My interest: American modern culture and related art and humanism–and expressive of it, my own American neighborhood.
With Donald Trump in power, American may share the feeling of being marched forward into a past characterized by the power of feudal-medieval mafia to (in retrospect, inevitably) destroy themselves.
How many Americans — how many American neighbors — sunk in hunger or pain will quietly dissolve before power into a living death–or death–without a fight for their right to the dignity of their existence beneath the security umbrella of a nation that has their back?
Moscow and its manipulation Palestinian “leaders” have lied to Palestinians for decades as regards their Jewish neighbors. Kyle Orton’s astute observation of plain factual “pro-Palestinian” errors may provide the fuel for a right revolutionary fire against . . . lies, for both Israelis and Palestinians might benefit from the kind of truth that may be questioned, explored with integrity, and affirmed, corrected, or trashed.
The study finds that the Times admitted seventy-two errors in its coverage of the war, forty-eight of them (fully two-thirds) directly against Israel. It is a point that authors do not stress, but should have: there is not a single case of false Times reporting that negatively affected the image of HAMAS. If incompetence was all that was going on here, the “mistakes” would not all be in the same direction. As telling on this point, the “errors were identified by external sources” and when corrections were issued they were often “late, vague, and sometimes evasive”.
Orton goes on to cover bias, deceptions, and misrepresentations in The New York Times‘ reporting on the Israeli-Hamas war.
For denizens of the American Far Left (or Far Right) one would think carelessness with information would be resented–the same informs the equivalent of lies with intent to manipulate popular perception while massaging along the way egos with malign narcissistic, partisan, and ultimately only selfish ends. They are those who worry about how they may look rather than how things are and what might bring improvements in security and in the enjoyment of life.
Criminals, including political ones, advance their interests through coercion (blackmail, bribery, intimidation, and patronage), fraud (misrepresentations), and force (violence). Any in and of the modern west may only wonder how some in and near Gaza may feel about being bullied, essentially, into a compliant posture toward retrograde and vicious power.
Above: Palestinians kill one another during the 2007 “Battle for Gaza“.
The interests of modern societies are not in power but in area-wide qualities of living of concern to the health of environments and of species supported, much including our own. For assorted cavemen, cowards, and criminals, coercive power, corruption, and wealth appear all that matter.
No more clear an example of #MedievalVModern may appear than the war that has broken out between #Hamas and #Israel. For Hamas, only the weapons are modern. The motivations have been deeply medieval, well rooted in directed misperception, i.e., disinformation, fabrications, lies promoted and sustained by edict and enforced by unquestionable and vicious authority. In essence-this on the Gaza Strip-the #Palestinians have been perceptually controlled by their own “leaders”, and they are now bound to be driven to destruction by them too.
Sviatoslav finally succeeded in destroying Khazar imperial power in the 960s. The Khazar fortresses of Sarkel and Tamatarkha fell to the Rus in 965, with the capital city of Atil following circa 967 or 969. A visitor to Atil wrote soon after the sacking of the city: “The Rus attacked, and no grape or raisin remained, not a leaf on a branch.”
Today’s Khazarian and Rus descendants and others who have come to define Ukraine’s cultural, ethnic, and tribal endowments in total have become #ModernPeople, overwhelmingly lawful, fair and just, and peaceful in business and in general comportment while the most corrupt of persistent medieval thugs, Viktor Yanukovych, had been booted back to Moscow by general popular revolution, e.g., https://world.time.com/2014/02/22/ukraines-president-flees-protestors-capture-kiev/ and with the moral support of Ukraine’s army.
Hamas X Russian Political Absolutism, Barbarism, and Mafia
While Russia professes good will daily through its X-platformed embassy sites, its claims inevitably belie its own horrendous evil in the realms of chaos and mass destruction. The at-hand BackChannels references: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2023/06/28/a-dark-mirror-in-language/. For those most evil, language may be perverted to cover crime in the present and humiliation in the past as the rogue malign narcissistic psychology fashions strategies in language to match.
When it comes to bombing apartment buildings in the dead of night, none have done it better than #MadVlad who today threatens nuclear annihilation using the same methods in language inversion and psychological project to blackmail the west into the abandonment of Ukraine. And that’s “above the table”, i.e., in plain sight.
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The speech came after hardline political scientists and commentators in Russia said a return to nuclear testing could send a powerful message to Moscow’s enemies in the west. “I hear calls to start testing nuclear weapons, to return to testing,” Putin said.
Some in Russia have called for Putin to detonate a nuclear bomb to show the west that Moscow’s patience over its support for Ukraine and apparent unwillingness to negotiate is wearing thin.
Hamas has long found a sympathetic (or sympathetic-acting) presence in Mikhail Bogdanov, Moscow’s envoy to the Middle East. While it has been an independent actor, it appears to have also long-ingested the former communist state’s anti-Semitic rants and emphatic absolutism while holding itself n place with methods familiar to all dictatorships (for overview: https://freedomhouse.org/country/gaza-strip/freedom-world/2023).
