Diplomacy & Crisis News

After eight years of deadly air strikes and terrorist attacks that have left hundreds of thousands of Syrians dead and millions of others injured, United Nations Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator Ursula Mueller asked the Security Council on Tuesday, the hard-hitting question: “Can’t this Council take any concrete action when attacks on schools and hospitals have become a war tactic that no longer sparks outrage”?

Des centaines de femmes allemandes manifestant au cœur de Berlin, en 1943, après Stalingrad, pour obtenir la libération de leurs maris juifs raflés et menacés de déportation. Impossible ? Le plus incroyable, c'est qu'elles obtinrent satisfaction... Le 27 février 1943, à l'aube, les SS de la (...) / Allemagne, Femmes, Génocide, Histoire, Judaïsme, Nazisme, Racisme, Seconde guerre mondiale 1939-1945 - 2005/05 Silence, mensonges et vidéo

Bribery is the main way people in North Korea get food, healthcare, shelter and work, a new UN human rights office report said on Tuesday.

“We need to tax pollution, not people”, and “end subsidies for fossil fuels,” Secretary-General António Guterres told the World Summit of the R20 Coalition on Tuesday, a UN-supported environmental organization, founded by former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Le meurtre d'un tiers des malades mentaux allemands, entre janvier 1940 et août 1941, a représenté pour les nazis le banc d'essai – technique et politique – du génocide des juifs. / Allemagne, Génocide, Histoire, Nazisme, Santé, Seconde guerre mondiale 1939-1945 - 2005/05 Silence, mensonges et (...) / Allemagne, Génocide, Histoire, Nazisme, Santé, Seconde guerre mondiale 1939-1945 - 2005/05 Silence, mensonges et vidéo

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Earlier this year, the U.S. Army published two volumes that amount to the most comprehensive official history of the Iraq war. They cover the conflict’s most important episodes: the U.S. invasion in 2003, the death spiral into civil war that took shape in the aftermath, the more hopeful period that began with the surge of U.S. forces in 2007, and the withdrawal that saw the last U.S. forces leave Iraq at the end of 2011.

Blandly titled The U.S. Army in the Iraq War and based on 30,000 pages of newly declassified documents, the study recounts a litany of familiar but still infuriating blunders on Washington’s part: failing to prepare for the invasion’s aftermath, misunderstanding Iraqi culture and politics and sidelining or ignoring genuine experts, disbanding the Iraqi army and evicting Baath Party members from the government, ignoring and even denying the rise of sectarian violence, and sapping momentum by rotating troops too frequently.

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Like a well-tuned orchestra, successful modern societies have a balance of diversity and culture, that is a source of “enormous richness, not a threat” said the UN chief on Monday, speaking alongside UN Messenger of Peace, acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in the Austrian capital, Vienna. 

S'inscrivant dans une tendance à la scénarisation des aliments lancée par les géants nord-américains de l'industrie agroalimentaire, les fast-foods proposent une viande parodique et désincarnée. Cette stratégie est destinée à atteindre leur cœur de cible : les enfants, (futurs) consommateurs à fidéliser à (...) / Agriculture, Alimentation, Idées, Mondialisation, Multinationales - 2003/11 Décoloniser les esprits

Amid what global Vaccine Alliance Gavi is calling an “unprecedented combination” of epidemics, the UN and partners are supporting  the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s major new immunization campaign against cholera which began on Monday, targeting more than 800,000.

Nowhere is safe in Yemen, the head of the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF said, after an attack in the city of Taiz claimed the lives of 12 civilians, including seven youngsters – the latest victims of the country’s more than four-year war. 

Une journée de grève générale est organisée par l'ensemble des syndicats français le 13 mai pour riposter au programme de régression sociale décidé par le gouvernement. Avec la hausse de la durée de cotisation de 37 ans et demi à 40 ans pour avoir droit à une retraite complète, la baisse du niveau des (...) / France, Économie, Finance, Mouvement de contestation, Protection sociale, Travail, Retraites - 2003/05 Animalité

The eight-year-long cultural phenomenon of HBO’s Game of Thrones culminated on May 18 with the fiery destruction of the Iron Throne and the death of the formerly beloved Queen Daenerys. The show’s final season has produced an explosion of commentary on what it all means. What is the appropriate basis for political authority? Can Daenerys be both a feminist hero and a war criminal? Does might make right? Should it, in a time of war?

Among the foreign-policy intelligentsia, and society broadly, interpreting Game of Thrones (and the book series by George R. R. Martin that the show is based on) has become a cottage industry. Every political analyst, historian, or theorist has his or her take on what lessons can be drawn from the story for real-world foreign policy. This enthusiasm tells us something about the show’s political implications: fans and writers argue over Game of Thrones precisely because there is power in interpreting a story to support one’s own arguments about what is right and who gets to choose.

