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Israel Shamir, a leading Russian Israeli writer, is a champion
of the "One Man, One Vote, One State" solution
seeking to unite Palestine & Israel in one
democratic state. Shamir's work and that of his
contributors speaks to the aspirations of both the
Israelis and the Palestinians seeking an end to
the bloodshed, true democracy and lasting peace.
His Biography.
I came to Japan for the preview of Obama's visit, when the G7 foreign ministers assembled at Hiroshima, led by the US State Secretary John Kerry. He should apologise, people said. You do not think Kerry apologised for nuking the city, did you? Neither did Obama. The Americans never apologise, banish the thought. Love means never having to say you're sorry, and they are in love with the rest of the world. Otherwise, why would they screw it so violently and wish to possess so intensely?
Will the men voting for Mrs Clinton end up in Hell? I am not sure. We know that women who vote for a male candidate have a special place in hell, as the old Jewish feminist lady divined, and she should know. It is not only Madeleine Albright looks like a creature from hell, she also belongs there, for her justification of murder of half a million Iraqi children, among other deeds. But what about men who cross the gender divide? I would not condemn them. Such a condemnation would rather undermine and harm Messrs Trump and Sanders, for men have no gender voting pattern. Men vote for the cause they prefer, and they strongly dislike a suggestion that their vote has been determined by what they are , instead of what they think.
A colossal mass demonstration, well choreographed to the level of ballet but with tens of thousands of participants in the centre of Pyongyang completed and sealed an important and unusual political event in this remote and isolated land of North Korea – the Party Congress. The demo has been followed by a show, so big that it could not be staged anywhere else. Magnificient fireworks, twenty thousand men and women dancing with torches in the darkness of Pyongyang night – this show I'll remember forever. For the Koreans it was not a show, but a declaration of their loyalty to the state and the leader – or, perhaps, even for them it was just a night dance. Who knows?
As the Russian Easter approaches – it will symbolically coincide this year with May Day – it is the right time to speak of a very important recent spiritual event that received too little publicity in the West, but it kept Russia all agog. This was not an Oscar nomination, after all. Two old men, heads of two great churches had met on the territory of the third church. These were Kyril and Francis, the bishops of Moscow and Rome on the last vestige of the communist territory, in Cuba. They represented two ancient and venerable churches: the Roman Catholic and the Russian Orthodox, separated by a millennium-old schism, and as the ghost, the Communist church was present at this summit.
You have to pay obeisance to Israel if you want to become the US President. You have to swear your full compliance with Israel's demands. You have to run to AIPAC and declare your eternal love of the Jewish state. This is a truism, like “Monsieur de la Palisse was alive fifteen minutes before his death”.
Or so it was until Bernie Sanders turned the tables and changed the rules. We do not know yet whether his game will succeed and he will be anointed the next President. We do not know even whether he will snatch the Democrats' nomination from the teeth of Mme Clinton. But he already achieved a great victory and toppled the mainstay pillar of the regime.
The massive terrorist attack in Brussels came as a Not So Fast answer to Vladimir Putin's Mission Accomplished . It appears the world needs more of Russian intervention in the Middle East if the black killers from the desert are to be stopped. Luckily, Russia is not in a rush to leave completely. From what I hear in Syria, the promised withdrawal is rather a figure of speech. Some Russians are leaving, others are staying.
Yes, I am aware that many of our colleagues, gentlemen of the free press, already explained and justified Putin's sudden declaration. They wrote that Putin had said in September the campaign would last till spring, so being a man of his word he had to live up to his promise. They wrote the Russians had done as much as they could or should, that their mission is indeed accomplished. (This is odd, for the dreadful Daesh and his awful sister al Nusra are alive and kicking). Others said the Russians are clever to go while going is good, that is before the looming joint Turkish and Saudi invasion of Syria.
Only a dumb fish would complain if a man were to say: “I never eat fish, and I do not intend to eat fish”. Only the dumbest fish would condemn the man as a bigot: “What! He does not like us!” And yet, our Muslim American friends apparently emulate the stupid fish when speaking of Donald Trump.
I spoke well of Trump. My Radical Muslim American friend screamed on a list serve: “And what about his racist remarks about Muslims that are akin to those made about Jews not all that long ago? Shall we accept him on that basis as well as his sick stand on overweight women? Do we overlook all that???????????????????!!!!!”
The area around the Central Moscow tube stations looks like Aleppo after an air raid. Ruins, destroyed buildings, bulldozers gathering the shambles. No, Moscow was not hit by terrorists: this is a planned demolition of hundreds of small and not-too-small shacks erected (in defiance of planning law) in the vicinity of tube stations in the notorious Nineties, when the Law was vague and easily bought for ready money. The biggest of them, the Pyramid on top of Pushkinskaya Station, went down this week. The municipal workers promptly removed the vestiges of the collapsed constructions, while the erstwhile owners stared in disbelief.
The Russians and their Syrian allies have cut the main supply line of the rebels to the north of Aleppo, the Azaz corridor. In our last report , we wrote about the Azaz corridor, “a narrow strip of land connecting Turkey to the rebel forces in Aleppo. Though it has been narrowed down to four miles in some places, the Syrian [government] Army can't take it, despite the Russian aerial support. For the success of the whole operation, it is paramount to seize the corridor and cut the supply lines, but there is a heavy political flak and military difficulties. At the last Lavrov-Kerry meeting, the American State Secretary six times implored his Russian counterpart to keep hands off the Azaz corridor. The Americans do not want to see Russian victory; besides, the Turks threaten to invade Syria if the corridor is blocked.”
