Tel Aviv at 100

Tel Aviv was 100 year's old on the 11th April. Here's an interesting post on the city's early history by Mark A. LeVine: 100 Years of Solitude: Tel Aviv's Anniversary. Like many places in the world, Tel Aviv has a somewhat fictional history, based in this case on the idea that it sprang out of the sand and grew into the modern city it is now without any Arab involvement or displacement.

I am somewhat sorry that I never made it to Tel Aviv when I was in Palesrael, everything I have ever read about it suggests that it is a bizarre and interesting place. Maybe one day, when the Israel-Palestine issue has been settled...

Where I heard about this

Communism Fail

The opening of the Berlin Wall on the 9th of November 1989 is probably the most emblematic moment in the fall of communism in Eastern Europe. A less remarked upon, but perhaps more ultimately significant, event took place twenty years ago yesterday. On the 17th of April 1989, the ruling communists in Poland agreed to hold partially competitive elections. The elections were meant to leave the communists in power, as 70 out of 100 seats in the Polish parliament's lower house were reserved for them and their allies in various front parties. When the elections were held (on the 4th of June), the communists were humiliated - they and their allies failed to win a single one of the contested seats in the lower house, while the communists only won one seat in the Senate (where all seats were contested). Although they still had a massive parliamentary majority, their political bankruptcy was exposed, and the opposition Solidarity movement was invited to form a non-communist government.

People still argue over what caused the collapses of communism in Eastern Europe. Whatever the cause, my own view is that once one of the Soviet satellites started unambiguously on the road to free elections the jig was up for the lot of them. Any one country's progress down the road to freedom made it apparent to oppositions and governments everywhere that the Soviets were not going to send in the tanks to shore up their allies. None of the communist regimes ultimately had the wherewithal to maintain themselves in power, and they all fell to the upsurge in oppositional activity triggered by developments in Poland.

Poland's history since the transition has been... interesting. Successive governments have had to grapple with the economic bankruptcy bequeathed by the communists, while the inevitable break up of Solidarity made politics somewhat chaotic. People like Lech Walesa, who were genuinely heroic in opposition, seemed somewhat less than suited for the nuanced world of democratic politics. Nevertheless, the country has made impressive progress, apparently weathering the current economic storm better than most.

Some interesting pieces on the BBC website:

How Poland became an aid donor (one of the more benign views of Poland's "shock therapy" transition to market economics).

Children of the Solidarity revolution (the human cost borne by those whose family members ultimately brought down the dictatorship)

1989: Key events in Europe's revolution (a series of pieces on the momentous events of 1989)

1989 - Europe's revolution (more on that great year)

Phantom Countries: Transnistria

Transnistria exists on territory recognised internationally as part of Moldova. It is divided from the rest of Moldova by the Dniester river (hence then name, though the variation in spelling confuses me). I understand that it is inhabited mainly by ethnic Russians (despite being separated from Russia by Ukraine), while Moldova proper is mainly inhabited by ethnic Moldovans (who may or may not be a subset of ethnic Rumanians). Moldova was part of the Soviet Union, and when the USSR broke up it became an independent state. Transnistria came into being when some local politicians decided that they would rather have their own little country. Russian troops based in the region supported their rejection of Moldovan rule. Since then, Transnistria retains its independence thanks to the ongoing presence of Russian troops. Transnistria also houses most of Moldova's electricity plants, so if the Moldovans ever get bolshy then Transnistria turns off their lights.

As far as I know, Transnistria has no external recognition, although it gets ambiguous support from Russia. Its situation is thus somewhat analogous to that of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Politically, Transnistria seems to be run by a thuggish authoritarian clique. I understand that the country functions as a kind of Soviet theme park, with its towns still full of red stars and statues of Lenin. I have also read it described as the kind of country you would not want to stay in after dark, particularly if driving in a car with Moldovan registration plates.

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Phantom Countries: Puntland

Even by the standards of phantom countries, Puntland is a funny place. Like Somaliland, It sits on part of the territory of the internationally recognised country of Somalia, with Puntland occupying the Somali corner. Unlike Somaliland it is not a secessionist entity as such. Although Puntland has its own administration and has left the chaotic south of Somalia to its own devices, the leaders of Puntland have not declared independence and have not sought international recognition. Rather, they have just set up their own semi-functional administration, and declared a willingness to reintegrate into the rest of Somalia once there is a Somali state to reintegrate with.

