I am reposting the following because I came late and this is the more relevant place.

********

With Hamas blowing up the prison wall of a border, thus releasing the Palestinian masses onto the Mubarak dictatorship a new dramatic complication has presented itself for everyone involved in the end game of the failed war for greater Israel.

This thread is mostly demonstrating the usual frozen debate between Zionists and their opponents and that's not very productive.

More usefull to contemplate the end game.

One person commented elsewhere 'it's an interesting story that will run for a few days yet, but nothing more.' So he (a palestinian supporter of the pseudo-left variety) then presumably thinks everything will be back to the ‘normal’ humiliation of the Arab masses; it won’t.

Within a day he was starting to re-think as events unfolded, so then he said
'The failure yesterday of Egyptian attempts to reseal the border, no doubt after much US and Israeli pressure, does take the situation to a new level.' But not many have caught on to the extent of this level.

This was a region changing event because Palestinian refugees are numerous and spread region wide, and more broadly the Arab peoples have been humiliated in having to sit in their great many millions and watch as the Palestinans of Gaza were kept in the world's largest jail! The whole post WW2 period has been one humiliation after another for the Arab peoples under their rotten autocrats.

However, this is not the death of Zionism we are living through; it is just the Zionist defeat in their 40 year war for Greater Israel that we are seeing!

Remember the war for greater Israel is an unbelievable racist aggression and it has failed.

The Zionists have lost and are now coming to understand that they are about to sign an agreement to withdraw from the West Bank. A Palestinian state is coming.

No imaginary one state solution but a real democratic Palestinian State not a 2nd class country but a country with full dignity led by Abbas who is the democratically elected President and not any sort of sell out puppet.

The Zionists (and even the US) would like to forget about the Palestinian refugees and the right of return, but this action invigorates the refugees and has a great potential to mobilize them; it brings them forward as not just an agenda item but an active player again.

Nobody in the ME can shut down the mass media anymore and it is not going to favor Mubarak if he tries to jail the Gazans.

Meanwhile the Palestinians in the West Back are still under almost full occupation.

The Palestinian refugees can have a tremendous influence not just in Jordan and Lebanon but in Egypt as well, in principled unity with Islamists who are significant players now, and would mobilize if Mubarak were foolish enough to try what some initially thought he would.

Hamas in cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood and others coordinated demonstrations to condemn the Israeli blockade and targeted the Egyptian government for cooperating with the Zionists. These were both well organized and in Egypt brutally suppressed in Cairo with 500 arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members etc.

Then events spun past Mubarak and with the media free to broadcast the Egyptian masses were very pleased to see the happy Palestinians freely moving in and out of the world's largest prison and would not want to see Egyptian soldiers and police re- imprison them.

Al Jazeera etc are keeping the masses throughout the Muslim world fully informed of this joyous event that is restoring pride to the masses of Palestinian refugees throughout the region in Lebanon, and in Jordan, and in Egypt, and lifting a massive humiliation imposed on Arab peoples more generally.

If Mubarak tries to cooperate with Israeli demands to re-impose border controls in anything like the old manner the masses would take to the streets and the soldiers and police may well break trying to deal with what would become an intifada from the ex Egyptian Palestinians of Gaza. It would spread via the Palestinian Diaspora and could be too much for any rotten regime to stop as the masses would be furious.

The risks are too high for Mubarak to fully abide by his previous agreements.

Hamas has seized the initiative and the organization's prestige has risen with this victory. There is no going back to an Israeli blockade. The blockade has been beaten.

This is yet another Israeli defeat and I would predict that Hamas will stop the rocket attacks immediately. It would be a blunder not to claim victory and cease the now pointless rocketing (until the next tit for tat Israeli provocation at least).

Mubarak has to deal with Abbas and Abbas has to deal with Hamas

The US all this long 40 years have assisted in this racist attempt by the Zionists to simply steal land from the Palestinians.

Bush is the only, repeat only, serving US president to call the West Bank occupied territory. They used to call it disputed territories! The US went along with this racist land grabbing aggression for all these years and now is demanding that the loss be finalized.

This is new policy even if the pseudo-left will not see it.

The US has not become some sort of peacenik country but its national interests are not served by continuing to prop up the Zionists as their rotten war falls round their ears!

The US's once great friend Mubarak is beginning to look very flabby and they will not mind in the least when his regime falls.

All is change except for the pseudo-left.

Yet even they are starting to be able to see what GWB has known for some years.

Standing in the way of the masses as they strive for full bourgeois democracy is a loosing place to stand.

