5 July 2013

Commentary on recent events in Egypt and Atzmon


On 13th May I wrote that I would not be continuing to blog for health reasons but the temptation sometimes to comment on current events is too great!  I explained that the blog was originally set up to combat the influence of Gilad Atzmon and in that it had succeeded, much to the annoyance of the Zionists and Harry’s Place. 

It would appear that Sara AB on HP was none too happy with my comments, even though I was banned from posting comments at the site after the victory at PSC AGM in expelling an out and out holocaust denier.    It would appear that Atzmon is still doing concerts and that a certain Roseanne Barr is putting him on at the Levantine Cultural Centre.

The idea that we have or wanted to stop Atzmon playing at concerts is laughable. Ms Barr cites Atzmon’s saying that an anti-Semite these days is someone the Jews hate, not someone who hates the Jews.  Amusing though it is, it certainly isn’t Atzmon’s creation.  Shlomo Sand, the Israeli professor who challenges the myths that Zionism uses to legitimate itself cited the very same ‘joke’.  Fact is that the victims of Israel’s terror machine repeat what they are told by their attackers, that they come as Jews to ‘defend’ themselves  cannot be blamed for their description of their attackers.  It is also the case that hating Jews is not considered 'anti-Semitic' whereas anti-Zionism belongs in the realm of the beast.  There is nothing anti-Semitic in the saying, regardless of more immediate Palestinian concerns.

Of course there are a few nutcases such as Ms Barr, Germany’s Gabi Weber and others who refuse to even look at the evidence of Atzmon’s views.  They are in love with Atzmon and are too stupid to even know it!

Sometimes I look on with despair at the international situation, how the  ‘terrorism’ weapon had been abused regularly and negated.  In particular the Ombudsmen system of oversight of government departments and areas of responsibility is  a weak and pathetic excuse for not having genuine control of an organisation by its workers.

Whistleblowing
Whistleblowing is all in the news these days, not least with the attempts of the USA to lay their hands on Edward Snowden for 'espionage'.  The powerful rarely like their secrets exposed.  One of the results of Derbyshire Unemployed Centre vs Mrs Street and the appeal I conducted at the Employment Appeal Tribunal, Lucas v CDHA, is that in whistlebowing cases, the good faith requirement is scrapped and it goes towards damages.  No longer should good faith be required as a condition of ensuring that a protected disclosure becomes a qualified disclosure.

 Egyptian Military Coup
Those who sow the seed shall reap the rewards as America backs the generals.  It is a tragedy that there are those millions who danced to see Mubarak go should welcome the coup d’etat of the Egyptian army.  The modern day founder of the army and ouster of the  pro-British King Farouk, Gamel Abdel Nasser, was a self-declared secularist with massive support after the blockade of the Suez Canal by Britain and France.

But an army that once held its head up high, has become an arena in which different generals and interest groups conduct an obscene and corrupt auction.  The army believes that it can ride the crest of a wave and resume business as normal.  Although eventually it abandoned Mubarak, it was involved early on in the attempted suppression  of the first ‘revolution’.  It is a military which instructed that anyone associated with anti-government movement should not receive an anaesthetic.

Those who cheer it now may die in the not so distant future at the hands of the same army,  as the Generals reveal their real, corrupt reasons for taking power.  President Morsi was a ‘moderate’ Islamist who believed that America would save him.  He was leader of the weak and corrupt Muslim Brotherhood which has maintained the siege of Gaza.  He was nonetheless elected unlike the generals.

People may cheer the Egyptian armed forces now.   But they will learn that in strengthening the army they are weakening their own cause.

Tony Greenstein

16 comments:

  1. Whatever one thinks of Morsi (and I didn't think highly of it and would have preferred more 'liberal' forces to have prevailed in round 1, what is going on there is very bad for democracy.

    If the losers of an election can challenge the victors in a profoundly undemocratic way (this was a coup, let there be no confusion about it) then that is no ore than fighting fire with fire.