Given the disorganised nature of the rest of Somalia, the likelihood is that Puntland will be left to its own devices for some time to come. This may be just the way its leaders like it. My understanding is that Puntland is the main base for the notorious Somali pirates, and its anomalous status makes it easy for the pirates to go about their business. In some respects, therefore, Puntland is like a giant Port Royal, with the leaders of the territory using the pirates as a handy source of foreign exchange. Perhaps in the future the leaders of Puntland, with their experience of actual administration, may stage some kind of reverse takeover of the rest of Somalia, but for the moment they will have their little kingdom to themselves.

The territory administered by Puntland's government overlaps the former border between the British and Italian Somali colonies. This is problematic for Somaliland, as part of its independence claim is based on it being a withdrawal by the former British Somaliland from unified Somalia. That claim becomes somewhat fanciful if the Somaliland government does not actually administer all the territory of the former British colony. Somaliland does nevertheless claim sovereignty over all of British Somaliland, so it finds itself claiming territory occupied by Puntland. I don't know if either Somaliland or Puntland have much in the way of armed forces, but it would be a bit ironic if the two semi-functional bits of Somalia were to find themselves locked into a border war.

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What are those British bases on Cyprus for?

This is basically an adjunct to my piece on Northern Cyprus. When Cyprus became independent, Britain obliged its former colony to retain a number of British military bases on the island. As far as I know, these were granted to Britain in perpetuity. Not merely that, but sovereignty in the territory of the bases lies with the UK – Cypriot law does not apply to them, and the bases are effectively part of the UK (or part of the territory of the UK crown).

Now, normally speaking, when you get these kind of bases forced onto a host country, the owner of the base usually undertakes to provide the host with some kind of military protection. I do not know if Britain did this when Cyprus became independent, but I do know that when Cyprus was subject to foreign invasion, the British forces sat on their hands and decided that the defence of their host was nothing to do with them. The British bases on Cyprus seem to exist solely for the benefit of the former colonial master, without even the pretence that they exist to provide security to their Cypriot hosts.

Phantom Countries: Northern Cyprus

My series on anomalous and unrecognised countries returns!

The full name of this phantom country is the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. As that suggests, Northern Cyprus lies along the northern edge of Cyprus, and it is inhabited by people who have a Turkish ethnic identity. Turkey is the only country that recognises its independence. This is not entirely coincidental. Northern Cyprus was established on the territory seized from the rest of Cyprus by the Turkish army in 1974.

Cyprus had previously become independent from Britain as a unified state. Ethnic Greeks formed a substantial majority. Relations between them and the Turkish Cypriot minority were often tense. In coup brought a right-wing clique to power in Cyprus. They were committed to unifying Cyprus with the rest of Greece, then also ruled by an ultra-nationalist right-wing dictatorship. The prospects for Cypriot Turks would then have been rather poor. In response, Turkey launched an invasion of the island. Resistance was easily crushed, with the Turkish army establishing control of what subsequently became Northern Cyprus.

My understanding is that the invasion triggered a bout of ethnic cleansing. All (or almost all) Greek Cypriots were expelled from the northern zone, with almost all Turkish Cypriots moving north (freely or under duress) from the territory retained by the Republic of Cyprus. The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus was formally established in the early 1980s.

For many years after the Turkish invasion, the island of Cyprus was divided by a no-man's land patrolled by UN troops, with the capital city of Nicosia divided by a mini-Berlin Wall. The restrictions on movements between the two parts of the island have eased in recent years. Nevertheless, without the ongoing support of Turkey (which maintains a sizeable military presence on the island), Northern Cyprus would not be able to resist reabsorption into the Republic of Cyprus.

Northern Cyprus is an odd and ambiguous place, even by the standards of phantom countries. It is largely unrecognised as a state, yet it seems to have a certain tacit recognition as a de facto player in the drama of Cypriot politics (not least from the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, whose leaders negotiate directly with their Northern Cypriot counterparts). The region nevertheless looks unlikely to gain widespread recognition as an independent state. This does not seem to even be a key goal of the Northern Cypriot leaders - they seem to be seeking not so much wider recognition for their "state", but its dissolution. Their goal is to unify Cyprus as a confederal state, with Northern Cyprus and the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus as sub-units. The motor for this lack of interest in Northern Cypriot nationalism is economic – Northern Cyprus has stagnated since the island was partitioned, while the internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus has motored ahead.

