German Artists Take Over IKEA

I CAME ACROSS THIS INTERESTING AND ENTERTAINING PIECE about a group of artists in Germany who are going to be evicted from their warehouse workspace to make room for a new IKEA store. Lord knows there's never enough IKEA stores with those easy to assemble futons and their Swedish meatballs. But 50 of the German artists weren't happy with the idea of being evicted and decided to move into a local Hamburg IKEA store and just start working.

“Bring your notebooks, use the IKEA products to visualize future work, make your business phone calls (there are plenty of little niches). Drink coffee in the restaurant until you drop”, the organization instructed the activists. “Just behave like ordinary people in IKEA. Organize in pairs, look for a place in the store, and begin to work.” And so they started a parasite office within the walls of the Swedish furniture giant. “The protest action is a lesson about art, marketing, and consumption.”

I've always thought this kind of thing is a great idea. I'd love to see some socialist paper sellers in Yorkdale shopping mall, some unlicensed buskers, and maybe stilt-walkers and jugglers. The hallways are beautiful open spaces, naturally lit, with a feel of a high street market. Any takers?

Why I Support Somali Pirates

APPARENTLY SOME PEOPLE FELT THAT I WENT TOO FAR in defending Somali pirates as representing a legitimate response to imperialism. After all, the pirates take hostages and threaten - though, statistically, it is the pirates who are most likely to be killed. And, as the Wired interview I linked to notes, it is not in the interest of pirates to actually kill their hostages. There have been very few fatalities. Nonetheless, it raises some serious questions about political ethics for progressives. Luckily, being a know-it-all, I have a response.
The first response of course is that there's always a double-standard in the moral outrage about "criminals" and "terrorists". Nobody credible in the mainstream media would suggest that the US president is a terrorist or a criminal. Yet, the United States, under the leadership of pretty much every president, has been responsible for hundreds of times more deaths than any terrorist organization that you might care to name. Bush alone must bear responsibility for the deaths of hundreds upon hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clinton bombed Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and, of course, Somalia. Obama looks set to send another 34,000 troops to Afghanistan - and at $1 million bucks each, you can bet they won't be playing pinochle. They'll be killing people wholesale.
And the US is more than happy to hold people hostage, including starving people, using secret prisons, keeping them in legal limbo in Guantanamo, and the use of extraordinary renditions. In Somalia right now the US is holding millions hostage, refusing to allow US food aid out of Kenyan warehouses because it might get into the hands of the Islamist al-Shabab movement that is winning the war against the heavily-subsidized and heavily armed - by the US - TFG government in Mogadishu. Even Foreign Policy Magazine has an article condemning the policy, concluding with the following:

The U.S. government is holding the Somalia relief enterprise and its beneficiaries hostage to its counterterrorism policy... Until Washington lets [aid] agencies fulfill their mission unhindered, the U.S. mission to win "hearts and minds" in Somalia, a feared up-and-coming stronghold of terrorism, will be completely undermined. Knowingly allowing millions of people to suffer is no way to win friends.

