America is Divided Against Itself

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

I’m shocked at how quickly Americans who just months ago were praising him have turned against Joe Biden over the Afghanistan pullout. Clearly it’s displaced anger.

American editor and novelist Benjamin Kerstein, in an article in Quillette magazine published in August, suggested that “America may simply be a society so traumatized by recent history that it can no longer contend with reality. 9/11 and the 2008 financial meltdown would have been bad enough, but now a once-in-a-century pandemic has claimed over 600,000 lives.”

Anxieties have turned into collective irrationality. A significant segment of both the American Left and Right seem to have given up on the republic and its institutions. They now hate each other.

Automation and globalization have slashed the returns to blue-collar, unskilled work. Stagnant wages for such groups, combined with the increased cost of housing, have affected poorer Americans severely. 

At the same time, a super-class of married, two-income families that congregate in cities or exclusive suburbs emerged. They are balkanizing America with their divisive “woke” ideology. 

The largest corporations are embracing and advancing that social agenda, even as wealth distribution becomes even more skewed, with uppermost one per cent pulling away from all the rest.

Social media, the world of entertainment, legacy media, and the universities are part of the ideological world that shapes public policy. This has erased the distinction between the public and private spheres. They can wield the powers of government without legal limits, as if they were dealing with their own private affairs.

Angelo Codevilla, a professor emeritus of International Relations at Boston University, suggests extending the Bill of Rights to those organizations. “You can’t have it both ways: You can’t have private privilege and at the same time have no public responsibility.”

The elites rationalized their impoverishment of the white working class by claiming that they were racists and that the United States is suffused with white supremacy. That’s why the rhetoric now coming out of the universities sees conservatives as racist for no other reason than voting Republican.

Democratic Party strategists, beginning in the 1990s, figured that they’d soon have a permanent hold on power thanks to urban intellectuals, young single women, racial and ethnic groups, and the LGBTQ community.

America is no longer a nation of one unique people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion. Nearly four in 10 Americans trace their ancestry to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It is a multiracial, multilingual, multicultural society – this, in a world where countless countries are being torn apart over race, religion, and roots.

Of course a diverse, multi-racial nation has much to recommend it, and might well be more free, vibrant, and prosperous than a mono-racial one. But this does not change the age-old human impulse to separate into in-groups and out-groups.

A hundred years ago, President Theodore Roosevelt announced a plan for a “New Nationalism.” He said that “The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing as a nation at all, would be to have it become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

Large multicultural and multi-ethnic democracies like the United States have in the past inevitably collapsed into smaller, more ethnically defined regions. The western part of the Roman Empire became the nations of Western Europe, the Ottoman Empire the countries of the Middle East and North Africa, and so on. Can America be the first nation in the history of humanity to avoid this fate?

There is a solution, and it doesn’t involve the return of a discredited white ethnic supremacy. It is cultural homogeneity and civic nationalism, and America used to have it, with its melting pot, patriotism, belief in American exceptionalism, love of country, flag and anthem, pledge of allegiance, American apple pie and all such ties that bind.

But in trying to deconstruct those ties of nationality which hold the centre together, by celebrating a more strident form of multiculturalism with no concession to American values or social mores, and denigrates American culture and history, left-wing liberals have been dismantling the very thing which keeps group hostility at bay. Little wonder then that America is descending towards dystopia.

Politics in Suriname Reflect the Country's Diversity

 

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Consociational democracy is found in countries that are deeply divided into distinct religious, ethnic, racial, or regional segments. Its two central characteristics are government by grand coalition and segmental autonomy.

Such countries, known as plural societies, have little overarching national unity. Political elites from the ethnic segments rely on patron-client networks to maintain support, while inter-elite relations are strongly adversarial.

Power-sharing has primarily been facilitated by the need for each ethnic group to retain access to state resources, which remains the driving force of government formation.

Suriname, wedged between Guyana and French Guiana in South America, is such a country. It was governed as a Dutch colony until independence in 1975. Due to its colonial history, which centred around a plantation economy based on slavery, indentured labour, and ethnic and racial admixture (or “creolization”), the country is culturally regarded as part of the Caribbean.