New Hampshire is wonderful news. After many years of frustration, we see the America we would want to bless: an America that rejects the money-making machine of Wall Street and the death-churning machine of Pentagon. Both leaders of the Presidential race are good—Sanders for the Left and Trump for the Right are great, exactly what is needed, and now let the best man win, for foreigners either of them will do fine. Both are non-interventionists, both want to fix America rather than interfere overseas. People rejected the war-mongering candidates of the establishment, and that is what matters.
TOP NEWS: Feeling Pinch of Oil Collapse, Some Russians Take to Streets , reported The New York Times . Indeed, at that time thousands of Russians were queuing in Central Moscow. The enormous line snaked around in the park, despite frost and snow. People stood three and four hours, braving winter weather: old ladies in furs and gentlemen in greatcoats, young people in anoraks, all sort of Russians from Moscow and from provinces. Do you think they were queueing for a fire sale to buy discount products or to change their depreciating roubles for dollars or whatever these desperate people were supposed to desire? Nope. This was the queue for the...
Once in a blue moon, this writer's view coincides with that of the New York Times leader . It has happened now. The Saudi predilection for gore is not easy to stomach. The House of al Saud chose to celebrate the New Year, Christmas and Nativity of the Prophet Muhammad by shooting (or chopping heads, or whatever is their wont now) some forty-seven persons, conveniently...
Heavy darkness befalls the North; the sun rarely emerges from between the clouds. This year, Russia has noticeably less street illumination, and the spirits are anything but festive. Only the whiteness of the snow and Christmas trees break the gloom and remind us of the forthcoming low point of...
Three important events influenced the course of the Syrian war in the course of last month: the Metrojet flight 9268 crash in Sinai October 31, the Paris attacks on Friday November 13 and the downing of a Sukhoi 24 on November 24, 2015...
Autumn is beautiful in Palestine: overripe blue-green figs, unpicked pomegranates pecked by birds, heavy grapes turn red. Now is the olive harvest time, and the burghers of Bethlehem and its twin city Beth Jala (everyone owns a plot with olive trees) bring heavy sacks full of green and black olives to the local oil press equipped by the latest Italian machinery. They watch like eagles ...
The greatest secrets: the West has no people on the ground in Syria to take over the liberated territories; the Russians still seek partnership, Erdogan has bitten more than he can chew, and ISIS is a phantom, after all...
President Putin is a pirate, no less. In his declaration at the UN, he stole President Bush Jr’s copyrighted 2001 call to fight Terror. That’s why the Americans were taken aback: the Russian President played back at them the best tropes of their own presidents. This was a clever subterfuge: instead of pointing out the...
These autumn days are the most important in the Middle East calendar. The Muslims celebrate Eid al Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice; the Jews fast at Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement; and the Eastern Orthodox Christians rejoice at Nativity of Our Lady Mary. It appears, surprisingly, the best place to be at this...
Despite doubts and denials, Russia is about to embark on an ambitious expansion of its Syrian presence, likely to change the game in the war-torn country. Russia’s small and dated naval repair facility in Tartous will be enlarged, while Jableh near Latakia (Laodicea of old) will become the Russian Air Force base and a full-blown...
I had planned to write on the struggle in the US congress in which the Israel Lobby seeks to override the president’s veto. This is likely to cause a new war in the Middle East, send out a new wave of refugees, and destroy the cradle of our faith and civilization. However, the most dangerous...
Summer reigns all over Europe, from Greece to Sweden. Vacations have emptied the offices, and filled the beaches. Flowers bloom all over, and their fragrance flows like a river. Endless festivals, performances and art compositions embellish the quaint old cities. But things are not as ever before. The old continent is sick. Living is easy, but not for you. Fish are jumping, and unemployment is high.
People are not equal in death, either. Some deaths are more newsworthy than others. The media and politicians love spectacular acts of terror, fires, disaster, the death of the wealthy and privileged, a death conducive to a cause. Such is the death of 300 passengers and crew of the Malaysian airliner flight 17 in the crash in Donbass, near Russian-Ukrainian border.
These days, Sweden is all agog. In the midst of the coldest summer in living history that deprived the Swedes of their normal sun-accumulating July routine, the country plunged into an exciting search for a Russian submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, and (as opposed to the previous rounds of this venerable Swedish maritime saga) this time they actually found the beast.
I love Russia’s vetoes. Sparse, strong, hard hits, they mark the limits of the Empire’s power. They said “No”, and Zimbabwe remained at peace, its old maverick Robert Mugabe still alive and kicking and proposing Obama his hand in marriage.
Greece is the pearl of Mediterranean, the place generations of foreigners from Lord Byron to Graves to Fowles have fallen in love with. From philosophy to feta, from history to yoghurt, from poetry to honey they provided the example to follow.
I had to whip up my courage to go to the Ukraine. There was a recent spate of political killings in the unhappy and lovely land, and the perpetrators never apprehended; among those killed was Oles Buzina, a renowned writer and a dear friend.
The alleged killers of Boris Nemtsov are apprehended, and they are (a dramatic pause) some Muslims from Chechnya who allegedly desired to punish the politician for his Je suis Charlie position. There is no official report available yet, but this implausible version is being promoted in Moscow.
In February, it is a long way to the spring, lamented Joseph Brodsky, the poet. Indeed, snow still falls heavily in Moscow and Kiev as well as in the rolling steppes that form Russian-Ukrainian borderlands, but there it is tinted with red. Soldiers are loth to fight in the winter, when life is difficult anyway in these latitudes, but fighting already flared up in war-torn Donbass, and the US prepares to escalate by supplying sophisticated weapons to Kiev.
The edifice of world post-1991 order is collapsing right now before our eyes. President Putin’s decision to give a miss to the Auschwitz pilgrimage, right after his absence in Paris at the Charlie festival, gave it the last shove. It was good clean fun to troll Russia, as long as it stayed the course. Not anymore. Russia broke the rules.