But there's a second point, that I think is even more important. It is this: that the application of abstract universal values is politically useless to understanding the world, to providing a just framework for action, and to maintaining a coherent, non-hypocritical value system.
Let me put this more concretely. Is it right to say that lying is wrong? Most people would say "yes, of course. Honesty is the best policy." etc. And yet nobody actually believes that. We lie everyday, often several times a day. We lie to our boss - "sorry, I'm late: traffic". We lie to our spouse: "no, you don't look fat in that." We lie to our friends. Because we understand that context is what determines our response. Similarly theft - do we condemn the theft of a loaf of bread by someone so poor that to do otherwise would be to starve? Certainly the British condemned the Irish during the Potato Famine. And what is theft? Is it theft for children in Indonesia to work 12-hour days, being paid sweatshop wages by major multinational garment corporations? Is it theft for the world's largest banks to have gambled wildly and then, having brought the system to near collapse, demand public money, refuse public control, and continue to give out bonuses?
And lastly, of course, killing. Surely we must be against killing. Its a commandment from God himself. There's laws against it. We condemn it. But we don't condemn all killing. We have war memorials to commemorate the occasions of mass slaughter that punctuate our history. We're told to "support our troops", which always means "shut up and support the killing of foreigners in a war somewhere else."
So, unless we are going to consistently tell the truth, never steal and never support any war or violent act, we must permit that sometimes those actions are acceptable. The question is when are they acceptable and this really comes down to "whose side are you on?" It also means a concrete analysis of each situation.
Let's take the pirates since this is where we started. Somalia's pirates are indubitably - even the mainstream media acknowledge this - a response to the lack of a central government to police the waters of the Somali basin, and the devastating poverty of that country. The action of seizing boats might seem extreme but since the pirates aren't recognized as a legitimate sovereign authority, they are forced to use coercion. If we're honest, all state transactions - including taxation and tariffs - are rooted in the threat of violence (whether physical or financial) against the subject. We have created laws to mediate this but behind the laws that threat remains - and as the Branch Davidians or various aboriginal protest movements (or the Black Panthers or the MOVE organization or the trade union movement) have often discovered, it's not that far buried. So, the pirates, without the benefit of legal recognition, are applying the threat.
There's also a question of power implied here. Somalia is a country that is suffering because of the continued meddling, manipulation, invasion, bombardment, etc etc of the USA, et al. The USA support the dictator Siad Barre. They invaded to prevent Mohammad Farah Aideed from consolidating his power. They supported the Ethiopian invasion which forced the Union of Islamic Courts out of power, after they had brought a modicum of stability to the country. And now they are arming and backing a group that has no support outside of a few neighbourhoods in Mogadishu.
The USA is the most powerful empire in world history. It has bases in more than 100 countries. Its military spending alone makes up more than half of the total world military spending. Its economy is the world's largest. It controls the key international economic institutions in the world, the IMF, the World Bank, etc. It has invaded more countries and overthrown more governments than any other country in history.
From these two facts - oppression and domination - I draw two conclusions. The first is that the actions of the oppressed to alleviate their conditions are not the same as those of the dominant powers. The actions of, say, the pirates has a democratic component to it - they are attempting to overcome the effects of imperialism and to affirm their right to self-determination and sovereignty. The actions of the United States are designed to strengthen and affirm the present set-up, in other words their dominance. Thus, their invasions of Iraq or Afghanistan, their support for the Ethiopian dictator (the Jordanian dictator, the Egyptian dictator, the Israeli apartheid regime, of China, etc), are about sustaining domination. They run directly counter to democracy and self-determination. And since I support democracy - in the broadest sense of the term, including in the economy - because I believe that it is necessary for the full development of humanity, I support weakening the forces of domination. So, anything that weakens the Americans, their allies and clients, or other imperial powers (including the Russian, Chinese, British, EU, Canada, etc.) at the very least creates more space for the potential of democratic development. There will be no women's liberation in Afghanistan as long as NATO and the Americans are there. Only once the occupying powers are driven out, will there be the possibility of democratic development.
This doesn't mean that I support all actions putatively directed against the American state or other imperial regimes. Terrorism for instance, while often an understandable response, is usually counter-productive. (and by terrorism I don't mean the usual "anything that opposes us using violence is terrorist" discourse). When al Qaeda blew up the Twin Towers, did that weaken or strengthen the US? It strengthened it. It provided a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq and to increase the repressive powers of the US state through the Patriot Act, the open acceptance of torture as legitimate, etc. There is a question here of ends and means - ie. the ends don't justify the means, the ends are determined by the means. And that is why I support the pirates.

Support Israeli Conscientious Objectors

"Not A Single Palestinian Has Raised His Voice Against Hamas"

This is a fascinating article in Wednesday's Jerusalem Post about the state of the of the fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Essentially, the article argues that Hamas, while under significant pressure from the Israeli onslaught, has yet to buckle and continues to effectively resist.

What is particularly interesting is that one of the key goals of the offensive - to break Palestinians' support for Hamas, has utterly failed.

"Although Hamas has been hit hard, not a single Palestinian in the Gaza Strip has raised his voice against the movement and its leaders. Hopes that the massive IDF operation would encourage Palestinians to revolt against a weakened Hamas have not materialized.
If anything, many Palestinians agree, the Israeli offensive has actually boosted Hamas's popularity and undermined the so-called moderates in the Arab world."

It also admits that the IDF has been about much more than destroying the "infrastructure of terror", which one would assume means military stores, training facilities, bunkers, etc. Rather, they have destroyed "scores of Hamas-linked charities and organizations that were providing the Palestinians with a vast network of social, economic, health and education services."
This is an open admission of what is clearly a war crime.
No wonder the UN - minus the utter scumbags of Canada's Tory government - are accusing Israel of doing just that and calls are growing to take Israel to the International Criminal Court for genocide.