It is the smallest country in South America, with a population of 575,000. The largest ethnic group are descendants of South Asians, known as Hindostanis, who form about 27.4 per cent of the population, followed by Maroons, at 21.7 per cent, whose ancestors are mostly runaway slaves that fled to the interior during Dutch rule.

Creoles, at 15.7 per cent, are descended from Africans and Dutch Europeans. Finally, Javanese, at 14 per cent, originate on the island of Java\ in the former Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia).

Political mobilisation has occurred on an ethnic basis, with the major parties all representing, and catering to, specific ethnic groups. But a coup d’état in 1980 resulted in the installment of a military regime spearheaded by Desi Bouterse, a Creole, leading to a seven-year abrogation of democratic rule.

The military takeover was initially greeted with some enthusiasm, primarily due to his vow to end the tradition of ethnic politics which was associated with economic stagnation and  political deadlock.

 However, after six years the regime had become notorious for its human rights abuses and involvement in drug trafficking. On top of that, in 1986 a bloody Interior War erupted between the military and the Jungle Commando, a Maroon rebel group headed by Bouterse’s former bodyguard Ronnie Brunswijk. Domestic and international pressures forced Bouterse to initiate a process of political liberalisation, leading to the drafting of a new constitution in 1987.

It essentially restored the old institutional framework but provided for a more powerful president elected by and from among parliament. Free and fair elections in 1987 produced a landslide victory for the old ethnic parties, while Bouterse’s newly established pan-ethnic National Democratic Party (NDP) suffered a dramatic defeat.

Suriname thus reverted to power-sharing politics and grand inter-ethnic coalition governments. However, the 2010 elections resulted in a shocking victory for Bouterse’s NDP.

Even though the party dominated the Surinamese government for ten years, its pan-ethnic nature to some extent ensured a continuation of the power-sharing tradition, since all ethnic groups retained at least some access to state positions and resources.

For example, after the 2010 election an astonishing coalition was formed between Bouterse and Ronnie Brunswijk, the leader of the Maroon-based General Liberation and Development Party (ABOP), who had been Bouterse’s main enemy during Suriname’s Interior War.

The main fault line in contemporary Surinamese politics runs between the traditional ethnic parties and Bouterse’s pan-ethnic NDP. However, the NDP is broadly (and increasingly) regarded as a Creole-dominated party, and Hindostanis in particular complained about discrimination by an NDP government.

The outcome of the May 2020 elections saw a shift back to Suriname’s multi-party power-sharing traditions. The victorious Hindostani-dominated Progressive Reform Party (VHP) under Chan Santokhi, winner of 20 of the 51 seats in parliament, formed a coalition with the Maroon ABOP led by Brunswijk, the Creole National Party of Suriname (NPS), and the Javanese Glorious Empire (PL) parties.

The defeated NDP retained 16 seats. This has triggered fears of political victimisation among NDP supporters.

Surinamese politics remain very antagonistic and polarised. In the end, however, the pragmatic need for parties to obtain resources for their own ethnic group trumps the hostility.

“We’re looking forward to a better future, because we are two leaders who have been entrusted to lead this nation together,” Santokhi said of himself and Brunswijk in an interview.

 

The Israeli-Jordanian Relationship is Complex

 

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottown, PEI] Guardian

Few Jordanians shed a tear when Benjamin Netanyahu’s run as Israeli prime minister came to an end earlier this year. Jordan’s former information minister, Mohammad Momani, said “any Israeli premier other than Netanyahu would be better for Jordan.”

Over the last few years, policies by Netanyahu’s government confounded and strained the ties between the two countries. Now there have been signs of improved relations.

In one of his first gestures as Israel’s new prime minister, Naftali Bennett met with King Abdullah II in early July and agreed to double the supply of water it sends the Hashemite Kingdom from the Sea of Galilee.

Israel agreed to increase the amount of water it shares annually with Jordan to 50 million cubic metres, nearly double the 30 million cubic metres Israel usually provides.

Jordan, which is suffering from a severe drought, is one of the driest countries on earth and its water shortages are expected to worsen with climate change.

