Middle East

By Patrick Bond

June 1, 2011-- Rosa Luxemburg Foundation Palestine office, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission -- In their latest documents and meetings, the G8, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) reacted to the democratic movements in the Arab world: The recipe calls – as it did before the popular ousting of the Tunisian and Egyptian presidents – for privatisation, austerity measures and “market liberation”. Patrick Bond, economic advisor to the new South African government from 1994-2002, analyses the ramifications of the economic campaign on Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Palestine.

Washington’s seeding of the Arab democratic revolution

By Adam Hanieh

STOP PRESS: May 31, 2001 -- "Hamalawy and Maged not questioned but asked to provide evidence of military police violations".

May 31, 2011 -- menasolidaritynetwork -- Journalists Hossam el-Hamalawy, Reem Maged and Nabil Sharaf al-Din have been summoned to appear before military judges on May 31. Mostafa Sheshtawy has a useful post here, which provides a translation of Hossam’s comments which have upset the military so much (he called for an end to the practice of military trials for civilians and said he held the head of the military police, Hamdy Badeen, responsible for the torture and mistreatment of detainees).

By Patrick Bond

May 30, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- A renewed wave of development babble began flowing soon after the February launch of the World Bank’s 10-year strategy document, Africa's Future and the World Bank‘s Support to it. Within three months, a mini-tsunami of Afro-optimism swept in: the International Monetary Fund’s Regional Economic Outlook for SubSaharan Africa, the Economic Commission on Africa’s upbeat study, the African World Economic Forum’s Competitiveness Report and the African Development Bank’s discovery of a vast new “middle class” (creatively defined to include the 20% of Africans whose expenditures are US$2-4 a day).

Three o’clock in the morning on May 1, Washington DC erupts in celebration

May 27, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Below is the political perspectives document of the newly formed Egyptian Socialist Party -- one of a number of new pro-democracy parties formed in Egypt since the January 25, 2011, revolution that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak. The party will be officially inaugurated on June 18, in Cairo.

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By the Egyptian Socialist Party

By Patrick Bond, Palestine

May 23, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Here in Palestine, disgust expressed by civil society reformers about US President Barack Obama’s May 19 policy speech on the Middle East and North Africa confirms that political reconciliation between Washington and fast-rising Arab democrats is impossible.

Amidst many examples, consider the longstanding US tradition of blind, self-destructive support for Israel, which Obama has just amplified. Recognisng a so-called “Jewish state” as a matter of US policy, he introduced a new twist that denies foundational democratic rights for 1.4 million Palestinians living within Israel. For a Harvard-trained constitutional lawyer to sink so low on behalf of Zionist discrimination is shocking.

For although Obama mentioned the “1967 lines” as the basis for two states and thereby appeared to annoy arch-Zionist leader Benjamin Netanyahu, this minimalist United Nations position was amended with a huge caveat: “with land swaps.”

This interview with Hassan Khaled Chatila was conducted and first published by the A World to Win News Service. Chatila was born in Damascus in 1944 and holds a doctorate in political philosophy from the University of Paris, a city where he has lived as a refugee for many years. He is a member of the Syrian Communist Action Party, founded in 1975. AWTWNS condensed and edited this material while trying to faithfully represent his views, which are his own.

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By Hassan Khaled Chatila

By Pip Hinman and Peter Boyle

May 18, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Samah Sabawi, from Australians for Palestine, addressed a May 13, 2011, community forum in Holy Trinity Church Hall, Dulwich Hill, a suburb in Sydney, which was called by local residents to discuss the controversy (incited by Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd media empire) around a December 2010 decision by Marrickville Council to support the global boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel's apartheid. Samah is introduced by Father Dave Smith, the local Anglican parish priest.

Former Greens parliamentarian Sylvia Hale dissected the NSW Greens' stand in support of BDS and the struggle around the Marrickville Council position.

Farooq Tariq, do LPP.

Por Farooq Tariq

[English at http://links.org.au/node/2297.]

Al Nakba: The Palestinian Catastrophe 1948 (58 minutes, documentary, Israel-Germany-The Netherlands, 1997). Arguably the first film that seriously tackles the historic events that led to the creation of 750,000+ Palestinian refugees at the end of 1948. Based on historian Benny Morris' book, The birth of the Palestinian refugee problem, 1947-49.

Produced and directed for ARTE by Benny Brunner and Alexandra Jansse.