In 2004 it seemed as though the conflict on Cyprus was about to be resolved. Under EU & UN auspices, the leaders of the two Cypriot entities had agreed a deal that would have seen the island reunited as a decentralised state comprising two subunits. The deal failed because southern Cypriot leaders developed second thoughts and successfully urged their compatriots to reject the deal in a referendum. The EU was caught on the hop by this unexpected outcome, as southern Cyprus had been allowed to accede to the European Union regardless of the outcome of the referendum. That allows southern Cyprus to block or disrupt EU engagement with either Turkey or Northern Cyprus.

So where now lies the future for Northern Cyprus and the rest of the island? The likelihood must be that eventually some kind of deal is done that is acceptable to both parts of the island, and this will lead to the establishment of a bi-national state with Greek and Turkish sub-units. One odd thing about all this is that this is likely to be an apartheid solution, with the Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations remaining in their ethnically homogenous regions. Northern Cyprus will probably surrender substantial territories to the Greek Cypriot zone, reflecting the relative imbalance in power, wealth, and population between the two communities.

Politically, Northern Cyprus seems to be a functional representative democracy. It has semi-presidential constitution, with the president exercising more power than the prime minister.

As an aside, Northern Cyprus is one of the more readily visit able phantom countries. One can fly there, albeit with a stopover in Turkey, and my understanding is that one can now cross from the Republic of Cyprus to the TRNC. I believe Northern Cyprus to have a reasonably developed tourist infrastructure and a surprising number of sites of interest to the discerning traveller.

EDIT: see comments for fascinating semi-presidentialism related chit chat.

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The Guardian: Dealing with the REAL issues

It is sometimes easy to forget the extent to which the supposedly serious media has given itself over to fatuous and inconsequential pursuits. And then last Friday I found the Guardian running this prominently on their website's front page.

Man Dies In Police Custody During G20 Protest

Meanwhile, the guy who died yesterday during the G20 protests yesterday has been named as Ian Tomlinson. He seems to have been someone who worked in a newsagent in the City of London. It is unclear whether he was taking part in the protests or was just trying to get home from work. Either way, he found himself caught in a "kettle", this being what the British cops call an area in which they contain protesters, preventing them for leaving sometimes for hours on end. At this stage it is unclear what caused Mr Tomlinson's death.

This "kettle" tactic of the UK cops – on the face of it, it sounds like a form of mass arrest, in that the people held in the "kettle" are prevented from leaving until such time as the police decide to let them. This imprisonment can last for considerable periods of time – yesterday the police held protesters for some seven hours. Following an earlier incident, in which a person so held challenged their imprisonment in the courts, the House of Lords ruled that this form of detention is not illegal under British law.

Ian Tomlinson image source

Three more articles (all from the Guardian):

G20: Questions need to be asked about 'kettling'

G20: The upside of 'kettling'

G20: Did police containment cause more trouble than it prevented?

EDIT: You have probably seen this by now, but the Guardian has obtained footage showing some cops walking up behind Mr Tomlinson and decking him for no obvious reason. See: Ian Tomlinson death: Guardian video reveals police attack on man who died at G20 protest

The Summit of the Spectacle

People are getting very excited about the current G20 summit. In the past, we used to have the G7 summits, where the leaders of what were then the seven largest industrial economies in the world used to get together to hold very important discussions on stuff. In the 1990s, this expanded into the G8, with Russia's leader invited along to the party. Perhaps in response to complaints that the G8 was unrepresentative, this year's event is hosting the leaders of 20 countries – the previous G8, plus a number of others recruited in a mysterious manner.

G8 Summits have always been rather inconsequential, and the G20 will no doubt be the same. Maybe they will agree some communiqué stating the need to take urgent action to address the pressing problems of the world. Or maybe they will not. Either way, things will go on pretty much as before. G* communiqués do not have the force of international law, and I do not think that any one of these summits has ever produced a major policy initiative that was subsequently delivered upon. These summits are simply talking shops, occasions for the world's leaders to get together and feel important because of all the other important people they are getting to have chit chat with.