Meanwhile, over in Latin America, both Venezuela and Bolivia have announced that they are cutting ties with Israel over their invasion in Gaza. This is a brilliant response that will hopefully build momentum towards isolating the Israeli regime.

Photos From Toronto Demo

It was hard to say but there were certainly several thousand people outside the Israeli consulate this very chilly morning, demanding an end to Israel's slaughter in Gaza. Our whole house made it out to the rally - including my daughter Beatrice. It was the first protest for our little rebel grrl.

Jorge, Ian, Kathryn & Bea, Silja

Kathryn, my partner, & Baby Bea

Beautiful placard design

The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War placards - putting the heat on our Prime Minister

Now this, this was my favourite placard. Someone should do one with Stephen Harper.

Norwegian Train Drivers Strike For Gaza

From the Stop the War Coaition in the UK:

The Norwegian Locomotive Drivers Union has shown what trade
unions in Britain should be doing now: taking action in
support of the Palestinians in Gaza.
On Thursday 8 January all trains in the whole of Norway, and
all trams and subways in Oslo, stood still for two minutes in
protest against the Israeli invasion. The union issued the
following information for passengers:
Because of the situation in the Gaza Strip, the Locomotive
Drivers Union in Norway has decided to demonstrate our
solidarity with the Palestinian people. This will be organised
by adding two more minutes of stoppage at the station. The
same action applies to all passenger trains in Norway
simultaneously. We demand the immediate withdrawal of all
Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory. Thank you for
your understanding.

Jewish Women Occupy Israeli Consulate in Toronto

Toronto: Wednesday January 8, 2009 Time: 10:25 am

A diverse group of Jewish Canadian women are currently occupying the Israeli consulate at 180 Bloor Street West in Toronto. This action is in protest against the on-going Israeli assault on the people of Gaza.

The group is carrying out this occupation in solidarity with the 1.5 million people of Gaza and to ensure that Jewish voices against the massacre in Gaza are being heard. They are demanding that Israel end its military assault and lift the 18-month siege on the Gaza Strip to allow humanitarian aid into the territory.

Israel has been carrying out a full-scale military assault on the Gaza Strip since December 27, 2008. At least 660 people have been killed and 3000 injured in the air strikes and in the ground invasion that began on January 3, 2009. Israel has ignored international calls for a ceasefire and is refusing to allow food, adequate medical supplies and other necessities of life into the Gaza Strip.

Protesters are outraged at Israel′s latest assault on the Palestinian people and by the Canadian government′s refusal to condemn these massacres. They are deeply concerned that Canadians are hearing the views of pro-Israel groups who are being represented as the only voice of Jewish Canadians. The protesters have occupied the consulate to send a clear statement that many Jewish-Canadians do not support Israel′s violence and apartheid policies. They are joining with people of conscience all across the world who are demanding an end to Israeli aggression and justice for the Palestinian people.

The group includes: Judy Rebick, professor; Judith Deutsch, psychoanalyst and president of Science for Peace; B.H. Yael, filmmaker; Smadar Carmon, an Canadian Israeli peace activist and others.


Spokespersons for the group will be outside the Israeli consulate.


For more information contact:
Dr. Miriam Garfinkle
Phone: 416-731-6605
Email: mgarfinkle@sympatico.ca

Cathy Gulkin
Phone: 416-697-0768
Email: cgulkin@rogers.com

Judy Rebick
Phone: 647-388-1053

Gaza: Could Israel Lose?

The fifth largest army in the world, equipped with nuclear weapons and the full-backing of the most powerful empire in world history, has just invaded the Gaza Strip. It is fighting against a people in one of the poorest, most densely populated regions on the planet - and they have endured years of a total blockade of all entry points that have all but starved the people and destroyed the economy. 

It seems foregone that Israel will utterly crush Hamas and all Palestinian resistance. That's certainly the attitude of even Fatah, which had previously led the Palestinian national liberation movement. Why else capitulate so thoroughly to Israel's apartheid agenda, other than a belief that nothing else is possible but to lead an eviscerated bantustan?

But will it? Let's consider the possibility that Israel could lose their war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

OUTGUNNED

Obviously the Palestinians are outgunned. However, so were Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 when Israel was thoroughly humiliated by failing to achieve any of its constantly changing stated objectives. Hezbollah, and the politics of anti-imperialist resistance, received a huge boost as a result of that war, which also undermined regional quisling powers like the Mubarak dictatorship and the craven Hashemite monarchy in Jordan.

