A former ambassador of Georgia to Russia, Mr Erosi Kitsmarishvili, has caused consternation in Georgia by claiming to a parliamentary inquiry that Georgia started the recent war with Russia. The controversy caused by his comments is somewhat unusual, given that Georgia appears to have actually started the war (by launching an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, accompanied by indiscriminate shelling and murders of Ossetian civilians).
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26 November, 2008
22 November, 2008
"We try to draw the line at outrageous things, and this is sort of one of them."
In 2007, Conrad Black was convicted of defrauding the company he headed of US$ 6,100,000 (STR£4,000,000) and of obstructing the course of justice. He is serving a six year sentence in a US jail.
Mr Black is in the news again because he is asking George W. Bush to pardon him before he leaves the White House. Pardoning shady characters is a traditional act of outgoing presidents keen to piss on their legacy; in Bush's case, he does not even have a legacy to piss on, so there must be a great many shifty crims hoping for a pardon by the end of January.
One astonishing feature of Mr Black's appeal for clemency is that his lawyers have submitted legal bills relating to it to his former company - the victim of his crimes. An unnamed spokesperson from the company supplied the above quote.
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Mr Black is in the news again because he is asking George W. Bush to pardon him before he leaves the White House. Pardoning shady characters is a traditional act of outgoing presidents keen to piss on their legacy; in Bush's case, he does not even have a legacy to piss on, so there must be a great many shifty crims hoping for a pardon by the end of January.
One astonishing feature of Mr Black's appeal for clemency is that his lawyers have submitted legal bills relating to it to his former company - the victim of his crimes. An unnamed spokesperson from the company supplied the above quote.
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When Post-Modernism Goes Bad
I was at an interesting talk the other night to launch the book Thinking Palestine*, a collection of essays based on papers delivered at that conference on the Palestinian "state of exception" I was at a while back. I will discuss the talk and the book in more detail later, but first an anecdote. Ronit Lentin, the editor of the book, mentioned a piece by Eyal Weizman, in which he discussed how some Israeli army training centre has taken on some crazy post-structuralist academics. The use of post-modernist and post-structuralist ideas in army training is apparently part of a whole new paradigm in urban warfare tactics the Israelis have been developing. After graduating from their course, the Israeli soldiers apply their post-structuralist ideas in a somewhat over-literal manner, deconstructing Palestinian houses by driving tanks through them.
As previously noted, elements of the Bush administration have also evinced a certain fondness for weirdo post-modernist ideas.
*Ronit Lentin (ed) (2008). Thinking Palestine. London: Zed Books
As previously noted, elements of the Bush administration have also evinced a certain fondness for weirdo post-modernist ideas.
*Ronit Lentin (ed) (2008). Thinking Palestine. London: Zed Books
16 November, 2008
Jerusalem Votes
Jerusalem held mayoral elections last week. An article from last Saturday in the Financial Times profiles the candidates. One odd thing about the election was that none of Israel's main political parties bothered putting up a candidate for the top job in the country's official capital. This reflects the extent to which the city has moved to the margins of the country's life, something that seems to only have happened over the last decade or so. Teddy Kolleck, Jerusalem's mayor from 1965 to 1993, was a prominent world figure, while Ehud Olmert (still, just about, prime minister of Israel) used the mayoralty as his springboard to the top job. Now, though, the mayoral elections are the province of eccentrics and personality candidates.
The rise of the religious right in Israel may be a factor in the decline in importance of the city. The ultra-orthodox are increasingly prominent in Jerusalem, and their ascendancy has led to many secular or moderately religious Israelis leaving the city. The city has become less and less a place of commerce or intellectual activity, and more and more a devotional centre. Another factor might be the city's relative isolation from the coastal strip that is the effective core of the Israeli state. Such things are relative (you could probably drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in an hour), but its physical position might engender a certain detachment from its day to day concerns.
One thing I was struck by in that Financial Times article was how the only candidate who, to me, seemed to talk any kind of sense was Dan Biron, running on the marijuana-legalisation platform. Aside from his cannabis decriminalisation policies, he had some other crazy policies – like having public transport run on the Sabbath. No one voted for him, however, because unlike all the other candidates he did not spend his time shiteing on about how Jerusalem must remain the eternal undivided capital of Israel. That points to another odd feature of Jerusalem – its divided nature. When I visited the city, I was staying just outside the Old City, near the Damascus gate. That part of the city is very Palestinian. Apart from the Israeli soldiers and the occasional ultra-orthodox Jew in the immediate vicinity of the gate, you could be in any middle-eastern city. But if you walked for 25 minutes you would be in the down-town area of West Jerusalem. Apart from the occasional ultra-orthodox Jew, the fact that every second person was carrying a machine gun, and the security checks at the entrances to everything, you could be in any city in Western Europe. The two parts of the city have almost no interaction with each other, apart from the occasional eviction of Palestinians to make way for a new Israeli settlement. However, the fictional unity of the city is a core value in Israeli politics.
