Through the days of rage

On Egypt
Michael Totten: What if there's no way out? Principia D: The springtime of the peoples, 2011; Israelseen: Galloway endorses an Islamic revolution in Egypt; Zvi Bar'el: Facebook on the Arab street; Uri Avnery: A villa in the jungle; Lawrence Joffe: Is this Egypt's Israel moment? Kellie Strom: Greetings from the centre of the world; Jim Denham: Islamism, the Brotherhood and Egypt; Entdinglichung: More on Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and elsewhere.

The scent of jasmine in Gaza
Carl Packman: Lindsey German, do you remember what you said about Hamas? Nasser Lahham: Palestinian rivals turn to Facebook; Rami Almeghari: Feeling the effects on the Gaza strip; Elior Levy: Supporting a day of rage against Hamas; Xinhua: Hamas bans elections; Hamas bans Egyptian novels; Edmund Sanders: Unease and solidarity in Palestine.

Other topics

Antisemitism in Lewisham: Engage reposted Michael Harris' guest post on John Hamilton at Holocaust Memorial Day. Some good comments, and also depressing links to similar occurrences elsewhere: Stoke on Trent and Falkirk. (Classic quote: "Some of my best friends are Jewish.") (Oh, and does Reverend David Smith have something in common with Pastor Thomas Masoke?)

Holocaust memorial day in Bermondsey: Transpontine on Surviving History.
The left, the right and Islam: Phil Dickens: Dissecting the EDL mission statement; Fascism, fundamentalism and the left; Andrew Coates: On Paul Berman; Labour Partisan: Cruddas, class and culture: learning from the EDL; Hope and hate: how to fight the BNP without sharing a platform; James Bloodworth: The importance of language: the EDL and 'Islamophobia'; Modernity: Luton and the EDL.
Marxish: Werner Bonefeld: What is the alternative? Norman Geras: What does it mean to be a Marxist?
Zionism and anti-Zionism: The Contentious Centrist: The Guardian's shameful descent into fascist apologetics; Michael Ezra: From the Guardian's archives. TheJC: "Pro-Palestinian" protestors try and stop Bedouin speaker in Scottish university.
Antisemitism: Mark Gardner: Beneath the surface, the "old" antisemitism is growing.
KenWatch: Geoffrey Alderman: Rules seem beyond our Ken; Andrew Gilligan: This is what Iran pays Livingstone for; The Economist: Boris and Ken's Londonism.
TommyWatch: RCN statement on Sheridan.

Blogs to check out
I recently found, via Noga, Nizo's Blog ("a gay Palestinian muses on the Middle East") and via him the Happy Arab News Service. Check them out.

Keywords: Egypt, Gaza, Hamas

Comments

Harry said…
bbc documentary
the ultra zionists - 1/2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-mUChpnVyg&feature=related
Some really interesting stuff there. Thanks for the link as well Bob.

James
skidmarx said…
The Carl Packman link, well, I liked some of the comments.

Had already seen the Normblog piece which might be summed up as "Everything about all the Marxists but me changed after 9/11". His correct explanation that the Left he'd been a part of had been anti-Stalinist without capitualting to Western imperialism doesn't excuse him making precisely the same crude conflation of anti-imperialists today with Islamic regimes.Nor (wihtout bothering the check out the post again) does he give a serious rationale as to why things have changed, other than a bit of unwarranted abuse that still-Marxists don't support democracy.[Perhaps considering the possibility that freddom doesn't grow out of the barrel of foreign guns]
modernity said…
It is good to remind ex-SWPers, like German, what type of reactionaries she and others have *consciously* supported in the past.

Not sure she and Rees have changed their minds much in the intervening 6 years, from the contents of Counterfire, they have a very crude grasp of the Middle East.
skidmarx said…
I really don't know what "consciously" is supposed to mean in this context(and "support" presumably continues it's voyage from "will stand by in common struggle" to "she loves everything about them"). She's probably not the one who could with a perusal of How Not To Say Stupid Stuff About Egypt.Note well the bit on the Muslim Brotherhood.

Had a quick look at the Werner Bonefeld piece.He says:
a Socialist Workers Party poster that I saw on the way to the Anarchist Bookfair. It said: ‘Fight Back the Wrecking Tory Cuts’... What does ‘fight back the cuts’ entail as a positive demand? It says no to cuts, and thus demands a capitalism not of cuts but of redistribution from capital to labour; it demands a capitalism that creates jobs not for capitalist profit but for gainful and purposeful employment.
Two things. One, I suspect that he's misread the poster, I suspect there's a missing verb in there. Two,he is over-interpreting the message,calling for a fight against the cuts doesn't necessarily imply a belief in a nicer capitalism, it can just as easily suggest that if capitalism needs the cuts it's time to look for a better way.
This kind of "I know what they really mean" fauxnalaysis is all too common.
bob said…
Note well the bit on the Muslim Brotherhood.

The point about the MB is not that they are "terrorists"; the point is that they believe in theocracy, are authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-women and anti-working class.

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