    Israel and the US must believe things are looking up for them but I'm not convinced that is true in the medium/long term.

    Right now, 'democracy' in Egypt means very little.

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  2. I don't speak on behalf of Israel, but I do not rejoice either in what is happening in Egypt or in Syria. These people are both are neighbors and a few hundred kilometers from my house and they'll never be capable of making a real peace with me, if they can't stop killing each other.

    In both cases it seems that there are no good, only bad and the foreign policy of every sane country must be to prefer the least of many evils.

    Morsi was not friendly to Israel and the Muslim Brotherhood had spent too long in opposition to know how to run a country, but our borders were actually quieter during that time and he made some effort to stop Bedouin criminals completely taking over the Sinai. Military cooperation was described as"excellent".

    Egypt is potentially the most fundamentalist Arab regime in the neighborhood, according to opinion polls, so any election will only lead to a worse situation than exists today.

    In a country with such an enormous population anybody can fill a square with demonstrators, so it was absurd for the army to use that as a reason to overthrow Morsi. Obviously, it was just an excuse.

    Tony, I have no idea what the nature of your medical problems are, but I wish you a quick and complete recovery. If you wish, I can say a prayer for you on Shabbat, for this I would need your Hebrew name and that of your mother.

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  3. It is not a question of rejoicing but asking why Syria and Egypt are like they are and we come back to US & British imperalism. In order to guard their interests the US today subverts any democratic movement.

    I have no time for the Muslim Brotherhood. In Marxist terms it represents the backward petit-bourgeosie and clerical layers. But it was elected. In Gaza Israel acted as its midwife in the 1980's.

    The army in Egypt acted as it did for its own motives. Demonstrations in squares were not the reason. The army generals each have their own personal fiefdom of corruption and the army exists to protect the army.

    It is not a question of fundamentalism. If France occuped Britain then the British would also be fundamentalist, just as the Protestants of N Ireland.

    You judge everything by what is good for Israel but what is good for Israel would be an end to a state based on ethnicity and racial supremacy. I emphasise the state not the people.

    Alter Nassan is my Hebrew name
    My mother's I don't know but her Christian name is Elizabeth!

    Tony

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  4. ”These people are both are neighbors and a few hundred kilometers from my house and they'll never be capable of making a real peace with me, if they can't stop killing each other.”

    I assume by ‘me’ is meant the state of Israel. Israel claims to want peace but only and strictly on her own terms. Never has the Rejectionist Settlerist fraction of Israel made its disdain for, and outright hostility to, the ‘2SS’ more clear than in recent times. And never have they been more powerful, politically. These people believe, nay KNOW, that with the US’s support there is nothing the Palestinians or other Arabs can do to force Israel to make those ‘concessions’.

    And the Israeli general public remains generally unconcerned and broadly speaking happy with the ‘status quo’, as it continues to pay only a small, if any price for the occupation.

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  5. ”Egypt is potentially the most fundamentalist Arab regime in the neighborhood, according to opinion polls, so any election will only lead to a worse situation than exists today.”
    Polls conducted by who? Arutz Sheva? Caroline Glick?

    You’re writing off an entire people and we all know why.

    You might, incidentally, also pay a little more attention to religious fundamentalism in your own country.

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  6. ”Egypt is potentially the most fundamentalist Arab regime in the neighborhood, according to opinion polls, so any election will only lead to a worse situation than exists today.”
    Polls conducted by who? Arutz Sheva? Caroline Glick?

    You’re writing off an entire people and we all know why.

    You might, incidentally, also pay a little more attention to religious fundamentalism in your own country.

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  7. "If you wish, I can say a prayer for you on Shabbat, for this I would need your Hebrew name and that of your mother"

    No wonder getting prayers answered is such a hit-and-miss thing! I wonder, should we make this more generally known, or just leave the Gentiles to their fruitless mutterings?

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  8. "You might, incidentally, also pay a little more attention to religious fundamentalism in your own country."

    Be careful, Gert! What if he knows your Hebrew name and your Mother's name?