King Abdullah has maintained diplomatic and security ties with Israel throughout his 22-year tenure, but he remains sensitive to his country’s large Palestinian population and its politics.

The Jordanian defeat in the 1967 Arab-Israeli War led to the loss of the West Bank and east Jerusalem, including the Old City with its Muslim holy places. These had been incorporated into the kingdom in 1948 following the creation of the Jewish state.

Israel pledged to respect Jordan’s “special role” in overseeing Jerusalem’s Muslim and Christian holy sites. It needs Amman’s co-operation to ensure stability in that troubled city.

Nearly 60 per cent of Jordan’s population is of Palestinian descent, so Abdullah’s public relationship with Israel is mostly marked by his support of the Palestinian cause. The Jordanian government has attempted to deflect from many of his country’s woes by condemning the Jewish state.

At times, the kingdom has also temporarily withdrawn its ambassador in Tel Aviv for consultations. But the 1994 peace treaty between the two countries has endured. Jordan’s criticisms of and rhetoric on the Palestinian issue do not shake the fundamentals of its relationship with Israel.

Last year, Jordan began receiving its first natural gas supplies from Israel after a $10 billion deal was signed in 2016. Bennett and Abdullah also reached agreement on trade cooperation, mainly involving Jordanian exports to the Palestinian Authority. The cap on Jordanian exports to the West Bank will be raised from $160 million to $700 million. Intelligence cooperation between Israel and Jordan have also continued at a high level.

Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid called Jordan “an important neighbor and partner,” saying Israel “will broaden economic cooperation for the good of the two countries.”

The Jordanian monarch said he “came out of those meetings feeling very encouraged, and I think we’ve seen in the past couple of weeks, not only a better understanding between Israel and Jordan, but the voices coming out of both Israel and Palestine that we need to move forward and reset that relationship.”

Jordan’s demand for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, has long been a core feature of its foreign policy. But although he is a relative newcomer, it is highly improbable that Bennett will end Israeli control over the West Bank and evacuate large settlements to appease Abdullah.

However, if Israel were to take a far-reaching step, such as annexing large parts of the West Bank, Jordan would likely annul its diplomatic ties with Israel.

Abdullah understands he needed a functioning relationship with Israel to keep approximately $1.5 billion in annual U.S. aid flowing, especially as Jordan experiences a record public debt of $45 billion.

The U.S. and the monarchy signed a new security pact in March.

Abdullah also met with U.S. President Joe Biden later in July. The economic crisis and even an attempted coup d’état by Abdullah’s half-brother last April, made this meeting more important than ever.

Biden voiced his support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Jordan’s engagement with the new Israeli government.

But should the king become less popular, Israel would need to gird itself for potentially dramatic changes in what has long been its most stable neighbour.

 

U.S. Caught Unprepared by Taliban's Advance

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

As the Taliban retakes control of Afghanistan, American policy makers are left looking on in dismay. President Joe Biden’s aides thought that, even after American troops left the country, its government would have the luxury of time to keep the rebels at bay.

Intelligence assessments, we now know, wildly overestimated the capabilities of an Afghan army that disintegrated, often before shots were even fired.

Joe Biden was just as clueless as his advisors. “There’s going to be no circumstance where you see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy of the United States in Afghanistan,” he announced on July 8. “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.”

The surprise is that they’re all surprised. I didn't realize how out of touch with reality American policy makers and officials are. They seem to have had no idea Afghanistan was a corrupt “dead state walking.”

I know that sounds harsh, but what else can you call a country that collapses virtually overnight, like a house of cards, with virtually no resistance to a rag-tag army whose weaponry was no match for the western-installed government.

The Taliban, with no armored vehicles, no heavy artillery, no air force, took over as fast as their vehicles enabled them to travel. And everywhere there were Afghans waiting to welcome them. They obviously had been surreptitiously preparing and were in place ready to rise up.

Taliban opponents were left in the dust despite being the recipients, according to various sources, of upwards of about one trillion U.S. dollars in military and other aid.

