Algeria: Dotting the I’s in France’s colonial history

April 22 2022

Source: Al Mayadeen Net

By Karim Sharara 

France’s colonial history is a barbaric one that extends from the 16th century until the liberation of Algeria in 1962. Millions of people have died, countries have had their wealth plundered, and France still refuses to recognize its dark past.

France’s 132 years of colonial presence in Algeria resulted in the deaths of millions of people and the plundering of the country’s riches

It wasn’t completely unlike Macron to deny that Algeria was ever a nation. It was surprising to hear such a statement uttered against a sovereign country in what is supposed to be a post-imperialist world order (evidently not so), but to say outright that a country that France had occupied for over a century and whose culture it helped destroy was truly flabbergasting.

You can take the colonial out of the colony but not colonialism out of the colonial, the mentality indeed persists.

It seems somewhat perplexing that France, whose Zemmours, Le Pens, and Macrons are all radically attempting to preserve what they consider to be essential to French identity by coercing Muslims into conforming, are also denying the identity of the very country they occupied, whose riches they stole, whose people they killed and posed next to their decapitated heads neatly arranged on spears, and whose culture and identity they transformed by force and coercion.

How did France’s colonial history begin and unfold, and what led it to its 100+ year occupation of Algeria?

France’s colonial empire

France’s earliest trials at colonialism happened during the 16th and 17th centuries and were part of the ongoing competition that was taking place at the time between European powers (France, Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal), the main goal of all of whom was to find new routes to the East Indies in an effort to secure these routes for themselves in an attempt to monopolize the spice trade.

France first began its incursions into North America with the establishment of small colonies. The presence of French missionaries, coupled with colonization efforts, further exacerbated matters as they upset the sociological makeup by drawing Native American men into Christianity with promises of land, and then telling them they must cultivate crops, which to their societies was women’s work. These “redefinitions of manhood prompted many women to resist Christianity” and generated conflict within their communities.[1]

The Caribbean was also a region where competing European powers constantly clashed with one another. By 1697, France had colonized portions of North America stretching to the Caribbean and snatched Hispaniola (modern-day Haiti) from Spain in that same year. Most of the island’s indigenous population had died during Spain’s incursion for gold. France turned their colonies into plantations for sugar, coffee, and spice, and used slave labor on the islands, to such an extent that by the late 18th century, slaves outnumbered European colonists by 8 to 1, thus greatly transforming the demographic makeup of the region.

Amid the struggle for global empire-building between France and Britain, the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) took place between the two powers and their allies in Europe. The war resulted in a decisive win for Britain and a loss for France and Spain, and the 1763 Treaty of Paris saw a number of land exchanges in order to appease Britain. France ceded all of Canada in order to retain the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe and their valuable sources of sugar and remained somewhat inactive until after the French Revolution of 1789 and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte who returned to the task of empire-building.

France’s imperial incursions into West Asia and North Africa date back in large part to the year 1798, as Napoleon was rising in power and conquered Egypt, and then continued on when the French Empire later colonized Algeria in 1830.

After his successes in Italy, which culminated in the Treaty of Campo Formio, Napoleon turned his attention to the British Empire, France’s perennial enemy, and tried to see whether a landing on the British isles was possible; after two months of planning, he found that it was not, as the British Navy was far superior to the French. However, one thing Napoleon could do to harm the British would be to threaten their trade with India.

Napoleon’s fascination with Egypt

Another end goal envisioned by Napoleon would follow the occupation of Egypt, whereupon he would send a force to the Kingdom of Mysore in South India in order to reinforce them, as they were also enemy of the British and were fighting against their presence in India[2].  

For Napoleon, this mission also held a personal dimension, as the 29-year-old general (in 1798) had been a longtime fan of the Orient, and he always referenced Alexander the Great and Egypt in his writings and conversations. “Thus, the idea of reconquering Egypt as a new Alexander proposed itself to him, allied with the additional benefit of acquiring a new Islamic colony at England’s expense.[3]”

Although Napoleon’s ships were being pursued by the British Royal Navy, he successfully evaded them, managed to land on Egypt’s shores, and defeated the Mamluk army in the Battle of the Pyramids. However, Napoleon’s armies suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of the British Navy only days later, which resulted in the decimation of Napoleon’s ships, left him stranded in Egypt, and ended his dreams of conquering West Asia. After a three-year campaign and a series of defeats, Napoleon went back to France and launched his coup d’état, leaving him in power[4].

Algeria’s story begins

France’s aspirations of colonization in the MENA region would be left unachieved until after Napoleon’s fall, and during the reign of Charles X. Although Algeria had stood by France during its difficult times, when it was shunned by all of Europe in the 1790s, Algeria had lent it money and allowed it to receive supplies from its ports. Both countries’ relations were somewhat constrained during France’s three-year invasion of Egypt, as the Ottoman Sultan requested that Algeria declare war on Egypt, which it did, but relations returned to normal as soon as the invasion was over.

Despite Algeria’s good relations with France, Napoleon had (prior to his fall) been looking for a reason to invade it because of its strategic position, the superiority of France’s fleet, and his want of a colony on the Mediterranean to strengthen France’s position. He threatened Algeria repeatedly over the years on a number of different occasions, but the plans to invade it never materialized, as he was busy with campaigns in Europe. Nevertheless, some of his commanders did go to Algeria in the early 1800s to scout it and assess how best to capture it.

The main reason behind France’s invasion of Algeria is that France did not wish to repay its debts to the Algerian Dey and Algeria’s Jewish merchants (who had come to the Dey complaining that France is refusing payment). The debt had been accumulated by France during its invasion of Egypt in 1798. France only used an incident that took place between the Algerian ruler and France’s consul (who was implicated in the affair and had received payment from the merchants in exchange for helping secure a portion of their debt, none of which found its way back to the Algerian treasury), in order to launch the war against the country and occupy it in 1830, during the reign of Charles X[5]. The incident in question came to be known as the Fly Whisk incident.

The merchants had promised France’s Foreign Minister and its consul in Algeria a portion of the funds if they managed to secure payment of France’s debts to them, which in fact happened. However, the merchants were also indebted to the Algerian state, but by the time they were paid, France paid them directly, and not through the Algerian treasury. Moreover, one of the merchants had secured French citizenship, and another Italian citizenship, and so the Algerian state was unable to pursue them for payment. 

France’s consul, as French newspapers revealed at the time, was paid two million Francs by the merchants in return. When Algerian authorities caught wind of the news, they knew the consul, who is thought to have made up the incident, was in on it, and was refusing to cooperate with Algeria in order to avoid France having to repay its debt[6].

The occupation

During the course of Algeria’s 132-year struggle for independence, nearly 5 million people were killed, and hundreds of thousands were injured. It took France nearly 70 years to gain control of Algeria after it first occupied it on July 5th, 1830, and Algeria only gained its independence after fighting a fierce war in which nearly 1.5 million Algerians lost their lives.

As far as the looting of Algeria went, France made sure to profit off the land as best it could. Even though the Treaty of Surrender signed between Algeria’s last Dey, Hussein Dey, and France included a condition that Islamic endowments not be violated, France realized that these endowments may become a source of income and confiscated them and looted them in 1843.

France’s colonial administration went a step further in 1871, enacting the Indigenous People Law, which helped them plunder Algeria’s resources by granting European settlers ownership of the lands, while Algerians working them only received 20% of the production. The Algerians could also only travel after seeking permission from colonial authorities and had their movements restricted.

Another law issued by colonial authorities was the Cremieux Decree in 1870, which turned Muslim Arabs and Berbers effectively second-class citizens, while Algeria’s Jewish population was granted French citizenship.

In terms of precious metals, more than 110 tons of Algeria’s gold and silver were stolen by the French, which are estimated today to be worth over $180 billion in today’s money.

France only recognized Algeria’s war of independence as an actual war in 1999. Today’s France, however, is still dragging its legs in recognizing Algeria’s right to reparation. In 1961, before gaining their independence, Algerians took to the streets of Paris to protest a curfew imposed on them, but a French crackdown turned the protest into a massacre, with more than 200 people being killed and scores of bodies being dumped in the Seine River.

Today, France continues to treat its Muslim population as second-class citizens who must conform, by force, to a very restricted idea of French identity. Instead of accommodating them, France is trying its best to exclude its citizens, just as it tried to force Algerians to conform to its own norms. The reasoning before was that of the White Man’s Burden, backwardness, cultural inferiority, or any number of excuses. Today, these excuses have all been repackaged under a nifty new branding called French identity.

Sources:

• [1] Benjamin, Thomas, and Macmillan Reference USA Staff. “Encyclopedia of Western colonialism since 1450.” (2007).
• [2] Amini, Iradj, “Napoleon and Persia”, Iran, vol. 37 (1999), British Institute of Persian Studies, p. 109-110.
• [3] Said, Edward. “Orientalism Penguin Books.” (1978), p. 80.
• [4] Roberts, Andrew. Napoleon: A life. Penguin, 2014, p. 188-230.
• [5] Abu al-Qasim Sa’d Allah, Muhadarat fi Tarikh al-Jaza’ir al-Hadith (Bidayat al-Ihtilal), Al-Jaza’ir: Al Sharikah al-Wataniyyah li-n-Nashr w-at-Tawzi’, p. 13-33
• [6] Mubarak bin Muhammad al-Mili, Tarikh al-Jaza’ir bayn al-Qadim w-al-Hadith, vol. 3, n.d, Maktabat al-Nahdah al-Jaza’iriyyah, p. 271-276.

Mind tricks: Why resistance to Israel and imperialism are called ‘Shia causes’

April 20 2022

The Arab and Muslim street remains firmly opposed to western imperialism and Israel. So their Arab Sunni rulers began calling all resistance ‘Shia.’

By Omar Ahmed

Would Sunni Arab monarchs be able to continue conspiring with the west and Israel without labelling those who resist collaboration as ‘Shia?’Photo Credit: The Cradle

The past several decades have seen the political ascendency of Shia Muslims in West Asian geopolitics. While initially ignited by Iran’s Islamic Revolution of 1979, it was the aftermath of the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003 which accelerated this political shift by paving the way for Iraq’s Shia majority to govern.

A year after US troops occupied Iraq and overthrew its Sunni president Saddam Hussein, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, fearing a growing influence of Iran among Iraq’s Shia majority and their regional coreligionists, coined the phrase “Shia Crescent.” This so-called ideological belt, it is hypothesized, runs from Tehran through several Arab capitals, including Baghdad, Damascus and Beirut, and later Sanaa.

The idea has been criticized as it treats the Shia as a monolith and greatly exaggerates the extent of control or influence Iran exerts over the region.

Tehran’s efforts to forge ties with friendly governments, powerful political parties, and militia forces are arguably based on pragmatism and self-interest rather than sectarian ideology. Among the state and non-state actors that provide Iran with its regional strategic depth – and therefore, influence – are Sunnis, Druze, Christians, Alawis, Zaidis, and other non-Shia populations. This alliance is more commonly – and accurately – known as the Axis of Resistance and its fundamental tenet is opposition to both western imperialism and the Zionist project, and a desire for self-determination.

Axis of Resistance

With Tehran at its nexus, this network consists of both state and non-state actors. Notable Shia factions include Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Afghan and Pakistani brigades.

Sunni Palestinian resistance movements Hamas and Islamic Jihad are also considered to be a part of the axis, and an armed affiliate of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Resistance Brigades (also known as Saraya), is composed of Sunnis, Maronite Christians and Druze. At the state level are the mostly Zaidi, Ansarallah-led, de facto government of Yemen and the Alawite-dominated government of Sunni-majority Syria.

While not part of the axis per se, Sunni-majority Algeria has also consistently opposed Zionism and could strengthen its ties with Iran, especially in light of growing tensions with neighboring Morocco whose government has recently aligned with Israel.

Traditional western-aligned Sunni Arab states such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have all expressed their own concerns about this Shia-majority, ‘Iran-led’ axis, and along with Israel have opposed the Resistance Axis. It is due to these mutual interests that there have been several proposals for a “Sunni-Jewish alliance.”

Arab normalization with Israel

This new public alliance tangibly materialized in 2020 with the signing of the Abraham Accords and the normalization of ties between Israel and the UAE, Sudan, Morocco and Bahrain (the latter is a Shia majority nation ruled by a Sunni royal family). Certainly, it ended years of speculation that there were indirect, covert ties between Tel Aviv and several Arab states.

However, it is important to differentiate between the policies of these governments and the popular sentiments among their citizens. According to an opinion poll carried out between 2019-2020 by the Qatar-based Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), the majority of the Arab world (88 percent) opposes any normalization with Israel. This includes the Persian Gulf: “Refusal to recognize Israel is proportionally the highest in the Gulf region,” the report found.

Nevertheless, last month’s Negev Summit ushered in an unprecedented level of security cooperation between Israel and Arab states and may be a precursor to an ‘Arab-Israeli NATO‘ equivalent intent on confronting the Axis of Resistance, especially over heightened fears of a nuclear-powered Iran, should efforts in Vienna to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) fail.

The Palestinian issue

After the humiliating and resounding failures of pan-Arab nationalism to liberate occupied Palestine following the Six Day War in 1967, Egypt lost its position as the leader of the Arab world. This was cemented after Egypt made peace with Israel under Anwar Sadat in 1979, the same year as Iran’s Islamic Revolution.

As one of, if not the most pressing and long-standing Arab and Muslim issues of our time, the Palestinian cause was essentially abandoned by the Sunni Arab leadership, only to be championed by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its regional allies. Symbolically, the first statesman to visit revolutionary Iran was Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat who was given keys to what was once the Israeli diplomatic mission-turned Palestinian embassy, as it remains to this day. “We shall liberate the land of Palestine under the leadership of Imam Khomeini,” Arafat declared during his historic visit.

Significantly, during the 1990s, Iran’s support to Palestinians was not merely diplomatic but military too, as Iran has consistently been the main patron of Palestinian armed resistance factions Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), something acknowledged by the movements themselves.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, itself established with the help of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has also been instrumental in assisting Palestinian factions in training and developing weapons capabilities. Early last year, IRGC Aerospace Force commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh stated, “All the missiles you might see in Gaza and Lebanon were created with Iran’s support.”

‘Iranian-backed’ doesn’t make these ‘Shia causes’

Well before the Abraham Accords, there were signs that a regional narrative was being developed to aid Arab autocrats in breaking with the popular causes of the Arab/Muslim world, namely resistance to Zionism and western imperialism.

Two years after King Abdullah’s ‘Shia crescent’ narrative began to be employed, the 2006 Lebanon-Israel war broke out. Although a historic ‘Arab nation’ victory against Israel was achieved that year, in a new public turn, the Arab League and the Saudis in particular were instead scathing in their criticism of Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah for what they said was an unprovoked and irresponsible conflict.

We have now reached an epoch, whereby vocal or material support for a plethora of resistance efforts in West Asia is seen as being ‘Shia’ or even ‘Persian’ rather than Arab or Muslim causes. These include the central issue of Palestine, as after all at the crux of it – that is to say armed struggle – it is only the Resistance Axis that now provides support where it materially matters.

The Palestinian cause has not always been a ‘Shia’ cause, argues Hussain Abdul-Hussain of the pro-Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, who alludes to the anti-Palestinian sentiments in South Lebanon before the rise of Hezbollah. He claims – a criticism parroted by the pro-west Sunni monarchs – that Iran “found in Palestine a good tool to undermine the sovereignty of Arab Sunni governments” and to win over support from “Arab Sunni masses.” This assessment disregards the fact that even before the revolution, under the rule of Iran’s Shah, Iran’s religious and secular opponents were popularly pro-Palestine and opposed the Shah’s support of Israel.

Who else will oppose Zionism and western imperialism?

In Iraq, there is a lingering threat from pockets of ISIS remnants and legitimate grievances about continuing US military presence, which is likely to continue for years to come. Both of these threats to Iraqi sovereignty have been targeted by “Iranian-backed Shia militia,” many who are an integral part of Iraq’s armed forces in the form of the PMUs. Ironically, these anti-ISIS forces were in fact initiated by a religious ruling from within Iraq, independent of Iran’s diktats.

The world’s worst humanitarian crisis, according to the UN, is in Yemen which has been bombed and besieged almost relentlessly for seven years by a US/UK-backed and armed, Saudi-led coalition. Yemen’s resistance to this foreign aggression is led by the Ansarallah movement and its allied Yemeni armed forces. Here too, the Arab Sunni monarchs’ narrative has played a nefarious role, labelling Yemen’s resistance as ‘Shia,’ where in fact they are mainly Zaidis, who are in many ways closer to Hanafi Sunnis and who pray in Sunni mosques. As Iran and its regional axis support anti-imperialism, they are naturally more aligned to the Yemeni resistance, who are almost always now labelled as ‘Iran-backed’ or ‘Shia’ for their resistance against decades of exploitation and subjugation by Saudi Arabia.

