump and deference to the always redoubtable economic and military might of the US.

      The difference between the Trump-Kushner plan and Blinken’s vague proposal is that in the first case, the cash would be counted in billions. Most of it would have been provided by the Saudis, allowing them to gain cultural control over the Palestinians. The Palestinians would inevitably be beholden to the Israeli-Saudi alliance’s money and technology on the simple condition that they humbly accept their supporting role in an economy designed to further the interests of the ruling class in the US, Israel and the Arabian Peninsula. The Palestinians, with or without an identifiable state, would have their role in the neo-liberal economy assured, ensuring peace on earth forever after.

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      Blinken appears to have accepted the collaborative vision that Jared Kushner imagined, but in stating it, he unwittingly reveals its fundamental flaw. “Asking the international community, asking all of us to help rebuild Gaza only makes sense if there is confidence that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future,” Blinken said. The US has never reconciled the contradiction that comes from the fact that Hamas, which it classifies as a terrorist organization, came to power in a legitimate democratic election in 2006. Some might judge that the US, with a history of sending its mighty military into different regions of the world on false pretexts and prolonging its assaults on other populations for decades, could also be classified as a terrorist organization despite its democratically elected government.

      There is something chilling when Blinken evokes the idea “that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future.” He is telling the Palestinians that if they choose to react to any perceived injustice and repression with the limited weapons at their disposal, they should expect everything that is built or “rebuilt” to come toppling down on their heads once again. This is a threat, not a peace proposal. It is a cynical affirmation of might over right. It is also an explicit denial of democracy and respect for the outcome of democratic elections.

      The test of Biden’s ability to influence events in the Middle East will come very soon with the result of the Vienna talks concerning the United States’ eventual return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu is using the occasion to put pressure on the US to abandon the talks. Joe Biden promised during the 2020 election campaign to return to the JCPOA. If the US fails to do so, some will see it as a sign of Israel’s continued power to dictate US foreign policy.

      *[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

    • 63 Shares109 Views

      in World Politics

      Is Israel an Apartheid State?

      by

      For the news media in the US, ideas have no importance. Only words count. They function as badges of identity. In the 20th century, nutritionists bandied the slogan, “You are what you eat.” Despite the warning, obesity and diabetes have continued to spread. In today’s “woke” society, you are not so much what you eat, but the words you choose to use and the words you know how to avoid. Every American needs a list of offensive words to banish from their vocabulary. The various social media people subscribe to play an important role in establishing those lists. The owners of the media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. — have taken on a major part of that burden, and, of course, the users of social media have honed their collective skills at the cancelling such lists permit.

      The list is constantly growing. This past week, John Dickerson, interviewing Senator Bernie Sanders on the prestigious establishment media program, CBS’ Face the Nation, used the occasion to make a major contribution to the list. The word he selected for permanent exile from conversations about Israel is “apartheid.”

      In the era of fake news, some things simply stand as facts. For example, for any serious political analyst with an objective understanding of historical governments, Israel is an apartheid society. Full stop. The only reason to cast doubt on that assertion is the fact the word is native to neither Hebrew nor English. A purist might say it can only apply to a country where Afrikaans is spoken. Israel has not succeeded in replicating every detail of South Africa’s notorious system of racial segregation, but it has produced something so close in act and spirit that the two systems can easily be confounded.

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      Not many Israelis speak Afrikaans, but the Israeli government hates the word and has decided that uttering constitutes a confession of anti-Semitism. And, of course, because Israel hates it, right-thinking Americans automatically reject it. That was clearly Dickerson’s message to Bernie Sanders. Like any self-respecting establishment journalist in the US, Dickerson believes in always aligning one’s thought and approved vocabulary with the good guys while opposing the bad guys. As the Israelis are the good guys, they should control the vocabulary we use to describe them.

      Sanders dared to object to the automatic alignment of US thinking (and vocabulary) with Israel. Instead, he advocates “an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Dickerson, who knows the good guys from the bad, saw his opportunity to challenge Sanders. “You mentioned an even-handed approach … How do you have an even-handed approach to terrorists who want to destroy Israel?”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Even-handed approach:

      An ideal shared by the established media in the United States that consists of presenting all issues as a contest between two rivals (one of whom is identified as less legitimate) while ensuring that, in the interest of fair play, the weaker one will be allowed to make one point before the dominant position steps in to crush it by refusing to acknowledge any form of reasoning put forward to defend itself.