Engaging in some hyperbole, I have remarked many times that within 24 hours of the western withdrawal, the Taliban would destroy the girls’ schools, NGO offices, civil society groups' buildings, and all the other attempts at “democratic nation-building” Washington had been engaged in for two decades. Unfortunately, I may be proved right.

Have you ever heard the phrase “fifth column?” The term comes from the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.  As four of the Nationalist columns moved on Madrid, a fascist general referred to his militant supporters within the capital as his “fifth column,” intent on undermining the Republic’s government from within, awaiting only the arrival of the rebels.

And so it was in Afghanistan, as we watched newscasts of President Ashraf Ghani fleeing Kabul in an airplane. He maintained he left the country to avoid bloodshed as the Taliban entered the capital Kabul.

This is the same president who a month earlier had declared that “I will never kneel before such a destructive force. We will either sit knee-to-knee for real negotiations at the table or break their knees on the battlefield.”

But perhaps he then recalled the fate of the last Afghan president, Mohammad Najibullah, who was in office when the Taliban captured Kabul 25 years ago. They abducted him from UN custody in September 1996, tortured him to death, and then dragged his dead body through the streets of the city.

And while we’re speaking of déjà vu scenes, there were also pictures of helicopters evacuating Americans from the U.S. Embassy. Some of us still remember pictures and newsreels of people fleeing Saigon on helicopters in April 1975 as the Viet Cong entered the city to end another ignominious war.

Why didn’t America win the war in Afghanistan? Why weren’t they able to completely rout the Taliban, create an effective, independent government, train and sustain a competent Afghan army, and then leave? 

Some Republicans believe it was due to “woke generals” who were allegedly better at playing progressive political games than fighting America’s enemies. They blame President Joe Biden – unfairly, in my opinion.

The Taliban is a predominantly Pashtun, Islamic fundamentalist group that ruled Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001. The founder, Mullah Mohammad Omar, launched the movement in 1994 to secure the city of Kandahar, which was plagued by crime and violence. It has had far more support than most of us would like to admit.

It is stronger now than at any point in the last twenty years. This coming Sept. 11 will find it once again in control of Afghanistan, as was the case 20 years ago.

Jordan Celebrates its Centenary Amidst Unrest

 

By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

 Jordan recently launched its centennial celebrations, defying the skeptics who over the years had predicted the kingdom’s demise on countless occasions. Jordan, it was thought, was an artificial creation that was bound to collapse sooner or later.

Many doubted whether Jordan would survive the end of King Hussein’s reign after his 46 years in power. But Hussein’s son, King Abdallah II, who ascended the throne in 1999, has now ruled for 22 years.

Jordan’s ability to retain its sovereignty is usually attributed to its Hashemite rulers, whose legitimacy has rested on their descent from the Prophet Muhammad. As well, Jordan is ethnically and religiously homogenous, being 95 per cent Sunni Muslim and Arab.

The kingdom of 10 million has enjoyed institutional and organisational continuity, in the hands of an effective governing elite. But Abdallah received all his formal education in England and the United States. His upbringing did not include intimacy with the all-important East Bank tribal leaders and their politics, which were second nature to Hussein.

Is the kingdom now threatened by the violent currents that have swept over the Middle East in recent decades? During the “Arab Spring” numerous protest movements were emerged from the younger generation, calling for democratic reforms.

Since then, an atmosphere of disquiet has prevailed. In the summer of 2018, the country shook again with popular protest, this time against a new income tax. A year later, unemployed marchers descended on the capital, Amman, followed by a teachers’ strike which went on for a month.

The pandemic has further weakened Jordan’s already fragile economy. The critical tourism industry, in particular, was disrupted by the pandemic The national debt before the COVID-covid 19 crisis was already at 95 per cent of the GDP.

According to the World Bank, the Jordanian economy shrank 1.6 per cent over the course of the last year while unemployment has risen to nearly 25 per cent. Youth joblessness is even worse, at around 50 per cent. Power outages are now a regular occurrence, food prices are soaring, and there are frequent shortages of fuel.

In early April, the kingdom’s ongoing domestic crisis came to a head in a clash of sibling rivalry within the royal family, between King Abdallah and his younger half-brother, Hamzah.

