Category Archives: Opinion

The CIA has brought darkness to America by fighting in the shadows

o13-iconGary Younge writes: Little more than a week after 9/11, Cofer Black gave instructions to his CIA team before their mission. “I don’t want Bin Laden and his thugs captured, I want them dead … I want to see photos of their heads on pikes. I want Bin Laden’s head shipped back in a box filled with dry ice. I want to show Bin Laden’s head to the president. I promised him I would do that.”

A month later, at a meeting sponsored by Schwab Capital markets, CIA executive director “Buzzy” Krongard laid out for investors what such a war would entail. “[It] will be won in large measure by forces you do not know about, in actions you will not see and in ways you may not want to know about,” he said.

Back then there wasn’t a treaty that couldn’t be violated, a principle waived or a definition parsed in the defence of American power and pursuit of popular revenge. To invoke the constitution, the Geneva convention or democratic oversight was evidence that you were out of your depth in the new reality. Laws were for the weak; for the powerful there was force. This was not just the mood of a moment; it has been policy for more than a decade. [Continue reading…]

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Rebel group manoeuvres over Libya’s oil could lead to renewed civil conflict

o13-iconAmanda Kadlec writes: The oil tanker flying a North Korean flag is docked. But Libya’s central authorities are attempting to seize the vessel..

Why? Since August, eastern separatists have seized three major ports. The arrival of the tanker is just the latest of several steps to take a larger share of national oil wealth and create an autonomous state.

Since summer 2013 a band of armed men led by Ibrahim Jathran began seizing oil fields and ports in the north-east, where most of Libya’s oil also happens to be concentrated. He operates under the auspices of a group known as the Cyrenaica Political Bureau (CPB) that has since proclaimed itself as the governing authority of the region. Threats to illicitly sell crude oil to rogue buyers have hung in the air for months. To the dismay of the central government led by prime minister Ali Zeidan, this is a potent weapon in the arsenal they are using to bargain for power.

The inability of the central government to intervene in this episode provides another example of their powerlessness. Threats to bomb the ship are empty ones. Ultimatums issued to militias by the government have repeatedly failed from the earliest days of the transition. As time wears on and warnings go either unheard or are met with violent force in response, the value of such statements becomes laughable. While improvements in naval capacity have been made in the past year, and naval forces have the capacity to mobilise and fire, land security rests in the hands of the country’s scattered militias rather than a national army. [Continue reading…]

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Netanyahu is trying to force his imperious version of Zionism down Palestinian throats

o13-iconDavid Landau writes: In Israeli political conversation one often encounters a much-used maxim: “He [an Arab leader who has offered a concession] is not a member of the Zionist executive, you know. And he’s not planning to become one…”

In other words, the concession, if it is indeed real, flows out of the Arab country’s interests, not out of its leader’s conversion to Zionist belief, a scenario that is evoked as a sort of joke. The Arab leaders have their own narrative and they aren’t suddenly buying into Israel’s.

This maxim is didactic as well as amusing. It has helped generations of Israelis to understand where they are in the world, in relation to regional rivals.

Not anymore. Not since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has actually begun demanding from the Palestinians – and presumably from the Jews, too – that they accept and endorse his version of Zionist belief regarding the identity and historical role of the modern-day state of Israel.

“Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, where the civil rights of all citizens, Jews and non-Jews alike, are guaranteed,” is how Netanyahu detailed his demand in his speech to AIPAC last week. “The land of Israel is the place where the identity of the Jewish people was forged. It was in Hebron that Abraham blocked the cave of the Patriarchs and the Matriarchs. It was in Beit El that Jacob dreamed his dreams. It was in Jerusalem that David ruled his kingdom. We never forget that, but it’s time the Palestinians stopped denying history.”

The Palestinians, of course, flatly deny that the Bible stories are history or that they give Israel a claim over the Holy Land. They deny that modern-day Israel is the real-estate successor of Biblical Israel.

But so do some Jews. They love Israel and are loyal and devoted to it not because its present leader or previous Zionist leaders declared it to be “the nation-state of the Jewish people,” but rather as the strongly and determinedly defended haven for all Jews everywhere in the wake of the Holocaust, and as the one state where the Jewish religion and Jewish culture are central components of the national ethos.