The US is now supporting the revolution that it formerly only prattled on about while opposing it in practice.

These old policies are gone with the wind.
Patrick

Patrick

Posted at January 26, 2008 1:08 PM in response to Hamas Defeats Israeli Blockade. What Next?

The forty year war for Greater Israel is ending in defeat. These parts of the speech from Olmert are interesting for those who have eyes and ears.

*******

Address by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to the 8th Herzliya Conference
23 Jan 2008
I have come here to discuss the future.
...
I would like to say something personal: for all my adult life in this country, I have been exposed to convincing arguments as to why not. During my ongoing experience in public life, since the beginning of the 1970’s - I was often occupied with presenting arguments as to why we must not make concessions. At all the decisive crossroads during the last 40 years, at points during which we had to compromise - we found backing and support from outside and within as to why it would be preferable not to compromise.

Like many and better than I, I also invested mental energy and sifted through the range of facts that would help me convince myself why it was forbidden and impossible, inadvisable and dangerous.
Now - 40 years later - seeing the unadulterated reality can no longer be avoided. I do not say this in order to invite a collective ceremony of self-flagellation. Our enemies greatly mistook us and engaged in horrendous terror, which has become a way of life. Their obstinacy was unforgivable, and we must wait and see if it has softened, and if they are ready for the historic compromise which is unavoidable. I am not certain it is so, but I am ready and want to try.

Now we must understand that we do not have time. Once we were afraid of the possibility that the reality in Israel would force a bi-national state on us. In 1948, the obstinate policy of all the Arabs, the anti-Israel fanaticism and our strength and the leadership of David Ben-Gurion saved us from such a state. For 60 years, we fought with unparalleled courage in order to avoid living in a reality of bi-nationalism, and in order to ensure that Israel exists as a Jewish and democratic state with a solid Jewish majority. We must act to this end and understand that such a reality is being created, and in a very short while it will be beyond our control.
...

I do not have the moral right to serve as prime minister of the Jewish people and the State of Israel if I do not take the risks, face all the obstacles and be exposed to the challenges involved in this exciting attempt.

Therefore, I have no intention of letting go, no matter the political and personal cost. Believe me, I am experienced enough and keen-sighted enough to see all the ties and collaborations of those swooping in with insatiable political lust on the blood of our sons, of those who assist from within and those who support from outside - and all for the purpose of taking away from our people its chance for a new horizon.

Our people - a people longing for an opportunity of light at the end of the dark tunnels which cloud our joie de vivre - is a wise people. It knows who speaks the truth and who does not. It knows who speaks from the heart and who speaks out of insatiable lust for authority and power.
And it knows that there is no substitute for what I am offering, cautiously and responsibly, but with boundless faith: to return to a reality in which there is no full realization of all our dreams of a large and broad country, but in which there is the chance - perhaps the best ever - of a Jewish, democratic state which lives in security, peace and with international support and in hope which does not fade.
Thank you.
*************

It is clear that it's only Israeli disunity that is holding back the inevitable withdrawal from the West Bank, but the odds are going up that Bush will get his way and the war for greater Israel will be brought to an end this year because ‘the unadulterated reality can no longer be avoided.’

This revolution is region wide so the looming victory (very big but not complete) of the Palestinian people will also help to sweep away Mubarak’s nasty dictatorship as well.

It’s almost five years since the liberation of the Iraqi peoples set the region's swamp draining, unseen by the pseudo-left. Now that the emerging dry spots are exposing the 'anti-war' leaders as blind when it counts, I wonder what the explanatory cover stories will be.

While I wonder where the Middle East drainage project will be up to in another five years, I know that despite the work and any evident progress, we in the west will still be putting up with reactionary pseudo-leftists passing themselves off as leftists and busying themselves
'protecting' the masses from the nasty revolutionary left.

Stripped of all the Zionist verbiage, Olmert is saying that he is about to end the war for greater Israel! The defeat is evident.

Bolton is not worth talking about when ending the war is the real issue! Only the blind and the pseudo-left who think the Palestinians are doomed to live like this forever could be missing this stuff.
Patrick

Posted at January 26, 2008 4:31 AM in response to John Bolton Compares Israel to North Korea

With Hamas blowing up the prison wall of a border, thus releasing the Palestinian masses onto the Mubarak dictatorship a new dramatic complication has presented itself for everyone involved in the end game of the failed war for greater Israel.

This thread is mostly demonstrating the usual frozen debate between Zionists and their opponents and that's not very productive.