And the defeat in Lebanon highlights a key point made by Alexander Cockburn at Counterpunch.org: 

"The last time Israel had an effective military campaign that could be called a victory was 27 years ago, in the 1982 attack on Lebanon. Hamas has been greatly strengthened by the current attack and the status of President Abbas reaffirmed as a spineless collaborator with Israel;Mubarak likewise; Syria and Turkey alienated from Western designs; Hezbollah and Iran vindicated by the world condemnation of Israel’s barbarous conduct."

In fact, as he also argues, "Although ruthless and horrifying Israel’s onslaughts on Gaza are evidently an expression of weakness..."

Israel's leaders are thus striking against Gaza based upon a desperate need to restore Israel's deterrence and prestige, and short-term electoral calculations, rather than any real belief that they can win any lasting victory. After all, this is the third time since Israel's unilateral withdrawal that Gaza has been invaded - each time to no effect. Rather than achieving any of the stated, nebulous, goals (deja vu Lebanon, 2006), the "world isn't just watching the Israeli government commit a crime in Gaza; we are watching it self-harm."

Unless Israel is able to utterly smash Hamas - an unlikely prospect given its wide support and deep roots - all they will achieve within Palestine, besides wide-spread destruction, is more support for the resistance movement. And it may well be the case that Israel is forced to lift the siege of Gaza's economy to achieve an internationally backed ceasefire.

There is good reason to expect that this will be the case and that a further political crisis will follow inside of Israel, given Israel's record in the last three decades.

"The three last major conflicts entered into by Israel — Yom Kippur in 1973, Lebanon 1982 and Lebanon 2006 — have cost the jobs of three defence ministers, curtailed the military careers of commanders and weakened prime ministers.
"So the current Israeli leadership will have to pull off something special to survive the fallout from operation Cast Lead."

In the context where only 19 percent of Israelis supported a ground invasion and where tens of thousands have already demonstrated inside of Israel against this latest adventure, the stakes are high for the present Israeli leadership.

And the sight of the carnage being wrought by Israel is undermining it internationally as masses of people mobilize in Europe and North America - key bastions of support and money for Israel. 

US JEWS: THE LEAST ZIONIST AMERICANS?

The present invasion is likely weakening Israel's support base within the Jewish community for whom the Zionist state claims to speak. Already, there has been a long term decline in Jewish identification with Israel. 

Barely a majority of young Jews in a 2005 survey by the ultra-Zionist Israel Project identified themselves as "strong supporters of Israel" - part of a 20 year decline in support. And the number of Jews who defended Israel regularly was barely a third. 

This reinforces a 2008 survey by the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J Street, which found only 8 percent of Jews in the US felt that Israel was an important enough issue to decide for whom they would vote. As well, 78 percent supported a two state solution and 76 percent supported negotiating with Hamas. This puts Jews firmly in the mainstream of American opinion on the question. 

In fact, while the Israel Project's survey states that two-thirds of American's believe that Jerusalem should stay entirely under Israel's control and that only 20 percent believe it should be divided, J Street's survey indicates that 44 percent of US Jews accept the idea of Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jerusalem falling under control of a Palestinian state. 

In addition, while 59 percent of Jews support the idea of dismantling most West Bank settlements to achieve a lasting peace, the Israel Project survey of the general US population suggests that 52 percent think Israel shouldn't have to and 70 percent believe Israel should be able to trade other land, rather than move settlers.

Now, the results of both surveys should be taken with a large grain of salt, with poll questions so tilted to the ideological bias of the organizations that commissioned them as to be scientifically laughable. But they do indicate that American Jews are not somehow especially pro-Israel - if anything they are more critical of Israel than the general population in the United States.

American Jews - and this must surely apply to Jews in the UK, Canada and around the world - are just as apt to move into political opposition to Israel as the general population. That means that mass mobilizations that erupt - like the ones involving tens and hundreds of thousands that have already happened - can undermine a key ideological foundation for Israel. This war could put Israel's position as a key military and ideological prop in the war on terror at risk.

This will be especially the case if Hamas, like Hezbollah, fights Israel to a standstill or makes the cost of the war high in terms of Israeli soldiers and the comforts of Israeli citizens and settlers. There should be no illusions that Hamas can "defeat" Israel but they can, as with all asymmetrical warfare, wear down the enemy. 