That makes them Zionist, but with no allegiance to Netanyahu’s imperious version of Zionism, nor to his effort to force it down Palestinian throats. [Continue reading…]

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Putin’s Western army of whataboutists

o13-iconMichael Moynihan writes: Readers of a certain vintage will likely recall the oleaginous, Brooklyn-accented Vladimir Pozner, an American citizen domiciled in Moscow who regularly popped up on television in the waning days of the Cold War, propagandizing on behalf of the Kremlin. Pozner was a rather impressive practitioner of whataboutism, the debate tactic demanding that questions about morally indefensible acts committed by your side be deflected with pettifogging discussion of unrelated sins committed by your opponent’s side. Soviet tanks lumbering through the streets of Prague? Yes, but what about the mistreatment of the Native Americans? East Germany’s reluctant citizens penned in by an imposing cement wall, ringed by trigger-happy border guards? A necessary “anti-fascist protection barrier,” sure, but…what about Hiroshima?

Even after the collapse of the Soviet dictatorship, Pozner found it difficult to shake the whataboutist habit and rote moral equivalence. “Yes, there are dissidents and maybe they consist of one percent or two percent of the population,” he told PBS in 1999. “But you’ve had your dissidents and you don’t treat them all that well.”

And there he was last week on CNN, where he is now a contributor, at the start of what distressingly looks to be a new Cold War, discussing the results of Crimea’s referendum on splitting from Ukraine and rejoining Russia. And he sounded surprisingly reasonable. “I don’t know whether President Putin will accept [the referendum results],” Pozner told Jake Tapper. “I don’t know whether he’ll say okay, let’s take them into our federation, but if he does, let’s not forget that Crimea is part of Ukraine.”

Pozner might have softened in his dotage, but there is a Spetsnaz division of Westerners ready to take the place he once occupied, arguing on Moscow’s behalf, employing the familiar whataboutism and blame shifting away from Vladimir Putin and towards the Obama administration. [Continue reading…]

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Markets already see a Putin win

o13-iconAnatole Kaletsky writes: Oscar Wilde described marriage as the triumph of hope over experience. In finance and geopolitics, by contrast, experience must always prevail over hope, and realism over wishful thinking.

A grim case in point is the confrontation between Russia and the West in Ukraine. What makes this conflict so dangerous is that U.S. and EU policy seems to be motivated entirely by hope and wishful thinking. Hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin will “see sense” — or at least be deterred by the threat of sanctions to Russia’s economic interests and the personal wealth of his oligarch friends. Wishful thinking about “democracy and freedom” inevitably overcoming dictatorship and military bullying.

Investors and businesses cannot afford to be so sentimental. Though we should never forget Nathan Rothschild’s advice at the battle of Waterloo — “buy on the sound of gunfire” — the market response to this week’s events in Ukraine makes sense only if we believe that Russia has won.

The alternative to acquiescence in the Russian annexation of Crimea would be for the Ukrainian government to try to fight back, either by military means or by pressuring the Russian minority in the rest of the country. That, in turn, would almost inevitably imply a descent into Yugoslav-style civil war — with the strong possibility of sucking in Poland, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United States.

The West has no intermediate option between accepting the Russian invasion and full-scale war because it seems inconceivable that Putin would voluntarily withdraw from Crimea. Having grabbed Crimea by force, to give it up now would almost certainly mean the end of Putin’s presidency. The Russian public, not to mention the military and security apparatus, believes almost unanimously that Crimea is “naturally” part of Russia, having been transferred to Ukraine, almost by accident, in 1954. In fact, many Russians think, rightly or wrongly, that the entire Ukraine “belongs” to them. (The word “u-krainy” in Russian means “at the frontier,” and definitely not “beyond the frontier.”)