On the Pushkin square in central Moscow, McDonald’s, this symbol of Pax Americana, has been shut down this week. It was opened 23 years ago, as the USSR collapsed, and the unipolar world of One Superpower came into being. Soviet people queued for hours to get in and try this divine foreign food. They were so innocent, so inexperienced, the Russians of yesteryear! For 23 long years, the US has ruled the world alone, while McDonald’s served its burgers.
The piping-hot stage of the Ukraine crisis was over with signing of Minsk cease-fire agreement. It is far from clear how long the cease-fire will last, and whether it will morph into stable peace; still this pause provides a chance to review policies and strategies of the sides.
Pour ERTV,
l’écrivain Israël Shamir revient sur la position israélienne dans la
crise ukrainienne. Il évoque les relations entre Poutine et Israël, la
« communauté » juive en Russie et l’avenir de l’Ukraine.
The erotic reliefs of Hindu temples with their gravity-defying and anatomy-challenging positions have found a new modern competitor in the Ukrainian crisis. Each party wants to get the Jews on their side, while claiming that the other side is anti-Jewish and a Jewish puppet at once. This impossible, Kama-Sutraesque position is the result of extremely confusing alliances: the Kiev regime lists devout Jews and fiery antisemites among its mainstays.
It is not much fun to be in Kiev these days. The revolutionary excitement is over, and hopes for new faces, the end of corruption and economic improvement have withered. The Maidan street revolt and the subsequent coup just reshuffled the same marked deck of cards, forever rotating in power.
Half a year ago, in the very last day of May I came to an age-old tiny and tranquil Ukrainian town with its ancient church of Our Lady of Intercession looking onto a slow river from its high bank, and I was swept off my feet by a flash-flood of young maidens, fresh and sixteen, celebrating their high school graduation in a park under an open warm blue sky, wearing white bands and garlands of flowers in their golden hair, and white ceremonial aprons on top of dark and mercilessly short skirts leaving open their graceful knees above high white socks and dark sleeveless tops flashing tender arms and elbows, blue eyes a-gleaming in the shade of black poplars.
Nobody expected events to move forward with such a breath-taking speed. The Russians took their time; they sat on the fence and watched while the Brown storm-troopers conquered Kiev, and they watched while Mrs Victoria Nuland of the State Department and her pal Yatsenyuk (“Yats”) slapped each other’s backs and congratulated themselves on their quick victory.
The stakes are high in the Ukraine: after the coup, as Crimea and Donbas asserted their right to self determination, American and Russian troops entered Ukrainian territory, both under cover.
Russian president Vladimir Putin behaves like a groom at his wedding feast in the midst of gang warfare: he tries to attend to his bride and disregard the gunshots, with less and less success
It is freezing cold in Kiev, legendary city of golden domes on the banks of Dnieper River – cradle of ancient Russian civilisation and the most charming of East European capitals. It is a comfortable and rather prosperous place, with hundreds of small and cosy restaurants, neat streets, sundry parks and that magnificent river
A diverse gang of five journalists in their early thirties ride a car through deserts and high mountains of Central Asia. Amidst breathtaking scenery, they cross impassable tunnels, negotiate steep curves and flocks of sheep on country roads, visit the capitals of new republics that came into being since the fall of the USSR, meet interesting people and discuss freedom of speech and its limits. A road movie par excellence, it’s Easy Rider by Wim Wenders, but in a better setting. Soon we learn that theirs is not a joyride. These young people had been sent on a quest to far-away lands by the maverick genius of Julian Assange, captive of Ellingham Hall in East Anglia
First, the good news. American hegemony is over. The bully has been subdued. We cleared the Cape of Good Hope, symbolically speaking, in September 2013. With the Syrian crisis, the world has passed a key forking of modern history. It was touch and go, just as risky as the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The chances for total war were high, as the steely wills of America and Eurasia had crossed in the Eastern Mediterranean. It will take some time until the realisation of what we’ve gone through seeps in: it is normal for events of such magnitude. The turmoil in the US, from the mad car chase in the DC to the shutdown of federal government and possible debt default, are the direct consequences of this event
Tn the midst of its short summer, Moscow is balmy and relaxed. Sidewalks brim with tables and merry customers, even traffic jams are less severe due to holiday season. The only danger for men is the girls’ dresses, they are precariously short.
The earth shook as the mighty salvo signalled the start. Gracefully, heavy armour proceeded along Red Square, passing by the stepped pyramid of Lenin’s Tomb, by the multi-coloured domes of St Basil, and descending to the embankment of the Moscow River; huge green trucks pulled the most obvious phallic symbols of all -- the intercontinental missiles Topol-M or SS-27, heirs to the fearsome Satan SS-18.
This year, spring in France is unusually cold and rainy, following on the heels of a frosty and long winter. Only the last Sunday was different: the sun pushed the clouds away for the first time in months, and immediately the lucid Parisian air warmed up and trees broke out in full bloom. The French were cheered up after the long, hibernal gloom and went out to the streets to protest – ostensibly, against the new gay marriage and adoption bill that the government is trying to push through Parliament despite popular rejection, but verily against the neoliberal policies of their new government.
Andre did the impossible. He crossed the biggest chasm there is. Imagine a white boy from Philly, picking cotton and living with blacks in a cabin on a Mississippi plantation in the days of Jim Crow. No Freedom Rider went that far. He broke an important taboo: so many Israelis are convinced that the Palestinians would kill them on sight, at first occasion. By his example he refuted this fantasy. He renounced apartheid personally by living with Palestinians.