For the divisive case of Syria, supporting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the state against the aggressions of hostile states has also been cast as a ‘Shia’ cause, despite the fact that Syria’s Shia community – not to be confused with the Alawites – form a very small minority in the majority-Sunni country. Yet when contextualized as an important actor in the Axis of Resistance, in particular as a transit point between Iran and Lebanon and occupied Palestine, the sectarian designation becomes apparent.

The common denominator for these conflicts is that there is an opposing force to the Axis of Normalization and its US backer. It has become imperative, especially for the burgeoning Sunni Arab-Israeli alliance, for these forces to be deliberately cast as ‘Iranian-supported Shia proxies’ in order to dampen their own populations’ support for popular resistance.

Arab and Muslim populations everywhere would otherwise likely support operations to purge western military interventionism and Israel’s aggressions from West Asia. But say ‘Iran,’ ‘Persia’ or ‘Shia’ and the Arab Sunni elite manage to confuse and quash mass popular resentment of their own malign behaviors.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

Four signs that a US-Gulf ‘divorce’ is in the making

The rapid-fire ‘messages’ directed at Washington from old Persian Gulf allies are brutal, and strongly suggest that the days of US hegemony are done

March 20 2022

In all the geopolitical salvos issued left and right last week, nothing was less expected than the visit of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad to the UAE. It is a strong sign of the Persian Gulf’s dissatisfaction with its US ally.Photo Credit: The Cradle

By Abdel Bari Atwan

If any good has come out of the Ukraine war for the Arab world, it is the diminished status and influence of the US in West Asia. Washington is losing many of its traditional allies in the region, especially in the Persian Gulf, and this trend looks like it will accelerate.

Four recent developments illustrate this.

First, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s visit to the UAE on Friday. The warm welcome laid on for him by its leaders was a slap in the face of the US administration, its strongly stated objections to the visit, and its sanctions aimed at de-legitimizing the Syrian government.

Second, the growing defiance of US hegemony by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, OPEC’s two largest oil producers. Most notable was their rejection of US President Joe Biden’s pleas to increase oil production in order to push down prices and provide extra supplies to enable western sanctions of Russian oil and gas imports.

Third, the failure of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit – on Washington’s behalf – to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, where he conveyed veiled threats to the two countries should they fail to toe the western line on Ukraine, join in imposing economic sanctions on Russia, or break their oil production agreements with it.

Fourth, Saudi Arabia’s invitation to China’s President Xi Jinping for an official visit and Riyadh’s openness to pricing its oil sales to Beijing in yuan. This signals that the kingdom and possibly other Gulf states may be willing to join the new global financial system Russia and China are developing as an alternative to the western one.

Of the four developments, the reception accorded to President Assad in Abu Dhabi and Dubai was the clearest sign of this Gulf rebellion against the US and its domination. The visit didn’t need to take place now; that it did shows more about the mood in the Gulf centers of power than anything else.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have reportedly declined to receive US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who is keen to follow up Johnson’s visit to try to succeed where he failed.

Instead, in a snub seen around the world, the UAE’s foreign minister Sheikh Ahmad Bin Zayed visited Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. The public show of bonhomie they displayed was bound to rub salt into the American wound.

The timing of Assad’s trip – on the 11th anniversary of the start of the US-led war on Syria aimed at toppling its government, and three weeks into the Russian invasion of Ukraine – and the UAE’s indifference to the angry US reaction, are further signs of the start of divorce proceedings with an abusive partner that fleeces and cheats on its allies.

Assad’s visit to the UAE provided important gains for both countries and their leaders. It broke Syria’s official isolation in the Arab world and heralded the breaking of the US embargo imposed on the country. This caps a broader process of Arab ‘normalization’ which is set to see Damascus regain its membership of the Arab League and role in collective Arab decision making, and take part in the Arab summit to be held in Algiers in November.

This bold step also benefits the UAE in many ways. It helps offset the hugely negative impact on its image that resulted from its signing of the so-called Abraham Accords and enthusiastic courtship of the Israeli enemy.

Building bridges of trust and cooperation with the Axis of Resistance via Syria, Iran’s closest ally, could also help the UAE and Saudi Arabia find ways out of their quagmire in Yemen. It may be no coincidence that Riyadh is proposing to host an all-party Yemeni dialogue and has officially invited the Houthi Ansarullah movement to take part.

In short, what we are seeing today are manifestations of a revolt against US hegemony in the Arab world by the axis of Arab ‘moderation’ led by the Egyptian-Emirati-Saudi trio. It is open for other Gulf and Arab states such as Iraq, Algeria, and Sudan to join should they wish. This new axis may take clearer shape at the Algiers summit in the fall.

The process of Arab normalization with Israel is bound to slow down. It is the most grievous error that normalizing countries – old and new – could have made, and should be halted completely. But there is optimism in this regard, as turning against the US also implies turning against Israel.

Meanwhile, Assad’s presidential plane, which over the past decade has only flown to Moscow and Tehran, looks set to do a lot more traveling in the coming weeks and months. Its next destination after Abu Dhabi could be Riyadh or Cairo, despite the best efforts of the US to bar its way.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

‘No to Normalization’: Jordanian, Algerian Coaches Pull Out of Bahrain Sports Event

March 20, 2022

Jordanian and Algerian kickboxing coaches pulled out of an international seminar in Bahrain due to Israeli participation. (Photo: via Social Media)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff

Jordanian kickboxing coaches Mohammed Saud and Ibrahim Saraqma pulled out of the ‘Development Seminar and Coaching Workshop’, underway in Bahrain, due to the Israeli participation in the event, Al Jazeera and other Arabic-speaking media reported on Saturday.  

Saraqma, the Algerian coach for ‘full contact’ and kickboxing, communicated his decision through a Facebook post. 

“I declare my decision to pull out from the international tournament for trainers underway in Bahrain because of the presence of a delegation from the Zionist entity with us in the room,” he wrote in reference to the Israeli delegation. 

https://www.facebook.com/plugins/post.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fbrahim.tunsi.7%2Fposts%2F10228002412315804&show_text=true&width=500

Saraqma added, “No to normalization.” 

The Jordanian civil society organization “Itharak” – meaning “move” – which fights normalization between Jordan and Israel, commended the Jordanian coach Saud for his decision to boycott the event, tweeting: 

“Coach Mohammed Saud is a new Arab champion whose name is added to the list of honorable Arab athletes who have taken such honorable stance in international platforms in solidarity with Palestine and in rejection of normalization with the (Israeli) occupation. Thank you coach Mohammed.” 

المدرب محمد سعود، بطلٌ عربيٌ جديد، يدوّن اسمه في قائمة الشرف للرياضيين العرب، الذين يسطرون مواقف مشرفة في كل المحافل، تضامنًا مع فلسطين ورفضًا للتطبيع مع الاحتلال.

شكرًا كابتن محمد .. شكرًا يا نشمي pic.twitter.com/AFg5YCSE7e

— مقاطعة (@Boycott4Pal) March 18, 2022

These boycotts are not the first rejection of normalization with Israel. Prominent examples include decisions by Algerian and Sudanese judokas – Fethi Nourine and Mohamed Abdalrasool – to reject sparring with Israeli athletes during the Japan Olympics in July 2021.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

‘Hypocrisy Does Not Begin to Describe It’: Baroud on the Ukraine Crisis and the Changing Global Order (VIDEO)

March 17, 2022

Watch Ramzy Baroud’s full interview with Mark Seddon below. (Photo: PDD, Supplied)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff

In a wide-ranging interview with Palestine Deep Dive (PDD), Mark Seddon discusses with distinguished Palestinian journalist and author, Dr. Ramzy Baroud, the unfolding crisis in Ukraine through the eyes of the Palestinian people.

While examining what seems to be emerging on the global geopolitical stage, Baroud also highlighted the hypocrisy of the international community, as well as the mainstream media in their response to Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine in comparison to their response, or lack of it, to Israel’s ongoing 74-year occupation of Palestine.

“People have the right to defend themselves against military occupation, period. Under any circumstance, regardless of the geopolitical nature of that conflict, and regardless of who’s involved in that conflict,” Baroud said. 

“We are still buried in this massive dichotomy in which we Palestinians can’t even protest without being accused of being anti-Israel or anti-America or anti this or that, compared to what is happening in the Ukraine within the matter of hours. In fact, even before the invasion took place. When the Russian forces were amassing at the Russia-Ukraine border, the condemnations were coming from all over Europe, all over North America. Of course, we have to face the reality that the international community does not have fair and just standards in its view of international conflicts.”

Commenting on the United Nations General Assembly vote, which saw 35 member states, including South Africa, India and China, abstaining from condemning Russia’s actions, Baroud said:

“I think geopolitics has a lot to do with it. (…) To give you an example, I was in Africa quite recently, and I visited several countries and became somewhat familiar with the political tussle that is happening in Africa itself.(…) African countries are very, very wary of the nature of the fight that is underway in Africa. South Africa, Nigeria, Algeria, and other countries do not want to see this happening. They want a more balanced bipolar world.”

When asked about the possibility of a new Cold War situation in Europe, with a revival of the Non-Aligned Movement, Baroud said:

“I think it’s very possible. Of course, we understand that there are so many moving pieces here, but if indeed, even if a stalemate is achieved, in other words, if NATO does not get its way in Ukraine and in Eastern Europe, and some kind of a compromise is made, will definitely embolden other countries to start negotiating (for themselves) a new political contract.”

Regarding the double standards currently displayed by Western politicians and media, Baroud said: 

“I think we need to revisit the term double standards or hypocrisy. It just does not even begin to tell half of the story regarding what’s happening in Palestine. What the West, what the Americans are condemning right now regarding Russia’s military action is exactly what Israel has been doing as a matter of course, in Palestine every single day. What’s happening in Yemen. These millions of poor people are starving, fighting cholera, fighting bombs falling on top of them.”

Baroud went on criticizing social media censorship of pro-Palestinian content, and describing the double-standards by international institutions, such as the International Criminal Court, FIFA or the International Olympic Committee. 

In highlighting the inherent racism in Western media coverage on Ukraine, Baroud said: 

“That’s really the mindset of the racist. I know that this is a term that people are very careful using, but if this is not outright racism, I don’t know what is. The thing about a racist mentality is that you never see your own fault, and you always project that on someone else.”

(The Palestine Chronicle, PDD)

How the Ukraine crisis impacts middle east politics

4 Mar 2022

Source: Al Mayadeen

Robert Inlakesh 

The Ukraine crisis complicated the situation in the middle east [West Asia] for many parties allied with the US, as “Israel” and the UAE find it more difficult to balance their relations between their Patreon and Russia.

The problem for “Israel” is, that if they pick a fight with Russia at any point, this could be extremely detrimental to them

The ongoing war in Ukraine, which is being framed as a marker for the beginning of the ‘New Cold War’ between East and West, is already taking its toll on Middle East politics and for the likes of “Israel” and the United Arab Emirates, this spells potential disaster.

Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine on February 24, when Russian forces officially announced their ‘special military operation in the Donbas’, Middle East powers have all had their relationships put to the test. “Israel” is perhaps the most reported on, as it is directly part of the Western camp, and its hesitancy to aggravate Russia has been telling, but beyond this, there has also been a big question mark around which side the Arab regimes will take too.

In the case of “Israel”, after releasing careful statements during the early days of the war, about Ukraine’s sovereignty and pledging to support its people, without mentioning Moscow at all, they then went a step further in the recent United Nations General Assembly vote, condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Currently, Tel Aviv maintains a close relationship with both Moscow and Washington, but it has made it clear at this point that when push comes to shove it is the United States’ interests they will defend over the interests of Russia.

So far this has not meant a fully-fledged feud between the two sides, but for sure the Israeli arming of the Ukrainians and their backing of NATO’s argument has not aided relations. It is likely Moscow is still trying to use the Israelis as a go-between for diplomatic efforts, but the problem for “Israel” is, that if they pick a fight with Russia at any point, this could be extremely detrimental to them. A hostile Russia, combined with a hostile Iran, both in Syria, could mean major trouble.

For the United Arab Emirates, which aspires to become a regional powerhouse and attempts to balance its relationship with pretty much every key international player, it has too, run into a major problem. Its relationship with Washington, although tight, is now being put to the test and the fact that it abstained at the UNGA vote is a message that Abu Dhabi seeks a clear middle-ground position between the US and Russia. But just as its normalization deal with the Israeli regime has now put it in the middle of a tug-of-war between Tel Aviv and Tehran, the Ukraine crisis has placed it in a similar position between Washington and Moscow. The UAE wants it all, US weapons, but a close relationship with China and Russia, Israeli economic cooperation but also trade with Iran. This could spell disaster if it decides to cross the line, of one of the many sides, at any point.

Saudi Arabia is a key US ally, the current crisis – due to US sanctions on Russia – has sent the prices of oil to a high not witnessed since 2012. Riyadh has been expected, as has the UAE, to pump more crude oil in order to lower the oil prices and balance the market, but so far that has not happened. Instead, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman is allegedly demanding the US Biden administration recognise him as the de-facto ruler of the Saudi regime and offer more direct support for Riyadh’s devastating war on Yemen, according to Reuters reports.

Although the US and its British allies in London have been directly supporting the Saudis offensive war in Yemen, Riyadh evidently does not like Joe Biden’s public appearance as being an anti-Saudi president. The KSA voted against Russia in the General Assembly, the US also launched airstrikes on Yemen when Russian forces began their offensive in Ukraine, but now seems to be the moment of truth when it comes to US politics. We will now see just how convincing Washington’s statesmen are, although many people are asking why this issue wasn’t resolved before as the US had been warning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine for weeks.

The issue of US relations with the Gulf countries is really key here, as from the get-go the United States has been attempting to bring them on the side, specifically Qatar. The US clearly needs an alternative supply source for oil and gas to Europe, if it is going to maintain its crushing sanctions on Moscow. But the problem still remains, an issue that Doha has itself pointed out, there is no one nation that can be the alternative here. 

Then we have Iran and the ongoing talks in Vienna to revive the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan Of Action (JCPOA), or the nuclear deal, which seems to have been moved in a more positive direction. The United States has significantly changed its tone from that of last year, it’s purged many of the more hawkishly anti-Iran voices from its negotiating team and the Ukraine crisis may prove to push the US into an agreement on this front.

The difference between President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump, is that they represent two different camps in the United States; Biden, the liberal imperialists, and Trump, the neoconservatives. The neoconservatives seem to be hawkishly focused on attacking China and Iran, whilst caring less about Russia and their focus on NATO is also not as intense as the liberal imperialists. Whereas the liberal imperialist camp are much more inclined towards strengthening their ties with the EU and NATO, making Russia a real target, whilst their line on China and Iran is still hawkish, they approach these issues differently.

We are now seeing the liberal imperialist agenda in full swing. If the Biden administration wants to relieve some of the burden he has placed on the shoulders of his European allies, reviving the JCPOA may serve as a good gesture towards them. The European powers want to do business with Iran, but under the Trump administration, none of them dared to step out of line on this front. The potential Iran nuclear deal revival would be a good thing for both the Europeans and the Iranians. 

All the points mentioned above barely scratch the surface of the entire picture; not going into the testing of Algeria’s and Turkey’s relationships with Russia, both of which are being heavily tested over both nations being presented with the possibility to provide part of the answer to the severing of oil and gas supplies from Russia to Europe. Yet, one thing is clear from what has been noted above, the absolute mess that the two camps – one aligned with the Democrats and the other the Republicans – have caused on the world stage. This is a real test of Washington’s diplomatic and strategic talent, one which it seems to be failing at so far.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

South Africa’s ‘Direct Action’ Threat against Israel Raises Expectations

February 20, 2022

South African Minister of International Relations Mrs. Naledi Pandor (Photo: TWAS, via Wikimedia Commons)

By Iqbal Jassat

South Africa’s ANC-Led government has renewed its pledge of solidarity with Palestine by adding the new phrase “direct action”.

The fresh commitment by Minister of International Relations Mrs. Naledi Pandor has been welcomed by the country’s solidarity movements backing Palestine’s freedom struggle.

Though Pandor did not elaborate on the type of “direct action” being envisaged, she pitched her forthright comments by referring to recent human rights reports on Israel which she described as “well-documented apartheid practices of Israel”.

Pandor made her remarks in Parliament during the State of the Nation (SONA) debate.

Her unequivocal condemnation of apartheid Israel following a controversy generated by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s recent acceptance of “credence” by Israel’s new envoy to Pretoria, may be construed as an attempt to clear the air.

It also follows a stinging rebuke by the African Union chair Moussa Faki Mahamat who is seeking to justify his unilateral acceptance of Israel’s observer status, criticized countries for opposing it yet retained diplomatic relations with Israel.

Though Mahamat didn’t name any country, it was clear that he referred specifically to South Africa. Pandor has not only been vocal in expressing South Africa’s opposition to it, she has been leading efforts to revoke Israel’s observer status.

Her arguments supported by Algeria and a number of AU member states, revolve around the AU charter which rejects colonialism, racism and illegal occupation. By specifically singling-out Mahamat as the person responsible for granting Israel observer status, the stage was set for acrimony between the two.

