One of the tell-tale signs of a regime in distress is that its top officials begin sounding off on subjects quite removed from their remit. So it is with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who claims to have discovered the reason behind the exit of France, England and the United States from the World Cup.
Was it the seething discord in the French camp spilling onto the field? Was it England’s defensive failures compounded by the nasty habit of engaging in “kick and rush?” Was it the US tendency to play catch-up by, more often than not, conceding early goals?
In the Huffington Post, Hagai El-Ad has this to say:
What a long way has Israel traveled in just over six decades: from being founded on the very same year as the Declaration of Human Rights, as some form of a response to one of the most horrible crimes in human history - to becoming a state referred to by one of the Declaration’s drafters as having a “criminal government” deserving of BDS. How much goodwill, hope and optimism were destroyed along this journey, how much human suffering caused - and how difficult it will be to change course. The path leading beyond the cliff’s edge is clear and Israel’s government is propelling the country forward with eyes wide open.
The bloggers of Mondoweiss have worked very hard to convince the public that antisemitism does not exist among the Palestine solidarity movement - indeed, that all such charges of antisemitism are mere subterfuge concocted by “Zionists” to tar critics of Israel, who are by definition pure of heart.
So it’s important to note that Mondoweiss is now voicing support for the Israeli-born, UK-based jazz musician and virulent antisemite Gilad Atzmon.
It’s not all gloom and doom in the labor movement. The International Trade Union Confederation understands all too well the toxic, antisemitic, reactionary politics underlying the campaign to boycott Israel.
At its world congress in Vancouver, the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) stated its rejection of “the extremist policies of Hamas”.
And in a defiant slap to the boycott movement, the leader of Israel’s Histadrut, its umbrella trade union body, Ofer Eini, has been elected as one of ITUC’s vice presidents and given a place on its 25-member executive board.
Every so often and apropos of nothing in particular El País feels obliged to vomit up a gut full of hatred for Israel. Today’s edition runs an editorial titled “The Israeli Quasi-theocracy”.
The Nation magazine has become the house journal of the BDS movement in America. But it wasn’t always that way. Back in 1981, The Nation published a brilliant piece of investigative journalism exposing the role of US corporations in complying with the Arab boycott; in doing so, the writers offered some vital insights into why the boycott movement is so irredeemably and wretchedly reactionary. I explain more in my latest piece for The Huffington Post.
This is a guest post by Karl Pfeifer, a veteran anti-fascist and journalist based in Vienna.
The city of Vienna launched a promotional campaign with the slogan “Wien ist anders”, “Vienna is different.” And Vienna after the Second World War was different, insofar as it did not welcome back its former Jewish citizens and tolerated antisemitism in politics and media for several decades.
I wrote here about the appointmentof Héctor Timerman, and hereI critiqued his fawning attitude to the Iranian regime. His evident anxiety to show that the fact that he is Jewish isn’t going to have a bearing on policy decisions isn’t impressing many people. La Nación,Argentina’s leading quality daily newspaper has had to close its comments section under twostories about Timerman’s appointment in the last two days because of the wave of antisemitic filth that was being submitted to them.
Ron Radosh takes apart this ridiculous article by Adam Horowitz and Phillip Weiss from The Nation, which is rapidly emerging as the house journal of the BDS Movement here in America. Inter alia, Radosh notes:
In essence, in identifying the “Arab revolt” approvingly and as a precedent that informs their work today, Weiss and Horowitz are supporting a Nazi inspired terror which took place against the Jews and other Arab Palestinians who did not support the Mufti’s agenda. It’s not only chilling that American students are being subjected to distortions of American history with fallacious analogies, but also that journalists, who purport to be serious about their craft, would distort the truth about the history of boycotts and general strikes during the “Arab revolt” in Palestine.
Phillip Weiss whitewashing the allies of the Nazis? In The Nation? Surely not…
But they probably won’t. And one reason lies in this helpful explanation emailed by a reader on the political context around the Oakland picket: “The west coast longshoremen are part of an independent union that was expelled from its parent union and from the AFL-CIO for being completely controlled by the Communist Party. Its leader, Harry Bridges, now deceased, was in fact a high-ranking member of the CPUSA. A key reason why the California “bay area” (SF-Oakland-Berkeley) has long been a bastion of all manner of Leftist causes (e.g., Black Panther Party) is because of the steady backing that the Commie-dominated Longshoreman gave to them.”
UPDATE: As pointed out in the comments, Tiran’s original video has disappeared, but there’s a new one which I’ve posted above.
As the World Cup continues apace - any predictions? I’m cautiously picking Argentina - here is some news, via Gene of Harry’s Place, of a heartening Israeli initiative.
On a pitch at the Wingate Institute in Netanya, Sudanese refugees team up with Jewish kids to play against a team of kibbutz youth and kids from a Palestinian village. A bad first touch or missed shot on goal are met with pep talks and shouts of encouragement. A goal is scored and a player asks their teammate how to say “great job” in a new and different language. A victorious result leads to hugs all around; a victory for all rather than victory over someone else. Across the other fields, similar scenes and similar teams run about and bring to life Mifalot Chinuch’s Third Annual Mixed Teams National Tournament.
Find out more about Hapoel Tel Aviv’s Mifalot project here.
Héctor Timerman, Argentina’s new foreign minister, gives a two-page interview to Pagina/12 today in which he says the following with regard to Argentina’s attempts to have a number of Iranians extradited to answer charges of having been responsible for the AMIA massacre,
As of yesterday, Argentina has a new foreign minister. His name is Héctor Timerman and he takes up his new job after having been been Argentina’s ambassador in Washington since 2008. The relevance of his appointment for readers outside Argentina resides in its possible consequences for the AMIA case.
Instant universal condemnation of Israel, with no criticism of Hamas, after the flotilla clash with Israel’s navy, has not helped those who truly seek peace. Rather, the world has further emboldened Hamas in its rejectionist stance. “May 31 was and will be a turning point,” Haniyeh declared. “It marks the beginning of the delegitimization of the Zionist project in our country.” The Hamas leader, for sure, was not speaking only of Gaza.
A flavor of my op-ed for Fox News, which you can read in full here.
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