Under these circumstances, the idea that Putin would respond to Western economic sanctions, no matter how stringent, by giving up his newly gained territory is pure wishful thinking. [Continue reading…]

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Washington Post: Declassify the Senate report on CIA interrogation methods

o13-iconIn an editorial, the Washington Post says: More than a dozen years after the attacks of 9/11, it is time to treat government decisions made in the aftermath as history — to be debated and learned from. This is especially true of the misguided program of interrogation and torture carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency. In the years after the attacks, so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” that did not measure up to American values nor international law were brought to bear on detainees. We need to know the full story of how that happened.

In a landmark investigation, comparable in significance to the 9/11 Commission report, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence initiated a full probe of the interrogations in 2009. The investigation was completed in December 2012 and approved by a 9 to 6 vote. The resulting report is roughly 6,300 pages long, with a 300-page executive summary. The CIA, which is the focus of much criticism in the report, submitted a 120-page response to the committee in June, explaining where the agency agreed with the findings and where it disagreed. A long period of discussion between the CIA and committee staff ensued, concluding last September. Since then, the report has been under revision to reflect the comments.

When complete, the full report will go back to the committee for approval and then, perhaps, to the executive branch for declassification. We hope this happens soon. The committee chairwoman, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), has called for the release of a declassified executive summary and of the findings and conclusions. President Obama, who early in his first term repudiated the legal memos that were used as justification for the interrogations but also announced that he would not seek criminal charges against CIA operatives who participated in the them, has endorsed making public a declassified version.

Clearly, this has been a painful process for the CIA. The report is expected to be highly critical of the agency’s actions. A key issue is whether methods such as waterboarding produced any useful intelligence, as members of the Bush administration and others have claimed. A debate without the facts is hollow. We need to read the report of the Senate committee in order to squarely address it.

There have been some reports in recent days of an investigation by the CIA’s inspector general into whether agents gained access to Senate committee computers, perhaps an effort to interfere with the report’s publication. If this happened, this is terribly inappropriate. The CIA must cooperate with Congress in getting this report published, however unpleasant that may be.

The interrogation methods were part of a covert action program authorized by the president. It is time to examine the program with some historical perspective, learn the lessons and ponder how the United States can best defend itself in a dangerous world without violating dearly held values and principles.

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AIPAC, the Kremlin of American Jewry

o13-iconGideon Levy writes: It’s the biggest convention of Israel-haters, attended yearly by some 15,000 representatives, and the damage, historically speaking, that it has done to Israel is perhaps graver than any done by Iran. The convention is held once a year, and time seems to stop. It’s always the same wheeler-dealers, the same kitsch, the same hollow applause, and the same standing ovation for every Israeli prime minister, no matter his policy. The world turns round and round, but this never changes. Even Israel changes, but not in their eyes. Here, Israel is worthy only of applause, blind and automatic applause, now and forever.

Like at similar conventions held in Romania by Nicolae Ceausescu, all they do is praise the great leader. Welcome to Bucharest in Washington, to the Kremlin of American Jewry, behold the yearly AIPAC conference. Only here can Netanyahu use his old tricks and gimmicks and be met with a full auditorium on its feet. “I bring you a message from the unified Jerusalem” – applause; Israel built a hospital for victims of the Syrian war, which Netanyahu visited, and he even spoke to a Syrian – cheers; the whole world is knocking down Israel’s door – applause; we will never abandon Israel’s security – the hall rumbles. “BDS is BS,” and this bullshit was praised as well, even though Netanyahu devoted a large portion of his speech to BDS, which was a bigger gift than the organization could have dreamt of.

Behind Netanyahu sat a young American woman who rose to cheer him when everyone else did. I said to myself, Why exactly did she get up and cheer? For the ongoing occupation? For the undermining of Israeli democracy? For the ever prevalent racism in Israel?

“I’m pro-Israel, I’m AIPAC,” says the organization’s slogan. Pro-Israel? The organization’s critics claim that it sometimes acts against U.S. interests; that it also acts against Israeli interests. Yes, it has caused Congress to pass resolutions congratulating Israel on the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War. AIPAC also prevented the sale of air defense systems to Saudi Arabia, as well as any weapon to any Arab state. No fewer than 259 Congress members and 79 senators signed the organization’s petition condemning aid for the Palestinian Authority.

