The Dance a Coup Couldn't Cancel

US Patriots at the Pyramids 

The White House’s first wave of assaults on government-funded programs left many defunct or disabled. But at least one group managed to carry out its plans, without federal funds and in defiance of an order to stop. These intrepid and inspired artists are the performers of Time Lapse Dance, led by New York choreographer Jody Sperling (center, above).

With a grant from the US Embassy in Cairo, the company spent three years planning a tour--- to perform for children and young people at Egypt’s Hakawy International Arts Festival. On Sunday, January 26th, the day before they were to depart, Sperling woke up to a message from the State Department: her grant was terminated and she must stop the program immediately.  It was a short phone call, she says. She was in shock.  The costumes were all packed, the plane tickets purchased.  She began a frantic round of fund-raising, and re-negotiating contracts with her Egyptian hosts.  “They can’t stop us from going,” she said.  Long story short: the cancelled tour went on. 

The Israel Lobby and Us

 -- By Tom Phillips 

Columbia University’s Law Review was taken offline Monday after its editors published an article that said Palestinians are living under a “brutally sophisticated structure of oppression” by Israel that amounts to a crime against humanity. As of Wednesday night, the Review’s website said only that it was “under maintenance.”  By week’s end, the website was back online, with the complete fall issue including the article, titled “Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept.” It was accompanied by a statement from the review’s Board of Directors, complaining that not everyone had a chance to read the article before it was published.  The Board said for now it would “memorialize” its concern with the process, and continue to review it.

This was the latest iteration of a story that has been going on for decades. In 2012, after the Occupy Wall Street protests, I wrote about it, offending some people. But 90 percent of what I wrote then is relevant today — and more important than ever. At the certain risk of offending more people, I invite you to read “Across the Barricades 2: The Israel Lobby.” originally published here in January, 2012.

Occupying Wall Street, 2011

Last year’s occupiers of Wall Street included protesters against not just the financial and banking lobby, but other powerful interest groups that dominate political life in America.   And the harshest criticism from across the barricades was directed not at people like me denouncing corporate greed, but against a lone fellow with a sign protesting U-S aid to Israel – billions of dollars in annual aid to a modern, prosperous country, far more than anything we give to any of the world’s poor nations.  He was subjected to long, heated lectures from passersby offended by the idea that the U.S should not provide such extraordinary support to its special friend in the Middle East.   I sympathized with him, and told him so, because I’ve been through it.

In fifty years as a journalist, I learned that criticizing Israel is a risky business in America – it can cost you friendships, reputation, career, or political office.  For example, in the current presidential campaign, no candidate including the President has questioned U.S. support for Israel, even as Israel has repeatedly threatened to ignite a disastrous war by attacking Iran’s nuclear program.  They haven’t because to do so would guarantee a storm of protest from one of the most powerful interest groups in America, known as the Israel lobby.

Peace, Brothers

 

Gaza

On the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at the UN and in the Middle East, it has become impolitic to talk of Peace.  Nobody wants it -- it would just get in the way of the new Mother of All Battles, the bloodbath underway between Hamas and Israel.  Round Two is due to begin after Israel flattens most of Gaza, in preparation for a suicidal mission to "uproot" and "eliminate" Hamas. That's the same Hamas which has been allowed and encouraged to flourish for years by Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu, because it shares his distaste for Peace.  

Both sides are out of their minds. Hamas thinks it can reclaim the entire land of Israel and Palestine.  Israel thinks it can occupy that land forever, or steal what remains in such small increments that no one will fight back.  

Forget it, people.  It doesn't work and it never will.  

Here's a Peace Plan for Israel and Palestine: 

The Phony War

-- by Tom Phillips 

"It's a hard way to fight a war -- village by village, house by house --- with no guarantee of success." 

So reported the New York Times recently in a front-page article about small gains in Ukraine's counteroffensive against Russian-held territory in eastern Ukraine.  Meanwhile ABC's reporter showed Ukrainian troops firing at invisible targets, and said Ukrainian commanders "claimed" to have penetrated Russia's first line of defense.  

These are journalists' private ways of signaling to a knowing reader that the story is bullshit.  An actual Ukrainain counteroffensive would involve large-scale troop movements against Russia's heavily fortified front lines -- across a minefield that extends hundreds of miles.  Depleted Ukrainian forces would be relying on fresh recruits who have never seen combat.  It's not gonna happen.  

What's happening now is a phony war --- not for those who are dying, but those who are trying to make it into something it's not.  It's become a war of words, the US and Ukraine trying to spin minuscule advances by Ukrainian forces into what a Washington spokesman called "notable progress."  Such language, echoed in the mainstream media, serves mainly to prop up two beleagured presidents --- Volodymyr Zelensky and Joe Biden. 

Zelensky recently replaced his defense minister -- the new guy, Rustem Omerov, a bearded hipster who wears Ukrainian peasant shirts to his photo-ops.  Zelensky said nothing about changing military strategy.  He said defense minister Omerov would be devising "new formats of interaction with the military and society at large." In other words, PR and propaganda. 

Biden meanwhile has dug hmself into a foreign-policy foxhole by promising NATO membership to Ukraine and a fight to the finish with the Russians.  Poor Joe has to make it look good until election day 2024.  After that, he can slink away from these unwinnable goals -- and hope that too much isn't made of yet another misadventure in "promoting democracy."  

Half a million people have been killed over the last year and a half in Ukraine.  Zelensky would be well advised to negotiate for peace with the present lines intact.  But he is badly advised, by us.  We don't seem to care that our military interventions wind up wrecking the countries we set out to help.  Vietnam, Iraq, Somalia, Afghanistan, Libya, the list goes on.     

"How many deaths will it take 'til we know that too many people have died?"  

-- Copyright 2023 by Tom Phillips
Photo: Le Monde