But even in the unlikely event that Israel is able to achieve a "total victory" there is still the growing danger that the Arab anger this present brutality has unleashed will destroy the American empire's already shaky hegemony in the Middle East. In Egypt there have been demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands, feeding into a pre-existing movement for labour rights and democratic change. In Lebanon Israel's slaughter will strengthen Hezbollah and other resistance organizations. The rule of Jordan's "liberal" monarchy is also being tested as the Saudi regime's regional and domestic leadership is undermined. The Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 is now truly dead - perhaps the last gasp of the two state solution and any claim by Arab leaders to be able to provide a way out of the impasse.

If these regimes begin to collapse - and Egypt's is the one to watch - it will signal the collapse of four decades of work to create a compliant network of pro-American regimes, with Egypt as the jewel in the crown. America's rulers, already frustrated with Israel's failure in Lebanon to weaken Iran, may begin to raise graver doubts about the utility of Israel's Iron Wall strategy.

Israel truly has everything to lose in this battle and very little that it can possibly gain. Fifty years should have made clear that the spirit of the Palestinians cannot be broken. And the time has passed when it would be politically possible for Israel to exterminate or totally cleanse the Palestinian population. The end game may yet be a long way off, but that it approaches shouldn't be doubted.

Egyptians Rage At Hated Regime

by Hossam el-Hamalawy
Reprinted from Socialist Worker UK
From the moment that Israel began its onslaught on Gaza, mass demonstrations broke out in Egypt. Up to a quarter of a million people took part in the first two days of demonstrations.
The protests have taken place in virtually every Egyptian university, outside all the big mosques and outside the Press Syndicate building in Cairo.
Everyone is accusing Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak of complicity in the Israeli attacks.
When there is a humanitarian crisis and people are fleeing from war, neighbouring countries usually open their borders to refugees. Mubarak has done the opposite.
He has closed down the Rafah crossing from the Gaza Strip. The city of Rafah is divided like Berlin used to be – there’s a Palestinian side and an Egyptian side.
CAGE
By shutting the crossing Mubarak is locking the Palestinians in a cage and effectively telling the Israelis to finish them off.
This is because the Egyptian regime sees Hamas and the Palestinians as a radicalising element and a threat to its own stability.
The protests follow a wave of strikes and workers’ struggles that have shaken Mubarak’s dictatorship over the past two years, particularly in the industrial city of Mahalla.
Workers have fought back despite facing torture and repression at the hands of the Egyptian regime – which the US backs to the hilt.
Egypt is the main Arab client regime of the US. It is the largest recipient of US aid in the Middle East after Israel.
There is so much anger at the regime’s role in the attack on Gaza and its support for Israel.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister, told a press conference last Saturday that Hamas was to blame for the assault on Gaza. “Egypt warned for a long time and someone who ignores warnings is responsible for the outcome,” he said.
OBSCENE
The Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni was visiting Mubarak when the assault on Gaza started. In an obscene and shameless way, she declared war on Gaza from Cairo.
People can see that the Israelis would not have been able to do what they are doing without Mubarak’s help.
Those taking part in the demonstrations include socialists, Arab nationalists and activists from the Muslim Brotherhood – Egypt’s largest opposition movement.
The protests are against the Israeli attacks and the US, but they are also against Mubarak and the corrupt and pro-US Arab regimes.
This is a new phenomenon. We’ve always had pro-Palestinian demonstrations but people would typically find excuses for Mubarak.
You don’t get this now.
This change has shown up some tensions in the movement. Some leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood are conservative – they have tried to stop younger members from chanting anti-Mubarak slogans.
But many other people have been radicalised, especially after Israel was humiliatingly defeated in Lebanon in 2006. The socialists and nationalists are clearly attacking Mubarak.
We are organising aid for the Palestinians in Gaza. Some socialist activists sent an aid caravan to Rafah.
We are hoping to send eight more caravans and trying to involve a broader range of political forces.
We’ve been collecting donations from activists and workers – everybody has donated generously.
In the past the Egyptian regime has tried to block these aid caravans to Gaza. They usually crack down on them, but because the regime is on the defensive they can’t be too heavy-handed.
Struggles in one area have an impact on others. The strike wave this year started after five years of mobilisation around Palestinian and anti-war issues. These protests gave workers the courage to start fighting.
BOOST
And this boosted the anti-war movement. The last aid caravan to Gaza was organised by the Mahalla strike leaders. That is not a coincidence.
We are calling on all our friends, comrades, brothers and sisters around the world to take to the streets.
There have been angry protests outside every single Egyptian embassy in the Arab world.
If you’re organising solidarity with Palestinians, protest outside Egyptian embassies too. The biggest favour we in Egypt can do for the Palestinians is to overthrow Mubarak.