Much has been written about the #RussianMafiaState. For quick reference->
Israel has been hampered in its assistance to Ukraine by a deconfliction arrangement with Russia over Syrian airspace (e.g., https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/russia-sees-military-coordination-with-israel-syria-continuing-2022-02-26/). Nonetheless, The Jewish State has arrived today with biblical, global, and modern histories. In Israel it has a homeland; around the world, it contains communities of all races and cultural strands bound together by Judaism, its Torah, and Jewish experience and lore across thousands of years; and it has so contributed to the ideas of the west that the entire political culture may refer to itself as “Judeo-Christian” as well as “Greco-Roman”. The barbarians from European North and Asian East have in Russia chosen to remain defined by whatever fear they may install in others and then tribute exact or steal in wealth. That’s what they did in the Byzantine and Medieval Eras, and that is what they are doing now.
In the Middle East, the Palestinians have served Russia as a block and goad to the west and the burgeoning and vibrant cultures associated with the democratic open societies of the world whose freedoms may be well symbolized by Israel’s vitality.
In Eastern Europe, Ukraine by revolution, election, and today war has in every possible way become part of the west, leaving Russia to attempt its capture and subjection or destruction even while “Muscovy” dies or destroys itself for its own archaic and deeply displaced, misguided, and perverse ambitions.
The Palestinians may end the occupation any day by ceding Israel to Israel and establishing peace between themselves in the Preoccupied Territories. Decency in governance would follow and the recognition of an authentic Palestinian state would follow on that.
What and who are holding up the Palestinians?
There’s no cliffhanger left in the above question.
Some Palestinian cadre — the middle level of anti-Zionist leaders — know the page but have recovered after the initial shock and picked right up with the broadcasting of the familiar Orwellian catechism — “brutal occupation”, “Zionazis” and all the rest. The language and narratives injected more than 70 years ago into the Soviet influenced portion of Arab culture has amounted to “intellectual poisoning” and is today visible.
All sides need to wrap up WWII, Russia’s historic issues with the Jews, and for the policymakers and scholars allow the truth sink in and live on.
The most basic reminder: Herzl’s launch of Zionism took place before even the start of the 20th Century; Jewish agriculture was capitalized in the region starting with land sales from Arabs to Jews for the development of crops. The effort worked, drew general labor, and enriched the region. Frequently overlooked: the expulsion of more than 800,000 Jews from Arab states after 1948).
Bottom line from long ago: Moscow cooked up programs for Arab dictatorships and for those who were to become the Palestinians. For Moscow, the Soviet Era ended in bankruptcy with an official dissolving on December 25, 1991. Putin’s Russia — often referred to as the “mafia state” — seems a bit surreal in its continuing partnerships with Damascus and Tehran.
Prompt: the host had assigned a loose title about “ethnic cleansing” to historian Benny Morris. “Thought leaders” on the web will either traffic in earnest speech (when earnest) or make themselves worthless with disingenuous and false claims.
Cultures engage in “magical thinking” in their fairy tales, legends, and myths. They are part of the spirit of the place. Engaging in the same in the context of study produces only “revisionism” favorable either to the narcissist in the mirror or the one in power. Differentiation between what is true — and what a joy it would be for Palestinians to know what is true! — and what seems (!) flattering and patronizing plays a major part in the installation and maintenance of the world’s dictatorships. Among the _malign_, the narcissist can never be wrong.
From other and prior portions of the same conversation:
_The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine_ was authored by Ilan Pappe — this represents his reputation today:
I have been through _1948_, not the others, but even so it mentions the Jewish neighbors who begged Arabs to stay home while Arab forces encouraged flight before their own onslaught.
Efraim Karsh — _Palestine Betrayed_ — may be worth a mention as well.
Again, the Russo-Arabian “framing” of the conflict would seem after 70 years of insistent repetition on the way to being . . . found out.
” . . . to hate and resist occupation and occupiers . . .” would be to hate and resist Fatah and Hamas who insist on their own power while depriving Palestinians of their vote, their right to assemble in opposition to either, and of their right to speak freely, openly, without fear.
It has happened: the refugees of 1948; the KGB-designed Arafat and PLO and associated Abbas; and Hamas, held to account for rocket fire from Gaza: all — whatever has been the mix — have coexisted with Israel for 70 years.
If not happily, there’s a story there that goes back to the WWII and the character of the Soviet Union then and comes forward to that of the Russian Federation today. Absolute power, corruption on the part of the powerful, the deceptive and disingenuous use of language — such have been the variables that have sustained Palestinian hardship and an angry coexistence with the Jewish neighbor from near the ruins of Ottoman power and Nazi adventure in the middle east. When the phantoms of the Soviet wake up and then decide to go back to sleep forever, then the coexistence will become peaceful, pleasant, productive, rewarding.
