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News & analysis from Proletarian Internationalist Notes—news, reviews and analysis from a global perspective
Fatah congress gives Marwan Barghouti a boost
December 7, 2016
A congress of Fatah members in Ramallah has re-elected Mahmoud Abbas to be the head of their party.(1)
The Times of Israel is confirming that intifada hero Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned in I$rael, was “the top vote-getter” for the Central Committee of Fatah.(2)
An I$raeli goon squad abducted Marwan Barghouti in Ramallah nearly a decade and a half ago. That was for allegedly playing a leading role in militantly supporting the two-state solution. Talks had failed, and I$rael had committed provocations. The I$raeli/amerikan entity called “Israel” convicted Barghouti on murder charges in a kangaroo court held in the part of Palestine also sometimes called “Israel.”
Abbas claims to be the President of the State of Palestine. Abbas is a figure functionally representing the Palestinian nation internationally at the State level. Ey has been unelected in that capacity for years after eir term expired. Palestine still needs elections. The amerikans and the I$raelis make holding elections difficult.
Maps of the spatial situation of settlements in Palestine look bad. No doubt about it. And Abbas and Barghouti appear to disagree about how to accomplish the two-state solution. Barghouti has critiqued some of Abbas’ actions. They both still support a two-state outcome in Palestine.
Mohammed Dahlan was reportedly excluded from the Ramallah congress. Dahlan has supported the idea of a Marwan Barghouti presidency. A week and fourth months from now, the amerikan-I$raeli entity will have taken Barghouti from eir spouse, family, and the Palestinian people, for fifteen years. If Abbas dies within four months, the most likely successor may be the highly popular Barghouti.
In the midst of a Saudi decision to execute mostly Saudis for alleged espionage on behalf of Iran, many different amerikan news organizations – ABC News, Fox News, CBS affiliates, NBC affiliates, U.S. News & World Report, the New York Times, the Washington Post(3), and Business Insider – all published an AP article with the title “Iran seeks more cooperation with Saudi Arabia.” According to the article, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokespersyn “Bahram Ghasemi told reporters Monday in his weekly briefing that the recent OPEC agreement to cut oil production and the Lebanese presidential election were both recent examples of Iran-Saudi cooperation.” “In November, the Lebanese parliament elected President Michel Aoun, an Iran ally, after a 29-month vacuum in the country’s top post. He designated Saad Hariri, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, as prime minister.” Hezbollah, which backed Aoun, is one the strongest non-state opponents of the Israeli entity. Saad Hariri is a billionaire who holds dual Lebanese-Saudi citizenship and has opposed Hezbollah.
None of that, including the article’s title, is “fake news” or inaccurate. But AmeriKKKans – both on “the right” and on “the left” – will oppose or get in the way of the two-state solution regardless. And they will still engage in warmongering and chauvinism against both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Unity of these two uniquely situated Islamic countries would be threatening to the Amerikans.
Lebanon’s previous, acting president was favored by Saudi Arabia. For other reasons, this reviewer isn’t sure the description of Lebanon’s selection of its leaders as “Iran-Saudi cooperation” was the best way of putting things. Evidently, there was still a need to send some message of Iranian-Saudi unity.
Iran and Saudi Arabia are struggling and trying to improve their relations. It is helping the Palestinians with their cause, which is also a cause of Arabs and Muslims. It is a cause of the world’s people who have an interest in peace and prosperity. Zionist elites and others in all areas of Israeli government and society urgently need to start doing more to exhibit rationality and prepare the way for the two-state solution and Marwan Barghouti’s freedom. They need to shove aside those in I$rael who are actively opposing a stable outcome with both a Jewish-majority state, and a Palestinian state with more sovereignty than the Palestinians have now. The United $tates lacks the capacity and the desire to really support the two-state solution or any other solution. In fact, it benefits from and supports the status quo in Palestine. It – the U.$. entity in North America that colonizes and occupies territory on both that continent and others – has the largest role in the so-called Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Palestine issue, Taiwan issue similarities
The united $nakes – the dominant and top exploiter, oppressor and aggressor with few exploited workers internally – is a threat to peace in the world. It perpetuates conflict. That is true also in the context of Chinese cross-Strait relations.