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The town of Kitchanga, in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), hosts the highest concentration of internally displaced people in the country, and has been one of the regions most affected by clashes between local communities, made up of Tutsis and Hutus, especially in terms of accessing land. Today, however, thanks to a UN initiative, many disputes over land in Kitchanga are resolved through dialogue instead of violence, and families can cultivate, rent and make a profit from their land.

Le débat sur les retraites doit trancher cette question préalable : peut-on les payer ? D'énormes efforts de communication visent à convaincre qu'il faudrait choisir entre la manière la plus équitable et la moins douloureuse de répartir une baisse inéluctable. Rien n'est plus faux. Certes, on pourrait (...) / Finance, Protection sociale, Travail, Retraites - 2003/05 Animalité

In honor of the re-election of Modi, Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, declared: “Under your leadership, you will play an important role in protecting the oppressed minorities in Bangladesh, who are presently being slowly and gradually ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland.”

According to the BBC, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was just re-elected and thanked the people of India for giving him a “historic mandate” for the next five years, after he won a land-slide victory in the general election.  “We all want a new India,” he proclaimed.  “I bow down and say thank you.”  Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is projected to get about 300 out of the 543 seats in the Indian Parliament.

Following Modi’s victory, US President Donald Trump tweeted: “Congratulations to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his BJP Party on their big election victory.  Great things are in store for the US-India partnership with the return of PM Modi at the helm.  I look forward to continuing our important work together.”

In a public statement, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated: “Oh behalf of the government of Canada, I congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his re-election.  I look forward to continuing to work with him to improve the lives of Canadians and Indians alike through education, innovation, investing in trade, investment and fighting climate change.”  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu personally called Modi and congratulated him.  The conversation was posted on his Facebook page: “Narendra my friend, congratulation.  What an enormous victory!  I hope that I can see you very soon, as soon as you form a government and as soon as we form a government.  There is much to discuss on so many things.  Thank you for your congratulations on my victory but there is one difference.  You don’t need a coalition.  I do.”

On Twitter, Netanyahu tweeted: “Heartfelt congratulations my friend Narendra Modi on your impressive victory in the elections.  The election results are more a validation of your leadership and the way in which you lead the largest democracy in the world.  Together, we will continue to strengthen the great friendship between us and between India and Israel, and bring it to new peaks.  Well done, my friend.”

Modi’s government has been a strategic partner for both the State of Israel and the United States of America.  Under Modi’s leadership, India is expected to clamp down increasing upon radical Islamist terror groups in Pakistan and against China’s growing dominance in Asia.  Both of these strategic policies promoted by Modi will make him an ideal friend for the United States of America.  Aside from the US, Israeli-Indian-relations have blossomed under Modi’s leadership to an unprecedented level.  Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to ever visit Israel.  His re-election thus opens up many doors for a better trilateral relationship between Israel, the US and India.    

However, Modi’s re-election was not just welcomed in the West.  The Hindu community in Bangladesh also was very excited about his electoral victory.  In honor of the re-election of Modi, Shipan Kumer Basu, the President of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, declared: “I congratulate Narendra Modi, the honorable prime minister of India for being elected again on behalf of Mendi Safadi, the head of the Safadi Center for International Diplomacy, Research, Public Relations and Human Rights, and Bangladeshi dissident Aslam Chowdhury. I am feeling proud because you have been able to climb to power in India for a second time.”

“Under your leadership, you will play an important role in protecting the oppressed minorities in Bangladesh, who are presently being slowly and gradually ethnically cleansed from their ancestral homeland,” he noted. “I urge you to promote a free and fair election with international observers within Bangladesh so that ordinary Bangladeshis will have the opportunity to rise to greatness in the same manner that India has under your leadership.” 

Abishek Gupta, the President of the Indian Chapter of the World Hindu Struggle Committee, added: “For the first time in Indian politics, we have witnessed pro-incumbency.  This was due to the great work done by Modi over the past five years.  Modi has worked for the benefit of all age groups.  The Indian economy has become stronger, the army is more confident and India has really enhanced its prestige across the world.  Not only the BJP workers campaigned for Modi but so did the common man in India.  Nationalism, honesty and dedication won.  Congratulations to Modi from everyone in India.”  

The post Narendra Modi re-elected Indian Prime Minister: “An opportunity for Bangladesh’s minorities” appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.

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Cette citation est extraite de l’article de Jared Cohen, « Quand la technologie façonne le monde… », publié dans le n° 1/2019 de Politique étrangère.