“We have vehemently, as South African, opposed the granting of [African Union] observer status to Israel by the chair of the African Union Commission. Our objection stems from our own constitution and its values and the African Union charter that rejects colonialism, racism, and illegal occupation of the land of others,” she stated.

Despite her moves to revoke Mahamat’s decision, the AU suspended a debate on it and instead formed a committee to study the issue. Effectively by kicking the can down the road, the tension and division within the AU will continue to simmer.

Though South Africa since the end of apartheid and the dawn of democracy has been seen as a heavyweight in continental affairs, Mahamat saw fit to point out the paradox of diplomatic ties on the one hand and opposition to observer status, thus making a case of double standards.

Does it follow then that Pandor’s parliament address which talked of “direct action” was also to overcome accusations of duel standards? This can be gleaned from her remarks that diplomatic relations with Israel cannot be used by anyone as a reason for bringing Israel into the African Union.

“Our governing party resolutions directed us to downgrade our embassy in Israel. We withdrew our ambassador [from Israel] as part of this process of downgrading, and we are considering further measures to indicate our significant dismay at the continued apartheid practices of Israel against the long-suffering people of Palestine.”

So while the spat with the AU remains unresolved, what is clear is that guns have been drawn. The shoot-out is on hold until the committee appointed to probe Mahamat’s decision meets sometime in the future.

In the meantime, while Pandor’s threat of “direct action” is the subject of speculation, it is expected that just as South Africa awaits it being translated into substantial departure from current diplomatic relations, so too will Palestinians.

After all, the recent compelling findings by Amnesty International on Israel Apartheid, make it equally obligatory for countries to abide by international conventions on the crime of apartheid. Direct action?

– Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the South Africa-based Media Review Network. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit: www.mediareviewnet.com

Will the US reignite a ‘Syrian revolution’ to punish Russia in Ukraine?

The US and its allies have already set the scene for Revolution 2.0 in Syria.

The question is whether their plan is to extract concessions from Russia over Ukraine, or to go full out and risk a West Asia-wide conflagration

By Abdel Bari Atwan

February 11 2022

The US and its allies are set to re-ignite the Syrian battlefield to deter Russia in Ukraine.Photo Credit: The Cradle

With new political, military, and economic tensions escalating between the United States and its NATO allies on the one hand, and China, Russia, North Korea and Iran on the other – including the Taiwan front in East Asia, and Ukraine in central Europe – we are now witnessing accelerated plans to activate new crises in West Asia, from Syria to Iraq to the war on Yemen.

Let us leave the situation in Iraq and Yemen aside, temporarily, and focus on Syria. The country has experienced an atmosphere of relative calm, or rather a ‘stalemate,’ in the past few years, after the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) regained more than 70 percent of its territory.

This period of calm has also seen the decline of the so-called Syrian opposition, both politically and militarily, in the city of Idlib and its vicinity, as well as in other areas in northeastern Syria, currently under the umbrella of US forces.

There are, however, several international and regional indications that the dormant Syrian ‘opposition’ is on its way to being reactivated again.

***

It is likely this reactivation may appear in a more ferocious form than the militancy that was unleashed at the beginning of the Syrian crisis in March 2011. Numerous indications of this have already emerged:

First, Russian foreign intelligence on Tuesday unveiled US plans to support armed groups in Syria, and ‘Islamic’ extremists in particular, to intensify their attacks against Syrian, Russian and Iranian forces in Tawaz, while igniting and encouraging ‘peaceful’ protests deep within Syria.

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) reported that US government agencies are “planning to task extremist ‘sleeper cells’ in Damascus…and Latakia province [by] staging pinpoint attacks against Syrian law enforcers, and Russian and Iranian military personnel.”

Russia’s Deputy Envoy at the UN Gennady Kuzmin told the UN Security Council on Wednesday that “The problem of terrorist threats in northeastern Syria is pressing. The US troops that are illegally deployed there cannot bring order. Or they don’t want to.”

In what appears as a reference to the mass ISIS jailbreak in Hasakah from a US-controlled area in late-January, Kuzmin added that “the atmosphere of a power void and impunity around the US forces’ deployment areas serves as a nourishing ground for terrorists of all stripes.”

The second indicator points to the statement issued by the Russian Intelligence Service, which says that the US administration is seeking to maintain its military presence in northeastern Syria, prevent the stability of Syria, rehabilitate the leadership of the Syrian opposition, and unite its ranks, Kurdish or Arab.

The US plan will be carried out through the exploitation of the current decline in economic conditions, basic services, and a significant weakening in the price of local currency, due to the suffocating US blockade.

According to the statement, the US will launch a “vast media campaign” on Arabic-speaking social media to incite Syrians to again take to the streets and squares, in the capital Damascus, and the cities of Aleppo, Homs and Latakia to push the regime to use the ‘violent’ iron fist in the face of ‘peaceful’ protests.

In other words, a re-play of the Deraa scenario in early 2011.

The third indicator was the two-day conference that took place last Saturday in Qatar’s capital city, Doha, which re-united various Syrian opposition figures on the subjects of reform and the future of Syria.

The conference – a culmination of a series of workshops held in a selection of European capitals – was launched by the renegade former Syrian prime minister, Riad Hijab, and included the representatives of Qatari, Arab, and international research centers, as well as more than 60 Syrian opposition figures.

Qatari authorities provided full support for this seminar, which Al Jazeera and its sister channels covered with remarkable intensity.

The fourth indicator relates to Algeria’s multiple efforts to hold an Arab summit in which Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will participate, and Syria’s seat in the Arab League will be restored. These efforts have failed, in part because Qatar has been the most fierce opponent to the rehabilitation of Syria at the Arab League.

And finally, fifth, is the out-of-the-blue assassination of the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurashi, at the hands of US special forces in Turkish controlled areas in Syria.

Al-Quraishi was attacked in his home, in the north of Idlib, in an attack that has no documented audio or image evidence, similar to the previous assassinations of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and, before him, Osama bin Laden – but entirely unlike the execution of Saddam Hussein and the killing of his two sons.

This ‘assassination’ may, of course, just be a cover for the new US plan to restart covert communications with and support for radical Islamist militants, while publicly suggesting that the US continues to target them as ‘terrorist organizations.’

***

Quraishi’s sudden killing in Syria during the dangerous stand-off between NATO and Russia raised some questions in Washington as well. Former US Air Force Special Operations Joint Terminal Attack controller, Ethan Brown, pondered aloud in The Hill about “its “timing and the curious proximity to the crisis in Ukraine.”

Brown asks whether “the execution of a [US] military operation outside of a declared was zone in the Middle East…is somehow a credible deterrent to Russian actions elsewhere.” Then straight-out declares: “Make no mistake, the two unique situations are intertwined.”

On Tuesday, Lt. Gen. Erik Kurilla, tapped to be the next commander of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), told the Senate Armed Services Committee that if Russian invades Ukraine, it could create broader instability in West Asia, including Syria.

This week, the Israelis struck Syria heavily again, just two weeks after the Russians and Syrians launched their first joint jet patrols over the Syrian-Israel border. This time, Moscow reacted strongly, calling Tel Aviv’s actions “a crude violation of Syria’s sovereignty” that “may trigger a sharp escalation of tensions.”

The escalation in Syria, likely connected to Washington’s Ukraine strategy, has already started. The question is whether the protagonists will merely stage some events as a threat – or go all out.

***

The Syrian opposition launched its first ‘movement’ 11 years ago in Doha, and it seems that the attempt to revive it will also take place in the same place.

The official statement of the meeting outlined its “aims to try to find mechanisms of action to promote the performance of the opposition and discuss how to get the political transition out of the current global warming.”

“The Biden administration wants 2022 to be the year of qualifying Syrian opposition forces to be ready to replace the regime in any change that may occur,” Syrian opposition media outlet Orient Net stated in a report broadcast two months ago.

The report also revealed that US Deputy Secretary of State Eitan Goldrich had met with Syrian opposition leaders in Istanbul, Qamishli, and Gaziantep late last year to prepare for the new US scenario in Syria.

Will this new US plan work in Syria? Has the suffocating US blockade on Syria, imposed for this purpose 11 years ago, reap its harvest? Will this attempt fare any better than the first? Will funding come from Gulf financiers themselves? And how will the axis of Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and Syria respond?

We leave the answer for the coming weeks and months.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

أفريقيا تلفظ إسرائيل

انتكاسة «مؤّقتة» لجهود العضوية: أفريقيا تلفظ إسرائيل… إلى حين؟

الثلاثاء 8 شباط 2022

يُلاحظ أنّ علاقات إسرائيل ممتدّة في شرق أفريقيا وغربها مع اختراق في شمالها (أ ف ب )

محمد عبد الكريم أحمد 

بعد جهود مضنية لتحقيق مكسب قبولها عضواً في الاتّحاد الأفريقي، تلقّت إسرائيل صفعة غير هيّنة على هذا الصعيد، بعد قرار الاتحاد تعليق قرار رئيس مفوضيته إقرار تلك العضوية، وإحالة الأمر إلى لجنة مختصّة ستكون نيجيريا والجزائر، اللتان عارضتا علناً القرار المذكور، متصدّرتَين عضويّتها. وعلى رغم ما يعنيه ذلك التطوّر من انتكاسة لجهود إسرائيل الساعية إلى مأسسة حضورها وتعميقه في هذه القارّة، إلّا أن تل أبيب لن تَعدم الأمل على ما يبدو؛ إذ ستسلك سبل ترغيب عديدة في سبيل استمالة الدول الرافضة عضويّتها، مستفيدةً من حضور فقي، الذي تعهّد بالمضيّ قُدُماً في عملية إدخال تل أبيب إلى الندوة الأفريقية

علّق الاتحاد الأفريقي (6 شباط) النقاش (أو التصويت) المٌتوقَّع حول سحْب قبول عضوية إسرائيل مراقِباً في المنظّمة الإقليمية، والذي كان بادر به موسى فقي، رئيس مفوضية الاتحاد، في 22 تموز 2021، وذلك تفادياً لتصويتٍ هدّد بانقسامٍ غير مسبوق داخل المنظّمة المكوَّنة من 55 دولة، وفي مناسبة قمّتها العشرين، منذ تأسيسها خلَفاً لـ”منظّمة الوحدة الأفريقية” (2002). وأكد ديبلوماسيون مطّلعون أن طلب إسرائيل “قد عُلّق حالياً، وستتكوّن بدلاً من ذلك لجنة لدراسة المسألة”، على أن تُقدِّم نتائجها للقمّة المرتقَبة العام المقبل. وتتكوّن اللجنة من ستّة أعضاء أبرزهم نيجيريا والجزائر اللتان عارضتا علناً قرار فقي، إضافة إلى رواندا وجمهورية الكونغو الديموقراطية، بينما اقترحت جنوب أفريقيا ضمّ نيجيريا، وطلبت الكاميرون (من أبرز الداعين إلى قبول عضوية إسرائيل) إشراكها أيضاً.

الاستجابة الإسرائيلية: خيبة أمل لمدّة عام

حظي قبول إسرائيل مراقِباً في الاتحاد الأفريقي قبل نحو سبعة أشهر، بترحيب إسرائيلي كبير، فيما أحدث صدمة في الأوساط العربية والأفريقية في ضوء اتّخاذ القرار بشكل مباغِت تماماً، على رغم ملاحظة التمدُّد الإسرائيلي في أفريقيا طوال السنوات الأخيرة. وأجمع خبراء إسرائيليون، آنذاك، على إيلاء الدولة العبرية أهمية كبيرة لعضويّتها في الاتحاد، بدافعٍ من تحصيل “الاعتراف الرسمي” (بعد تحقيق أهداف استراتيجية على الأرض في غير ملفّ)، واستعادة وضعها الذي حُرمت منه بضغوط ليبية في العام 2002. ورأت الخارجية الإسرائيلية، في بيان يوم القرار، أن “قبول إسرائيل مراقباً مصلحة واضحة للجميع؛ (إذ) سيسهّل زيادة التعاون بين إسرائيل والدول الأفريقية”، “بما يتّسق مع التغييرات في الشرق الأوسط”.

قد تتمكّن تل أبيب من استمالة عدد من الدول الأفريقية المُوقِّعة على بيان رفض العضوية لتغيير موقفها

لكن من الواضح أن إسرائيل لم تسعَ إلى مجرّد تحصيل مكسب شكلي، بقدر سعْيها إلى مأسسة نفوذها في القارة، وتوسيع اختراقاتها لتصبح أكثر مباشرة وعلانية وقدرة على الانخراط في ديناميات العمل الجماعي الأفريقي. وتدلّل على ذلك مبادرةُ الدولة العبرية، عبر رئيس الوزراء نفتالي بينيت ووزير الخارجية يائير لابيد (الذي وصف منتصف كانون الثاني الفائت غياب إسرائيل عن الاتحاد الأفريقي بـ”الانحراف التاريخي”)، منذ نهاية كانون الثاني، إلى مضاعَفة جهودها لضمان عدم فقدانها وضْعها الجديد، ومواجهة الجهود المضادّة التي قادتها جنوب أفريقيا والجزائر لإبطال القرار. وعلى سبيل المثال، فقد اشتغل لابيد، عبر محادثات مع الرئيس السنغالي ماكي سال (رئيس الاتحاد الأفريقي في دورته الحالية خلَفاً للكونغولي فيليكيس تشيسيكيدي الذي صاغ علاقات متينة بين إسرائيل وبلاده، ولمّح فقي في بيان مهمّ إلى دوره الرئيس في مسألة قبول عضوية تل أبيب)، ثمّ رئيسَي توغو وبوروندي، لضمان حصول بلاده على غالبية الثلثين في التصويت الذي كان مرتقباً وقتها.

استجابة مفوضية الاتحاد الأفريقي

استبق فقي، قمّة رؤساء دول الاتحاد، بدفاعه المستغرَب عمّا أصبح يوصف بـ”قراره المثير للجدل”، محاجِجاً بأن خطوته تلك يمكن أن تكون أداة في “خدمة السلام”، داعياً إلى “نقاش هادئ”، وقائلاً إن “التزام الاتحاد تجاه سعي فلسطين للاستقلال يظلّ ثابتاً ولا يمكن إلّا أن يزداد قوة”. في المقابل، وعد الرئيس النيجيري، محمد بخاري، نظيره الفلسطيني المشارِك في قمة أديس أبابا، بأن نيجيريا “ستواصل دعم السلام والتقدُّم، في الوقت الذي تحافظ فيه على مبادئ العدالة”. وعلى إثر صدور قرار التعليق، ردّ رئيس المفوضية ببيان مُطوَّل (صدر بالفرنسية والإنكليزية فقط )، استهلّه بتذكير الدول الأعضاء بانتخابه قبل نحو عام رئيساً للمفوضية لمدّة أربعة أعوام، ثمّ تأكيد “احترامه للمبادئ الأساسية للاتحاد وقانونه التأسيسي والمصالح الوطنية لدوله”، مُدافِعاً بأنه “كممثّل قانوني للاتحاد، فإن تحرُّكه يلتزم بمقرّرات هذا القانون”. وذهب إلى تحليل البنود المُحدِّدة لصلاحياته، مبرّراً بها قبوله عضوية إسرائيل منتصف العام الماضي، مُذكِّراً بأنه “شخصياً عارض لسنوات كثيرة اعتراف بلاده بدولة إسرائيل”.

كذلك، قدّم فقي عرضاً “دعائياً” للوجود الإسرائيلي في القارّة الأفريقية، و”اتفاقات التعاون المشترك” في مجالات كثيرة، نافياً عنه تهمة تسبُّبه بانقسام أفريقيا، بتعداده الدول الـ44 التي تقيم علاقات ديبلوماسية مع إسرائيل (في تجاهُل مستهجَن للفرق بين حسابات العلاقات الثنائية، وبين عضوية إسرائيل في الاتحاد، وما تعنيه من تدخُّلها في كثير من الملفّات الأفريقية الجماعية). وإذ وصف قراره بأنه “لم يكن ينمّ عن أيّ توجّه شخصي”، فقد عدّه متناغماً مع خيار الاتحاد و”المجتمع الدولي” بأكمله، لا سيما الأمم المتحدة، والمتمثّل في الاعتراف بـ”حلّ الدولتين” ودعمه، قبل أن يشيد بجهود الرئيس الفلسطيني، محمود عباس، وجهود مصر “التي اعترفت بإسرائيل وتبادلت السفراء معها قبل وقت بعيد”. واستطرد متسائلاً: “هل نحن أقلّ ثقة في منظّمتنا إلى درجة أنه لا يمكننا تخيُّل إمكان لعبها دوراً، وإن كان صغيراً، في حلّ صراع يهمّنا سياسياً وشعورياً؟”، مستغرِباً، بنبرة لا تخلو من التضليل، إنكار الدول الأعضاء “قدرة الاتحاد على تحدي إسرائيل ودفعها لاحترام الحقوق الأساسية للشعب الفلسطيني ووقف أعمال العنف ضدّه والاعتراف صراحة بحقوقه، بما فيها حقه في إنشاء دولة وطنية عاصمتها القدس الشرقية، كما أكدْت لمندوب إسرائيل وقت تقديم أوراق اعتماده؟”.