One might ask, then, why it is that these summits are taken so seriously. In the case of the media, this is not too surprising. Whatever about the lack of substance to these events, they have a certain razzamatazz. Particularly with the USA having an excitingly charismatic new president, the whole event has the kind of glamour that easily fills column inches or nightly news bulletins. What is perhaps a bit more surprising is the vigour with which various groups take to protesting or trying to disrupt these summits. For some protesters, the media spotlight on the summits is an opportunity to publicise their own demands and proposals. For the more fundamentally anti-system protesters (people who want to, you know, overthrow capitalism and stuff) the payoff is less clear.

In conversation, some anarchists put it to me that their kind of protests serve to delegitimise the summits. I suspect, though, that they have almost the opposite effect. I do not mean that rowdy protests discredit opponents of the summits. Rather, noisy and disruptive protests make these summits appear like more significant events than they actually are. It looks to me like the anti-summit protests feed the egos of the very important people attending the summit, making them feel like their chit chat must be of great moment if people are so eager to protest against it. If the G* summits are simply a spectacular event, then the protesters are just playing their part in the spectacle's reproduction.


a man of wealth (and taste) image source

who is John Galt?

edited to remove dud picture code and associated link

Lebanon Media Unfail

I mentioned ages ago that the Daily Star, Lebanon's English language newspaper, had ceased publication. Well it seems to be back now. There seem to be parliamentary elections coming up in June, and the Daily Star has a report on the various parties' candidates.

Don't Bother Rounding Up The Usual Suspects

An Israeli army investigation into alleged Israeli army war crimes during the recent bombardment of Gaza has concluded that the Israeli army has no case to answer. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak has announced that the investigation reveals that Israel still has "the most moral army in the world".

For Your Protection

From the website of the Metropolitan Police,

hat tip

The USA's Israel Lobby (slight return)

You have probably heard about this "Israel Lobby" controversy. What happened was that Stephen Walt and John J. Mearsheimer, two American International Relations academics, wrote an article about the USA's tendency to support the most hawkish elements in the Israeli body politic. They saw this as being thanks to the influence of a powerful pro-Israel lobby in the USA. They furthermore asserted that this support for the Israeli right was detrimental to US interests (and, ultimately, to those of Israel). The authors of this article were not the usual leftist types, but theorists from the Realist school of International Relations. Their article let to predictable outrage.

Recently, President Obama proposed to appoint some guy called Charles Freeman to chair the US National Intelligence Council. Last week, however, Freeman withdrew his candidacy, citing a campaign of vilification against him by this Israel Lobby.

There is an interesting article in the Guardian by Jonathan Freedland on this incident: "Discard the mythology of 'the Israel Lobby', the reality is bad enough". Freedland is asserting that the Israel Lobby is not responsible for the near unconditional support that the USA gives to Israel. He is, however, doing it from a leftist perspective, and like Mearsheimer and Walt he sees the American support for Israel as ultimately malign. He does not deny the existence of a US lobby in favour of Israel (it would be hard to claim that the likes of AIPAC do not exist), but sees US support for Israel as being driven not by it but by self-interest – the self-interest of the USA's power-elite.

Freedland's article is interesting, and is a useful summary of the kind of argument he and others have advanced. It does have its problems, however. He creates something of a straw man out of Mearsheimer and Walt's argument, claiming that they see this Israel Lobby as omnipotent, when clearly they do not. Ironically, like many pro-Israeli opponents of Mearsheimer and Walt, Freedland seems also to casually conflate their idea of a powerful pro-Israel lobby with anti-semitic ideas of a sinister cabal of Zion's elders ruling the world. I am also unconvinced by his assertion that Israeli leaders were against the invasion of Iraq; I recall numerous Israeli commentators writing in the pages of Ha'aretz before the invasion, more or less asserting that anyone opposing the invasion was clearly an enemy of Israel.

At some stage of the game I will probably write more on different explanations offered for the obvious closeness between the USA and Israel, before going on to offer my own synthesis of them.

L'enfer, c'est les Australiens

Australia's foreign minister Steven Smith is very concerned about recent events in Pakistan, in particular the attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team.