More usefull to contemplate the end game.

One person commented elsewhere 'it's an interesting story that will run for a few days yet, but nothing more.' So he (a palestinian supporter of the pseudo-left variety) then presumably thinks everything will be back to the ‘normal’ humiliation of the Arab masses; it won’t.

Within a day he was starting to re-think as events unfolded, so then he said
'The failure yesterday of Egyptian attempts to reseal the border, no doubt after much US and Israeli pressure, does take the situation to a new level.' But not many have caught on to the extent of this level.

This was a region changing event because Palestinian refugees are numerous and spread region wide, and more broadly the Arab peoples have been humiliated in having to sit in their great many millions and watch as the Palestinans of Gaza were kept in the world's largest jail! The whole post WW2 period has been one humiliation after another for the Arab peoples under their rotten autocrats.

However, this is not the death of Zionism we are living through; it is just the Zionist defeat in their 40 year war for Greater Israel that we are seeing!

Remember the war for greater Israel is an unbelievable racist aggression and it has failed.

The Zionists have lost and are now coming to understand that they are about to sign an agreement to withdraw from the West Bank. A Palestinian state is coming.

No imaginary one state solution but a real democratic Palestinian State not a 2nd class country but a country with full dignity led by Abbas who is the democratically elected President and not any sort of sell out puppet.

The Zionists (and even the US) would like to forget about the Palestinian refugees and the right of return, but this action invigorates the refugees and has a great potential to mobilize them; it brings them forward as not just an agenda item but an active player again.

Nobody in the ME can shut down the mass media anymore and it is not going to favor Mubarak if he tries to jail the Gazans.

Meanwhile the Palestinians in the West Back are still under almost full occupation.

The Palestinian refugees can have a tremendous influence not just in Jordan and Lebanon but in Egypt as well, in principled unity with Islamists who are significant players now, and would mobilize if Mubarak were foolish enough to try what some initially thought he would.

Hamas in cooperation with the Muslim Brotherhood and others coordinated demonstrations to condemn the Israeli blockade and targeted the Egyptian government for cooperating with the Zionists. These were both well organized and in Egypt brutally suppressed in Cairo with 500 arrests of Muslim Brotherhood members etc.

Then events spun past Mubarak and with the media free to broadcast the Egyptian masses were very pleased to see the happy Palestinians freely moving in and out of the world's largest prison and would not want to see Egyptian soldiers and police re- imprison them.

Al Jazeera etc are keeping the masses throughout the Muslim world fully informed of this joyous event that is restoring pride to the masses of Palestinian refugees throughout the region in Lebanon, and in Jordan, and in Egypt, and lifting a massive humiliation imposed on Arab peoples more generally.

If Mubarak tries to cooperate with Israeli demands to re-impose border controls in anything like the old manner the masses would take to the streets and the soldiers and police may well break trying to deal with what would become an intifada from the ex Egyptian Palestinians of Gaza. It would spread via the Palestinian Diaspora and could be too much for any rotten regime to stop as the masses would be furious.

The risks are too high for Mubarak to fully abide by his previous agreements.

Hamas has seized the initiative and the organization's prestige has risen with this victory. There is no going back to an Israeli blockade. The blockade has been beaten.

This is yet another Israeli defeat and I would predict that Hamas will stop the rocket attacks immediately. It would be a blunder not to claim victory and cease the now pointless rocketing (until the next tit for tat Israeli provocation at least).

Mubarak has to deal with Abbas and Abbas has to deal with Hamas

The US all this long 40 years have assisted in this racist attempt by the Zionists to simply steal land from the Palestinians.

Bush is the only, repeat only, serving US president to call the West Bank occupied territory. They used to call it disputed territories! The US went along with this racist land grabbing aggression for all these years and now is demanding that the loss be finalized.

This is new policy even if the pseudo-left will not see it.

The US has not become some sort of peacenik country but its national interests are not served by continuing to prop up the Zionists as their rotten war falls round their ears!

The US's once great friend Mubarak is beginning to look very flabby and they will not mind in the least when his regime falls.

All is change except for the pseudo-left.

Yet even they are starting to be able to see what GWB has known for some years.

Standing in the way of the masses as they strive for full bourgeois democracy is a loosing place to stand.

The US is now supporting the revolution that it formerly only prattled on about while opposing it in practice.

These old policies are gone with the wind.
Patrick

Posted at January 26, 2008 3:25 AM in response to Gaza: 350,000 Palestinians Cross Into Egypt For Food!!!