من الواضح أن إسرائيل لم تسعَ إلى مجرّد تحصيل مكسب شكلي بقدر سعْيها إلى مأسسة نفوذها في القارة

يتّضح من بيان فقي، الذي عزّز في حقيقة الأمر أدلّة قفْزه فوق السبل المتّبعة لاتّخاذ قرارات مماثلة كما في حالات دول مثل تركيا وكوريا الشمالية وغيرهما، أنه ثمّة جنوح إلى تبنّي الموقف الإسرائيلي وتبريره، وربّما العمل – في بقيّة العام المقبل قبل تقديم اللجنة المقرِّرة توصياتها – على حلحلة مواقف بعض الدول الرافضة، بالتنسيق مع تل أبيب وعدد من “دول الواجهة” الأفريقية، والتي تسعى للاستفادة من الدور الإسرائيلي في ملفّاتها الملحة (كما في حالة تدخُّل القوات الرواندية المدَّربة والمجهَّزة إسرائيلياً في جهود الاتحاد الأفريقي لمواجهة الإرهاب شمال موزمبيق).     

ماذا بعد؟

بقراءة خريطة علاقات إسرائيل الأفريقية، يلاحَظ أنها ممتدّة في شرق أفريقيا وغربها، مع اختراق في شمال القارة. ويصاحب هذا الحضورَ تنسيقٌ أمني واستخباراتي وصل في الشهور الأخيرة إلى مستويات غير مسبوقة في ملفّات الأزمة الإثيوبية، والترتيبات الأمنية في جنوب البحر الأحمر (بخاصة بعد تدريبات عسكرية مع الإمارات والبحرين بتنسيق أميركي نهاية عام 2021)، و”مواجهة الإرهاب” في شمال موزمبيق وغرب أوغندا، والتحوّلات السياسية في عدد من دول غرب أفريقيا، والصلات المتنامية مع السودان (الذي لم يوقّع على بيان تعليق قرار فقي)، فضلاً عن توقعُّات بدور إسرائيلي بالغ الخطورة في الأزمة الليبية في العام الجاري، لعدّة اعتبارات أبرزها العلاقات العميقة مع نظام أبو ظبي (الذي تتطابق خريطة نفوذه في القارة الأفريقية مع خريطة نظيره الإسرائيلي بشكل واضح).

في المقابل، فإن الحضور الإسرائيلي في منطقة أفريقيا الجنوبية، التي قادت دولها خطوة تعليق القرار إلى جانب الجزائر، يظلّ في حدوده الدنيا، بالنظر إلى هيمنة جنوب أفريقيا الاقتصادية والسياسية التقليدية في الإقليم، واعتبارات قدرات جوهانسبورغ في الصناعات المتقدِّمة ومن بينها الصناعات العسكرية؛ مما يرفع من حدّة حساسيتها تجاه أيّ اختراقات إسرائيلية “في دائرة تأثيرها التقليدية”، مع ملاحظة تراجُع صادراتها إلى إسرائيل في الأعوام العشرة الأخيرة من قرابة بليون دولار (2012)، إلى نحو 200 مليون دولار فقط في عام 2020، أغلبها معادن ثمينة، وتراجُع صادرات الدولة العبرية إليها في الفترة نفسها من نحو 400 مليون دولار (2012) إلى نحو 175 مليون دولار (2020)، مثّلت الآلات والمعدّات المتطوّرة ما قيمته 29 مليون دولار منها.

تبْقى مسألة قبول عضوية إسرائيل من عدمه مفتوحة على احتمالات شتّى، من بينها تمكُّن تل أبيب من استمالة عدد من الدول الأفريقية المُوقِّعة على بيان رفض العضوية لتغيير موقفها، عبر تقديم دعم عسكري وأمني ملموس لها في الشهور المقبلة، فضلاً عن توظيف صلاتها بقوى دولية وإقليمية بارزة في الشأن الأفريقي، لتحقيق هذا الهدف. كما أن استمرار فقي رئيساً للمفوضية، يعني استمرار توظيفه جهوده وسياساته لصالح الغاية نفسها، والتي بات يعتبرها “شأناً شخصياً”، وفق ما أكده بيانه الأخير، الذي لم يُجِب على تساؤلات رئيسة تتعلّق بحيثيات اتّخاذ القرار بشكل مباغت، وفي ذروة موجة التطبيع بين إسرائيل وبعض الدول العربية، وعشيّة الاحتفال بذكرى “ثورة يوليو”، أُمّ الثورات الأفريقية، والتي حالت تاريخياً دون تحقيق الكيان العبري الكثير من تطلّعاته في القارّة.

Apartheid unwelcomed in Africa: “Israel” could lose observer status in AU

Feb 1 2022

Net Source: Israeli media

By Al Mayadeen

The African Union’s Executive Council will take a vote this week on whether or not to grant the Israeli regime observer status, which requires a majority vote.

The African Union’s executive council will convene in Ethiopia on Wednesday

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid are spearheading an Israeli diplomatic push to ensure that “Israel” does not lose observer status in the African Union, according to The Jerusalem Post.

Following opposition by some African countries to the African Union chairman’s unilateral decision to grant “Israel” observer status, the AU’s Executive Council will convene in Addis Ababa for a vote to revoke its status.

Bennett has spoken with the President of Senegal on the matter, and Lapid with his counterpart in Togo and Burundi, among others, in order to gain their support.

In order for the motion to revoke “Israel’s” status to be revoked, two-thirds of the 54  AU member states would have to vote for it. It is possible that the vote may not pass, or be postponed indefinitely, according to the Israeli daily.

Read more: International Lawyers Challenge The African Union To Revoke “Israel’s” Observer Status

The African Union was founded in 2002, and “Israel” was granted observer status with its inception, but was ousted in 2003 following a campaign by Libya.

South Africa, Sudan, Algeria, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Botswana were among the countries that opposed “Israel” gaining observer status, whereas Morocco and Chad established diplomatic relations with “Israel” in recent years.

Algeria: Granting “Israel” Observer status could lead to AU’s division

Algerian Foreign Minister Ramtane Lamamra had rejected in August the statements of African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat, who insisted on granting “Israel” observer status to the pan-African organization.

Lamamra stated that Mahamat’s statement is an attempt to defend his move without recognizing the repercussions, pointing out that such a stance may lead to the African Union’s division.

A group of international lawyers and researchers have launched a legal complaint with the African Commission on Human and People’s rights in September, in order to have “Israel’s” observer status in the African Union (AU) revoked. The complaint was filed on the grounds that the Israeli government is guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and apartheid.

Read more: Prominent Israeli Author: Apartheid more befitting term for “Israel”
 

The document was provided 133 pages of evidence against “Israel”, which utilized witness testimonies from victims of “Israel’s” latest military operation waged against the Gaza Strip. As a result of the 11-days of aggression on Gaza in May, roughly 270 Palestinians were killed, most of them civilians according to Human Rights Watch.

Solidarity with Palestine in Stadiums: When Sports and Politics Conjoin

January 4, 2022

Chants of solidarity show that sports can’t be separated from politics and losing a game by withdrawing for political reasons can be a powerful victory.

Fans wave the Palestinian flag during the FIFA Arab Cup 2021 group C football match between Morocco and Palestine at the Al-Janoub Stadium in the Qatari city of Al-Wakrah on December 1, 2021. x Photo by Karim Sahib, AFP via Getty Images

YOUSEF M. ALJAMAL

Palestinian football history is rich and goes back to British Mandate Palestine when the Palestinian national team played against Australia’s football team in Sydney on July 2, 1939. Interestingly, at the time, nine years before the creation of Israel, the entire Palestinian team comprised of Jewish players and Australia won 7-5. Today, Palestinian sports unions and clubs are scattered across major Palestinian cities such as Jaffa, Gaza, Jerusalem, and Haifa.

Despite suffering a serious blow in 1948 due to the establishment of Israel and the takeover of many Palestine’s sports facilities by the Israeli authorities, Palestinian sports remained alive over the years with sports taking a particular political taste. Sports has never been separated from politics especially after Israel’s occupation of Palestine.

The scenes of football fans waving the Palestinian flag in stadiums at local, regional, and international tournaments have become familiar across the globe. To the disappointment of people who call for separating sports from politics, this does not seem possible. Supporters of various teams have turned stadiums into platforms to voice their support for the Palestinian people and their struggle for freedom and statehood. In some cases, they have received punishments and restrictions from sports bodies such as UEFA for doing so.

In response to imposing a fine penalty on the Green Brigade, one of the team’s ultras groups raised money to pay the fine imposed by UEFA and an additional 176,000 British pounds to support Palestinian charities. The Scottish Celtic fans in Scotland have repeatedly expressed their support for the Palestinian cause by raising Palestinian flags especially when their team is playing against an Israeli one. Celtic fans are also known for their pro-Palestine chants.

Palestinian players and sports people have always been a target for Israel.

In fact, Israel also knows that sports can’t be separated from politics. Israel’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video calling on the Iranian people to revolt against their own government, when Iranians took to the streets in 2018. He asked them, “Can you imagine how hard it is to stop Ronaldo from scoring a goal? I used to play soccer, let me tell you, it is almost impossible, but the Iranian team just did the impossible. To the Iranian team I say, you showed courage on the playing field, and today, you are sharing the same courage in the streets of Iran.”

Palestinian players and sports people have always been a target for Israel. In 2009, Israeli forces arrested Palestinian footballer Mahmoud al-Sarsak, while he was on his way to the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. They held him under the “Unlawful Combatants Law,” which allows Israel to hold prisoners without charge or trial. After three years under arrest, al-Sarsak gained his freedom after going on a three-month-long hunger strike.

Palestinian sports infrastructure and players have also been targeted by Israel. In 2009, Israel bombed Al Ahli Sports Club in a refugee camp, Al-Nusierat, and during the Great March of Return (GMR), on April 4, 2018, Israeli snipers shot Palestinian footballer Mohammed Khalil in the knee, ending his career. In fact, dozens of Palestinians who were rendered amputees by Israeli forces during the GMR protests formed an amputee football team.

Israel has made it almost impossible for Palestinian teams from the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to play against each other during national tournaments. This has prompted Palestinian sports officials to complain against Israel to FIFA. Israel has lifted some of these restrictions, but many of them are still in place, rendering it almost impossible for Palestinian players to compete freely.

During the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, a number of Arab players chose to withdraw from competing rather than compete against Israeli players. Algerian judoka Fethi Nourine was sent home and had a 10-year ban imposed on him as punishment for his withdrawal, which effectively ended his career.

Sudan’s Mohamed Abdalrasool did the same when he had to compete against Tohar Butbul – whom Nourine had refused to play with – citing solidarity with the Palestinian people. The stance of these athletes reveals the huge gap between the political and popular levels in the Arab world, and it further explains the importance of sports and the impossibility of separating it from politics.

More recently, at the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup held in Doha between November 30 and December 18, increasing solidarity with the Palestinian people was expressed by football fans. During the Tunisia-Egypt game, Palestinian flags were visible. The Algerian football team and its fans were very vocal in support of Palestinians, raising the Palestinian flag during their matches.

Following winning the 2021 FIFA Arab Cup, Algeria’s fans and team raised the Palestinian flag. Following the Algeria-Morocco match, Houcine Benayada, Algeria’s national team player who wrapped the Palestinian and Algerian flags over his body, said, “We do not play for any bonus, we play for these two flags.” Madjid Bougherra, the Algerian team’s coach, dedicated his country’s victory to the Palestinian people, adding, “We dedicate the Arab Cup to the Palestinian people and our people in Gaza.” In the streets of Gaza, Palestinians took to the streets to celebrate Algeria’s championship.

Read:

•  Olive Harvest in Palestine: Could Oil Become Tears?
• The Morality of Violence in Settler-Colonial Contexts: From Algeria to Palestine
• “Is It Our Turn to Die?”: Being a Mother in Gaza

Algeria’s coach: We dedicate the Arab Cup to Palestine and Gazans

18 Dec 2021

Source: Al Mayadeen Net

By Al Mayadeen Net

Algeria wins the 2020 Arab Cup championship after winning against Tunisia 2-0, and the Algerian coach dedicates the win to Palestine.

Following the final whistle, Algeria’s coach Madjid Bougherra dedicated the win to Palestine.

Algeria’s national football team grasped the 2021 Arab Cup championship held in Qatar after winning 2-0 over Tunisia’s national team in the extra time.

In front of 60,456 fans present at Al Bayt stadium in Doha, Amir Sayoud scored Algeria’s first goal in the 99th minute of extra time, followed by Yacine Brahimi’s second goal in the 125th minute, crowning their country as Arab champions.

هدف أمير سعيود 🇩🇿 🤯#مونديال_العرب | #FIFArabCup
pic.twitter.com/s1RgTHHXUG— مونديال العرب (@Arabcup21) December 18, 2021

After the final whistle, the Algerian coach Madjid Bougherra said “We dedicate the Arab Cup to the Palestinian people and our people in Gaza.”

Brahimi was named the best player in the championship and received the Golden Ball award for his outstanding performance.

https://twitter.com/Arabcup21/status/1472264445862756353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1472264445862756353%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fenglish.almayadeen.net%2Fnews%2Fsports%2Falgerias-coach%3A-we-dedicate-the-arab-cup-to-palestine-and-ga

Algeria maintains no diplomatic ties with the Israeli occupation regime and has long been an outspoken and avid supporter of the Palestinian cause.

Last week, Algeria’s national football team celebrated its win over Morocco in the Arab Cup while waving high the Palestinian flag and kufiya.

Algerian athletes boycotting “Israel”

Three Algerian football stars boycotted Friday a match that gathered “legends” in Doha over the participation of an Israeli coach on the sidelines of the 2020 Arab Cup in Qatar, reported Quds News Network.

Rabah Madjer, Rafik Saïfi, and Rafik Halliche were among players on the FIFA Arab Legends’ formation who were supposed to face the FIFA World Legends in a friendly exhibition match.

However, the three Algerians decided not to take part in the match upon Israeli coach Avram Grant’s participation with the World Legends team.

The Israeli coach has previously managed English club Chelsea as well as “‘Israel’s’ national team” between 2002-2006.

Algeria defends Palestine in the Olympics

It is noteworthy that in late November, Algerian Judo champion Fethi Nourine announced his retirement, two months after the International Olympic Committee suspended him from competitions for 10 years on account of his withdrawal from the Tokyo2020 Olympics to avoid facing an Israeli opponent, in solidarity with Palestine.

“I know that international federations have always colluded with Zionist terrorism, especially the International Judo Federation, and perhaps the best evidence is that my punishment remains the same even after filing an appeal,” Nourine stressed.

He affirmed that he “will never stop supporting the Palestinian cause, no matter what.”

Nourine also mentioned that he does not regret his decision and that he is proud of it.

The Algerian champion said he will take advantage “of every opportunity to expose the zionist entity and defend our rights in Palestine.”

The Reconquest: In 2022 elections, an Algerian Islamophobe wants to purge France from ‘the Muslim peril’

December 09 2021

French Islamophobe and presidential candidate Eric Zemmour is electrifying the far-right with his racist polemics. Himself a Berber Jew from Algeria, Zemmour means “noisy horn” in Arabic. Photo Credit: The Cradle

An Algerian Jewish ‘demonizer’ of Arabs and Islam is the new political protagonist electrifying France’s 2022 presidential elections

By Pepe Escobar

In sharp contrast with the morose political environment across Europe, the French presidential election – against all odds – is now set to become the most enthralling polls to watch in 2022.

Just when everyone from Normandy to the Cote d’Azur seemed all but resigned to suffer a second bout of Macronism, polemicist-turned-politician Eric Zemmour came up with a lurid plot twist.

It took him less than a week. On Monday, 29 November, Zemmour officially announced he would run in the elections. He played full De Gaulle, reading his own speech to the sound of Beethoven, and in front of an old-school microphone surrounded by books.

Then Zemmour announced the name of his new political party: ‘Reconquete’ – named after the seven century-long Christian battle to expel the Moors from Iberia, finally achieved in 1492.

For Zemmour and his eager acolytes, it’s all about reconquering France once again from the Muslim enemy.

Then, on Sunday, 5 December, he held his first rally as a candidate in front of over 10,000 people. No current French politician is able to draw such a crowd.

The next day’s headlines were all about uninvited protestors, one of whom lunged at Zemmour and held him in a headlock on his way to the podium, and scuffles between his supporters. But in Zemmour’s book, this was a triumph: stepping beyond his trademark, well-known incendiary proposals, he managed to transition from pundit to presidential hopeful overnight.