Who said the filthy rich are good for nothing? Their antics are very entertaining! The Nouveau Riche have always been notorious headline-providers, and the newest crop of Russian oligarchs make the robber barons of previous generations look timid and colorless
The protagonist of this story, a prominent Russian developer and billionaire, “a Russian Donald Trump”, Sergey Polonsky, is now in a Cambodian jail, in the small seaside resort of Sihanoukville, where I visited him. On December 30, 2012, just before the New Year celebrations, his speedboat was detained after hot pursuit and a few warning machine-gun salvos by the Cambodian Royal Navy, and towed to a naval base. Polonsky was arrested and taken into police custody.
To the many crimes of President Vladimir Putin, a new one was added last month: kicking babies, sweet, innocent, plump babies -- out of sheer wickedness. This crime was discussed ad nauseam, until it became a meme which was summed up by the NY Times’ own Thomas Friedman: “When recently confronted with his regime’s bad behavior, [Putin’s] first instinct was to block American parents from adopting Russian orphans, even though so many of them badly need homes.” Surprisingly, in Russia the voices against the new ban are even more shrill. At recent press conference, no less than eight different Russian journalists badgered President Putin on this one topic, each offering little more than loaded insinuations disguised as questions. The “White” opposition marched in force against the “Scoundrels” (as they describe the supporters of the ban) and compared Putin to King Herod.
This is a story of Crimean Tatars comeback to their country after long exile, a story that reminds that of Palestinian refugees - but has a happy end. Return is possible, and it is not even painful. Crimea gives hope to Palestine, writes Israel Shamir =
I drove up to white and sumptuous Livadia Palace with some difficulty. The palace, once a royal summer residence built and frequented by the last Russian Tsar, stands on a rather steep slope amidst a spacious park that descends to the Black Sea far below, and the road is scary.
Kourosh Ziabari – “Media took place of the Church in the godless society. If once, the Pope would send Crusaders upon a crusade, now it is done by Mr. Sulzberger of the New York Times,” Israel Shamir, a Swedish author and journalist says. Shamir made the remarks in a recent interview with the Tehran Times.
The heavy loaded cargo boats, passenger liners, cruise ships and plentiful ferries packed with tourists steam by the Maiden Tower. The City, one of the greatest Capitals of Man of all time, has straddled Europe and Asia since the days of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who established this New Rome. It was the biggest city on earth a millennium ago, and it is still vast.
Iran is a great country for kebab; their pretty if well-covered girls are fine; but sense of humour is just not their forte. Their state media repeatedly broadcasted items lifted from the Onion, a satirical magazine taking them for literal truth. Now Press TV published an attack on Julian Assange with a bombastic claim: “Exclusive: Assange-Mossad ties unveiled”. Oy, it would be better to stick to the Onion.
In the Middle Eastern corrida, the moment of truth is approaching fast. Assad’s Syria is running around the arena like a wounded bull, fraught and worn down by a year of cruel strife. Banderillas of mujaheeds stick out of his broken hide. The public, the Europeans, the Americans, the Gulf rulers call: Kill him! And the Turkish matador steps forward, pulling out his sword. His cannons rain death on Syrian slopes; fire and lead storm consumes the hills. Erdogan is preparing to deal last blow to his exhausted neighbour.
Shamir's essay briefly appeared on the Morning Star site, but the British Jewish ‘tribal or kosher’ Marxists were on the watch; they applied pressure to the Morning Star, and the British Communists surrendered immediately. If they can’t stand up to a few Jewish Marxists, how can they stand up to real big capitalist enemies?
Now, in the monsoon season, Cambodia is verdant, cool and relaxed. The rice paddies on the low hill slopes are flooded, forests that hide old temples are almost impassable, rough seas deter swimmers. It’s a pleasant time to re-visit this modest country: Cambodia is not crowded, and Cambodians are not greedy, but rather peaceful and relaxed.
The new and sensational information we received: Israelis prefer the Somalisation of Syria, its break-up and the elimination of its army, as this will allow them to tackle Iran unopposed. This is implied in a secret file recently leaked by a person(s) apparently close to the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs.
The Left – including Communist Left – is manipulated by the super-rich in their own interests. These super-rich conspire to destroy tradition and create a collectivist world order of despotism under their own guidance, and the Left are “useful idiots” of these greedy for power and money people. This is main thesis of a new book by Kerry Bolton trying to prove that feminism, communism, orange revolutions, gay movement and sundry forms of dissent are all sponsored by the oligarchs, Soros or Rockefeller.
To disavow or debate Abunimah – this is the question. Indeed, an American citizen, born in Jordan, who never tread on the land of Palestine, decided to ostracize Gilad Atzmon, a native Palestinian, born and bred on its soil – a silly idea! Next step, he will forbid earthquakes and hurricanes to occur.
The anticipated apocalypse did not come to pass. The presidential election in Russia ran its course, Putin was duly elected, and to the great astonishment of the opposition, multimillion crowds demanding the blood of the tyrant did not materialize.
Moscow is shining in the bright spring sun; the golden domes of its churches are a-glitter, surrounded by pure white snow; endless boutiques display the latest Paris fashions; restaurants are plentiful and expensive; numerous theaters are full, at a hundred dollars a seat for a Chekhov play. High oil prices have brought prosperity and crisis is forgotten. There’s a lot of budget money for all sorts of projects, from modern art to kindergartens to universities. Even those old sufferers, the armed forces, have got a big hike in pay.
According to the Vinogradov secret memo Anwar al-Sadat, holder of the titles of President, Prime Minister, ASU Chairman, Chief Commander, Supreme Military Ruler, entered into conspiracy with the Israelis, betrayed his ally Syria, condemned the Syrian army to destruction and Damascus to bombardment, allowed General Sharon’s tanks to cross without hindrance to the western bank of the Suez Canal, and actually planned a defeat of the Egyptian troops in the October War.