There had been a tense relationship between Abdallah and Hamzah for many years. On his deathbed King Hussein had instructed Abdallah to appoint Hamzah as his Crown Prince when he became king. But Abdallah removed Hamzah in November 2004 to pave the way for his own son, Prince Hussein, whom he appointed as heir to the throne in July 2009.

This past April, Hamzah was placed under a form of house arrest, while a score of others were arrested from Jordan’s most powerful tribes and clans. Hamzah denied involvement in any plot and signed a letter of allegiance to King Abdallah and Crown Prince Hussein.

The great majority of the political elite, backed by the security establishment, had rallied round the king. Abdallah published a statement two days later announcing that the unfortunate problems within the family had been resolved.

Still, in the first two weeks of June, a handful of tribes launched attacks on the Jordanian police in Amman that lasted six days, including attacks on the highway near the capital’s airport.

So Jordan is not as stable as it once was. It has been described as a “soft dictatorship” with minimal democracy, despite elections and a parliament. A revolving door of prime ministers have no actual authority, and the monarchy maintains its grip via a powerful and pervasive internal security apparatus.

Jordanian officials can basically detain anyone they want, at any time, for as long as they want, without any judicial process whatsoever, if such people protest, independently unionize, or strike.

Among those detained have been thousands of women accused by their male guardians of disobedience, leaving the home without permission, or having sex outside of marriage.

Jordan remains heavily dependent on foreign aid, most of which it receives from Washington, amounting to around $1.5 billion annually. Abdullah met U.S. President Joe Biden on July 19. The economic crisis, a severe drought, and the suspected coup d’état attempt made this meeting more important than ever.

Are Russians Doomed to Reject Democracy?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

Many western writers despair of the prospects for democracy in Russia. They continue to view its people as obedient, passive, and dependent on government – in other words, not all that different from their behaviour in Soviet times. So they attribute the country’s current brand of authoritarianism under Vladimir Putin to the subservient mindset of its citizens.

Is this just a stereotype? What does actually explain President Vladimir Putin’s high approval ratings despite economic downturns? Why do Russians take a positive view of Putin?

As privatization and free elections were introduced simultaneously by Boris Yeltsin in the early 1990s, access to power meant access to property, and vice versa. Two political models emerged: centralized and non-competitive, the system favoured by the tight-knit Tatar elite, and fragmented and competitive, which characterized the Nizhny Novgorod region under Yeltsin ally Boris Nemtsov.

In the latter, politicians aired corruption scandals over the course of nasty campaigns, leading many voters to see elections as elite infighting and to respond with apathy and protest voting. As competitive democracy delegitimized itself, the Tatar model looked increasingly appealing. Popular disillusionment with democratic institutions united the self-interest of Putin’s circle with the desires of an alienated public.

Putin has been successful in promoting his image as an embodiment of the shared national identity. He has tapped into powerful group emotions of shame and humiliation, derived from the traumatic economic transition in the 1990s, and has politicized national identity to transform these emotions into a renewed sense of patriotism.

When Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union in December 1991, it unleashed a torrent of change that inundated Russia’s political landscape, washing away the old and leaving a morass of debris in its wake.

By emphasizing the foreign threat to the Russian state, which Putin maintains is a key impediment to the country’s modernization, he has restored the nation’s self-respect. He has reawakened the elements of his country’s legitimizing myths in ways that have proved deeply satisfying to tens of millions of Russians.

Putin sensed that which pro-democracy revolutionaries of the early 1990s tended to disregard: the deep-seated trauma inflicted on Russians by the loss of what they believed was their country’s exalted status. They grieved the disappearance of the mission by which the Soviet Union defined its exclusivity.

In an article entitled “On the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” published in both Russian and Ukrainian on July 12, Putin accused the country’s enemies of working methodically to rupture the historic links between Russia and Ukraine.

According to Putin, the ouster of the pro-Moscow President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 was a culmination of a centuries-old Western plot to create in Ukraine what Putin calls an “anti-Russia,” to squeeze and contain Russia proper. Ukraine is not sovereign and finds itself under “external governance,” a code word for the United States.