Now all bets are off. The Zemmour saga, of course, offers parallels with the rise of Trump in 2016, who also shifted from media to politics. It is rabidly anti-immigration, and pits fervent nationalism against what is described by conservatives across the west as ‘Islamo-leftism’.

That talk show pulpit

Even in France, most people don’t know that the Zemmour presidential run started at a somewhat secret dinner in Paris last June.

The crème de la crème of the French establishment were there, including Count Henri de Castries, 66, a former luminary of the Ecole Nationale d’Administration (ENA), the alma mater of virtually everyone that counts in Parisian circles of power.

De Castries is a former CEO of insurance giant AXA, at the board of directors of Nestlé; president of the Bilderberg Club; and head of the corporate-financed think tank Institut Montaigne – which virtually ‘invented’ a certain Emmanuel Macron in 2017 after Francois Fillon, favorite to win the nomination for the Right, was destroyed by a leak over his wife’s dodgy employment duties.

If Fillon had won the presidential election in 2017, de Castries would have been Defense Minister.

At the dinner, Zemmour unleashed two political grenades:

The first: “We must prohibit non-French first names.”

The second:  “The central issue before us, for the next presidential election and the next 30 years, is Muslim immigration.”

It may have taken six months, but since last summer Zemmour’s irresistible ascension carried an aura of inevitability, even drawing attention from an anxious Elysée Palace, where functionaries duly noted that, on an ideological and cultural level, Zemmour was dictating the whole agenda of the French Right.

Zemmour’s regular pulpit at CNews – the French answer to Fox News – was reaching at least one million viewers every night. He had become the darling of mega-magnate Vincent Bolloré, who owns a Murdoch-style media empire. Bolloré’s Vivendi conglomerate owns Canal+ group, which includes Cnews; 27 percent of Lagardere, which owns Europe 1, Paris Match and Le Journal du Dimanche; and Hachette Livre, which owns publishing houses, Grasset and Fayard.

Bolloré, who is not a snotty Parisian but a ‘provincial’ from Britanny, was fascinated from the start by Zemmour’s social ascension – of the kind only found in sports or music. A similar journey in the intellectual sphere is virtually non-existent in hyper-coded France.

The Arabophobe

Zemmour comes from a Jewish Algerian family of modest means which settled in St Denis, a ‘hot’ Paris suburb. He built his persona – and his impact on the Paris beau monde – with Cartesian rationalism. Underneath it all lies an unmistakable class complex: he craves approbation from intelligentsia notables.

Zemmour is a complex character, but he is also usually reduced to his monothematic obsession: The ‘Muslim Peril.’ At the same time, he favors assimilation, and has nothing against Muslims who become full republicans.

Zemmour took some time to find his political niche. Les Republicans party – of former President Nicolas Sarkozy – is too soft and amorphous. Far-right superstar Marine Le Pen always collects 20 percent of votes in the first presidential round just to fail breaking the glass ceiling in the second (that’s one of the worst kept secrets in France; because of her fascist father, and because she’s not part of the elite).

Now, the financial elite has identified a golden path straight out of Lampedusa’s The Leopard (“everything must change so everything remains the same”). Macron remains their boy. Zemmour is being used – by ‘invisible’ banking donors – to outflank Marine Le Pen from the Right and allow Macron an easy re-election.

And even if Zemmour does not win in 2022, what matters is that Marine Le Pen will definitely be buried and the path will be open for a unified conservative movement closer to its cherished ‘values,’ led of course by Zemmour.

Zemmour, however, faces a very serious problem: how to enlarge his electorate beyond Trumpian angry white males. Trump was a billionaire and a communication beast, so that was easier. Zemmour is an awkward class defector who blossomed in the very small, incestuous Parisian media-literary milieu.

Inside the Zemmour family, identity was always a crucial theme of debate. General De Gaulle was the supreme entity – including his admiration of Jews, “sure of themselves and dominating.” Zemmour’s father, Roger, used to speak Arabic and play cards in the bars of the Goutte D’Or neighborhood.

Zemmour, a Berber family name, means ‘noisy horn’ in Arabic, while its derivative, Ezmour, is the name of the male olive tree in the Berber (Amazigh) language, mainly in Algeria. Zemmour always refers to himself as a Berber Jew. He refuses to be called an Arab, emphasizing that “the Berbers were colonized, massacred and persecuted by the Arabs, Islamized by force.”

And here we approach the heart of the enigma: Zemmour is essentially an Arabophobe, and very specifically against Arabs from the Maghreb. He never refers to Persian Gulf Arabs, and especially Wahhabis and Salafi-jihadis – denoting scarce knowledge of historical Islam and its perversions by western empires. He seems to be illiterate on Shia Islam in the arc of resistance, the Islam of Sufism in Central Asia, and the soft, tropical Islam of Indonesia.

In France, it’s taboo to openly discriminate against Arabs. That’s why Zemmour promoted ‘Islam’ as his portmanteau term to essentially demonize Arabs from the Maghreb.

A hero in a Balzac remix

To understand Zemmour, one must read Balzac. To his credit, Zemmour is a dying breed: a product of literary culture. He grew up buried in Alexandre Dumas and Balzac – the latter’s Lost Illusions is his ultimate reference.

Since he was 11, Zemmour pictured himself as Lucien de Rubempré, the hero of Lost Illusions: that’s when he decided he would become a journalist and author. The Balzacian masterpiece concentrates all his passions: history, journalism and literature. Rubempré is a poet who becomes a journalist and dreams of writing historical novels.

Of all of Balzac’s memorable heroes, Zemmour chose a seducer that overcompensates his modest, provincial origins by a tremendous panache. His critics, though sharply identify him with another Balzac character, Rastignac, the ultra-ambitious one who is obsessed with becoming wealthy and a government minister. That’s not exactly correct: Zemmour would rather linger in a perpetual blaze of glory instead of becoming just a cog in the bourgeois machine.

Seven years ago, way before Trump, there were already rumblings of a Generation Zemmour popping up in France: those who were feeling the heat when faced with the combined blitzkrieg of the European Union, immigration, and globalization.

This is the bulk of Zemmour’s electorate: bourgeois conservatives, victims of globalization, and the declassified popular classes, those who really lost with the globalist open borders. They offered Zemmour the chance to become the spokesperson of the shattered Right.

Not even Marine Le Pen could play that role, because she’s considered too “populist” by the bourgeois, and on top of that, she invested too heavily in her de-demonization process to be accepted by the establishment.

As for Sarkozy, he was too ‘bling bling’ for the families of old France. Zemmour, with his ‘son of the periphery swagger’ and the classic cultural baggage of a very good student, was clever enough to identify the opening.

Dynamiting himself?

Zemmour may not be a Virgin Mary groupie. But when he published his book French Destiny, in 2018, he had to admit, in front of a fervent Catholic audience, that “he is convinced that one cannot be French without being deeply impregnated by Catholicism, its cult of images, the pomp, the order installed by the Church, this subtle mélange of Jewish morals, Greek reason and Roman law, but also the humility of servants.”

This is as close as one gets to the Zemmour creed.

What makes the Zemmour story eyebrow-raising across all the lands of Islam – from Northern Africa to West, Central and South Asia – is that he defines the “enemy not as political Islam, Islamism, jihadism or Islamic radicalism: the enemy is Islam” (my italics).

He charges, without proof, that ‘hatred of France’ is consubstantial to this religion. Islam is incompatible with secularism, democracy, a secular Republic. Islam is incompatible with France.”

That’s exactly what he repeated this past Sunday during his first speech as a presidential candidate: a clash of civilizations redux.

His catalogue of propositions includes no Muslim first names to be adopted in France; “social measures of national solidarity” only for the French; the expulsion of all foreigners who have committed crimes (at least 15,000, as it stands); to close French borders if necessary; and to stop the migration inflow – as many as 400,000 a year, including legal asylum seekers. He explicitly wants students from Africa and the Maghreb to have no access to student grants.

Zemmour wants to limit legal immigration to a minimum. He maintains that Islam is a “civilization very far apart from ours.” He mercilessly blasts Macron, accused of wanting to “dissolve France into Europe and Africa.” Macron explains that a woman may also be a father, but Zemmour says: “I don’t agree. I want children to have a father and a mother.”

That’s where Zemmour’s Islamophobia morphs with his critique of ‘Islamo-Leftism’ and the woke-ism nebulae encompassing race theory, gender studies, post-colonialism, intersectionality, identity politics and cancel culture. That’s the privileged terrain where he could get further traction with the France of traditional values.

CNews have extolled Zemmour as The Dynamiter. Yet he runs the risk of dynamiting himself, self-cornered in an Islamophobia trap of his own making as he aims to re-found the French radical right and ‘reconquer’ the Republic.

It may be too early, but he did not get the electoral bump he expected after entering the ring. As it stands, he’s out of the second round, neck to neck with the perennial Marine Le Pen and largely overtaken by another woman, Valerie Pecresse, a Sarkozy disciple with a dominatrix streak who’s selling the union of the ‘respectable’ Right and her capability of getting rid of Macron for good.

Yet never underestimate the immensely ambitious, self-described Berber Jew who aims to ‘reconquer’ a Republic fighting an Islamophobic jihad.

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.

International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian People Celebrated in Climate of Betrayal, Harrowing Violence

Dec 3, 2021

Since the General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II) to partition Palestine into two separate

Source: Al Mayadeen

Hana Saada

After 74 years of the unjust division of the Palestinian land, the UNGA and the UNSC continue to refrain from taking any solid actions in the interest of the Palestinian people and their cause, on that regard, the declaration of the International Day of Solidarity with Palestine appears to be a mere voice act that does not contribute to improving the situation of this people.

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People was celebrated, on Monday, in a context marked by harrowing crimes committed by the Zionist regime, the intensification of the Zionist settlement operations in Palestine, and the persistent blockage of the peace process, exacerbated by the normalization of relations between the Zionist entity and some Arab countries, dubbed as a betrayal to the Palestinian cause.

Monday, 29 November 2021 marks the 44th observance of the United Nations (UN) International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. In 1977, the United Nations selected the date of November 29 for the celebration of the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People”. This date, given its significance and importance to the Palestinian people, is based on the UN General Assembly’s call for the annual celebration of the resolution on the partition of Palestine.

Adopted on November 29, 1947, this resolution is intended to create Arab and Jewish states in this ‘disputed territory’. Since then, the Palestinian people continue to lose territory to the Zionists, while the living conditions of the Palestinians have deteriorated more and more amid poverty, denial of fundamental freedoms through the systemic discrimination and subjugation, forcible evictions, and demolition orders of Palestinian property in the neighborhoods of Sheik Jarrah and Silwan. This culminated, more recently, in spurring violence that claimed the lives of innocent women, children, and the elderly during the 11-day offensive on the Gaza Strip that began on May 10, amounting to war crimes. There was a deliberate intention by the Zionist occupation forces to inflict more casualties among the civilians to push the Palestinian people to accept the existence of the Zionist Entity.

A total of 243 Palestinians, including 66 children and 39 women, were killed during the Zionist attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip on May 10. Clashes erupted, on May 13, across the occupied territories because of the Zionists’ attacks and restrictions on Palestinians in the Eastern part of Al-Quds, Al-Aqsa Mosque, as well as a Zionist court’s decision to evict 12 Palestinian families from their homes in favor of Zionist settlers.

The decision on the forced displacement is itself, a war crime and aggression against humanity, transforming the Zionist judiciary into a barbaric tool to pass racist Zionist expansion agendas to the detriment of the Palestinian civilians.

The tension moved to Gaza on May 10, leading to a military confrontation between the Zionist forces and the Palestinian resistance groups, where the Zionist warplanes have caused an unprecedented scale of destruction in the Palestinian homes and infrastructure.

Palestinians are also victims of repeated military attacks, claiming the lives of several innocent civilians (men, women, and children), especially in the Gaza strip, which has been under a strict blockade for 15 years.

The Zionists are committing violations against worshipers in Al-Quds “Jerusalem” by preventing them from accessing places of worship, at the top of which, Al-Aqsa Mosque, the world’s third-holiest site for Muslims, resorting to an excessive force against them in a way that threatens their lives and most likely leads to death. In the holy month of Ramadan, at least 305 people sustained varying injuries as the Zionists stormed the Esplanade of Mosques in East Jerusalem and attacked Palestinians who were on guard to prevent raids by Jewish settlers.

The Zionist Entity is committing crimes of apartheid and persecution against Arabs in the occupied territories, with a view to maintaining the domination by Jewish Zionists over Palestinians.

The Zionist regime has become the sole governing power alongside extremely-limited Palestinian self-rule, where the Zionists are methodically highly-privileged, while Palestinians have been dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas… these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.

Noting that the Apartheid system was a policy of racial segregation and discrimination enforced by the white minority government against the black majority in South Africa from 1948 until 1991.

The 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid defines apartheid as “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group and systematically oppressing them”. The 1998 Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court (ICC) adopts a similar definition.

For its part, Human Rights Watch’s 213-page report, entitled: “A Threshold Crossed,” states that Palestinians are suffering from the Apartheid; 

“Denying millions of Palestinians their fundamental rights, without any legitimate security justification and solely because they are Palestinian and not Jewish is not simply a matter of an abusive occupation,” said Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch’s executive director.

“These policies, which grant Jewish Israelis the same rights and privileges wherever they live and discriminate against Palestinians to varying degrees wherever they live, reflect a policy to privilege one people at the expense of another.”

The International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People marks the recognition of historic injustice suffered by the valiant Palestinian people in their legitimate struggle to recover their stolen rights. It has traditionally constituted an opportunity to recall the Palestinian cause that has not yet been resolved, as well as the sufferings of the Palestinian people who have not yet recovered their inalienable and immutable rights as defined by the General Assembly (GA), namely; the right to independence and national sovereignty, and the right of Palestinians to return to their homes and recover their properties.

This year, the Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People comes at a time when the Palestinian cause has experienced a dangerous slippage, marked by the signing, at the end of 2020, of “normalization agreements” between the Zionist entity and four Arab countries.

The Palestinian cause taken hostage:

In 2020, a watershed year for the Zionists’ diplomatic integration into the Arab world, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco have normalized their relations with the Zionist entity, within the framework of the “Abraham Accords”.

This is a political error, a betrayal of Al-Quds, al-Aqsa mosque and the Palestinian cause, and a stab in the back of the Palestinians. For the latter, such normalization with the Zionist Entity encourages the occupation forces to commit more violations against the Palestinian people, paving the way for more aggressive war and the expansion of Zionism, Judaization, and colonization of Palestinian land.

It is in this wake that a vast outpouring of international solidarity with the Palestinian people was launched, in particular, in countries that have normalized their relations with the Zionist entity through demonstrations, sit-ins, and protests against these agreements.

Morocco and Palestine

Morocco, whose king is the Chairman of the El-Quds Committee, normalized its relations with the Zionist Entity on December 10, 2020, in exchange for the recognition by former US President Donald Trump of the kingdom’s alleged “sovereignty” over Western Sahara.

This barter was condemned, in the strongest term, throughout the world and especially by Algeria and the Moroccan people who took to the streets for several days to express their rejection of this agreement, organizing demonstrations often repressed by the regime in place.

More recently, the Makhzen regime and the Zionist entity inked a framework agreement aimed at strengthening the security cooperation between the Moroccan and the Zionist intelligence services, nearly one year after the normalization of their relations, amidst broad popular disagreement. A move dubbed as shameful and disgraceful by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.

Algeria and Palestine

President Tebboune urged, in a speech delivered on the sidelines of the celebration, in Algeria, of this International Day, the international community to assume its historic responsibilities towards the practices of Zionist occupation aimed at undermining the building of the sovereign Palestinian state, while reiterating Algeria’s unwavering and firm support for the struggle of Palestinian people to recover their stolen rights. He stressed, once again, with a well-articulated position, his rejection of all forms of normalization with the Zionist Entity, deploring the four Arab countries’ scrambling to normalize relations.

“We have noticed a kind of scramble (a mad rush) towards normalization. This is something we will never participate in, nor bless. Palestine’s cause is sacred, and we will not give it up,” the Algerian President said.

He repeatedly expressed the country’s preparedness to invite all Palestinian groups to a comprehensive meeting in Algeria. Tebboune’s words were applauded by Palestinians and Algerians alike, who have a long history of intertwined solidarity.

Palestinian factions praised President Tebboune for his government’s strong opposition to any bids aimed at establishing ties with the Zionist Entity, calling on Arab rulers to follow suit and reject all forms of normalization. 

There is no doubt that when Algerian President Tebboune called the Palestinian cause “sacred”, he was truly speaking on behalf of the Algerian people whose history is marked by resistance against colonial powers. Algerians remain stick to their pro-Palestine stance, considering the Palestinian cause the mother of all causes. Their beliefs about national sovereignty and the right for countries to determine their own destiny are central, firmly committed to the principles of a sovereigntist governing ideology, based on their national pride, far away from any quid pro quo deals, capable of exercising foreign pressure on their country. 