The Poklonnaya Hill won because this largest rally was not “for Putin”. It became a rally against neo-liberals, against pro-Western policies, a rally of Red-Brown (or “patriotic”) alliance of statist nationalist opposition of Russia-First. They out-Putined Putin in no time. This was a great surprise for the people of Moscow. Nobody predicted Putin will wake up the sleeping beast of popular feelings. There is a huge untapped potential of Russia-First feeling, connected with resentment against Western imperialist policies...
Many liberals and non-ethnic Russians are deeply suspicious of Navalny. But their presentation of Navalny as a "new Hitler" is far-fetched. Blue-eyed, good-looking, a dash of the racist, yes, but not an especially silver-tongued one. Navalny tried to talk to the demonstrators in December but was catcalled more than once. His manner was too rude, as if he were talking to a street gang. Even more odd, when asked for a model state Russia should follow, Navalny said, "Singapore." This is an odd choice for a person fighting Putin's strong-arm style, as Lee Kuan Yew was probably more authoritarian than Putin. As fond as I am of Singapore street cooking, I can't imagine a less suitable model for a vast multinational ex-empire than the tiny Chinese polis.
Gilad Atzmon is larger than life; no delicate and sensitive artistic soul, he is rather a living volcano, a titan with a Rabelaisian sense of humor and enough energy to power a city. Nights, you will find him entertaining his fans in every corner of the globe with his masterful saxophone playing...
A Poison Cake [Review by Israel Shamir of Melanie Phillips’ The World Turned Upside Down]
British columnist Melanie Phillips has discovered Captain Hook’s recipe and used it to prepare her recent book: it is a tempting green, but it’s dangerous to eat. Many pages can be swallowed with no ill effect, but once the reader has succumbed to Phillips’ message of spiritual comfort, the sheer poison of her conclusions sets in.
After interminably long delay, the grey Moscow heavens were at long last generous with snow, dispensing heaps and heaps of the white stuff, turning cars into snow mountains and making sidewalks impassable.
Moscow is unusually warm: the temperature refuses to dip below zero degrees Centigrade, the freezing point. Instead, it is wet and dark. The sun gets up late and goes to sleep early. To make matters worse, President Medvedev decided to keep Russia on daylight savings time throughout winter. To offset this stupid decision, Christmas illumination was turned on a month before the usual time, in order to cheer up the voters. Now it lights the way for the armoured vans of the riot police sent in to pacify the cheery electorate.
Moscow saw its biggest demo in a decade last Saturday. It was a feel-good peaceful manifestation of youthful Facebook users, and it was already nicknamed the Likes Parade, as the prospective participants had clicked on “like” in response to the call to demonstrate. The predictions were dire: some expected clashes and bloody martyrdom, others hoped for a conquest of the Kremlin and revolution. However things went smoothly. It should serve as a wakeup call to the Putin administration: for too long a time, they banked on their hold on the mainstream media and on the passivity of the people.
Cheats and thieves have to prove their moral superiority over their victims in order to justify their crimes. This is the case with a petty cheat and thief called James Ball. This young man was a hired hand in the Wikileaks; he was offered a bribe of a job by the Guardian and he gratefully accepted it, betraying Julian Assange's trust and stealing all he could put his sweaty hands on. Since then, he is obsessed with demeaning and debunking Assange: only moral disgrace of the Australian will reduce the burden of the traitor's guilt.
The defeat of Julian Assange is a defeat for all the men, and a defeat for mankind, promising a bleak future – unless we shall do something about it. It is not only our freedom but our manhood is at stake.
The crisis peaking in Britain is of a Caribbean-sea-pirate type: long time no trophies, while lifestyle has to be maintained. Neoliberal policies have undermined the toughest folk on earth, hard-working, prudent, obedient, stiff-upper-lipped red-faced Brits, the people who managed India, burned down the White House and withstood Hitler. Their backbone – Yorkshire miners and Sheffield steel workers – was broken by their Golders Green grocer-at-large, a.k.a. the Iron Lady. She folded down the industries, and turned the Isles into a Tortuga-like pirate paradise, a place for financiers to relax, unwind and plan their raids.
The independence of truncated Palestine is not the ideal. It will not solve the problems of refugees, of separation between the West Bank and Gaza, of discrimination within Israel proper. But don’t worry: Mahmud Abbas’ bid will not create an independent Palestine. It will get the Palestinian train out of impasse, it will wipe the snide smirk off Netanyahu’s and Lieberman’s faces; it will undermine the US hold on the region. More importantly, it will support a new dynamic, extremely negative for Israel, even if this straw does not break the proverbial camel’s back. Anyway, the Palestinians can’t solve this problem themselves: elimination of the apartheid regime in Israel/Palestine will be effected by the future Caliphate, which is sure to enhance its legitimacy and popularity.
If a black from the Democratic Republic of Congo would sell his mother into slavery in a heartbeat for the chance to move to the West Bank, whom and in how many heartbeats would Slavoj Zizek sell into slavery for the chance to move into the intellectual establishment of the Right?
Palestine is important not because it is as beautiful as Tuscany, nor because the Palestinians are suffering, and not even because it is occupied by a Jewish state. The Jews have been handed Palestine not because they were so smart or so strong or so devoted, but by Imperial design.
I do not think Shamir is a Jewish equivalent of Rushdie. I think he is much better. He is a better thinker, and a bolder one - Mohamed Omar
Here are two google-translated reports about an Israel Shamir's talk in Uppsala. The talk was based on Why Palestine is Important
http://www.israelshamir.net/English/Why_Palestine.htm
US Knew Where Osama Was Since 2005! Unredacted Guantanamo files show clearly that the trail to Abbottabad was known to the US intelligence services at least since 2005, when al-Libi, another Abbottabad dweller, was captured.