Bravo, AIPAC. Seek out the conservative right among American Jewry. But long ago, Israel should have said, “No, thanks.” Not every show of loud and pushy, even crazed support is a display of friendship. Sometimes caring and friendship mean criticism. But that is not in AIPAC’s playbook. [Continue reading…]

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Ukraine crisis: The impact on nuclear proliferation

o13-iconSteven Pifer writes: Russia’s military occupation of Ukrainian territory on the Crimean peninsula constitutes a blatant violation of the commitments that Moscow undertook in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances for Ukraine. The United States and United Kingdom, the other two signatories, now have an obligation to support Ukraine and penalize Russia.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Ukraine found itself holding the world’s third largest nuclear arsenal, including some 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads that had been designed to attack the United States. Working in a trilateral dialogue with Ukrainian and Russian negotiators, American diplomats helped to broker a deal —the January 1994 Trilateral Statement — under which Ukraine agreed to transfer all of the strategic nuclear warheads to Russia for elimination and to dismantle all of the strategic delivery systems on its territory.

Kiev did this on the condition that it receive security guarantees or assurances. The Budapest Memorandum, signed on December 5, 1994, by the leaders of Ukraine, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom (the latter three being the depositary states of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, that is, the states that receive the accession documents of other countries that join the treaty) laid out a set of assurances for Ukraine. These included commitments to respect Ukraine’s independence, sovereignty and existing borders; to refrain from the threat or use of force against Ukraine’s territorial integrity and independence; and to refrain from economic coercion against Ukraine. [Continue reading…]

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In the Ukraine crisis, the U.S. has a credibility problem

o13-iconEugene Robinson writes: Is it just me, or does the rhetoric about the crisis in Ukraine sound as if all of Washington is suffering from amnesia? We’re supposed to be shocked — shocked! — that a great military power would cook up a pretext to invade a smaller, weaker nation? I’m sorry, but has everyone forgotten the unfortunate events in Iraq a few years ago?

My sentiments, to be clear, are with the legitimate Ukrainian government, not with the neo-imperialist regime in Russia. But the United States, frankly, has limited standing to insist on absolute respect for the territorial integrity of sovereign states.

Before Iraq there was Afghanistan, there was the Persian Gulf War, there was Panama, there was Grenada. And even as we condemn Moscow for its outrageous aggression, we reserve the right to fire deadly missiles into Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and who knows where else.

None of this gives Russian President Vladimir Putin the right to pluck Crimea from the rest of Ukraine and effectively reincorporate the historic peninsula into the Russian empire. But it’s hard to base U.S. objections on principle — even if Putin’s claim that Russian nationals in Crimea were being threatened turn out to be as hollow as the Bush administration’s claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. [Continue reading…]

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Ukrainians, take it from a Bosnian: the EU flag is just a rag in the wind

o13-iconAndrej Nikolaidis writes: Jorge Luis Borges once said that a true gentleman is interested in lost causes only. If you’re looking for a decent contemporary lost cause, you will surely find it in Ukraine, since if it comes to war, no matter who wins, most of the ordinary people will be losers.

We, the citizens of Bosnia, can tell you a thing or two about being losers. It was April 1992, during the start of Sarajevo’s siege. I was a long-haired teenager, dressed in blue jeans and a shirt with the famous black and white “Unknown Pleasures” print. From the window of my suburban flat, I was watching the Yugoslav People Army’s cannons, located in the Lukavica army camp, firing projectiles on Sarajevo. That army was controlled by Slobodan Milošević, the president of Serbia.

The National Radio was broadcasting Bosnian president Alija Izetbegović‘s discussion with Yugoslav army general Milutin Kukanjac. Izetbegovic asked the army to stop the bombing. Kukanjac claimed that not a single shot was fired from his army positions. I remember like it was yesterday that my glass of milk was jumping on the table to the rhythm of cannonballs “not fired” on Sarajevo.

When common people find themselves in the middle of a geopolitical storm – as the citizens of Ukraine do now, or my family back then in Bosnia – the dilemma “is this glass half empty or half full?” is irrelevant: soon, it will be broken.