If u.$. president-elect Donald Trump has demonstrated a willingness to speed up history by abandoning pretense, that may pertain to the phone call several days ago from the leader in the Chinese island of Taiwan – just as much as it describes Trump’s public, frank words favoring I$raeli settlements before winning the election. Even the smallest gesture can be significant in diplomacy though Trump isn’t yet President, but the united $tates has long opposed a resolution of the Taiwan issue and even undermined the 1992 Consensus.
A major improvement in cross-Strait relations wouldn’t be in the strategic interest of the amerikans. The support, including arms sales approved by Obama a year ago, they give to the exploiters in Taiwan is similar in nature and effect to the aid they give I$rael. That is the case though Taiwan isn’t a distinct nation any more than Hong Kong is and most of the people in “Israel” aren’t part of the Palestinian nation.
Pearl Harbor attack, u.$. hegemony
Today is the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the u.$. Pearl Harbor naval base in Pu’uloa, occupied Hawai’i. It has become something of a fashion to talk about how amerikans could have prevented or avoided the attack, in addition to what would have happened if the attack hadn’t occurred. There were those who would have been happy to let Germany defeat the Soviet Union, or let Japan defeat China, so the question of amerikan responsibility for the Pearl Harbor attack is important only to a certain extent.
Even in the 1940s, there was no proletariat in the united $tates that could have brought about socialism there, with or without the Japanese attack. Now there are mostly wars of imperialist countries cooperating against capitalist countries in the Third World, and still no proletariat in the united $tates that can revolt or exert pressure. But today there is u.$. hegemony. U.$. hegemony is giving rise to anti-amerikan united fronts including an emerging united front against the united $tates on the issue of the amerikan-I$raeli colonialism in Palestine.
Iran’s foreign minister Javad Zarif is correct in saying recently “that consequences of hegemony [are] disastrous and that US invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and occupation of other countries prepared the ground for growth of terrorist forces.”(4) U.$. hegemony will continue to exist until the long and complicated struggle against it is complete.
Standards on independence, nationalism
The amerikans and their I$raeli collaborators have made the two-state solution, without armed struggle or militant uprising, more difficult. The two-state solution is still unavoidable, and Palestine is still a nation with national aspirations and rights.
A month after Trump’s victory, Calexit is still on the front page of some news sites.(5) Calexit has the potential to be confused with the Aztlán or occupied Mexico struggle, but a plurality of the people in California are “white, not Hispanic or Latino.” They outnumber “Hispanics,” “Latinos,” and “Mexicans.” Whether some of the people supporting California secession are anti-amerikan or not, the notion that Californians are a nation but not Palestinians is just as racist or chauvinist as the idea that Californians are more a nation than Chican@s or New Afrikans are.
Liberals are involved in promoting the idea that New Afrikan separatism is generally “hate” comparable to white supremacism. The treatment of an independent California as some kind of utopia while accusing Chican@, New Afrikan and Palestinian nationalists of hatred, for wanting to leave an abusive relationship, is delusional.
Some support New Afrikan nationalism but not Palestinian nationalism, not enough to favor the two-state solution over the status quo. That is division of the oppressed, and it represents exploiter interests of New Afrikans as people living inside the united $nakes. Both New Afrika and Palestine are nations that need self-determination and have a right to it.