The chief prosecutor at the International
Criminal Court said Thursday he will report to the United
Nations in May on alleged Libyan war crimes. In his brief he
should include the latest war crime, murder of Qaddafi’s
family, his son and three grandchildren and assassination
attempt on life of the Libyan leader. Cameron and Sarkozy, NATO
field commanders and air teams should be indicted for this
crime.
Russia is ripe for change. But which way will it go? Will it be another “managed revolution”? Will the regime promote another pro-Western party while blocking the Left, the Orthodox and the nationalists? Or will the pro-native opposition finally sort through its problems, rescue Rogozin from his Brussels retreat and seriously try to win Russia?
Russia is different. The Americans, the Brits and the French by and large approve of their forces’ Libya bombing spree (yes, some doubt that it’s a good bang for the buck). The Russians are flatly against it, with no ifs, ands or buts.
Modern journalism is more akin to warfare than a search for truth. I have been misquoted so many times that it’s a wonder I speak to anyone at all. “Don’t speak to strangers” is what they told us in kindergarten, and I’m sure I’d be better off if I followed that advice. I recently received a letter from the young American journalist Will Yakowicz. He wrote that speaking with me and creating my literary portrait would be like a dream come true for him. Will flew from New York to Moscow and we had our interview; I answered all his questions even though they became increasingly combative as the interview progressed. In order to avoid any possible misinterpretations, I am publishing the entire unedited conversation.
The long Saga of the Broken Condom took a definite turn for the worse. The judge decided to honor the European Arrest Warrant issued by man-eating Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny. Meanwhile the Swedish police papers pertaining to Assange case have been leaked – and there are some shocking revelations.
The latest chapter in the quest for open government finds our embattled knight holed up within the grey brick Georgian walls of Ellingham Hall while the dark forces outside attempt a disorderly checkmate.
Hundreds of thousands of US State Department documents, in the form of cables from hundreds of embassies and consulates around the world, give us an in-depth picture of American interests and activities such as never before seen. Yet as we peruse cables that chronicle the changing faces of US diplomacy, there is one constant: Cuba.
The Guardian and the BBC accused me (Israel Shamir) of “Holocaust denial”. I do not deny the facts of Jewish tragedy, but I do deny its religious salvific significance implied in the very term ‘Holocaust’; I do deny its metaphysical uniqueness, I do deny the morbid cult of Holocaust and I think every God-fearing man, a Jew, a Christian or a Muslim should reject it as Abraham rejected and smashed idols.
I was in Belarus to observe the Presidential election, and to tell the truth I was expecting some sort of staged little event to mar the day. The outcome of the election was in little doubt. The people were happy, fully employed, and satisfied with their government. They were well aware of what had happened when neighboring countries had embraced the IMF, and they felt no ideological need to tread that same dark road. Some people, however, are more motivated by dollars than patriotism, and these are the people I was expecting. The pro-Western ‘Gucci’ crowd can always be counted on to protest the choices of the majority. They protested in Iran after the election victory of Ahmadinejad. They protested in Palestine when Hamas was voted into power. They actually overturned the vote in nearby Ukraine in 2005, and the orange gangs succeeded in stealing the presidency for five long years. If they cannot convince the people with Western dollars, then they simply riot and try to take it by force.
(edited Paul Bennett)
Let us suppose that one day Wikileaks will publish cables from the Russian Embassy in Washington to Moscow Centre. Shall we expect to see in the Guardian a screaming headline like:
WikiLeaks: The Mossad behind 9/11!!
An epic drama is unfolding after the Wikileaks founder gave himself up to Scotland Yard, but will Assange suffer the fate of Ellsberg or Pollard, asks Eric Walberg
Our real-life Neo did it again! In this new installment of Wiki-Matrix, the intrepid Julian Assange assaults the Empire while being pursued by ravenous Pentagon generals, shadowy CIA agents and overheated Swedish feminists
The Amazing Adventures of Captain Neo takes a decided turn for the worse.
The plot thickens as our favorite hero of the Matrix; our own “Captain Neo” Julian Assange, faces danger yet again.
Wikileaks has predictably come under attack. Not only from Pentagon hacks, but also from "friends" we would expect to back them rather than knife them in the back.
Enough of boring stuff of Afghan stiffs and Pentagon staffs! Not a minute too early, when we were about to succumb to boredom of approaching rainy autumn, we were hit by the new release of …
Ode to Cynthia Israel Shamir’s Talk at the Ankara Conference
In Ankara, the capital of Turkey, in the course of defending the cause of Palestine, I've met with wonderful Cynthia McKinney, who would be the best president for the US. After this touching meeting, she wrote to her list:
I can hardly believe this moment!! Israel Shamir has written about me and lifted my spirits when I was most down. Even from faraway Israel, he understood my plight and dared give voice to the truth. They say that sometimes distance gives clarity--and certainly in Israel's case, in observing my serial targeting, he saw what many inside the United States could not see. Despite his writings, I never met him until this moment, just a few minutes ago!! We are speaking together this afternoon in Ankara, Turkey. I will bring these contacts from around the world that I have made on behalf of peace, home to the United States so that we can more easily achieve our objectives for justice and peace and dignity in the area of policy where we and the world need it the most. We are a part of something much bigger than us individually, and our moment is now.