JohnW1141; by omission I conclude that you believe the effort of the Soviets and the other allies such as the U.S. in WW2 was worth it; if so then I conclude that at least we have a base from where we can potentially build a unity in a struggle by progressives and even conservatives against the sort of base reaction that was on display, as much on 9/11 as it was the other day in the mass terror bombings in Iraq’s north.

Valdron suspects the Kurdish peoples even though it is clear that the whole series of bombs were a coordinated attack and that Kurds were a major target. I suspect Al Qaeda (and it is not the case that an Al Qaeda cell always claims credit when it is them).

Al Qaeda is not a top to bottom fully functioning command and control organization. Nevertheless I have to concede that it may be just another variant of Sunni supremacist grouping that may even pass themselves off as nationalist that may be responsible. It matters not one fig. Those that did this are anti-proletarian and are the enemy of all progressives, they are the enemy of all modernity.

Yet that is not what the note that started this thread is all about! It is about holding the revolutionaries to account for liberating the Iraqi masses!

The U.S. is not always the enemy of the people of the world. Even Karl Marx once remarked during the civil war that the workers of the world were behind the stars and stripes. Was the civil war worth it?

We may have a wish that it were not required, but the overthrow of the slave system was the result and it has produced 150 years later, and after much more struggle and the inevitable suffering, a society where a black woman Condi Rice is described as the most powerful woman ever, and who could realistically be the next President. That is worthy social achievement.

If we support the overthrow of oppressors then we can agree that there are quite a few oppressive regimes that the modern era is still dealing with. The Taliban, Baath, Mugabe the situation in Sudan and Somalia and on and on.

Fortunately most countries will manage to overthrow their own ruling tyrants (like the Philipines did with the U.S. backed Marcos; or Indonesia from the U.S. backed Suharto; or Iran from the U.S. backed Shah; or Chile from the U.S. backed Pinochet etc) but sometimes it will be better for outside forces to begin the process. Outside forces can only ever begin the process because ultimately it remains up to the masses that live there to solidify the progress.

The U.S. post WW2 has mostly been the problem. Even when opposing the revisionist Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the U.S. did so from the stupid position of backing Al Qaeda etc!

However this U.S. ruling elite has grasped the historical lesson and changed course.

Yet people on this thread think themselves somehow progressive, but without a plan to fight the reactionary bombers and trying with all their efforts to start a region wide sectarian war. There is not a progressive bone in this failure to render assistance from such racist scum.

The Iraqi masses deserve support, as do the Palestinian people as Rice brings about a Palestinian state. All the tyrannies of the ME need to be undermined and the revolution sought by the peoples of the entire region supported.

But this thread just whines how terrible it is to call it a swamp with mosquitoes. (ie to use Noam Chomsky's term) Reflect on the Chinese revolution to grasp the time scale that we may be dealing with. You can bet your bottom dollar that it won't take as long to produce Iraq's equivalent of Condoleezza Rice.

Consider the forty years since the Zionists launched their now obviously failed war for greater Israel.

What ever you do stop whining and build unity with right-wingers against fascists. Look to the broad united front of WW2 for inspiration.

The enemy terrorize for a very good reason and no progressive ought play into their hands by undermining in any way the fight against such racist scum.

Whatever the history of how this war was started, it is, since the election process, irrelevant. The war is now clearly about defeating the most reactionary elements on earth.

As with the enemy of WW2 their viciousness will not save them and the masses will eventually prevail.
Patrick

Posted at August 19, 2007 8:59 AM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

Jan according to me the Vietnamese people won (and I supported them! The US ruling class had it's ass kicked soundly. The lives lost were because of US aggression on the part of 'nice' liberals like Kennedy.

Now take a deep breath and stop jumping to the conclusion that I would believe that "the act of making money is the root of all happiness"

Patrick

Posted at August 17, 2007 6:10 PM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

I think the effort in WW2 was worth it and that the effort in Vietnam (when the US was the enemy) was also worth it even though the Vietnamese peoples suffered in their millions because 'the dust wil not vanish where the broom does not reach'.

But you say ‘and finally; Not one piece of evidence has been uncovered that justified Bush's reasons for invading Iraq. No WMD, no al Qaeda connection, and certainly its been proven that Saddam was no threat to the US.’ All true.

Your problem is that you are blind to the real reason the U.S. ruling elite decided to go to war.

Bush is no lefty because he is waging this war in the interests of his class, and it is only incidentally in the interests of the oppressed peoples’ in the Middle East. He has become a progressive-right-winger because history thrust greatness upon him.