The total Sioux population is a tiny fraction of the Palestinian population, as a result of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and ongoing national oppression by amerikans. That is not to mention the political organization and division of Sioux nations and groups and their locational/spatial situation, though there has been development in these related to the still-ongoing Sioux sovereignty struggle involving the Dakota Access Pipeline. The attitude of some (revealed in various ways) that the Oceti Sakowin constitute a nation and can have a state with sovereignty, but not the Palestinians, also reflects an attempt to divide the oppressed. Both the Oceti Sakowin and the Palestinians are nations experiencing and struggling against national oppression. They are both struggling for independence and sovereignty and will eventually achieve those things despite the extent to which they may be involved in fossil fuel production in the future.
The media have been discussing Kurdish interest in keeping captured territory after fighting with ISIS is over. Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria aren’t imperialist countries. The united $tates openly has military operations in three of those. I$rael is an imperialist entity. No offense to the Kurdish cause – which is best-advanced by opposing the amerikans – but the idea that Kurdish independence based on armed struggle is more realistic than Palestinian independence based on diplomacy probably isn’t a contrast Israelis would want people to be seeing.
In related news, British-Swiss Glencore (whose largest shareholder is the Qatar Investment Authority) and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund are together buying about 20% of Russian oil giant Rosneft.(6) Qatar may have had some problems with both Iran and Saudi Arabia, but Qatar has relationships with various countries in the Middle East and the world. Increased integration of Russian and Qatari interests, over the objections of the united $tates, would be a good thing. ◊
See:
•“The issue of Palestine won’t be removed from Iran’s agenda: Ayatollah Khamenei,” 2016 November 29 (2015 June 14). http://english.khamenei.ir/news/4378/The-issue-of-Palestine-won-t-be-removed-from-Iran-s-agenda-Ayatollah
• “Iranian-Palestinian relations develop in the midst of unexpected U.S. election result,” 2016 November. https://github.com/pinotes/pinotes.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2016-11-15-news-Palestine-Iran-Abbas.md
• “Palestine: Clinton election non-bombshells and real news,” 2016 November. https://github.com/pinotes/pinotes.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2016-11-07-news-Mohammed-Dahlan-Maan.md
Notes:
1. “Palestinians re-elect Abbas to new term as Fatah party leader,” 2016 November 29. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-29/palestinians-re-elect-abbas-to-new-term-as-fatah-party-leader
2. “Netanyahu blasts Fatah for electing Barghouti to senior post,” 2016 December 6. http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-slams-fatah-for-electing-barghouti-to-senior-post/
“Fatah Congress elects Central Committee and Revolutionary Council members,” 2016 December 5. http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=8ZPe4Va51779170212a8ZPe4V
3. “Iran seeks more cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” 2016 December 5. http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/12/05/world/middleeast/ap-ml-iran-saudi-arabia.html?_r=0
“Iran seeks more cooperation with Saudi Arabia,” 2016 December 5. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/iran-seeks-more-cooperation-with-saudi-arabia/2016/12/05/b3f7e876-bb06-11e6-ae79-bec72d34f8c9_story.html
See: “UN Council welcomes Aoun’s election,” 2016 November 3. http://saudigazette.com.sa/world/un-council-welcomes-aouns-election/ “On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia congratulated Aoun on his election despite the support he received from the Kingdom’s regional foes. / Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman telephoned Aoun to wish him success, “stressing the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s support for Lebanon and its unity”, the official Saudi Press Agency reported late Tuesday.”
4. “Zarif: Hegemonic era is over.” 2016 December 3. http://www.irna.ir/en/News/82330756/ “Expansion of terrorism in the region of west Asia have caused despair, humiliation and fear among the people, Zarif said. . . . Now in India, as the biggest democracy in the world, people may show their despair through ballots, as it is the same in Iran, as well, Zarif added.”
5. “How to make California great: secede, with a little help from Putin.” 2016 December 7. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-07/how-to-make-california-great-secede-with-a-little-help-from-putin
6. “Russia sells $11 billion stake in Rosneft to Glencore, Qatar,” 2016 December 7. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-07/glencore-qatar-fund-buy-russia-s-rosneft-stake-for-11-billion
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