I add to it now what I wrote about Cynthia a few years ago:
If there were ever a sign of contradiction for the age of irenic interreligious dialogue inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council, it is Israel Shamir. Shamir’s conversion to Christianity was a sign that the repressed had returned just in time to save the Church from total apostasy on the Jewish question. Shamir, the Jewish convert, saw Jews not as our “elder brothers” but as St. Paul saw them, which is to say, as “the enemy of mankind.” In accepting baptism, Shamir joined a long line of “Jews by birth who denounced the Judaic cult of Death and accepted the Living Christ.” For Shamir, the crucial “sieve” which separated good from evil in the great struggle of his day was the “relationship to the Palestinian suffering”; “whoever disregarded it followed Antichrist; whoever denounced it began his way to Christ.” Like St. Paul, Shamir has become a latter day apostle to the Gentiles and a reproach to all those who would ignore the warning of the Gospels and urge upon Christians a quasi-Masonic brotherhood with their enemies which leads to their mental evisceration and moral ruin.
Experts explain the crisis by bankers' stupidity. They did not know what they were doing when they flooded the markets with their cheap credit, or sold swaps or marketed derivatives. Alternatively, it is argued that they were so greedy that did not understand their long-term interests and ruined everything. But the bankers and the financial elite are not stupid, neither are they short-sighted. I believe that things happen because people intend them to happen, unless there are very strong proofs to the contrary. I believe that unless we do something pretty drastic, they will emerge out of this crisis even more rich, more powerful and in fuller control of our lives.
Instead of spelling disaster, the financial collapse offers a unique opportunity to fix all America’s ills. Instead of charging taxpayers, turn the US into billionaire-free zone. The billionaires, these greediest rats, gained most from the Great Pyramid; pauperise them.
I gave this talk at a conference in delightful Havana. After a long-time-no-see, the place looks much better, many houses and roads are fixed; drugs and prostitutes are not visible, there are newer cars, but the old charm remains. Even in dilapidated areas one finds none of the despair, violence and despondency one meets in, say, the South Bronx. People are a-singing, a-dancing and a-smoking their long cigars wherever they wish – that’s freedom!
A Talk given at the Second International Conference for World Balance in Havana, Cuba, January 29, 2008
I’ve brought you good news: Be not despondent -- you are not the last dugout of resistance to the Imperial rule, soon to be swept away, anymore. The tide of world history now turns, and we are ready for a counter-attack. People who oppose the Neo-Liberal Empire feel that they are not the last bison on the prairie, we are rather the victorious army of tomorrow.
Read in Spanish:
¡Sigan, cubanos, alumbrando al mundo!
Por Israel Shamir (Conferencia ofrecida en La Habana el 29 de febrero de 2008, en el marco de la Segunda Conferencia por el equilibrio del mundo)
(Keep Shining Cuba in Spanish)
This interview was given to the leading radical left-wing magazine of Sweden, FiB, some time ago, and here I offer easy answers to usual questions. Useful!
A Japanese writer
Akira Doujimaru
akiradoujimaruATinfoseek.jp wrote this very interesting
introduction to his translation of A Yiddishe Medina by
Israel Shamir into Japanese. In it, he finds Buddhist analogy to
the interpretation of the Cross, connects 9/11 with Pearl
Harbor, and is doing an important cross-cultural interpretation
of the ideas we deal with. His explanation of myth and
demonisation is particularly poignant.
In my native Siberia, in its short and furious summer, you can watch a swarm of gnats attack a horse, each small bloodsucker eager for his piece of the action. After a while, the blinded and infuriated animal rushes headlong in a mad sprint and soon finds its death in the bottomless moors. The Jews developed the same style of attack. It is never a single voice arguing the case, but always a mass attack from the left and the right, from below and above, until the attacked one is beaten and broken and crawls away in disgrace.
A Talk given at the conference on Religion in the International Relations: Liberalism and Tradition, International Relations Faculty, St Petersburg State University, 24 November 2006
In our desire to free Holy Land from captivity, we wish to unite forces standing against the Judeo-American Empire from within and without - in New York and Teheran, in selva of Amazonas and in Moscow. We wish to create a new broad coalition for the oppressed majority - and these forces are to be found in the Left and in the Right. We are not easily scared into obedience by the New York Times and Le Monde : we do not hate Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Nasrallah, Hamas, Mao, Putin, Mahler, Lukashenka, Garodi and Duke, we do not even fear to reverently mention Jesus Christ and Our Lady Mary. Our enemies win by sowing discord and some of our friends stay trapped in conventional separatism of Left and Right. Thus in Spain, a leading Leftist site does not want to publish Israel Shamir and James Petras, in Sweden, there is a similar discussion, in England, it was carried by our friend Gilad Atzmon.
Maybe you have received one of those annoying letters brandishing alleged Jewish claims on Palestine; it is admittedly low genre, and not worthy to be replied, but the Proverbs (26:5) teach: “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.”
Readers of this site are always well ahead of
time. Sometimes, years ahead. Only now mainstream
America begins to discuss “Jewish Lobby”, but on
this site we expounded this subject in 2001.
Actually, what we said then, remains relevant now.
Here is a re-run of my 2001 essay A Yiddishe
Medina (A Jewish State, in Yiddish), included in
the Galilee Flowers, where I ask:
Does America support Israel because of the Jewish
lobby or because of the ‘true interest of American
corporations’? The putative answer is: the Jewish
lobby is a superfluous body supportive of the
Israeli right-wing, while America as a whole is a
grander ‘Jewish’ state with interests outside the
Middle East as well.
On the many-coloured Hans Buenting Map (1581), our world looks like a flower; its three petals present the three continents of Europe, West Asia, Africa, united by the Holy Land. The map allows for a different reading, too: the flower is the faith of Christ and Our Lady, and the three petals are Islam, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. While the Westerners preferred to view Islam as an antithesis of Christianity, Eastern Christians, notably St John the Damascene, considered Islam as another Christian Church, on a par with the Western Catholic Church
This is a good place to recognise an unknown victim of the Iraqi war: Christianity.