He asked the big questions that had to be asked, after 9/11. What more can they do to us? ...Well, Mr. President they will, if not stopped, eventually get hold of a nuke and destroy Washington or some other city.

What strategy must we adopt to defeat them? Mr. President we must set down policies to turn every country in the world into a modern (bourgeois) democracy. If all countries look, and smell like Sweden and France, we will have won. The world needs sewerage systems for the smell, and industrialization for the sewerage systems; it needs education for the industrialization, and it needs basic bourgeois political freedoms to permit the education… We must stop doing what we have been doing for the whole post WW2 period.

We must reverse all our old policies.

These mosquitoes are attacking us because we caused a swamp in the Middle East which breeds them! We must drain that swamp, and then there will be no more mosquitoes. Mr. President there is no other way of winning this war…. (At least that is what I would tell him if I was in the war cabinet)

If you want to think more about the type of issues that I am bringing up then go to

http://www.lastsuperpower.net/
and have a look at the Draining the swamp thread in the forum, or democracy was intended for Iraq

Your ruling class lies to you and has initiated this war for strategic reasons. The US ruling elite sat down after 9/11 and accepted that the former policies of propping up every tyrant and reactionary against the peoples struggle for democracy (while lying about supporting democracy) had resulted in the disaster.

All the former policies have been reversed and democratic revolution is now being supported.

Static thinking is your problem.

The Iraqi people fighting for their liberation against a heavily armed Baathist regime with tanks and artillery helicopter gun ships intact command and control etc would require many more casualties from the side I support. Then at the end of that struggle the enemy could still resort to the type of bombing we see now!!

Patrick

Posted at August 17, 2007 3:51 PM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

First note what Valdron said, then consider just how silly this notion of separating Al Qaeda from other Sunni’s that are prepared to conduct such suicide bombings is; Al Qaeda is not targeting Sunni’s. These bombers are all equivalent! As with Japanese Militarism, Italian Fascism and German Nazism it does not much matter. The real question is what side are you on?

‘Sooner or later, my guess is that the Sunni Arabs will wage a major war with the Kurds over the oil fields of Kirkuk.’ Why ought they? If oil revenue sharing is proportional what would they hope to gain but a disproportionate share. How would anyone support a disproportionate share for one ethnic group? South Africa and Israel are the former models but are well out of fashion in the moder era.

Valdron correctly recognized that I support the Kurdish peoples and the Iraqi government against such aggression. Do you?

BTW: Iraq is not an Islamic state allied with Iran, but rather a threat to the Iranian theocracy as democratic elections are looked on with envy by the Iranian people who will overthrow the theocrats. Remember how the police states of eastern Europe infected one another with regional effect. The ME is ripe for revolution.

Patrick

Posted at August 17, 2007 3:18 PM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

More like Condi Rice is coming!

Patrick

Posted at August 17, 2007 2:29 PM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

Val you have no evidence for your slur!

Patrick

Posted at August 17, 2007 2:22 PM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien

Their is something shocking about this post coming as it does just after Al Qaeda slaughtered something like 500 human beings! You are not calling for a doubling of the effort to deal with them, but calling for those who launched a war, against the lawful tyranny of the former government from a 20% minority that tried to hold 80%+ in bondage, to be held to account for liberating those people!

Who could doubt the extreme right wing nature of pseudo leftists ranting on about this revolution! Of course the war was illegal (laws are established by revolutions not the other way round!)

LBJ etc tried to prevent democracy in Vietnam and were soundly defeated yet you compare the liberation of the Iraqi masses with the former attempt to prevent the liberation of the Vietnamese peoples. Sheesh!

If anyone ought to be held responsible it ought to be those that have run US policy since WW2 almost totally rotten to the core.

The people of the ME deserve solidarity and unity in the struggle against oppression. All former US policies of promoting tyranny deserve to be swept into the dustbin of history and the reactionaries passing themselves as 'progressives' with them.

The liberation of the entire region is now on the agenda, starting with the establishment of a Palestinian state and the ending of 40years of a failed war for greater Israel and yet you are not demanding greater effort against the reactionaries but shaking your head and regretting that the monsters have been let loose.

Ah yes tyranny nice and safe hey: don't rock the boat or we could all end like so many slaves that have tried to rebel before us!

I don't think so!

Everywhere the old world is under challenge get used to it.

Patrick

Posted at August 17, 2007 2:10 PM in response to Wolfowitz: Je Ne Regrette Rien