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  9. "they'll never be capable of making a real peace with me, if they can't stop killing each other."

    Well then, I can only suggest to you that you leave, as quickly as you can. There are few enough of us Jews as it is, and it behooves you to make every effort to get to a safe place. I mean really, let's not kid each other. Given the circumstances under which Zionists acquired the place, your situation there will never be truly tenable or safe.
    Give it up as a bad job. And think about it, if you leave today, you will have gotten away with a hell of a lot more than most people ever dream of. No one will ever take that from us.

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  10. I will be honored to make the prayer. I'm pretty sure that Elizabeth is Elisheva, but as I can't be sure i'll use the vernacular. I'm guessing G-d will know who the reference is to.

    I don't disagree with much you wrote about Egypt. I don't "judge everything by what is good for Israel" though, obviously, that is my first priority, and I'm guessing that if Brighton was 260 miles from Cairo or 135 from Cairo you might be worrying less about "petit-bourgeosie and clerical layers".

    I'm not sure that we are are going to agree regarding the causes of Islamic fundamentalism,but let's just say that putting it all down to "occupations" is somewhat simplistic to my way of thinking. There have been plenty of occupied who never reached fundamentalism and plenty of fundamentalists who got there without any occupation. You are a historian and can probably cite more examples than I.

    Hi Gert,

    I think that the survey you may wish to look at was not carried out by Arutz Sheva:
    http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/feb09/STARTII_Feb09_rpt.pdf

    Hi Mooser,

    I do not know who you are, but I wish a long life and much health. I also hope that if your health is ever failing, others will not see it as a reason for tasteless sarcasm.

    Today is the 9th of Av and I have no intention of getting into arguments on a day of national mourning. If you have any specific questions, ask and I'll try to answer. If not, all the best.

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  11. Mooser:

    We Pastafarians are untouchable, no worries there ;-)

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  12. Besides, I've got a small army of Xtians praying for me, so there!

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  13. Daniel,

    thanks for the prayers but I'm not a believer. This is becoming very ecumenical!

    I'm not saying there is no fundamentalism unless u r occupied. On the contrary it equally applies to the occupier, which is one reason the USA has such a large no. of Xtian fundamentalists.

    But the West has deliberately encouraged them, whether it is Afghanistan or Egypt today or Syria. Israel used to back the traditionalist religious to keep down the secular nationalists and it is an open secret that Shin Bet played a major part in the creation of Hamas - who in terms of fundamentalism are quite moderate compared to the Salafists

    Likewise the US backed the House of Saud, the most backward of all currents - the Wahhabis.

    Secularism crosses boundaries of religion, fundamentalism increases those borders eg Morsi placed a tax on Christians which dates from medieval times.

    In places like Bosnia and Albania there is v little fundamentalism. All religions have them. Albania was the only country where the no. of Jews increased under Nazi occupation. The Muslim SS battalions under the Mufti were sent for 'retraining' in France because of their attitude to the Jewish Question. Once there they promptly rebelled and sought to join the resistance. The only such example in the SS.

    I'm a Marxist, I look behind the label and ask 'why' this or that is happening

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  14. Daniel:

    Point to specific parts of that report that make you conclude that:

    ”Egypt is potentially the most fundamentalist Arab regime in the neighborhood, according to opinion polls, so any election will only lead to a worse situation than exists today.”

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  15. . "I also hope that if your health is ever failing, others will not see it as a reason for tasteless sarcasm."

    I can assure you, sir, that when my health is failing, I will see it as a reason for tasteless sarcasm. Others will simply have to wait their turn, and I plan to exhaust the subject.
    And my last words will probably be a nasty crack about Zionism. I hope so, anyway.

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  16. "There have been plenty of occupied who never reached fundamentalism and plenty of fundamentalists who got there without any occupation"

    Oh, I see! Guess that makes everything all-right, huh? I mean, if the Occupation can't be blamed for fundementalism, what else could possibly be wrong with it?

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