In 1988, noteworthy, when Palestine declared its independence, Algeria was the very first country worldwide to officially recognize its statehood. This decision further contributed to the deeply-rooted Algerian-Palestinian relations. Even when other Arab states, notably those which signed the “Abraham Accords” last year, dropped their pan-Arab commitments to the Palestinian struggle, Algeria has stood by the cause.

For its part, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas hailed Algeria’s principled positions, describing the signing, by the Moroccan regime, of several agreements, particularly in the security and military spheres, with the Zionist enemy as an unjustified act whatever the pretext or the objective.

For the Hamas movement, the normalization and signing of agreements between Rabat and the Zionist Entity “would lead the Zionists to commit more crimes against the Palestinian Arab people and to the violation of their legitimate rights to freedom, independence and return “.

Gantz in Rabat

The agreement was inked in a visit to Rabat by the Zionist Minister of Defense Benny Gantz, received by Morocco’s Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of the National Defense Administration Abdellatif Loudiyi. The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding which launches officially the security cooperation in all its aspects (operational planning, procurement, research, and development) between Morocco and the Zionist entity, according to media close to the Moroccan military circles.

It should be noted that demonstrations against normalization were scheduled in Morocco on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. The Moroccan Action Group for Palestine organized a popular sit-in, Sunday, in front of the parliament headquarters in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, in solidarity with the Palestinian defenseless people and confronting the agendas of Zionist penetration in the region.

The group said, in a statement, posted on Saturday, that the popular sit-in, organized under the slogan “With the resistance against normalization with the Zionists,” comes on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, and within the framework of the continuous popular mobilization in support of the Palestinian struggle under the slogan “The Moroccan people: Palestine is a national issue.”

The sit-in, added the same source, “confirms the established historical positions in confronting the Zionist occupation and all its tools, and facing the Zionist intrusion agendas to sabotage the region.”

However, Moroccan security forces prevented the popular sit-in. The president of the Moroccan Observatory against Normalization with the Zionist Entity, Ahmed Ouihmane indicated, in a statement to the Algerian news agency, that the Moroccan security forces prevented, by force, this popular sit-in.

Different protests were organized in Morocco coinciding with the afore-mentioned visit of the Zionist war criminal to create official channels between the intelligence and security services for the two parties. Protesters assured their full adherence and attachment to the support of the Palestinian people and the overthrow of all forms of normalization.

The protests were subject to dispersal using force, under a heavy security siege, amid the participation of human rights defenders, supporters of the Palestinian cause, and the presence of the media. 

This year celebrations constitute a new opportunity for many free countries and brave peoples to express their unwavering and coherent support for the Palestinian people, calling on the international community to translate its words into actions in the face of the dangerous escalation in the Palestinian territories and the UN to honor its commitments.

Epilogue

To this end, the whole world is also called upon to exert real pressure on the Zionist Entity… the enemy of humanity with a view to putting an end to its systematic violation of human rights and enforcement of discrimination against the Palestinian people. Besides, the UN and its member states should take appropriate actions as 74 years since the General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II) to partition Palestine into two separate states, no concrete actions have been taken so far. 

Instead, the hope of achieving sustainable political settlements is fading away with an entity blatantly showing disdain for international human rights law, including two key international human rights instruments, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on Socioeconomic and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), both of which have as their first Article, the Right to Self-Determination, as well as a continuous disrespect of internationally adopted provisions and principles in this direction.

The UN should be held accountable for its evident lack of action in recent years. It lost its credibility for non-abide by the adopted resolutions and turning a blind eye to the Zionists who blatantly flout the relevant UN resolutions, laws of international legitimacy, and international terms of reference, and deny agreements in an attempt to impose the status quo policy, and hamper the building of the sovereign Palestinian state.

This organization is called to honor its commitments to defend international law and order, work to hold the Zionist occupation accountable for the overruns and violations committed, ensure international protection, and stave off attacks and violations against the Palestinian people and their sanctities.

The international community, on the other hand, should re-evaluate its relationship with the Zionist Entity, establish a commission of inquiry to investigate systematic discrimination and repression in Palestine, transcend rhetoric, deploy further efforts in defense of the Palestinians inalienable rights and bring Zionists into compliance with international law.

Palestinian leaders should put on the shelf their domestic rifts, creating a united front aimed at addressing the onus fallen on their shoulders. A favorable atmosphere should be created to address the catastrophic ordeal the Palestinians are passing through. Palestinian national unity stands to be the only basis for achieving the hopes and legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people in defeating and thwarting the Zionist schemes that hide behind the titles and slogans of normalization, as well as its perfidious policies aimed at displacing the Palestinian people through creeping Judaization and illegal settlement and forcefully altering the Palestinian religious and historical landmarks.

Finally, addressing ourselves, our collective conscience should react to concrete and permanent actions, not momentary reactions as events unfold!The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

In Memory of JFK: The First U.S. President to be Declared a Terrorist and Threat to National Security

November 22, 2021

By Cynthia Chung for the Saker Blog

In April 1954, Kennedy stood up on the Senate floor to challenge the Eisenhower Administration’s support for the doomed French imperial war in Vietnam, foreseeing that this would not be a short-lived war.^[1]

In July 1957, Kennedy once more took a strong stand against French colonialism, this time France’s bloody war against Algeria’s independence movement, which again found the Eisenhower Administration on the wrong side of history. Rising on the Senate floor, two days before America’s own Independence Day, Kennedy declared:

“The most powerful single force in the world today is neither communism nor capitalism, neither the H-bomb nor the guided missile – it is man’s eternal desire to be free and independent. The great enemy of that tremendous force of freedom is called, for want of a more precise term, imperialism – and today that means Soviet imperialism and, whether we like it or not, and though they are not to be equated, Western imperialism. Thus, the single most important test of American foreign policy today is how we meet the challenge of imperialism, what we do to further man’s desire to be free. On this test more than any other, this nation shall be critically judged by the uncommitted millions in Asia and Africa, and anxiously watched by the still hopeful lovers of freedom behind the Iron Curtain. If we fail to meet the challenge of either Soviet or Western imperialism, then no amount of foreign aid, no aggrandizement of armaments, no new pacts or doctrines or high-level conferences can prevent further setbacks to our course and to our security.”^[2]

In September 1960, the annual United Nations General Assembly was held in New York. Fidel Castro and a fifty-member delegation were among the attendees and had made a splash in the headlines when he decided to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem after the midtown Shelburne Hotel demanded a $20,000 security deposit. He made an even bigger splash in the headlines when he made a speech at this hotel, discussing the issue of equality in the United States while in Harlem, one of the poorest boroughs in the country.

Kennedy would visit this very same hotel a short while later, and also made a speech:

“Behind the fact of Castro coming to this hotel, [and] Khrushchev…there is another great traveler in the world, and that is the travel of a world revolution, a world in turmoil…We should be glad [that Castro and Khrushchev] came to the United States. We should not fear the twentieth century, for the worldwide revolution which we see all around us is part of the original American Revolution.”^[3]

What did Kennedy mean by this? The American Revolution was fought for freedom, freedom from the rule of monarchy and imperialism in favour of national sovereignty. What Kennedy was stating, was that this was the very oppression that the rest of the world wished to shake the yoke off, and that the United States had an opportunity to be a leader in the cause for the independence of all nations.

On June 30th, 1960, marking the independence of the Republic of Congo from the colonial rule of Belgium, Patrice Lumumba, the first Congolese Prime Minister gave a speech that has become famous for its outspoken criticism of colonialism. Lumumba spoke of his people’s struggle against “the humiliating bondage that was forced upon us… [years that were] filled with tears, fire and blood,” and concluded vowing “We shall show the world what the black man can do when working in liberty, and we shall make the Congo the pride of Africa.”

Shortly after, Lumumba also made clear, “We want no part of the Cold War… We want Africa to remain African with a policy of neutralism.”^[4]

As a result, Lumumba was labeled a communist for his refusal to be a Cold War satellite for the western sphere. Rather, Lumumba was part of the Pan-African movement that was led by Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah (who later Kennedy would also work with), which sought national sovereignty and an end to colonialism in Africa.

Lumumba “would remain a grave danger,” Dulles said at an NSC meeting on September 21, 1960, “as long as he was not yet disposed of.”^[5] Three days later, Dulles made it clear that he wanted Lumumba permanently removed, cabling the CIA’s Leopoldville station, “We wish give [sic] every possible support in eliminating Lumumba from any possibility resuming governmental position.”^[6]

Lumumba was assassinated on Jan. 17th, 1961, just three days before Kennedy’s inauguration, during the fog of the transition period between presidents, when the CIA is most free to tie its loose ends, confident that they will not be reprimanded by a new administration that wants to avoid scandal on its first days in office.

Kennedy, who clearly meant to put a stop to the Murder Inc. that Dulles had created and was running, would declare to the world in his inaugural address on Jan. 20th, 1961, “The torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.”

La Resistance

Along with inheriting the responsibility of the welfare of the country and its people, Kennedy was to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.

The Bay of Pigs set-up would occur three months later. Prouty compares the Bay of Pigs incident to that of the Crusade for Peace; the Bay of Pigs being orchestrated by the CIA, and the Crusade for Peace sabotaged by the CIA, in both cases to ruin the U.S. president’s (Eisenhower and Kennedy) ability to form a peaceful dialogue with Khrushchev and decrease Cold War tensions. Both presidents’ took onus for the events respectively, despite the responsibility resting with the CIA. However, Eisenhower and Kennedy understood, if they did not take onus, it would be a public declaration that they did not have any control over their government agencies and military.

Further, the Bay of Pigs operation was in fact meant to fail. It was meant to stir up a public outcry for a direct military invasion of Cuba.

On public record is a meeting (or more aptly described as an intervention) with CIA Deputy Director for Plans Richard Bissell, Joint Chiefs Chairman Lyman Lemnitzer, and Navy Chief Admiral Burke basically trying to strong-arm President Kennedy into approving a direct military attack on Cuba. Admiral Burke had already taken the liberty of positioning two battalions of Marines on Navy destroyers off the coast of Cuba “anticipating that U.S. forces might be ordered into Cuba to salvage a botched invasion.”^[7] (This incident is what inspired the Frankenheimer movie “Seven Days in May.”)

Kennedy stood his ground.

“They were sure I’d give in to them,” Kennedy later told Special Assistant to the President Dave Powers. “They couldn’t believe that a new president like me wouldn’t panic and try to save his own face. Well they had me figured all wrong.”^[8]

Incredibly, not only did the young president stand his ground against the Washington war hawks just three months into his presidential term, but he also launched the Cuba Study Group which found the CIA to be responsible for the fiasco, leading to the humiliating forced resignation of Allen Dulles, Richard Bissell and Charles Cabell. (For more on this refer to my report.)

Unfortunately, it would not be that easy to dethrone Dulles, who continued to act as head of the CIA, and key members of the intelligence community such as Helms and Angleton regularly bypassed McCone (the new CIA Director) and briefed Dulles directly.^[9]

But Kennedy was also serious about seeing it through all the way, and vowed to “splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds.”

* * *

There is another rather significant incident that had occurred just days after the Bay of Pigs, and which has largely been overshadowed by the Cuban fiasco in the United States.

From April 21-26th, 1961, the Algiers putsch or Generals’ putsch, was a failed coup d’état intended to force President de Gaulle (1959-1969) not to abandon the colonial French Algeria. The organisers of the putsch were opposed to the secret negotiations that French Prime Minister Michel Debré had started with the anti-colonial National Liberation Front (FLN).

On January 26th, 1961, just three months before the attempted coup d’état, Dulles sent a report to Kennedy on the French situation that seemed to be hinting that de Gaulle would no longer be around, “A pre-revolutionary atmosphere reigns in France… The Army and the Air Force are staunchly opposed to de Gaulle…At least 80 percent of the officers are violently against him. They haven’t forgotten that in 1958, he had given his word of honor that he would never abandon Algeria. He is now reneging on his promise, and they hate him for that. de Gaulle surely won’t last if he tries to let go of Algeria. Everything will probably be over for him by the end of the year—he will be either deposed or assassinated.”^[10]

The attempted coup was led by Maurice Challe, whom de Gaulle had reason to conclude was working with the support of U.S. intelligence, and Élysée officials began spreading this word to the press, which reported the CIA as a “reactionary state-within-a-state” that operated outside of Kennedy’s control.^[11]

Shortly before Challe’s resignation from the French military, he had served as NATO commander in chief and had developed close relations with a number of high-ranking U.S. officers stationed in the military alliance’s Fontainebleau headquarters.^[12]

In August 1962 the OAS (Secret Army Organization) made an assassination attempt against de Gaulle, believing he had betrayed France by giving up Algeria to Algerian nationalists. This would be the most notorious assassination attempt on de Gaulle (who would remarkably survive over thirty assassination attempts while President of France) when a dozen OAS snipers opened fire on the president’s car, which managed to escape the ambush despite all four tires being shot out.

After the failed coup d’état, de Gaulle launched a purge of his security forces and ousted General Paul Grossin, the chief of SDECE (the French secret service). Grossin was closely aligned with the CIA, and had told Frank Wisner over lunch that the return of de Gaulle to power was equivalent to the Communists taking over in Paris.^[13]

In 1967, after a five-year enquête by the French Intelligence Bureau, it released its findings concerning the 1962 assassination attempt on de Gaulle. The report found that the 1962 assassination plot could be traced back to the NATO Brussels headquarters, and the remnants of the old Nazi intelligence apparatus. The report also found that Permindex had transferred $200,000 into an OAS bank account to finance the project.

As a result of the de Gaulle exposé, Permindex was forced to shut down its public operations in Western Europe and relocated its headquarters from Bern, Switzerland to Johannesburg, South Africa, it also had/has a base in Montreal, Canada where its founder Maj. Gen. Louis M. Bloomfield (former OSS) proudly had his name amongst its board members until the damning de Gaulle report. The relevance of this to Kennedy will be discussed shortly.

As a result of the SDECE’s ongoing investigation, de Gaulle made a vehement denunciation of the Anglo-American violation of the Atlantic Charter, followed by France’s withdrawal from the NATO military command in 1966. France would not return to NATO until April 2009 at the Strasbourg-Kehl Summit.

In addition to all of this, on Jan. 14th, 1963, de Gaulle declared at a press conference that he had vetoed British entry into the Common Market. This would be the first move towards France and West Germany’s formation of the European Monetary System, which excluded Great Britain, likely due to its imperialist tendencies and its infamous sin City of London.

Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson telegrammed West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer directly, appealing to him to try to persuade de Gaulle to back track on the veto, stating “if anyone can affect Gen. de Gaulle’s decision, you are surely that person.”

Little did Acheson know that Adenauer was just days away from signing the Franco-German Treaty of Jan 22nd, 1963 (also known as the ÉlyséeTreaty), which had enormous implications. Franco-German relations, which had long been dominated by centuries of rivalry, had now agreed that their fates were aligned. (This close relationship was continued to a climactic point in the late 1970s, with the formation of the European Monetary System, and France and West Germany’s willingness in 1977 to work with OPEC countries trading oil for nuclear technology, which was sabotaged by the U.S.-Britain alliance.

The Élysée Treaty was a clear denunciation of the Anglo-American forceful overseeing that had overtaken Western Europe since the end of WWII.

On June 28th, 1961, Kennedy wrote NSAM #55. This document changed the responsibility of defense during the Cold War from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and would have (if seen through) drastically changed the course of the war in Vietnam. It would also have effectively removed the CIA from Cold War military operations and limited the CIA to its sole lawful responsibility, the collecting and coordination of intelligence.

By Oct 11th, 1963, NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy^[14], was released and outlined a policy decision “to withdraw 1,000 military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963” and further stated that “It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of U.S. personnel by 1965.” The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the headline U.S. TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY ’65.

It would be the final nail in the coffin.

Treason in America

“Treason doth never prosper; what is the reason? Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”

– Sir John Harrington

By Germany supporting de Gaulle’s exposure of the international assassination ring, his adamant opposition to western imperialism and the role of NATO, and with a young Kennedy building his own resistance against the imperialist war of Vietnam, it was clear that the power elite were in big trouble.

On November 22nd, 1963 President Kennedy was brutally murdered in the streets of Dallas, Texas in broad daylight.

With the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem, likely ordained by the CIA, on Nov. 2nd, 1963 and Kennedy just a few weeks later, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 on Nov. 26th, 1963 to begin the reversal of Kennedy’s policy under #263. And on March 17th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.

The Vietnam War would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy’s death, lasting a total of 20 years for Americans, and 30 years if you count American covert action in Vietnam.

Two days before Kennedy’s assassination, a hate-Kennedy handbill was circulated in Dallas accusing the president of treasonous activities including being a communist sympathizer.

On November 29th, 1963 the Warren Commission was set up to investigate the murder of President Kennedy.

The old Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana was a member of that Warren Commission. Boggs became increasingly disturbed by the lack of transparency and rigour exhibited by the Commission and became convinced that many of the documents used to incriminate Oswald were in fact forgeries.