“The Western authors of the anti-Russia project set up the Ukrainian political system in such a way that presidents, members of parliament and ministers would change but the attitude of separation from and enmity with Russia would remain,” Putin wrote. “Today, the ‘right’ patriot of Ukraine is only the one who hates Russia. Moreover, the entire Ukrainian statehood, as we understand it, is proposed to be further built exclusively on this idea.”

Putin charged that Ukraine has failed to fulfill its obligations under a 2015 peace deal to grant broad autonomy to the Donbas region The Russian leader also noted that Ukraine acquired broad territories in the country’s southeast and elsewhere during the period when it was part of the Soviet Union.

That’s why there was euphoria following Putin’s annexation of the Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014. Putin recast himself as a wartime president and war or threat of war has been the key to his regime’s legitimacy since then.

The president enjoyed enormous esteem in the wake of the takeover, when his favourability rating regularly exceeded 80 per cent. It has since fallen from that height but has held relatively steady.

It is the consolidation of a strong and conservative Russian national identity representing a direct counter to liberal democratic values that has fostered national self-esteem in Russia. It has led to Putin’s continued approval despite economic downturns.

What Has Become of Tunisia’s Democracy?

By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottown, PEI] Guardian

On July 25 President Kais Saied of Tunisia removed Hichem Mechichi from his post as the country’s prime minister. The president also announced that the Tunisian parliament would be frozen for 30 days and the immunity of all deputies would be suspended.

The president, a lawyer, said he based his decision on Article 80 of the Tunisian constitution, which grants the president the right to take extraordinary measures if there is imminent “grave danger to the unity, security and independence of the country.”

In assuming complete executive authority, Saied claimed he acted in order to fight the “hypocrisy, treachery and robbery” of the political class. This followed a weekend during which thousands of Tunisians took to the streets in anti-government protests that turned violent.

Protesters stormed the office of the moderate Islamic Ennahda party, Tunisia’s largest parliamentary formation. The head of Ennahda, parliamentary speaker Rached Ghannouchi, held a sit-in protest outside the parliament building. He accused the president of staging a coup d'état.

Tensions started building at the beginning of this year. In January, President Saied refused to endorse ministers named by Prime Minister Mechichi as part of a cabinet reshuffle. The president would not approve their appointment because, he contended, the candidates were suspected of corruption and had strong conflicts of interest because of other positions they held. 

Yadh Ben Achour, a prominent Tunisian constitutionalist who co-wrote Tunisia’s 2014 constitution, criticized the president’s actions. “This is completely unconstitutional,” he told TV channel France 24 in an interview. The constitution outlines a number of conditions that have not been met, he asserted, “notably the formation of a constitutional court, that still doesn’t exist, unfortunately.”

But law professor Rabeh Kraifi is of the opposite opinion. He pointed out to Reuters news agency that “In the absence of the constitutional court the president has the exclusive right of interpretation.”

Tunisia has remained prone to political turmoil in the decade since the 2011 revolution that ousted dictator Zine El Abidine ben Ali.  Ennahda, which won 52 of the 217 seats in the October 2019 parliamentary election, has held sway in the country, ruling in a coalition that has often been in open confrontation with President Saied.

But its support has waned in recent years as the coronavirus pandemic and economic downturn have ravaged the country. The World Health Organization has said Tunisia is facing an “extremely concerning” surge in Covid-19 infections, with only seven per cent of Tunisia’s 11.7 million inhabitants vaccinated. There have been almost 19,000 deaths, and outgoing Prime Minister Mechichi has himself been infected with the virus.

The country faces a widening fiscal deficit and mounting public debt, resulting in discontent over unemployment and inadequate public services. Tunisians are united by their outrage at widespread corruption and smuggling.

According to various estimates, the loss of revenue they cause amounts to more than 50 per cent of the gross domestic product. Unemployment has officially surpassed 17 per cent, but estimates suggest it is much higher, especially among young people. A program for structural reform with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been announced, but it has not yet been completed.

Tunisia’s biggest problem is its external debt, inherited from the former dictatorship. To service that debt, successive governments have been forced to focus on earning foreign currency.

