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India Pursues Scandinavian Partnerships to Join Arctic RaceBy: Saurav Jha | Briefing
Indian President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit
to Norway in mid-October was a signal of India’s rising profile in the
Arctic. After signing 13 agreements with Norway, Mukherjee concluded 19
more deals with Finland—maneuvers designed to gain a foothold in the
Arctic through partnerships with Scandinavia.
Iran Keeps Longstanding Ties With Horn of Africa to Outflank RivalsBy: The Editors | Trend Lines
While Iran is normally seen as a regional
power, its influence extends beyond the Middle East. In an email
interview, Jeffrey Lefebvre, associate professor of political science at
the University of Connecticut, discussed Iran’s relations with
countries in the Horn of Africa.
For U.S. and South Korea, Missile Defense Looms as Next Big ChallengeBy: Richard Weitz | Column
At a meeting of the U.S. and South Korean
foreign and defense ministers last week, the two sides reaffirmed their
global partnership and made progress on some issues. However, they have
yet to overcome differences on missile defense and how to counter North
Korea’s new missile capabilities.
Mexico’s Unfinished Education Reform Key to Pena Nieto’s Economic AgendaBy: Nathaniel Parish Flannery | Briefing
Though President Enrique Pena Nieto has
celebrated his reform agenda, teachers in Mexico’s impoverished southern
states still oppose changes to the education system. The long-term
success of Pena Nieto’s unfinished education reform will define how far
his economic agenda goes.
Out of the Shadows: Iran’s Evolving Approach to Drug AddictionBy: Mehrun Etebari | Feature
Iran has long had one of the world’s
biggest drug addiction problems, but the government’s attitude toward
the drug war remains rife with contradiction. To understand its current
approach, one must look at decades of shifting policies, as the battle
against drug addiction has seen many phases.
Australia Successfully Balances Strategic Ties With China, U.S.By: The Editors | Trend Lines
Earlier this month, Australian, U.S. and
Chinese troops took part in a survival training exercise in northern
Australia. In an email interview, Benjamin Schreer, senior analyst at
the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, discussed Australia’s
military and strategic partnerships.
Frustrations Mount for Both the U.S. and Its Foes at the U.N.By: Richard Gowan | Column
Criticisms by Vladimir Putin and Samantha
Power of the international system last week are illustrations of a
well-established paradox: While many countries believe the U.S. wields
too much influence, American policymakers are repeatedly frustrated by
the system’s failure to deliver in major crises.
As Climate Changes, Central America Lags on Improving Food SecurityBy: Jan-Albert Hootsen | Briefing
Droughts and torrential rains have ruined
the harvests of hundreds of thousands of impoverished farmers in
Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Ill-prepared governments
and climate change have put food security in the region permanently at
risk; the next famine may start early next year.
In Tunisia, Arab Spring Can Be Written Without Quotation MarksBy: Frida Ghitis | Column
Years have now passed since one could use
the term “Arab Spring” without deliberate irony, or at least quotation
marks. And yet there is one country where the hopes of the once-euphoric
revolutionaries did not turn out to have been misplaced. Yes, the Arab
Spring has bloomed in Tunisia.
U.S. Support for Syrian Rebels Serves Political, not Military, PurposesBy: Steven Metz | Column
Supporting the Syrian rebels is a key
component of President Barack Obama’s strategy against the so-called
Islamic State, but it entails many tradeoffs. Backing the rebels makes
little sense from a purely military standpoint, but it does make sense
from a broader policy perspective.
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Crisis Fuelled Resurgence of Horse-Drawn Carriages in Cuba
Ivet González
Up and down the streets of towns and cities in Cuba go horse-drawn
carriages with black leather tops and large back wheels, alongside more
simple carts, operating as public transportation.
This ancient means of transportation can be seen throughout this
country, in urban, suburban and rural ...
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Fossil Fuels Won’t Benefit Africa in Absence of Sound Environmental Policies
Miriam Gathigah
Recent discoveries of sizeable natural gas reserves and barrels of oil
in a number of African countries — including Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya —
have economists hopeful that the continent can boost and diversify its
largely agriculture-based economy.
But environmentalists and climate change ...