In 1965 Rep. Boggs told New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison that Oswald could not have been the one who killed Kennedy.^[15] It was Boggs who encouraged Garrison to begin the only law enforcement prosecution of the President’s murder to this day.

Nixon was inaugurated as President of the United States on Jan 20th, 1969. Hale Boggs soon after called on Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell to have the courage to fire J. Edgar Hoover.^[16]

It wasn’t long thereafter that the private airplane carrying Hale Boggs disappeared without a trace.

Jim Garrison was the District Attorney of New Orleans from 1962 to 1973 and was the only one to bring forth a trial concerning the assassination of President Kennedy. In Jim Garrison’s book “On the Trail of the Assassins”, J. Edgar Hoover comes up several times impeding or shutting down investigations into JFK’s murder, in particular concerning the evidence collected by the Dallas Police Department, such as the nitrate test Oswald was given and which exonerated him, proving that he never shot a rifle the day of Nov 22nd, 1963.

However, for reasons only known to the government and its investigators this fact was kept secret for 10 months.^[17] It was finally revealed in the Warren Commission report, which inexplicably didn’t change their opinion that Oswald had shot Kennedy.

Another particularly damning incident was concerning the Zapruder film that was in the possession of the FBI and which they had sent a “copy” to the Warren Commission for their investigation. This film was one of the leading pieces of evidence used to support the “magic bullet theory” and showcase the direction of the headshot coming from behind, thus verifying that Oswald’s location was adequate for such a shot.

During Garrison’s trial on the Kennedy assassination (1967-1969) he subpoenaed the Zapruder film that for some peculiar reason had been locked up in some vault owned by Life magazine (the reader should note that Henry Luce the owner of Life magazine was in a very close relationship with the CIA). This was the first time in more than five years that the Zapruder film was made public. It turns out the FBI’s copy that was sent to the Warren Commission had two critical frames reversed to create a false impression that the rifle shot was from behind.

When Garrison got a hold of the original film it was discovered that the head shot had actually come from the front. In fact, what the whole film showed was that the President had been shot from multiple angles meaning there was more than one gunman.

When the FBI was questioned about how these two critical frames could have been reversed, they answered self-satisfactorily that it must have been a technical glitch…

There is also the matter of the original autopsy papers being destroyed by the chief autopsy physician, James Humes, to which he even testified to during the Warren Commission, apparently nobody bothered to ask why…

This would explain why the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), reported in a July 1998 staff report their concern for the number of shortcomings in the original autopsy, that “One of the many tragedies of the assassination of President Kennedy has been the incompleteness of the autopsy record and the suspicion caused by the shroud of secrecy that has surrounded the records that do exist.” [emphasis added]

The staff report for the Assassinations Records Review Board contended that brain photographs in the Kennedy records are not of Kennedy’s brain and show much less damage than Kennedy sustained.

There is a lot of spurious effort to try to ridicule anyone who challenges the Warren Commission’s official report as nothing but fringe conspiracy theory. And that we should not find it highly suspect that Allen Dulles, of all people, was a member and pretty much leader of said commission. The reader should keep in mind that much of this frothing opposition stems from the very agency that perpetrated crime after crime on the American people, as well as abroad. When has the CIA ever admitted guilt, unless caught red-handed? Even after the Church committee hearings, when the CIA was found guilty of planning out foreign assassinations, they claimed that they had failed in every single plot or that someone had beaten them to the punch, including in the case of Lumumba.

The American people need to realise that the CIA is not a respectable agency; we are not dealing with honorable men. It is a rogue force that believes that the ends justify the means, that they are the hands of the king so to speak, above government and above law. Those at the top such as Allen Dulles were just as adamant as Churchill about protecting the interests of the power elite, or as Churchill termed it, the “High Cabal.”

Interestingly, on Dec. 22nd, 1963, just one month after Kennedy’s assassination, Harry Truman published a scathing critique of the CIA in The Washington Post, even going so far as to state “There is something about the way the CIA has been functioning that is casting a shadow over our historic position [as a] free and open society, and I feel that we need to correct it.”^[18]

The timing of such a scathing quote cannot be stressed enough. Dulles, of course, told the public not to be distressed, that Truman was just in entering his twilight years.

In addition, Jim Garrison, New Orleans District Attorney at the time, who was charging Clay Shaw as a member of the conspiracy to kill Kennedy, besides uncovering his ties to David Ferrie who was found dead in his apartment days before he was scheduled to testify, also made a case that the New Orleans International Trade Mart (to which Clay Shaw was director), the U.S. subsidiary of Permindex, was linked to Kennedy’s murder. Col. Clay Shaw was an OSS officer during WWII, which provides a direct link to his knowing Allen Dulles.

Garrison did a remarkable job with the odds he was up against, and for the number of witnesses that turned up dead before the trial…

This Permindex link would not look so damning if we did not have the French intelligence SDECE report, but we do. And recall, in that report Permindex was caught transferring $200,000 directly to the bankroll of the OAS which attempted the 1962 assassination on de Gaulle.

Thus, Permindex’s implication in an international assassination ring is not up for debate. In addition, the CIA was found heavily involved in these assassination attempts against de Gaulle, thus we should not simply dismiss the possibility that Permindex was indeed a CIA front for an international hit crew.

In fact, among the strange and murderous characters who converged on Dallas in Nov. 1963 was a notorious French OAS commando named Jean Souetre, who was connected to the plots against President de Gaulle. Souetre was arrested in Dallas after the Kennedy assassination and expelled to Mexico, not even kept for questioning.^[19]

What Does the Future Hold?

After returning from Kennedy’s Nov. 24th funeral in Washington, de Gaulle and his information minister Alain Peyrefitte had a candid discussion that was recorded in Peyrefitte’s memoire “C’était de Gaulle,” the great General was quoted saying:

“What happened to Kennedy is what nearly happened to me… His story is the same as mine. … It looks like a cowboy story, but it’s only an OAS [Secret Army Organization] story. The security forces were in cahoots with the extremists.

…Security forces are all the same when they do this kind of dirty work. As soon as they succeed in wiping out the false assassin, they declare the justice system no longer need be concerned, that no further public action was needed now that the guilty perpetrator was dead. Better to assassinate an innocent man than to let a civil war break out. Better an injustice than disorder.

America is in danger of upheavals. But you’ll see. All of them together will observe the law of silence. They will close ranks. They’ll do everything to stifle any scandal. They will throw Noah’s cloak over these shameful deeds. In order to not lose face in front of the whole world. In order to not risk unleashing riots in the United States. In order to preserve the union and to avoid a new civil war. In order to not ask themselves questions. They don’t want to know. They don’t want to find out. They won’t allow themselves to find out.”

The American people would do well to remember that it was first John F. Kennedy, acting as the President to the United States, who was to be declared a terrorist and threat to his country’s national security.

Thus is it not natural that those who continue to defend the legacy of Kennedy should be regarded today as threat, not truly to the nation’s security, but a threat to the very same grouping responsible for Kennedy’s death and whom today have now declared open war on the American people.

This will be the greatest test the American people have ever been confronted with, and it will only be through an understanding of how the country came to where it is today that there can be sufficient clarity as to what the solutions are, which are not to be found in another civil war. To not fall for the trapping of further chaos and division, the American people will only be able to rise above this if they choose to ask those questions, if they choose to want to know, to want to find out the truth of things they dared not look at in the past for fear of what it would reveal.

“Whenever the government of the United States shall break up, it will probably be in consequence of a false direction having been given to public opinion. This is the weak point of our defenses, and the part to which the enemies of the system will direct all their attacks. Opinion can be so perverted as to cause the false to seem true; the enemy, a friend, and the friend, an enemy; the best interests of the nation to appear insignificant, and the trifles of moment; in a word, the right the wrong, the wrong the right. In a country where opinion has sway, to seize upon it, is to seize upon power. As it is a rule of humanity that the upright and well-intentioned are comparatively passive, while the designing, dishonest, and selfish are the most untiring in their efforts, the danger of public opinion’s getting a false direction is four-fold, since few men think for themselves.”

-James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851(

We must dare to be among the few who think for ourselves.

---

The author can be reached at https://cynthiachung.substack.com/

1. David Talbot, “The Devil’s Chessboard,” pg 304 ↑
2. Ibid, pg 305 ↑
3. Ibid, pg 295 ↑
4. Ibid, pg 319 ↑
5. Ibid, pg 319 ↑
6. Ibid, pg 319 ↑
7. Ibid, pg 337 ↑
8. Ibid, pg 337 ↑
9. Ibid, pg 359 ↑
10. Ibid, pg 350 ↑
11. Ibid, pg 353 ↑
12. Ibid, pg 347 ↑
13. Ibid, pg 354 ↑
14. L. Fletcher Prouty, “The CIA, Vietnam, and the Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy,” pg xxxiv ↑
15. Anton Chaitkin’s paper “Hoover’s FBI and Anglo-American Dictatorship” ↑
16. New York Times, April 6, 1971, “Boggs Demands That Hoover Quit,” p. 1. ↑
17. Jim Garrison’s “On the Trail of the Assassins” p. 116 ↑
18. David Talbot, “The Devil’s Chessboard,” pg 201 ↑
19. Ibid, pg 422 ↑

قمة الجزائر… قمة الأسد

 ناصر قنديل

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على رغم الإعلانات الأميركية المتكررة عند كل تقارب عربي مع سورية، عن عدم الموافقة على هذا التقارب قبل أن “يغير النظام سلوكه ويتقدم على طريق الحل السياسي” إلى نهاية المعزوفة، يصعب الاقتناع بأن هذا الموقف الأميركي هو أكثر من مجرد معزوفة تقليدية تحاكي الذين يعارضون هذا الانفتاح من بين حلفائها، فواشنطن ليست محللاً سياسياً لتعبر عن موقفها ببيان يتم التمرد على مضمونه من أقرب المقربين إليها، لو كان الأمر يعتبر عندها من الأساسيات، فتضع واشنطن الضوء الأصفر لعودة العلاقات مع سورية بين حلفائها، وتترك لهم أن يقرأوه بحسب رغباتهم ومصالحهم، فالراغب بالعلاقة يراه أخضر، والساعي للقطيعة يعتبره أحمر.

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الضوء الأصفر يأتي بعد ضوء أحمر مشدد، وحرب ضروس، فهو إذن طريق التراجع المنظم، لضمان أقل الخسائر، وما بعد الانسحاب من أفغانستان لم يعد هناك سبب استراتيجي للبقاء الأميركي في سورية، ولا للعداء مع سورية، فمشروع إسقاط سورية قد سقط، ومشروع تقسيمها يسقط، ومشروع تقاسمها مردود لأصحابه، البقاء في سورية والخصومة معها سقفهما نضوج أوضاع حلفاء لواشنطن سيدفعون ثمن الانسحاب وإنهاء الخصومة، وفي طليعتهم “إسرائيل” التي تستشعر تنامي محور المقاومة وتخشى معادلاته الجديدة بعد الانسحاب، والجماعات الكردية المسلحة التي أقامت كانتوناً في ظلال الوجود الأميركي، والرئيس التركي الذي يخشى تسارع خلط أوراق يهدد ما يعتبره أوراقاً هامة يمسك بها لضمان حضور سياسي وأمني في معادلة سورية المقبلة.

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الضوء الأصفر الأميركي هو تعبير عن السياق التراجعي بعد قرار أميركي بالحرب على سورية، والسياق التراجعي ينسجم مع محاولة تهيئة الظروف لولادة نظام إقليمي يملأ الفراغ بعد الانسحاب الأميركي الذي بات حتمياً في ضوء المسار الاستراتيجي الذي بدأ من أفغانستان، فالضوء الأصفر يفتح الباب موارباً لكل اللاعبين الإقليميين من حلفاء واشنطن الذين لا تعقيدات تحول دون انفتاحهم على سورية، وهم يرون انتصارها، ويرون كل من زاوية، إما الحاجة لتوازن بوجه تركيا كحال مصر، أو بوجه إيران كحال دول الخليج، أو بوجه إسرائيل كحال الجزائر، لا يتحقق من دون سورية، وكما لا يخفي المصريون أن لا تهديد للأمن القومي العربي بحجم التهديد التركي، لا يخفون أن لا مواجهة لهذا التهديد من دون سورية، ومثلهم يفعل الخليجيون في الحديث عن إيران، ويرون أن الانفتاح على سورية يحقق التوازن مع إيران بداية في سورية، ثم ينشط دور سورية لإقامة التوازن في كل من العراق ولبنان، ليفتح الطريق لاحقاً لدور سوري في الحوار الخليجي- الإيراني، حيث وحدها سورية تستطيع أن “تمون” على طلبات من إيران لن تأخذ منها بغير “المونة”، وحيث وحدها سورية “تمون على حزب الله” وتستطيع أن تحصل منه على طلبات لا تؤخذ منه إلا بـ “المونة”، أما الذين يؤمنون بأن الخطر الإسرائيلي لا يزال هو الخطر الأول على دول وشعوب المنطقة كما تؤمن الجزائر ومعها شارع عربي كبير، فسورية هي حجر الرحى بين الدول العربية في إنشاء التوازن الاستراتيجي بوجه التغول الإسرائيلي السياسي على رغم التراجع العسكري، كما يقول التمدد الإسرائيلي في أفريقيا.

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تأتي القمة العربية المقبلة في الجزائر في الربيع المقبل، موعداً مناسباً لتقدم مسارات الانفتاح على سورية، وصولاً لتتويجها بحضور الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد قمة الجزائر، لتشكل القمة مدخلاً لإحياء المؤسسة العربية الرسمية التي تعطلت منذ الحرب على سورية، وتموضع أغلب النظام العربي على جبهاتها، فيعيد الحضور السوري بعض الحياة لنظام عربي ميت، ليشكل هذا النظام بثلاثيته في النظر لمخاطر الأمن القومي نحو تركيا وإيران و”إسرائيل”، أحد أركان نظام إقليمي جديد تقول المصلحة العربية إنه يقوم على تعاون مع إيران، وإدارة نظام مصالح مع تركيا، والتحصن بوجه الخطر الإسرائيلي، ويسعى بعض العرب لجعله نظام تعاون مع “إسرائيل” وإدارة مصالح مع تركيا، وعداء لإيران، ويسعى آخرون لجعله نظام تعاون مع تركيا وإدارة مصالح مع كل من إيران و”إسرائيل”، وتشكل سورية بيضة القبان في ترجيح الخيارات، وهذا مصدر الحاجة إليها والخوف من حضورها في الآن نفسه.

فيديوات ذات صلة

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• معادلة الأسد في المنطقة
• لا تنازلات سورية للإمارات: السعودية الضيف التالي؟
• خيارات أبو ظبي الصّعبة.. تركيا أم سوريا أم “إسرائيل”؟
• بعد يومين من زيارته سوريا… اتصالٌ بين بن زايد وعبد اللهيان
• سوريا ــ الإمارات: محطة كهرباء وخطوط طيران جديدة… وقنصل في دبي
• سوريا توقع اتفاقاً مع شركات إماراتية لبناء محطة كهرباء
• الحرب السعوديّة ــ الإماراتيّة على حريّة التعبير في لبنان
• هل كانت بلاد الرافدين جزءاً من «سوريا الكبرى» أم العكس؟

Algeria Battling “Israel” in Africa

10 Nov 2021

Source: Al Mayadeen Net

Hussam AbdelKareem

Due to the strong Algerian opposition, “Israel”‘s accession is almost impossible.

On October 16th, 2021, the Executive Council of the African Union announced the postponement of its decision on approving or rejecting the “observer status” of “Israel” in the Union to the next African summit scheduled for February 2022. This decision is in fact the culmination of a great effort made by Algeria politically and diplomatically over the course of three months among the African countries to oppose and confront the sudden decision taken by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki, to accept the application of “Israel” to join the African Union as an observer member, and the subsequent presentation by the Israeli ambassador to Ethiopia (the headquarters country) of his credentials to the Union on the 22nd of June 2021.

From the first day of the decision of Moussa Faki, a French-educated former Chadian prime minister, Algeria went into something like a state of emergency, and a decision was taken at the highest levels to launch a comprehensive diplomatic campaign and to use all of Algeria’s weight and political capabilities to confront Faki’s personal decision. The Algerian Foreign Ministry announced its total rejection of “Israel’s” admission to the ranks of the African Union and said that the Chairperson of the Commission had not consulted the member states in this regard.

Algeria began to move and succeeded in persuading six Arab African countries (not including Morocco and Sudan, who are involved in a process of normalization), namely Tunisia, Egypt, Mauritania, Djibouti, Libya, and the Comoros Islands to announce their opposition to Faki’s decision in a statement on August 3rd. Moussa Faki quickly felt that he is being targeted by the pressures of Algerian diplomacy, represented by Minister Ramtan Lamamra, so he issued an official statement on August 6th in which he responded to Algeria and affirmed that his decision to accept “Israel” as an observer member is indeed within his authorities.