I don’t know if there’s a fairy tail ending with “peace and prosperity” for all, but I feel the burden and weight of the “Nakba” should be rightly assigned to the post-WWII role taken up by an historically autocratic, authoritarian, elitist Russia having difficulty shaking off its attachments to “political absolutism” and related egotism, narcissism, and hypersensitivity to civilizational self-concept and image.
Of course Moscow means to look noble and powerful before the world.
Well, here it has its chance to stop covering its yesterdays, which may include immediately two major revolutions and the weathering of three governments within the past 100 years, and shrug away the chaos and dishonesty that have brought a mess to Syria, hardship to Ukraine, and continuous meaningless and needless suffering to the Palestinian main base. BackChannels may well see in its crystal ball — why else publish such a blog? 🙂 — the difficulty of transitioning patronage and power away from corrupt elites in the effort to better and honestly serve the interests of an abused and disenfranchised once refugee population, but where else to go? Let the political criminals and gamblers settle up, reinvest, and move on to the challenges posed by genuinely noble causes and enterprises.
Islam orders the Muslim to be honest to himself and others. This order repeatedly comes in the Noble Qur’an and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad (SAWS). Islam orders the Muslim to tell the truth even if it is against the teller’s interest. Orders him not to cheat or deceive other people. A Muslim is ordered by Allah to be honest in his words and deeds, privately and publicly alike.
Portions of The Other Side have been considered as Holocaust denial by some critics,[8] especially the parts disputing the accepted number of deaths in the Holocaust as well as the accusations that Zionist agitation was the cause of the Holocaust,[9] a charge that Abbas denies.[10]
When Abbas was appointed the Palestinian prime minister in 2003, he wrote that the “Holocaust was a terrible, unforgivable crime against the Jewish nation, a crime against humanity that cannot be accepted by humankind” and that he does not deny it,[11] and said that “When I wrote The Other Side … we were at war with Israel. Today I would not have made such remarks”.[12] More recently, in 2013 he reasserted that part of his thesis that “the Zionist movement had ties with the Nazis”.[13][14] In 2014, he stated the Holocaust was the “most heinous crime in the modern era”.[15]
Apparently, Mr. Abbas spreads lies when at war with Israel but shrugs through the truth when its suits him.
Or perhaps when it suits his family’s wallet.
These documents, reports from senior Fatah officials and Palestinian social media reveal extensive corruption at the highest levels — the Abbas family and a Palestinian elite manipulating the political and financial systems to benefit themselves at the expense of the people.
The architect of the Holocaust, Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann, was one of the first to deny its existence. While escaping the Nuremberg trials and evading international law, Eichmann befriended Nazi supporters in Argentina who published an anti-Semitic magazine titled “Der Weg,” or “The Way.” The magazine aimed to disprove what they called “the falsehood of the 6 million.” The magazine claimed the Holocaust was nothing but a libel, that there were never any gas chambers in Hitler’s Europe and that the Jews collaborated with the Third Reich in order to have another country for themselves after thousands of years in exile. According to Eichmann and the magazine’s publishers, the Jews were willing to sacrifice themselves to gain a national homeland.
Many Arabs were enthralled by this theory, and a young doctoral student by the name of Mahmoud Abbas, now the president of the Palestinian Authority, even wrote a dissertation on the subject titled, “The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and Zionism,” which opened the door for several different conspiracies on the subject of the Holocaust to develop.
The Arabs were among the first Holocaust deniers to adopt Eichmann’s theory.
In the proverbial east, so it would appear, what may not be accomplished honestly may be accomplished through guile — and if not guile, plain lying and force.
One social trope BackChannels has heard regarding lying: “Any who lie to you don’t respect you.”
Fair enough.
BackChannels wonders to what extent those who lie to others, especially Palestinians who lie to Palestinians, respect even themselves.
Posted to YouTube by Human Rights Watch, August 29, 2016.
Expect updates to this post as more material comes together on Abbas representative of the end of a long cycle of totalitarian dictatorship — perhaps more gently, “authoritarian governance” — comes into view on the world stage. Today’s political crooks get covered in global media and come to look exactly as they have painted themselves throughout the course of their careers. Mahmoud Abbas? KGB — he has the record of it, and once marked is marked forever with that organization — so whose interests, apart from his own, is he really representing?
Abbas has also made for himself a record as a Holocaust denier although he has backed away from that lunacy — still, one may wonder how many unwarranted words — assertion of fact that just aren’t true — he has still to recover.
Echoing Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal scandalous post-September 11, 2001, remarks, global jihad by groups like Al Qaeda also elicited Western guilt from School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Dean Vali Nasr. After 9/11, “Islamophobia, in a way, was a policy deliberately pushed from the very top of the U.S. administration” as indicated by President George W. Bush’s use of “Islamo-fascism,” Nasr stated. “Islamophobia was a way of passing the blame back to the Muslims, put Islam itself on trial for its responsibility in promoting terrorism rather than put U.S. foreign policy on trial for creating some of the problems.”
BackChannels 