The people in Bosnia were so full of optimism during the first days, even months, of war. Neighbours were saying that the west would never allow it to happen because “we are Europe”. My aunt went to Belgrade, but refused to take her money from a Sarajevo bank. It will be over in a week; we’ll be back soon, she said. President Izetbegovic, in his TV address to the people, said: “Sleep peacefully: there will be no war.”

Well, we woke up after a four-year nightmare.

Now, the events in Ukraine seem to us Bosnians like a terrifying deja vu. The parallels between Ukraine now and Bosnia in 1992 are obvious. The Russian army acted aggressively towards Ukraine, as Milošević’s army did in Bosnia. Putin had strong support in parts of Ukraine, as Milošević had in large parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Now Kiev has the support of the EU and the US, as Sarajevo did. We even had Bono and Pavarotti singing about Miss Sarajevo. Yet all the musical telegrams of support from the free world didn’t stop the ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia, close to the Serbian border. [Continue reading…]

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The West’s puny response to Ukraine crisis will not deter Putin

o13-iconSimon Tisdall writes: Barack Obama has sternly warned Vladimir Putin there will be “costs” for Russia if it continues or expands its military intervention in Ukraine. But the American president did not specify what these costs might be, and this toothlessness, in a nutshell, is the dilemma now facing the US and its allies. Putin does not fear the west. On the contrary, he is once again forcefully demonstrating his deep contempt.

The idea that the US, Britain or France – the only western countries with sizeable, readily deployable, experienced combat forces – might respond militarily to Russia’s invasion of Crimea cannot be taken seriously. Putin surely calculates there will be no such challenge, as he did, correctly, in Georgia in 2008, and thus moves his troops and tanks in Crimea – and possibly eastern Ukraine – with impunity. Obama, whose presidency has been dedicated to ending wars, not starting them, has shown he has no appetite for new armed confrontations, in Syria or elsewhere.

Even if Obama did want to pursue a military option, he would be hard put to make it credible. US forces in western Europe have been cut back repeatedly. The US sixth fleet, headquartered in Naples, is a considerable weapon. But to make any sort of impact in Ukraine, it would have to deploy into the Black Sea via the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, a move that Turkey would find highly objectionable, and which Russia would regard as a direct threat. [Continue reading…]

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What’s behind the ‘Jewish state’ idea?

o13-iconRami G. Khouri writes: In my discussions on Palestinian-Israeli negotiations with various informed audiences around the United States during the past month, the question that comes up most often is about how the Palestinians can, should or will respond to the Israeli government demand that they must recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.” The prevalent Arab and Palestinian demand is to rule out any such recognition, on several valid grounds, such as: The Jewish state concept is not defined, it does not take account of the Palestinian Arab and other non-Jewish Israelis, it does not address the implications of such recognition for the U.N.-acknowledged rights of Palestinian refugees, and it does not have any basis in international law or diplomatic norms related to how states recognize each other.

These points do not seem to impress the Israelis, who have made this more central to their demands for any permanent peace agreement. Israel also seems to have convinced the United States to come down on its side, as the American president, secretary of state and other senior officials have routinely referred to Israel as “the Jewish state of Israel” or some other such formulation.

It is not clear if Palestinians will cave in and accept the Israeli-American demand as they usually do, for three main reasons. First, the demand comes in the context of final-status negotiations that aim to resolve all outstanding disputes, so there is likely to be some room for give-and-take in any final agreement. Second, the “Jewish state” concept remains undefined, and its clear definition, coupled with agreement on the rights of the Palestinians and non-Jewish Israelis, could pave the way for some mutual acknowledgments that satisfy both sides. Third, a central negotiating demand such as this that springs up suddenly after over six decades of warfare seems to be a proxy concept that reflects deeper issues that must be resolved. [Continue reading…]

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The Crimean invasion will increase the polarization inside Russia

o13-iconMasha Gessen writes: Can something be evident and incredible at the same time? Certainly, if you are in denial. Until Russian troops landed in the Crimea many Russians were in denial about Vladimir Putin. They believed he was all bark and no bite.

Not that Putin had kept his intentions secret. He has always denied the idea that the Soviet Union was a colonising power; furthermore, he called the breakup of the USSR “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of our time”.