The Algerian campaign against “Israel” in Africa did not stop (South Africa, who had reservations about Moussa Faki’s decision from the first day, cooperated with it), and succeeded in persuading Sudan to join the countries opposing Faki’s decision in a statement issued by the Sudanese Foreign Ministry on October 15th. And in the next day, Algeria succeeded in leading a group of 24 African countries who also announced their objection to Faki, which prompted the Executive Council to finally decide to postpone the decision on accepting the membership of “Israel” until the next summit. This is an important diplomatic victory for Algeria because it actually means, almost certainly, the failure of the project of “Israel”‘s accession, as approving it in the African summit; due to the strong Algerian opposition, “Israel”‘s accession is almost impossible.

This Algerian activity and efficiency are due, in part, to its desire to compensate for the years of relative inaction that characterized the Algerian diplomacy during the rule of the ailing former president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, which allowed “Israel” to penetrate into African circles that it did not reach before. Benjamin Netanyahu intensified contacts with West African and sub-Saharan countries in 2016 and hosted an agricultural conference in “Israel” in which 15 countries participated. He also made several visits to the region and was feeling so triumphant to the extent that he publically said, during his visit to Liberia “Israel is returning strongly to Africa!”. “Israel” succeeded in establishing diplomatic relations with a record number of African countries (46 countries out of 55 members of the African Union).

Historically speaking, the late Gamal Abdel Nasser took charge, in the fifties and sixties of the last century, of combating the Israeli penetration into the African continent. And he took advantage of Egypt’s weight at the time and its relations with the national liberation movements in the continent to besiege the Israeli presence and keep it within minimum limits (most notably with the apartheid racist regime in South Africa). In the aftermath of the October 1973 war, “Israel” was having diplomatic relations with only four African countries. But Sadat’s coup in Egypt and the Camp David Accords opened the African doors to “Israel” once again. The banner of combating Israeli expansion in Africa then passed to Colonel Gaddafi in Libya, who paid great attention to the countries of the continent and built a network of close relations with them and provided them with financial support and contributed to a large extent in keeping most African countries, especially its western and sub-Saharan countries, out of Israeli influence until he was killed in 2011.

The growing Moroccan-Israeli relations are one of the reasons for this Algerian activity at the African level. Algeria no longer considers “Israel” as a Pan-Arab danger, but has become a direct threat to it on its borders. When “Israel” and Morocco crowned decades of their unofficial relations by announcing the establishment of full diplomatic relations in December 2020, Algerian President Abdelmajid Tabboun said, “We notice a kind of rush towards normalization. We will not participate in it or bless it. The Palestinian Cause is sacred to us here in Algeria, and it is the mother of all causes”. His Prime Minister Abdelaziz Jerad followed with a strong statement in which he said that “Algeria is being targeted” and that there is a foreign will for Zionism to reach Algeria’s borders.

That is, Algeria’s leadership has come to consider “Israel’s” relations and activities in neighboring Morocco as a direct security and strategic threat, which has caused great tension in the Algerian view of the Moroccan ruling regime. The Algerian newspaper “Al-Shorouk” published an article titled “For these reasons, the Zionist entity targets Algeria.” And what made matters worse was the intelligence information that “Israel” had helped Morocco establish a military base near the Algerian border. Things crossed its red lines when Algeria felt that “Israel”, through Morocco, was trying to interfere with the internal Algerian affairs. And recently, Algerian television announced that the separatist “MAK” movement has ties to “Israel” and Morocco and that those involved in it were in contact with Israeli parties under the cover of “civil society organizations.” In the end, Algeria decided to cut diplomatic relations with Morocco last August.

“Israel”, in turn, responded to Algeria, accusing it of being part of an axis that includes Iran. Its foreign minister, Meir Lapid, from Casablanca, expressed concerns “about Algeria’s role in the region, its rapprochement with Iran, and the campaign it led against Israel’s admission as an observer member of the African Union”.

Today we are witnessing a great Algerian rise to combat and thwart the Zionist expansion in Africa. This is not surprising for a country with a glorious history of revolution and resistance to colonialism, who, since the days of its great revolution sixty years ago, has been associated with Palestine, its revolution, and its cause, and considered it the twin of its soul and struggle, and is still in the same position.

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

Algeria Bans French Military Aircraft from Airspace

October 3, 2021

Source: Al Mayadeen & Agencies

By Al Mayadeen

Algeria banned French military aircraft 

Algeria banned French military aircraft from entering its airspace, the French army reported Sunday. This comes as another Algerian step in response to French President Emmanuel Macron’s disrespect to Algeria’s sovereignty and history, in addition to the dispute between Algiers and Paris over visas. Macron’s comments and the visa row resulted in a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

France’s military planes regularly fly through Algeria’s airspace to reach the West African Sahel region, where they carry out military missions as part of France’s Barkhane operation.

Algeria’s decision “does not affect our operations or intelligence missions” carried out in the Sahel, a French army spokesman, Colonel Pascal Ianni, said.

This decision heightened tensions between the two nations, and it constitutes the latest step in this diplomatic crisis, which saw Algeria recalling Saturday its ambassador to France over “inadmissible interference” in its affairs. Algeria rejected France’s interference in its internal affairs hours after recalling its ambassador to Paris.

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Political Declaration adopted during the first ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, New York, September 23, 2021

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/-/asset_publisher/cKNonkJE02Bw/content/id/4865844

1. We, representatives of Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, and Venezuela, met at the ministerial level, in New York, on the sidelines of the High-Level Week of the 76th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, in order to undertake an assessment of recent developments in the international arena, including of challenges and threats to the Charter of the United Nations, which underpins multilateralism, and to exchange views on existing, new, and emerging issues of collective concern and common interest.

2. We recall the declaration adopted on 06 July 2021, in New York, at the ambassadorial level, and reaffirm that the Charter of the United Nations and its purposes and principles remain timeless, universal, and that they are all indispensable not only for preserving and promoting international peace and security, the rule of law, economic development and social progress, as well as all human rights for all, but also for achieving a more peaceful, prosperous, just and equitable world, and a system based, precisely, on the rules contained in that universal and legally binding instrument that constitutes an exceptional achievement for humankind and a true act of faith on the best of humanity.

3. We vow to spare no effort in preserving, promoting and defending the prevalence and validity of the Charter of the United Nations, which, in the current international juncture, has a renewed and even more important value and relevance. In this regard, we express our resolve to expand the work of our Group of Friends beyond the United Nations Headquarters, in New York, particularly at the Offices of the United Nations in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna, as well as at the Headquarters of other UN Specialized Agencies, in order to advance our joint efforts for ensuring the respect and adherence to the Charter of the United Nations, in both its letter and spirit.

4. We express our serious concern at the growing resort to unilateralism, in detriment not only of multilateralism, but also of international cooperation and solidarity, which must be deepened now more than ever, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to forge collective, inclusive and effective solutions to the common challenges and threats of a 21st century of interconnectedness. Hence, while renewing our firm commitment with a reinvigorated multilateralism that shall have the United Nations at its centre, we convey our support to nations and peoples subjected to unilateral and arbitrary approaches that violate both the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the basic norms of international law, and renew our call for the full respect to the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination, as well as the territorial integrity and political independence of all nations.

5. We invite those members of the international community that are committed with the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, with the prevalence of legality over force, with the values of dialogue, tolerance and solidarity, as well as with an effective and inclusive multilateralism, in which all regions and all size of States are equal and engaged alike, to consider joining our Group of Friends and/or endorsing this Declaration at their earliest convenience, as part of our common efforts to advance our common agenda and to ultimately keep delivering on the promise of the Charter of the United Nations and ensuring that no one is left behind.

New York, 23 September 2021

الفشل الذريع للإسلام الأطلسي

الجمعة 10 أيلول 2021

مقالات

موفق محادين

ما من تجربة أصابها الفشل الذريع كلما اقتربت من فكرة الدولة والاقتصاد والحداثة والمجتمع المدني، مثل تجربة الإسلام الأطلسي، والأدق التوظيف السياسي لهذا الإسلام.

اعتقد البعض أن الإسلام الأطلسي، البريطاني- الأميركي، في طريقه للسيطرة على الوطن العربي، محمولاً بقرارات أميركية وبـ”حنفيات” مالية وإعلامية من الغاز المسال، حيث يتحول هذا الإسلام إلى حصان طروادة بحقبة جديدة من الاحتلال العثماني. 

وبنى البعض أوهامه على أحلام مريضة بسقوط سوريا واستمرار الحدث العابر في تاريخ مصر ثم عبر تونس والمغرب وقبلهما السودان والعشرية السوداء في الجزائر. 

تأسيس هذا النمط من الإسلام السياسي لم يكن بعيداً منذ لحظته الأولى عن أصابع الاستخبارات البريطانية ثم الأميركية.

بيد أن هذه الأوهام سرعان ما تبخرت وراحت أحجار الدومينو الإسلاموية الأطلسية تتداعى الواحد تلو الآخر: سوريا، ثم مصر، ثم السودان، فتونس، وأخيراً السقوط المدوّي لهذا التيار في الانتخابات البرلمانية والبلدية المغربية. وقريباً من الوطن العربي؛ تتجه مؤشرات الانتخابات البلدية في تركيا وسقوط حزب إردوغان في المدن الكبرى إلى أن تركيا العثمانية قاب قوسين أو أدنى من غروبها وغروب مشروع اليهودي الأميركي برنارد لويس الذي نظّر مبكراً للانبعاث العثماني في تركيا. 

والأدعى إلى السخرية هنا أن تبدو طالبان التي تجسد ثلاثية المفكر المغربي، الجابري، القبيلة- العقيدة- الغنيمة كرمق أخير لإسلام أطلسي أنفقت عليه مئات المليارات. 

ولنا أن نقول، ما من تجربة أصابها الفشل الذريع كلما اقتربت من فكرة الدولة والاقتصاد والحداثة والمجتمع المدني، مثل تجربة الإسلام الأطلسي، والأدق التوظيف السياسي لهذا الإسلام. 

والأخطر هنا هو أن تأسيس هذا النمط من الإسلام السياسي لم يكن بعيداً منذ لحظته الأولى، حتى اليوم، عن أصابع الاستخبارات البريطانية ثم الأميركية، بل إن أول من دافع عن الدولة العثمانية في بداية انحطاطها ومنع سقوطها على أيدي الجيوش المصرية في القرن التاسع عشر، الثنائي اليهودي الذي كان يتحكم في بريطانيا: رئيس الوزراء دزرائيلي، ورجل المال روتشيلد. 

وقد تم توظيف هذا النمط من هذا الإسلام بحسب كل مرحلة، فمن الوهابية النجدية والقطرية وعلاقتها بقلم الاستخبارات البريطانية كما يعترف بيركهارت، إلى توظيف هذا الإسلام ضد حركات التحرر الوطني العربية وغير العربية، إلى استراتيجية تطويق روسيا السوفياتية ثم البوتينية والصين كحزام أخضر إسلاموي تحت سيطرة مطابخ الاستخبارات الأطلسية وأقلامها. 

ومن الوثائق والمراجع حول ذلك: 

–  مذكرات بيركهارت.

–  مارك كورتيس، التاريخ السري لتحالف بريطانيا مع الأصوليين. 

–  ستيفن هات، لعبة بعمر الإمبراطورية. 

–  روبرت درايفوس، لعبة الشيطان. 

–  مذكرات جيمس وولي، مدير الاستخبارات الأميركية الأسبق. 

–  ثروت الخرباوي، سر المعبد. 

–  ايان جونسون، مسجد في ميونخ

–  شاريل بينارد، الإسلام الديموقراطي. 

–  نوح فيلدمان، تدهور الدولة الإسلامية ونهوضها. 

–  بيرنارد لويس، لغة السياسة في الإسلام. 

–  عبد العظيم حماد، الوحي الأميركي. 

–  لوي شتراوس، أعلام الفلسفة السياسية. 

أما في التطبيق، فمن ذلك: 

1- في تونس والمغرب، فضلاً عن الفشل الاقتصادي الاجتماعي، فإن الأخطر هو التغطية على التطبيع مع العدو الصهيوني؛ ففي عهد الحكومة الإسلامية في المغرب، تم التوقيع على العديد من الاتفاقات مع العدو الصهيوني، وفي تونس رفض نواب حركة النهضة التصويت على تجريم التطبيع. 

2- في مصر، فضلاً عن محاولة الإسلاميين المذكورين وضع اليد على مصر وخصخصة ما تبقى من مؤسسات الدولة لنهبها بـ”تراب المصاري”، كما حدث في السودان، واصل حكم مرسي السابق سياسات التطبيع مع العدو وتبادل معه البرقيات بمناسبات مختلفة، وقمعت شرطته أكبر تظاهرة حاولت اقتحام سفارة العدو في القاهرة. 

3- في السودان، وبعد الانقلاب العسكري الدموي للإخوان (تصفية عشرات الضباط)، دخل الإسلام السياسي أسوأ أيامه، من كل النواحي الاقتصادية والاجتماعية والسياسية، وصار من أكثر الدول فساداً ومديونية، رغم خيرات السودان الكثيرة، وذلك فضلاً عن الصراعات الداخلية بين الأجنحة الإسلامية نفسها (الترابي- البشير) وأخيراً المجموعة الحالية التي دشّنت عهدها بالتطبيع مع العدو الصهيوني. 

ولعل الوجه الأخطر في تجربة السودان الإسلاموية تمزق الدولة نفسها بين ولايات انفصالية، مثل دارفور، والموافقة على سلخ الجنوب كمحمية إسرائيلية. 

4- في سوريا والعراق، وإضافة إلى استراتيجية تدمير الدول باسم مواجهة الأنظمة، قدم الإسلامويون للعدو الصهيوني والامبريالية واليهودية العالمية أخطر ذريعة لاتهام العرب والمسلمين بالتخلف والإرهاب الدموي المسلح، وإعادة إنتاج المعزوفة الاستشراقية العنصرية الصهيونية (إعادة الاستعمار لـ تمدين المتوحشين). 

5- ويشار كذلك إلى دور الميليشيات الإسلاموية في دعم عميل الاستخبارات الأميركية في إندونيسيا، سوهارتو، الذي يصنّف من أكثر الرؤساء فساداً ودموية في العالم، والذي نظّم مع الميليشيات الإجرامية المذكورة مذابح تقشعر لها الأبدان بحق الأرياف والطبقة العاملة والمثقفين، راح ضحيتها مليون شخص، كثالثة كبريات المذابح في القرن العشرين، بعد المذبحة التركية ضد الأرمن، والمذابح الأميركية النووية ضد المدن اليابانية. 

6- أما تركيا التي يسوّقها الإسلاميون كنموذج للتنمية، فهي ليست دولة إسلامية بل توظف الإسلام خارجها وفي المحيط العربي والآسيوي لغايات طورانية وأجندة أطلسية. فإضافة إلى وجود أكبر سفارة للعدو الصهيوني فيها، ومستوى واسع من التنسيق العسكري والأمني معه، ووجود كبرى القواعد العسكرية الأميركية مثل إنجرليك، وعضويتها في حلف الأطلسي، الذراع العسكرية الأمنية للإمبريالية العالمية، فإن اقتصادها اقتصاد رأسمالي في كل تفاصيله وليس اقتصاداً إسلامياً، ويقوم على ما يعرف بالتقسيم العالمي للبلدان المتوسطة التطور التي تحل بعد الدول الصناعية الكبرى في سياق استيعاب خطوط الإنتاج والصناعات التي تتخلى عنها البلدان الكبرى تحت تأثير الثورة المتواصلة للتكنولوجيا، مثلها في ذلك مثل البرازيل والمكسيك والهند وجنوب أفريقيا والنمور الآسيوية. 

وليس بعيداً عن ذلك، “الموديل” الاجتماعي لهذه الدول، وعلى رأسها تركيا، وهو “موديل” غير إسلامي إطلاقاً، بالنظر إلى ترخيص البغاء والمشروبات الكحولية، بل إن تركيا تعد مع كولومبيا وآذربيجان وجنوب أفريقيا من بلدان المافيا العالمية، وكذلك من أكبر مستوردي الويسكي في العالم، ومن أكبر مستهلكي المخدرات وطرقها (ممراً ومقراً). 

7- ويشار هنا إلى أن البيئة الاقتصادية عموماً لرجال الأعمال المسلمين ليست بعيدة عن بيئة (يوسف ندا) خصم جمال عبد الناصر والمتورّط في محاولة اغتياله وصاحب الاستثمارات الكبيرة في جزر غسل العملة والتهرب من الضرائب، مثل جزر المارشال، العذراء البريطانية، ومناطق مثل بنما، وفي وسع المهتمين أكثر العودة إلى كتاب ستيفن هات (لعبة بعمر الإمبراطورية) حول بنك BCCI وعلاقته بغاسلي العملة الإسلاميين، وكتاب كورتيس السابق الذكر، وخاصة حول بنك الائتمان وعلاقته بغسل العملة، وكذلك العودة إلى فيلم “التسلل” حول بنك الاعتماد ودور إسكوبار وناشطين إسلاميين.