"This was very much an existentialist threat to Pakistan itself," commented Mr Smith.

The Pakistani authorities are reportedly on the lookout for gitanes and gauloises being smuggled in to the country's beret-wearing maniacs.

Hat-tip

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Cast Lead Fail

You will recall that the Israeli state's recent campaign against Gaza was dubbed Operation Cast Lead, a name picked to denote how uncompromisingly brutal it would be for the Palestinians. Two months after the campaign ended, some people in Israel have started wondering whether Cast Lead achieved anything for them. Although death and destruction was meted out to the people of Gaza, it has not succeeded in its stated aim of halting the firing of rockets from Gaza into adjacent Israeli territory. The level of rocket fire now is down on what it was in late December; I suspect it is roughly comparable to what it would have been before the Israeli state repudiated the truce it had with Hamas by assassinating three of that party's activists back in November. It seems also that members of the Israeli public have started to register how badly the Gaza war has affected their country's image – it never really looks that good when your army tells people to shelter in a school and then fires tank shells at them.

What is both interesting and disturbing about all this is that anyone with half a brain could have predicted this outcome from the Gaza campaign – that Israel would fail to halt the rockets and would further erode its international standing. Whatever you think about the morality of their actions, there seems to be a lack of basic rationality on the part of many Israeli decision-makers. The Gaza campaign did not even succeed as a cynical attempt by the then government to buy popularity with the Israeli public. The decision to launch the Gaza campaign was taken by a government led by the Labour and Kadima parties, both of whom have been consigned to the opposition benches by the recent elections.

Israel's new ultra-right coalition has reputedly decided that for now the rockets from Gaza can be lived with. Minds are apparently being focussed on how the economic crisis is hitting Israel, making a repeat of Operation Cast Lead now rather unlikely. The new government of Binyamin Netanyahu, however, has not decided on a new pacific course of interaction with the country's neighbours. Instead, his leadership is reported to be planning a strike of some sort against Iran.

Ireland: FAIL?

I have been meaning to write a bit about Ireland's current economic travails, for the benefit of my foreign readers, but I am finding the subject a bit too depressing. So instead, here are two cheering links:

Irish government faces growing fears of debt default (Guardian, yesterday)

Bank guarantee likely to deal a crippling blow to the economy (Irish Times, today)

Israel Election Latest!

Blah blah shift to the right, parliament as fragmented as country, parliament full of crazy parties, etc. Look it up in a news website, whatever.

The one thing I was a bit surprised to notice was that the Israelis seem to have stopped having direct elections for their prime minister. When did that happen? I took my eye off the ball on this one.

Russia's faux semi-presidentialism

Russia is often lazily lumped in with semi-presidential countries, largely because it has a president and a prime minister. The model does not really fit. Dmitry Medvedev's assumption of the presidency was so managed by the country's elite that you cannot really call the president directly elected, while Prime Minister Vladimir Putin is only responsible to the Russian parliament in the most notional of senses. Meanwhile, state maintains a stranglehold on the media and journalists who criticise the regime have an unfortunate tendency die sudden and violent deaths. Russia is effectively an authoritarian regime with a semi-presidential façade.

Still, Russia has the trappings of a dual executive system, and there is always the possibility that the premiership and presidency could turn into rival centres of power. When Putin handed over the presidency to Medvedev and assumed the premiership, it was widely believed that he would remain the real master of Russia, with Medvedev acting as his puppet or the friendly face he could present to the world. Events seemed to support this interpretation, with Putin appearing to use the premiership as a way of ruling form the shadows.

More recently, though, there have appeared what might be the first signs of a Putin-Medvedev split. Russia's economy has been hit hard by the collapse in oil prices, and without petrodollars to throw around the regime finds it harder to buy compliance. Russian cities have seen demonstrations recently, with angry people hit by the economic crisis taking to the streets. Perhaps in an effort to shore up his own position, Medvedev has made some statements that could be interpreted as criticism of his prime minister's response. In the more presidential of semi-presidential countries, presidents often seek to attach the blame for all regime failures to their premiers; this would have been normal when Putin or his predecessor were Russia's presidents. The prospect of a Putin-Medvedev split is interesting, though one should not assume that its victor would be Medvedev. Putin's power seems largely to come from his being Putin and from his personal control of the state security apparatus; that could easily trump Medvedev's mandate in a comedic election, unless Russia's leading figures decide that Putin has become a liability.