He has annexed chunks of Georgia, most recently by means of a military invasion in 2008. But there are two differences between now and the war in Georgia. Technically, it was not Putin but Dmitry Medvedev who was nominally president when Russia invaded Georgia. More importantly, Russian liberals were not rooting for their fellows in Georgia during that war; indeed, they were scarcely aware of the political struggles within the country.

Ukraine is different: for three months, Russians had been watching the stand-off, and the oppositionally minded were strongly identifying with the anti-Yanukovych forces in Kiev.

Perhaps the last time the Russian intelligentsia watched the internal struggle in another country this intently was in 1968 during the Prague Spring, when they hoped the Czechs would succeed in building what they called “socialism with a human face”. They also believed it would hold out the promise of something better for life in the Soviet Union. In August 1968, the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, quashing the Prague Spring. In Moscow, seven people came out to protest against the invasion; they were arrested and the modern dissident movement was born.

The parallels end there. It’s unlikely that what’s happening in Ukraine will foment a new protest movement in Russia: the ongoing crackdown on civil society makes the cost of protest too high. Still, the Crimean invasion is a landmark in Russian domestic politics.

It signals a loss of innocence: no longer will Russians be able to think that Putin merely feels nostalgic for the USSR. It also signals ever greater polarisation of Russian society: in addition to all the other lines along which Russians are divided and across which civilised dialogue is impossible, there is now the chasm between supporters and opponents of the planned annexation. It also means the political crackdown in Russia will intensify further. [Continue reading…]

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Maidan, Ukraine … Tahrir, Egypt … the square symbolises failure, not hope

o13-iconSimon Jenkins writes: The experience was eerie. I was watching a documentary, The Square, on Netflix about the 2011 Tahrir Square occupation when the lead character, Ahmed, let out a cry of delight, “The revolution has been won.” At that very moment my radio blurted out a voice live from a different square, Kiev’s Maidan. “The revolution has been won,” it repeated.

Squares are famously potent political theatres. This year is a second showing for Ukraine’s revolution, and a third for Egypt’s. Western TV viewers have cheered them all on. We thrill to see young people hurling rocks at power. Fire, smoke, bloodstained flags, broken heads, water, gas and sinister paramilitaries are Les Misérables for slow learners. We can sit with a front seat in the auditorium of history. It beats polling booths any day.

Tahrir and Maidan squares thus join Istanbul’s Taksim, Tehran’s Azadi, Beijing’s Tiananmen, Prague’s Wenceslaus, Athens’s Syntagma, London’s Trafalgar and a dozen other urban spaces the world over as icons of modern revolutionary politics. Their furniture is the barricade, their tipple the Molotov cocktail, their tonic the tear gas canister. They gather people in their thousands to sacred forums and invite the world to witness the latest trial of strength with a supposedly oppressive regime. Sometimes they even win.

If I were a dictator I would build shopping malls over these places right away, as Turkey’s Recep Erdoğan tried to do last year in Taksim’s Gezi Park. At the very least, I would learn the message of Tiananmen: that a crowd once formed in a square is fiendishly hard to remove, and creates worse publicity worldwide than a dozen provincial massacres.

Vladimir Putin reportedly damned Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych for failing immediately to remove crowds from Maidan, at whatever cost in brutality. It is hard to imagine Putin allowing an occupation of Red Square. [Continue reading…]

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Why Israelis are content to live in a bubble of denial

o13-iconJonathan Cook writes: The 24-hour visit by German chancellor Angela Merkel to Israel this week came as relations between the two countries hit rock bottom. According to a report in Der Spiegel magazine last week, Ms Merkel and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netan­yahu have been drawn into shouting matches when discussing by phone the faltering peace process.

Despite their smiles to the cameras during the visit, tension behind the scenes has been heightened by a diplomatic bust-up earlier this month when Martin Schulz, the president of the European parliament and himself German, gave a speech to the Israeli parliament.

In unprecedented scenes, a group of Israeli legislators heckled Mr Schulz, calling him a “liar”, and then staged a walkout, led by the economics minister Naftali Bennett. Rather than apologising, Mr Netanyahu intervened to lambast Mr Schulz for being misinformed.