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Charles de Gaulle famously asked how one can govern a country with 246 kinds of fromage. Historians could just as easily ask how one can understand a country with even more kinds of lieux de mémoire. A term coined by the historian Pierre Nora, a memory site is a shape-shifter. It points to those ideas or individuals, movements or monuments, literary works or legal texts which take on and take off different meanings over the centuries. In their three-volume work Les Lieux de mémoire, Nora and his colleagues applied the concept to a dazzling array of such sites, ranging from Verdun to Versailles, the Tour de France to the Tour Eiffel, the civil code to the paintings at Lascaux.

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The EU is many things, but sexy isn’t one of them. Obsessed with procedure, reports, and committees, the bloc has always been a bogeyman for governments both inside and outside it, a symbol of constitutional overreach and Kafkaesque bureaucracy meant to frustrate earnest national politicians trying to help their citizens.

There’s something to those claims. The EU’s setup is unlike that of any other government. The compromises its designers made to balance power between European capitals and Brussels have led to a mishmash of the traditional legislative and executive branches, with power divided unevenly between the European Commission (which proposes legislation), the European Parliament (which amends and approves it), and the Council of the EU (which does the same). The Council of the EU is not to be confused with the European Council, made up of all the heads of state or government of EU member countries, or the Council of Europe, a human rights organization unaffiliated with the EU.

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Despite the 18,000faithful who gathered recently in Washington, D.C. to pledge their unwavering support to Israel, AIPAC finds itself in a Dickensian moment of history that could be described as ‘It was the winter of gloating; it was the spring of scrutiny’.

AIPAC’s guests of honor may vary in faith and political affiliation; they may vary in fame, clout, and the sizes of their wallets. But on certain characteristics they are all identical: their cultish faithfulness in the mentality of ‘what’s good for Israel is good for America,’ and in their adherence to disseminate the committee’s talking-points on foreign policy ad nauseam.

As usual the AIPA Cconference has attracted big names such as Vice President Pence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others to rub shoulders with many bigwig donors, pundits and ‘king-makers’.

Sustaining Apartheid

After 7 decades of statehood, Israel remains unsustainable without billions of U.S. tax-payers’ money, without U.S.’ blind commitment to veto any resolution that attempts to hold Israel accountable for the routine human rights violations and transgressions against international laws- something that ironically would have justified ‘regime change’ if it were another country doing it.

Over the years, AIPAC has successfully marketed Israel as a “logical” cognitive dissonance. Though 2019 Global Firepower ranks Israel the 16th most powerful military in the world, it is presented in the US as a nation that is under existential threat. Though it is a wealthy, innovative, and advanced nation, it is presented as a nation that is worthy of perpetual unconditional funding from American tax-payers.

Looking Through the Stained Glass

Following Israel’s 70th anniversary, these 3 controversial AIPAC lobbied-issues came to fruition: termination of the Iran Nuclear Deal, transfer of US embassy to Jerusalem, and getting U.S. to recognize the Golan Heights as part of Israel; hence underscoring AIPAC’s exceptional clout in driving U.S. foreign policy. The only outstanding item in Israel’s wish-list is to declare the remanence of the Muslim Brotherhood—most of whom are in the dungeons of Egypt—a terrorist organization.  Surely these accomplishments could boost Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Donald Trump’s image- something they desperately need as specter of corruption charges looms.

That being said, despite the common perception, America, save President Carter, has never been an ‘honest broker’ in its effort to help negotiate peace between Israel and Palestine. And that duplicitous brokerage is now on steroids. Unlike previous U.S. envoys to the Middle East who diplomatically concealed their staunch support of above-all-laws Zionism, Trump’s son in law Jarad Kushner who is now piloting U.S.’ Middle East policy, seems to enjoy being closely affiliated with Netanyahu and the extreme elements of Israel’s politics.

The Missing In Action Media

AIPAC relies heavily on U.S. mainstream media for dissemination of Israel’s narrative and for perception management by omitting daily human rights violations that IDF commits against Palestinians, including children. So it should shock no one to see media groups that would assign reporters to file stories from dangerous war zones would never send reporters to educate American audiences on what happens at military check points or about the unbearable living conditions in Gaza.

Generally speaking, in democracies, media provides some of the most critical public services- information, scrutiny, and empowerment. Without them, the masses will remain ignorant or ill-informed, therefore easily exploitable socially, politically and economically, and those whom power is entrusted with will grow more authoritarian and abusive, with impunity.  

By the same token when media surrender their journalistic independence to the highest corporate or individual mogul bidders, they, in due course, grow dysfunctional and lose sight of their role to advance the public interest and keep power in check. In such condition, media become dangerous tools.