The nascent Putin-Medvedev split could of course all be a charade, with the two pals merely playing good-cop bad-cop with the Russian people. The BBC, however, reports that there may be genuine differences emerging between the two. These differences are not primarily political, but musical. It appears that Russia's prime minister is a fan of Abba, recently flying in Abba tribute act Bjorn Again to play a private concert for himself, a mysterious and attractive young lady, and some of his cohorts (all at a trifling cost of £20,000). President Medvedev, however, is a keen fan of Deep Purple, last year enjoying them in concert at the 15th anniversary celebrations of Gazprom. Perhaps it was a fraught discussion on rockism that has brought forth tensions in the Putin-Medvedev partnership.

To follow all the latest Russian news, make sure to read Pravda.

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Livni-Barak Fail

The latest Israeli opinion polls suggest that Binyamin Netanyahu and his Likud party are still on course to win the forthcoming elections in Israel. Ehud Barak (of Labour) and Tzipi Livni (of Kadima) seem to have reaped no obvious benefit from their Gaza war, despite the overwhelming support of the Israeli public for the strip's bombardment. This is not particularly surprising, as the results of the war have not been that great for the Israeli people. Not merely did the death and destruction meted out make Israel's elected leaders look like murderous psychopaths, but rockets are now still being fired from Gaza into Israel. Even in Israel's own terms, the Gaza war failed*.

There is a certain irony to Netanyahu coming into office like this (if he does indeed manage to win the election). In 1996, when he found himself elected to the Israeli premiership it was after another failed attempt by his incumbent opponents to bolster their popularity through extreme violence. In that case, it was Shimon Peres' "Grapes of Wrath" campaign of indiscriminate shelling against southern Lebanon that served as the prelude to Netanyahu's victory.

A Netanyahu premiership will prove interesting. He a right-winger and is likely to pursue an uncompromisingly hard line against all Palestinians (and, possibly, also against Syria and anyone else he takes exception to). That does not make him an unusual figure in Israeli politics. What makes him a bit more unusual is his forthright manner and his unwillingness to even verbally play ball with whatever waffle the Americans are currently pushing in the Middle East. Last time round, the Clinton administration was very glad to see the back of him. It will be fascinating to see how Netanyahu gets on with a new American president who seems interested in building bridges with the Arab World.

*not that Hamas can really claim much of a victory either – while they have managed to keep rockets firing out of the strip, it has happened at such a terrible human cost to their people that you would really have to wonder whether the time has come for them to change tactics

More: Israeli governing parties face poll battering amid Gaza scepticism (Guardian)

EU to rescue Iceland?

The Guardian reports that Iceland is to be fast-tracked for EU membership, and could become a full member of the European Union by 2011. Iceland's economy tanked last year. In the wake of the economic collapse, many people there reached the conclusion that their country was too small to sail alone through the stormy seas of the world economic crisis. EU membership, previously blocked by the country's political and economic elite, suddenly came to the top of the national agenda.

Now, why the EU is so eager to embrace Iceland is not quite so clear. Altruism is, obviously, a lofty motive, but there are many countries in the world (many countries even in Europe, broadly defined) whose struggling economies could be assisted by being allowed to join the EU. Prioritising Iceland's accession (after a long period in which the country was happy to remain outside the Union) could lead to the EU being seen as some kind of sugar daddy that will step in to rescue countries whose attempts to go it alone do not work out. That said, maybe taking in Iceland in like now would be good for the EU, as it shows potentially wayward members the dangers they could face if they go it alone.

That article also suggests that there is more support in Iceland for adopting the Euro than for full membership of the EU. People in the country's fishing industry are fearful of having to share their ever-dwindling country's fish stocks, and there are apparently the usual leftist anti-EU types in Iceland. These might prove strong enough to prevent the country signing up for EU accession. With regards to the Euro, people tend to assume that you have to be in the EU before you can adopt the currency. This is not actually the case. Montenegro adopted the Euro in the 1990s and is still only a candidate for EU membership. I think, though, that the EU does not really approve of non-member states adopting the Euro, and Iceland's adopting the currency now could complicate future accession negotiations.

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