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St. Vincent Takes to Heart Hard Lessons on Climate Change
Desmond Brown
Glenda Williams has lived in the Pastures community in eastern St.
Vincent all her life. She's seen the area flooded by storms on multiple
occasions.
But the last two times, it was more “severe and frightening” than
anything she had witnessed before.
“The last time the river came down it ...
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Bangladeshi ‘Char Dwellers’ in Search of Higher Ground
Naimul Haq
Jahanara Begum, a 35-year-old housewife, is surrounded by thatched-roof
homes, all of which are partially submerged by floodwater.
Heavy rains throughout the monsoon months, beginning in August, left
thousands of people in northern Bangladesh homeless or in dire straits
as the mighty ...
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OPINION: Keeping All Girls in School is One Way to Curb Child Marriage in Tanzania
Agnes Odhiambo
“You cannot continue with your education. You have to get married
because this man has already paid dowry for you,” Matilda H’s father
told her. Matilda, from Tanzania, was 14 and had just passed her primary
school exams and had been admitted to secondary school. She pleaded
with her father to ...
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Democracy is “Radical” in Northern Syria
Karlos Zurutuza
There was never anything particularly remarkable about this northern
town of 25,000. However, today it has become the lab for one the most
pioneering political experiments ever conducted in the entire Middle
East region.
Located 700 kilometres northeast of Damascus, Amuda hosts the
headquarters ...
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The Invisible Reality of Spain’s Homeless
Inés BenÃtez
“It’s easy to end up on the street. It’s not because you led a bad life;
you lose your job and you can’t afford to pay rent,” says David Cerezo
while he waits for lunch to be served by a humanitarian organisation in
this city in southern Spain.
Cerezo, 39, lives in a filthy wreck of a house in ...
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Resolving Key Nuclear Issue Turns on Iran-Russia Deal
Gareth Porter
U.S. and Iranian negotiators are working on a compromise approach to the
issue of Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities, which the Barack Obama
administration has said in the past Iran was refusing to make
concessions on.
The compromise now being seriously discussed would meet the Obama ...
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Bougainville Voices Say ‘No’ to Mining
Catherine Wilson
The viability of reopening the controversial Panguna copper mine in the
remote mountains of Central Bougainville, an autonomous region in the
east of Papua New Guinea, has been the focus of discussions led by local
political leaders and foreign mining interests over the past four
years.
But a ...
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A Jungle Shrine Awaits its Blessed Moment
Amantha Perera
Rising out of a thick forest about 17 km from the nearest main road, the
Madhu Church is a symbol of spiritual harmony and tranquility. When the
wind blows you hear the leaves rustle. Other times a solemn silence
hangs in the air. Old-timers say that once, almost an entire generation
ago, the grass ...
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“Yeil” – The New Energy Buzzword in Argentina
Fabiana Frayssinet
In Argentina they call it “yeil”, the hispanicised version of “shale”.
But while these unconventional gas and oil reserves are seen by many as
offering a means to development and a route towards energy
self-sufficiency, others believe the term should fall into disuse
because the global trend is ...
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Zimbabwe’s Rich Fuel Inequality Through Illicit Financial Flows
Tonderayi Mukeredzi
Zimbabwe has lost 12 billion dollars in illicit financial flows over the
last three decades and experts say this illegal practice is
perpetuating social inequalities and poverty in this southern African
nation.
A September report by the Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee
(ZIMVAC) ...
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Put People Not ‘Empire of Capital’ at Heart of Development
Ravi Kanth Devarakonda
President Rafael Correa Delgado of Ecuador does not mince words when it
comes to development. ”Neoliberal policies based on so-called
competitiveness, efficiency and the labour flexibility framework have
helped the empire of capital to prosper at the cost of human labour,” he
told a crowded ...
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OPINION: The Front Line of Climate Change is Here and Now
Kaio Tiira Taulu
The fate of my country rests in your hands: that was the message which
Ian Fry, representing Tuvalu gave at the United Nations Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen five years ago. This is also the message that
the Pacific Climate Warriors have come to Australia to bring.
We have come here, ...