      Contextual Note

      In this case, Dickerson wastes no time trying to appear objective. Rather than asking Sanders what an even-handed approach would look like, he cites Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tendentious criticism of Sanders, rejecting even the possibility of being even-handed. It isn’t about the suffering Palestinians. It’s about the terrorist organization, Hamas. Consideration of the people and their history can only be a distraction. Conflicts are about the struggle for power, a contest between the good guys and the bad guys.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Leaving aside Palestinian misery or the fact cited by Sanders that “the Netanyahu government has become extremely right wing and that there are people in the Israeli government now who are overt racists,” Dickerson moves on to a more important point: the recrudescence of anti-Semitism in the US. He notes that “there were 193 reports of anti-Semitic incidents this week, up from 131 the previous week.” This permits him to counter Sanders’ claim that it’s “possible to be a critic of Israeli policy, but not be anti-Semitic” by remarking that “it doesn’t seem to be playing out that way with this uptick in random attacks.” Sanders is too polite to point out the absurdity of Dickerson’s logic. The fact that anti-Semitism exists for some people, and that its manifestation tends to increase during moments of conflict, in no way implies that those, like Sanders himself, who criticize Israeli policy must be anti-Semitic.

      But just mentioning anti-Semitism allows Dickerson to score a point. In any conversation, as soon as anti-Semitism is mentioned, every other issue pales in significance and fades into obscurity. That is how the establishment media, including the supposedly left-wing Guardian newspaper, destroyed Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation in the UK. It has even been used against the Jewish Sanders himself. Dickerson knows it’s the easiest way to end a debate on the consequences of Israel’s actions.

      Historical Note

      All this leads up to the big question, the scandalous fact that other progressive Democrats have begun using a forbidden word: apartheid. Dickerson advertises his disgust, calling it “that kind of language,” even though it’s merely a word with clear historical connotations. He blames “that word” for increasing “the level of vitriol that has contributed to this anti-Semitism.” Put on the defensive, Sanders responds: “I think we should tone down the rhetoric. I think our goal is very simple. It is to understand that what’s going on in Gaza today.” Sanders vainly wants to put all these questions in their real historical context. Dickerson sees no need for history.

      The not-quite-but-nearly establishment outlet, The Huffington Post, seized on Sanders’ reply to back up Dickerson’s assault while developing a somewhat more even-handed account. The author of the article, Sanjana Karanth, cites elements of the historical background rather than representing it as a simple contest between Netanyahu (the good guy) and Hamas (the bad guy). She delves into the meaning of apartheid: a regime that “uses laws, practices and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another.”

      She cites the members of Congress who accused Israel of being an apartheid state. Dickerson cited only two witnesses, Netanyahu and Biden. Karanth makes the pertinent point that Israel’s critics vehemently condemn anti-Semitism, disproving Dickerson’s claim that the two are inextricably entangled.

      But then Karanth offers the disingenuous comment that spokespersons for representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib “did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on whether they would follow Sanders’s recommendation and stop calling Israel an apartheid government.” Sanders never suggested banning the word or the idea of apartheid. At most, by suggesting the critics “tone down the rhetoric,” he was suggesting it would be prudent not to speak the truth too boldly, given the current hypersensitivity of the American media. And yet the title of Karanth’s article reads: “Bernie Sanders: Progressives Should ‘Tone Down’ Calling Israel An ‘Apartheid’ State.”

      Karanth then switches gears and cites some other voices to demonstrate that the attribution of apartheid to Israel has some merit. This included South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s remark “that the violence in Gaza reminded him of the apartheid era in his own country.”

      These two examples, from the corporate giant CBS and the corporate-owned but more freewheeling Huffington Post, illustrate one of the most serious failings of US media. We could call it the hyperreal problem of even-handedness. It is hyperreal because commercial news media clearly adhere to what they consider a “safe” editorial stance, discouraging them from being even-handed while at the same time trying to appear objective.

      Investigative reporter and media commentator Matt Taibbi weighs in on the issue this week, remarking that “the news business is a high-speed operation whose top decision-makers are working from a knowledge level of near-zero about most things, at best just making an honest effort at hitting the moving target of truth.” But most media have also strictly defined their “zones of truth,” which defines the truths they will talk about and the ones they will avoid.

      Dickerson, for example, can talk about the truth that Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization, but he avoids acknowledging the truth about living conditions in Palestine. When you combine zones of truth with near-zero knowledge, it’s no wonder people have little confidence in the news media.

      *[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