According to Gullup media trust survey, older Americans are more likely to trust the media than younger Americans are. In this latest survey, 53% of those aged 65 and older trust in the media, compared with just 33% of those under age 30,” And this demographic perceptional enlightenment is the biggest revolution against fictional narratives that cannot withstand the smell test. That revolution is not only active in social media; it has real presence in the United States Congress. And said presence is more profound than Adam Milstein, a major pro-Israel funder’s, Islamophobic claim that “The Muslim Brotherhood is now part of Congress” in reference to Muslim Congresswomen Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib or President Trump’s reckless posting of a propagandistic video implicating Rep. Omar as a terrorist sympathizer. Death threats against Omar have alarmingly increased since then.   

Imminent Clash With Congress

Donald Trump’s tweet has set thestage for U.S.’ formal recognition of the Golan Heights as part of Israel posted the day before the Special Counsel Rober Mueller turned in his final report on the Russia Investigation. Of course, this latest of  ‘Trumplomacy’ adventures has very little, if any, to do with U.S. national interest.

Trump’s violation of the international law that considers the Golan Heights as an occupied territory was meant to give another troubled leader, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is AIPAC’s choice, a boost in the upcoming election. This blind loyalty to Israel’s grand objective in the Middle East would further alienate and shut out any opportunity to reconcile with the Muslim streetsthat are fed up with the despotic older guards such as Egypt’s President Abel Fattah el-Sisi and the more youthful perilous pawns such as Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. This reckless decision endorses the ‘might is right’ world view, reinspire irredentism and intensify the sporadic disorders already underway in many parts of the world and undermine U.S.’ geopolitical interest in the long term. Most of the credit goes to AIPAC.

Before AIPAC came to the scene, the Jewish Zionist Council used to do heavy lifting when it comes to lobbying for Israel. Under the Kennedy administration, Attorney General Robert Kennedy launched an investigation that later found out that the Council has “compromised its position”thus ordering it to register as a “foreign agent”. The Council never registered. It was voluntarily dissolved, and, in late 1960s, AIPAC whose mission is “to strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel” assumed its functions. 

Due to the blurred line of U.S. national interest andAIPAC’s emboldened status under the current administration, it is a matter of time before the new generation in the House would demand hearings citing that 1962-63 investigation as a precedent.

Downward Indicators

This year’s de facto conference theme was ‘Let’s gang up of Ilhan, shall we?’ Led by Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who told the conference “take it from this Benjamin, it’s not about the Benjamins,” it is about Israel’s shared values with the U.S., he added. This assertion might persuade anyone who is oblivious to or ignores the fact that United Kingdom is the closest to U.S. when it comes to shared values, history, fighting side-by-side in major wars, and strategic partnership that ensures each a robust support for the other. But, everyone knows no politician who knows a thing or two about international relations could claim that U.K. and America will be friends forever. Yet, “Israel and America are connected now and forever,” said Speaker Pelosi.

AIPAC has been having a rough time spinning any and all legitimate criticism of Israel’s ruthless oppression of the Palestinian people as an ill-intentioned anti-Semitic attack on all Jews, though many of the most antagonistic toward that apartheid-like system are thoughtful Jews, Jewish human rights and peace-promoting organizations.

The United Nations has recently issued a reportblaming Israeli army for cold-blood killings of 189 unarmed Palestinians that include 35 children and some journalists and first aid workers and maiming more than 9,000 during  last year’s ‘right to return’ protests in Gaza.  The report which was based on more than 300 interviews and more than 8,000 documents concludes that Israel may have committed crimes against humanity. With these kinds of crimes and Netanyahu’s Likud Party forming partnership with a zealot party that promotes forced removal of Palestinians had compelled many including 2020 presidential candidates such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Kamala Harris to boycottattending the conference. President Trump did not waste time in condemning their decision to not pay their loyalty homage as an anti-Israel stance.

Meanwhile, the BDS movement continues to rapidly grow. Recently Brown Uniersity became the first Ivy League university to officially join the movement. Expect other universities to follow. 

Many holes are poked in AIPAC’s ‘carrot or stick’ groupthink power that had total monopoly on the Middle East narrative and the future of the Palestinian people. Just don’t tell those die hard AIPAC loyalists who were at the conference about it.

When groupthink rouses the masses into disorder it is a tragedy. And when groupthink rouses the political, economic, social, and the intellectual elite to surrender their autonomy to think critically and independently, it is a tragic comedy.  

The post AIPAC’s Weakening Grip On US Foreign Policy appeared first on Foreign Policy Blogs.