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OPINION: Renewable Energies – a Double-Edged Sword
Bradnee Chambers
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has set a
target of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2. One way
countries can meet their obligations is to switch energy production from
the burning of fossil fuels to “renewables”, generally understood to
include wind, wave, ...
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Uri Avnery
November
1, 2014
WHEN A high-ranking
official of one country calls the leader of another country
"chickenshit", it may be assumed that the relations between the two
countries are not at their best. In fact, they may be considered somewhat less
than cordial.
This week, It
happened. An unnamed very high-ranking US official said this in an
interview with the respected American journalist who bears the very Jewish name
of Jeffrey Goldberg.
No high-ranking
official would use such a term for publication without the express permission
of the President of the United
States of America. So here we are.
HISTORY HAS seen many
strange relationships between nations. But I dare say none stranger than that
existing between Israel and
the US.
On the face of it, no
two states could be closer to each other. Just a minor example: the day the
memorable Chickenshit remark made headlines, the General Assembly of the United
Nations adopted a resolution calling upon the US
to put an end to its 50-year old embargo on Cuba. 188 countries, including the
whole spectrum of EU and NATO countries, voted in favor. Two states voted
against: the US and Israel.
Two countries against
the entire world? No, not entirely. Micronesia,
Palau and the Marshal Islands abstained. (These three mighty
island nations generally support Israel, too, though few Israelis
could place them on the map.)
Throughout the years,
in hundreds of UN votes, Israel
has stood loyally with the US,
and vice versa. An unshakable alliance, so it seemed. And now they call our
valiant Prime Minister chickenshit?
THE OFFICIAL based his
uncomplimentary remark on Binyamin Netanyahu's disinclination to bomb Iran, as
threatened repeatedly, as well as on Netanyahu's unwillingness to make peace
with the Palestinians.
The first accusation
is unfounded, since Netanyahu never seriously considered an attack on Iran. Some of
my readers may remember that from the first day I assured them that such an
attack would not happen, without even leaving myself a loophole in case I might
be wrong. I knew that such an attack was quite out of the question. And not
only because the entire Israeli defense establishment was against it.
The second accusation
is even more groundless. Netanyahu did not chicken out of making peace. This
would presuppose that he wanted peace in the first place. If the Americans
really believe so, they should read a few good articles (especially mine).
Netanyahu never
entertained even for a moment the idea of making peace. His entire upbringing
makes this quite impossible. His late father, Ben-Zion, was such an extreme and
rigid nationalist, that compared to him Vladimir Jabotinsky, the Zionist
right-wing leader, looked like a leftist pacifist.
Every word Binyamin
Netanyahu has ever uttered in favor of peace and the Two-State solution was a
blatant lie. For him to advocate a Palestinian state is like the Chief Rabbi
advocating eating pork on Yom Kippur.
Any American diplomat
who does not know this should be transferred at once to Micronesia (or Palau).
LATELY IT seems that
Netanyahu has been doing everything in his power to provoke a quarrel with the US government.
At first sight, this
looks like an act of lunacy, an act so dangerous that any competent
psychiatrist would commit him to the closed wing of an asylum.
Israel is totally
dependent on the US - not 99%, but 100%. On the very same day as the
publication of the Chickenshit statement, the US
agreed to sell Israel
a second squadron of F-35 fighter planes, after the sale of the first 19 planes
(which costs 2.35 billion dollars). The money comes from the yearly tribute the
US pays to Israel.
Without the automatic
US veto on all UN Security Council resolutions not approved by the Israeli
government, there would have long been a State of Palestine as a full-fledged member of the UN.
A cornerstone of our foreign relations is the belief of many countries that in
order to gain entrance to the favors of the US
Congress, they first need to bribe the gatekeeper – Israel. And so on.
Literally every
Israeli is convinced that our relationship with the US is the lifeline of the state. If
there is anything at all on which Israelis of all age groups, communities,
beliefs and political orientations are unanimous, it is this conviction.
So how come our prime
minister is working full-time on destroying the relationship between the two
governments?
When our Minister of
Defense, Moshe Ya'alon, visited Washington DC this week, all his requests to
meet US cabinet ministers and other high officials were categorically refused,
except for a meeting with his colleague, Chuck Hagel, who could not very well
object. It was an unprecedented, open insult.