Jerusalem's Palestinians largely do not vote in Israeli elections. In fairness to the Israelis, they have extended notional voting rights to the city's Palestinian residents, but most Palestinians refuse to exercise these. The feeling is that to vote in Israeli elections would somehow legitimise Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. I feel that this is a somewhat quixotic position, and it might well contribute to the general neglect of the Palestinian east by the municipal authorities. Politicians ignore people who don't vote, while a voting Palestinian public might just be able to form alliances with some of the city's Israeli politicians and set its government on a less nakedly sectarian course. As is, the elections largely reflected the divisions within West Jerusalem that pit the ultra-orthodox Jews against their secular and moderately religious fellow citizens.
In the end, Jerusalem's voters chose Nir Barkat as their mayor. He comes from the secular side of Israel's divide, but is uncompromising in his support for Jerusalem remaining under Israeli rule. He promises to expand Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, presumably evicting more Palestinians in the process.
More:
Profile: Nir Barkat (BBC)
Holy City facing splits and decline (BBC)
Ultra-Orthodox pitted against secular Jews in Jerusalem's mayoral election (Guardian)
The rise of the religious right in Israel may be a factor in the decline in importance of the city. The ultra-orthodox are increasingly prominent in Jerusalem, and their ascendancy has led to many secular or moderately religious Israelis leaving the city. The city has become less and less a place of commerce or intellectual activity, and more and more a devotional centre. Another factor might be the city's relative isolation from the coastal strip that is the effective core of the Israeli state. Such things are relative (you could probably drive from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem in an hour), but its physical position might engender a certain detachment from its day to day concerns.
One thing I was struck by in that Financial Times article was how the only candidate who, to me, seemed to talk any kind of sense was Dan Biron, running on the marijuana-legalisation platform. Aside from his cannabis decriminalisation policies, he had some other crazy policies – like having public transport run on the Sabbath. No one voted for him, however, because unlike all the other candidates he did not spend his time shiteing on about how Jerusalem must remain the eternal undivided capital of Israel. That points to another odd feature of Jerusalem – its divided nature. When I visited the city, I was staying just outside the Old City, near the Damascus gate. That part of the city is very Palestinian. Apart from the Israeli soldiers and the occasional ultra-orthodox Jew in the immediate vicinity of the gate, you could be in any middle-eastern city. But if you walked for 25 minutes you would be in the down-town area of West Jerusalem. Apart from the occasional ultra-orthodox Jew, the fact that every second person was carrying a machine gun, and the security checks at the entrances to everything, you could be in any city in Western Europe. The two parts of the city have almost no interaction with each other, apart from the occasional eviction of Palestinians to make way for a new Israeli settlement. However, the fictional unity of the city is a core value in Israeli politics.
Jerusalem's Palestinians largely do not vote in Israeli elections. In fairness to the Israelis, they have extended notional voting rights to the city's Palestinian residents, but most Palestinians refuse to exercise these. The feeling is that to vote in Israeli elections would somehow legitimise Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem. I feel that this is a somewhat quixotic position, and it might well contribute to the general neglect of the Palestinian east by the municipal authorities. Politicians ignore people who don't vote, while a voting Palestinian public might just be able to form alliances with some of the city's Israeli politicians and set its government on a less nakedly sectarian course. As is, the elections largely reflected the divisions within West Jerusalem that pit the ultra-orthodox Jews against their secular and moderately religious fellow citizens.
In the end, Jerusalem's voters chose Nir Barkat as their mayor. He comes from the secular side of Israel's divide, but is uncompromising in his support for Jerusalem remaining under Israeli rule. He promises to expand Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, presumably evicting more Palestinians in the process.
More:
Profile: Nir Barkat (BBC)
Holy City facing splits and decline (BBC)
Ultra-Orthodox pitted against secular Jews in Jerusalem's mayoral election (Guardian)
08 November, 2008
04 November, 2008
Democracy in action
'However, there have been attempts in Texas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas, to confuse voters, who received text messages allegedly from the Democratic Party telling them to vote on Wednesday.'
'"You can't walk through a black neighborhood here in Miami without seeing our 'Don't Forget Big Wednesday!' message up on a billboard, tacked to a phone booth, or taped to a bus shelter," Monreal added. "The Republican Party has spared no expense in this endeavor."'
'"You can't walk through a black neighborhood here in Miami without seeing our 'Don't Forget Big Wednesday!' message up on a billboard, tacked to a phone booth, or taped to a bus shelter," Monreal added. "The Republican Party has spared no expense in this endeavor."'
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