Mr Schulz, who, like Ms Merkel, is considered a close friend of Israel, used his speech vehemently to oppose growing calls in Europe for a boycott of Israel. So how did he trigger such opprobrium?

Mr Schulz’s main offence was posing a question: was it true, as he had heard in meetings in the West Bank, that Israelis have access to four times more water than Palestinians? He further upset legislators by gently suggesting that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was preventing economic growth there.

Neither statement should have been in the least controversial. Figures from independent bodies such as the World Bank show Israel, which dominates the local water supplies, allocates per capita about 4.4 times more water to its population than to Palestinians.

Equally, it would be hard to imagine that years of denying goods and materials to Gaza, and blocking exports, have not ravaged its economy. The unemployment rate, for example, has increased 6 per cent, to 38.5 per cent, following Israel’s recent decision to prevent the transfer of construction materials to Gaza’s private sector.

But Israelis rarely hear such facts from their politicians or the media. And few are willing to listen when a rare voice like Mr Schulz’s intervenes. Israelis have grown content to live in a large bubble of denial. [Continue reading…]

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If native advertising is so harmless, why does it rely on misleading readers?

o13-iconBob Garfield writes: The devil walks into a bar and sits at a table with eight newspaper and magazine publishers plus one strange little fellow in shabby, dated robes. The devil says, “How’d you all like to get some advertising revenue at higher rates than what you’ve been fetching for the past five or six years?”

The publishers crowd in to hear to his offer. All they need do in exchange is make the advertising look similar to the surrounding editorial matter. “Can we label it as advertising?” one publisher asks.
“You can label it ‘sponsored content,'” the devil replies.
“And it will be worthy?” chimes in another publisher.
“Oh yes,” says the devil. “My clients don’t benefit if people don’t read the stuff.”
“But won’t this confuse our readers,” ventures another publisher, “and even deceive them into reading brand propaganda when they’re expecting arms-length journalism?”

The devil has an answer for that, too. “I repeat: the rates are higher than for the regular display ads that nobody ever looks at. What say we put this to a vote?”

One by one the publishers raise their hands. The Economist. Forbes. The Atlantic. The Huffington Post. The Washington Post. Time Inc. The New York Times. And, most recently, Yahoo. Nine people sit at the table, and eight hands eventually are raised. Only one, the strange fellow with the odd garments and a thick German accent, fails to accept the devil’s offer.

“And you, sir,” says the prince of darkness. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Faust,” answers the holdout.
“And may I ask why you did not accept my bargain, Mr Faust?”
The odd fellow nods. “Sure,” he says to the devil. “To tell you the truth, I don’t see much of an upside.” [Continue reading…]

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What the hell is Barack Obama’s presidency for?

o13-iconGary Younge writes: A few days after John F Kennedy’s assassination, Lyndon Johnson sat in his kitchen with his key advisers working his first speech to Congress. It was the evening of Kennedy’s funeral – Johnson was now president. The nation was still in grief and Johnson, writes Robert Caro in The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power, was not yet able to move into the White House because Kennedy’s effects were still there.

He had been a hapless vice-president; now he had to both personify and project the transition from bereavement to business as usual. In the midst of the cold war, with Vietnam brewing, the Kennedy administration had been trying to get civil rights legislation and tax cuts through Congress. There was plenty of business to attend to. Johnson’s advisers were keen that he introduced himself to the nation as a president who could get things done.

For that reason, writes Caro, they implored him not to push for civil rights in this first speech, since it had no chance of passing. “The presidency has only a certain amount of coinage to expend, and you oughtn’t to expend it on this,” said “one of the wise, practical people around the table”. Johnson, who sat in silence at the table as his aides debated, interjected: “Well, what the hell’s the presidency for.”

“First,” he told Congress a few days later, “no memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honour President Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.” Over the next five years he would go on to sign the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, launch the war on poverty and introduce Medicaid (medical assistance for low-income families) and Medicare (for seniors). That’s what his presidency was for.

Barack Obama has now been in power for longer than Johnson was, and the question remains: “What the hell’s his presidency for?” [Continue reading…]

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