Ya'alon, a former
Chief of Staff of the army, is not considered a genius. Some believe that it
would have been better if he had stayed at his former profession – milking cows
in a kibbutz. When he declared that John Kerry suffered from an "Obsessive
Messianism" in his efforts to achieve peace between Israel and Palestine,
both Kerry and President Barack Obama were deeply offended.
But such statements by
Israeli cabinet ministers have become routine.
So have the sharp rebuttals of official US spokesmen and spokeswomen.
These are ignored by the Israeli public.
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU is
no fool. Chickenshit or not, unlike Ya'alon he is considered smart and
intelligent. So what is he doing?
There is method in his madness.
Netanyahu grew up in
the United States.
When his father was boycotted by Israeli academia, which refused to take him
seriously as a historian, the family moved to a suburb of Philadelphia. Binyamin prides himself on
having an intimate knowledge of the US.
What is he thinking
about?
He knows that Israel controls the US Congress. No American politician
could possible be reelected if he voiced even the slightest hint of criticism
of the "Jewish State". AIPAC, the most powerful lobby in Washington (apart from
the National Rifle Association) will see to that. The powerful grip the Jewish
lobby has on the media is a further guarantee.
In Netanyahu's view,
in any confrontation between Congress and the White House over Israel, the
President is bound to lose. So there is nothing to be afraid of.
NETANYAHU, IN
FACT is playing roulette with all the capital of Israel
in the vast casino called the USA.
Perhaps he has been infected by his mentor and protector, the Casino Czar
Sheldon Adelson, who has a hand in conducting Israeli policy in the US.
(It was Adelson who
appointed the Israeli ambassador in Washington, Ron Dremer, a prominent
activist of the Republican party, who is detested by the White House.)
In order to appreciate
the magnitude of Netanyahu's gamble, with us as chips, one has to visualize the
state of the union.
The US is now a
dysfunctional democracy.
In a normal democracy
– say the UK or Germany – there
are two central parties, or party coalitions, which face each other. They are
both "mainstream" and the differences between them are minor. They
succeed each other from time to time without much ado. The citizens hardly
notice.
Not in the US. Not
anymore.
The American public is
now deeply divided between two camps, which hate each other from the bottom of
their hearts (if they have any). This hatred is abysmal. One is the party of
the ultra-rich, who defend their privileges, the other belongs to the
moderately wealthy and serves their interests.
The ideologies of the two camps are diametrically opposed.
Therefore, they cannot agree practically on anything. Anything the Democrats do
is considered almost treason by the Republicans, anything the Republicans
advocate is considered by the Democrats as stupid, if not crazy
The Republicans, who
control Congress (and may do so even more firmly in a few days time) are out to
immobilize the administration. Once they even stopped all federal payments,
making the running of the state impossible. A consistent joint foreign policy
is out of the question. I am not sure that the situation on the eve of the
great Civil War was much worse.
INTO THIS crazy
situation Netanyahu has plunged. He has placed all his chips (us) on the
Republicans.
During the last
presidential elections, he almost openly supported Mitt Romney, the opponent of
Obama, thus practically declaring war on the present administration. The
radical anti-Obama statements made now by Israeli leaders are used – and
designed to be used – by Republican candidates against their Democratic
opponents.
The Democrats make
strenuous efforts to woo Jewish voters and donors by flattering Israel in the
most outrageous terms, promising to support each and every action of the
Israeli government, now and for all eternity, be it what it may. Inadvertently,
they stick knives into the back of the Israeli peace forces, making the fight
for peace even more Herculean.
But even if the
mid-term elections make the House and the Senate even more subservient to the
Israeli right-wing, Obama will be around for two more years. In a way, having
no more elections to fear, he will be freer than before to obstruct Netanyahu.
I wish he would. But I
do not entertain too much hope. Even as a lame duck, he will still have to
consider the interests of the next Democratic candidate for the White House.
OBAMA COULD still do a
lot for peace between Israel and Palestine, a peace supported by the entire
pro-American Arab bloc – something clearly in the US national interest, not to
mention ours.
For that, courage is
needed. And – yes – a little more Obsessive Messianism.
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