STRANGE TIMES

It seems clear that Bush and Rice are serious about trying to get an end to the war for greater Israel this year, but weakness on the part of Olmert and the Israeli Government is slowing the process up. It’s against the Israeli interest, as identified by Olmert, to not make a peace agreement with the Palestinians and he is now pushing forward with Syria and the ‘minor’ issues with Lebanon.

So what if anything is delaying things?Given how little I know about the inner workings of the Israeli ruling elite, I don’t know. However I would venture that the numbers in the Knesset, rather than the corruption scandal around Olmert, is the problem.  In short the Israelis are having real problems getting the deal done.

Rice is arriving this weekend to have separate meetings with Barak, Livni and Olmert so the pressure is still right on, but with the weakened state of the U.S. as the lastsuperpower, there is no certainty they will get their way this year, Nevertheless there is still a chance.

An interesting development at the moment is Olmert’s attitude to releasing Barghouti amid the increasing loudness of demands to do just that.  He commented publicly that he didn’t think it was a good idea at this stage:

“Imagine that Barghouti is released tomorrow. Is there a way for him to prove that he’s not a collaborator with the Israelis? There’s only one way: to be more extreme than the present leadership.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3972599.ece

So what are the issues that are unfolding? Continue reading ‘“So, how goes the war for Greater Israel?”’

This blog is called “Strange Times” for two reasons.

1. Politically the times are especially strange. The old ways of thinking have become formulaic and no longer help us make sense of world events. “Left” is now Right – how’s that for a start?

2. I think that “strangeness” is in some sense an intrinsic characteristic of life, the universe and everything. The times will always be strange. Let’s beware of the warm glow of “understanding”.

This is a group blog. Although we share a common stance, each blogger here writes for him/herself.

We are a bunch of people who all have communist backgrounds and are still committed to the overthrow of capitalism. We want the working people to take over, which means that the means of production will be socially owned and wage slavery (the final form of human slavery) will become a thing of the past. When this occurs it will be a truly revolutionary change, a leap into the future, qualitatively more dramatic and far-reaching than the democratic revolution which has been (slowly) transforming the way of life of people on this planet since the 17th century. Continue reading ‘Bonjour étrangers’