And so instead of growing wheat to feed its population, Tunisia uses its most fertile land and water to grow strawberries for export. And it imports fuel and food to support its tourist industry, even after that was rendered unviable by a number of terrorist attacks a few years back and the current pandemic.

For a decade, Tunisia, where in December 2010 vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire and ignited a set of revolutions across the Mideast and North Africa, became known as the last bastion of the “Arab Spring.”

Ennahda’s shift to Muslim democracy was due to their perceived need to be backed by the new urban middle class in order to rule, while still maintaining the support of the rural and urban poor in order to come to power. This now seems to have failed, and no one knows what comes next.

 

Is Israel a Settler-Colonial State?

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

During the recent Hamas-Israel conflict, many critics of Israel referred to it as a “settler colonial state.”

 

By their own definition, the label “settler” doesn’t just refer to Jews born elsewhere, including nearby Middle Eastern countries like Egypt and Iraq, but to all those in the state who have dispossessed the non-Jewish/ inhabitants and oppressed and marginalized them.

 

As for “colonial,” that indicates the type of state they created, one that privileges the Jewish group. This, for them, remains the case even though Israel is today independent and no longer the possession of Great Britain.

 

This language has been part of a sustained disinformation campaign carried out against the Jewish state since the 1970s. Beginning with the resolution asserting that “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination,” passed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1975, by a vote of 72 to 35 (with 32 abstentions), attacks leveled at Israel’s very legitimacy have been percolating through the western world for decades and have overtaken public discourse on Israel.

 

The branding of Israel as a “genocidal apartheid country” was later introduced as a formal charge at the 2001 United Nations sanctioned “World Conference Against Racism” in Durban, South Africa. The final NGO Forum declaration at Durban stated that Israel was guilty of “genocide,” “apartheid,” “ethnic cleansing,” “settler colonialism,” and “racism.”

 

Since then, we have seen the rapid rise of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement promoting economic warfare against Israel, and the annual “Israel Apartheid Week” on numerous college campuses. Both continue to gain strength.

 

Recently, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream announced that it would cease selling its ice cream in the occupied West Bank, following a campaign by activists to force the company to pull out of Israel.

 

Despite the absurdity of comparing Israel to Nazi Germany by using the term “genocide” or linking the country to the former South African apartheid regime, more people have uncritically accepted a narrative in which facts and language have been reconstructed for the purposes of disinformation and deception.

But you’d never know from this discourse, now repeated endlessly everywhere, that, even if this were true, Israel is not particularly unique in this regard.

Canada, which was created by white British and French imperialists through the conquest, murder, and even genocide, of its native inhabitants, is also such a country. Our own governments tell us so, especially with the recent horrific discoveries of unmarked graves of children who died at the notorious residential schools. Canada’s flag has been flying at half-mast at federal buildings ever since.

So too are Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, among many others, including the Latin American republics created by the Spanish settlers who extinguished the Aztec, Inca and many other indigenous political entities.

The original peoples in this country were forcibly removed, stripped of all rights, including even the vote, and relocated on reserves – a system Israel’s enemies would, I think, no doubt label as apartheid.

And unlike those Jews who founded Israel, the non-indigenous settlers in Canada can’t claim that, long ago, their ancestors lived here but were evicted, or that they were promised the land by their biblical God.

As for who the original inhabitants of today’s Israel were, that of course depends far back in history you go.

But whereas no trace can be found in Canada of Europeans prior to the arrival of the Vikings, ancient Palestine has archeological, historical and theological references to Jews and Judaism for many centuries before it was conquered in 636-637 by the Arabs under Caliph Umar.

So there may be a silver lining in this anti-Israeli cloud. Many people now realize, thanks to being incessantly harangued by the Canadian left, that Canada too is a “settler colonial” state, so why single out Israel? If that country needs to be dismantled, by the same token so does Canada -- and we presumably don’t want that. So maybe we shouldn’t be so tough on Israel.

And by the way, the word “settler” is itself used as an ideological weapon. Large numbers of Arabs migrated into the pre-1948 British Palestine Mandate from nearby countries because Jews were developing its economy. Why are they not also called “settlers?”