“In a rare guest appearance, now on this site a new poem by SIAM, arguably the best living American poet, commemorating Edward Said and the struggle for Palestine. SIAM combines deep Sufi mysticism of Rumi, and all-American cosmic spirit of Walt Whitman. His poetry is a natural phenomenon as much as a work of art, and reminds of a volcano in full blast of its furnaces, with lava erupting and rocks flying out: spectacular but scary.
In The Dune, a visionary film that predicted the US invasion of the Middle East, the spiritual leader of the Resistance is asked: "Will we ever have peace?" "We'll have victory", he replied.
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when the G7 foreign ministers assembled at Hiroshima, led by the US State Secretary John Kerry. He should apologise, people said. You do not think Kerry apologised for nuking the city, did you? Neither did Obama. The Americans never apologise, banish the thought. Love means never having to say you're sorry, and they are in love with the rest of the world. Otherwise, why would they screw it so violently and wish to possess so intensely?
for a male candidate have a special place in hell, as 
with tens of thousands of participants in the centre of Pyongyang completed and sealed an important and unusual political event in this remote and isolated land of North Korea – the Party Congress. The demo has been followed by a show, so big that it could not be staged anywhere else. Magnificient fireworks, twenty thousand men and women dancing with torches in the darkness of Pyongyang night – this show I'll remember forever. For the Koreans it was not a show, but a declaration of their loyalty to the state and the leader – or, perhaps, even for them it was just a night dance. Who knows?
May Day – it is the right time to speak of a very important recent spiritual event that received too little publicity in the West, but it kept Russia all agog. This was not an Oscar nomination, after all. Two old men, heads of two great churches had met on the territory of the third church. These were Kyril and Francis, the bishops of Moscow and Rome on the last vestige of the communist territory, in Cuba. They represented two ancient and venerable churches: the Roman Catholic and the Russian Orthodox, separated by a millennium-old schism, and as the ghost, the Communist church was present at this summit.
You have to swear your full compliance with Israel's demands. You have to run to AIPAC and declare your eternal love of the Jewish state. This is a truism, like “Monsieur de la Palisse was alive fifteen minutes before his death”. 
It appears the world needs more of Russian intervention in the Middle East if the black killers from the desert are to be stopped. Luckily, Russia is not in a rush to leave completely. From what I hear in Syria, the promised withdrawal is rather a figure of speech. Some Russians are leaving, others are staying.
Yes, I am aware that many of our colleagues, gentlemen of the free press, already explained and justified Putin's sudden declaration. They wrote that Putin had said in September the campaign would last till spring, so being a man of his word he had to live up to his promise. They wrote the Russians had done as much as they could or should, that their mission is indeed accomplished. (This is odd, for the dreadful Daesh and his awful sister al Nusra are alive and kicking). Others said the Russians are clever to go while going is good, that is before the looming joint Turkish and Saudi invasion of Syria.
and I do not intend to eat fish”. Only the dumbest fish would condemn the man as a bigot: “What! He does not like us!” And yet, our Muslim American friends apparently emulate the stupid fish when speaking of Donald Trump.
I spoke well of Trump. My Radical Muslim American friend screamed on a list serve: “And what about his racist remarks about Muslims that are akin to those made about Jews not all that long ago? Shall we accept him on that basis as well as his sick stand on overweight women? Do we overlook all that???????????????????!!!!!”
destroyed buildings, bulldozers gathering the shambles. No, Moscow was not hit by terrorists: this is a planned demolition of hundreds of small and not-too-small shacks erected (in defiance of planning law) in the vicinity of tube stations in the notorious Nineties, when the Law was vague and easily bought for ready money. The biggest of them, the Pyramid on top of Pushkinskaya Station, went down this week. The municipal workers promptly removed the vestiges of the collapsed constructions, while the erstwhile owners stared in disbelief.
Though it has been narrowed down to four miles in some places, the Syrian [government] Army can't take it, despite the Russian aerial support. For the success of the whole operation, it is paramount to seize the corridor and cut the supply lines, but there is a heavy political flak and military difficulties. At the last Lavrov-Kerry meeting, the American State Secretary six times implored his Russian counterpart to keep hands off the Azaz corridor. The Americans do not want to see Russian victory; besides, the Turks threaten to invade Syria if the corridor is blocked.”
I drove up to white and sumptuous Livadia Palace with some difficulty. The palace, once a royal summer residence built and frequented by the last Russian Tsar, stands on a rather steep slope amidst a spacious park that descends to the Black Sea far below, and the road is scary.
Many liberals and non-ethnic Russians are deeply suspicious of Navalny. But their presentation of Navalny as a "new Hitler" is far-fetched. Blue-eyed, good-looking, a dash of the racist, yes, but not an especially silver-tongued one. Navalny tried to talk to the demonstrators in December but was catcalled more than once. His manner was too rude, as if he were talking to a street gang. Even more odd, when asked for a model state Russia should follow, Navalny said, "Singapore." This is an odd choice for a person fighting Putin's strong-arm style, as Lee Kuan Yew was probably more authoritarian than Putin. As fond as I am of Singapore street cooking, I can't imagine a less suitable model for a vast multinational ex-empire than the tiny Chinese polis.
Readers of this site are always well ahead of
time. Sometimes, years ahead. Only now mainstream
America begins to discuss “Jewish Lobby”, but on
this site we expounded this subject in 2001.
Actually, what we said then, remains relevant now.
Here is a re-run of my 2001 essay A Yiddishe
Medina (A Jewish State, in Yiddish), included in
the Galilee Flowers, where I ask:
