The events of the last weeks are one of those historical moments where the lessons of many decades can be telescoped into a few brief moments and seemingly minor occurrences can take on immense significance. The entry of millions of Egyptians onto the political stage has graphically illuminated the real processes that underlie the politics […]
Geography Archives: Israel
A Glorified Military Coup in Egypt: An Aborted Revolution or the Genesis of a Genuine Revolution?
Millions of people in Egypt and all over the Middle East erupted in joy as Omar Suleiman announced on Friday that Hosni Mubarak had resigned. The Egyptian military decided to oust a widely-resented dictator as it witnessed the growing threat of a potential revolution being born in Egyptian streets. Had it been allowed to continue […]
Egypt: Oil and Gas Workers on Strike
Thousands of workers from several oil and gas companies are on strike, protesting in front of the Ministry of Petroleum, in Nasr City. The workers have several economic and political demands, including putting an end to abusive management practices such as sacking workers who speak up for their rights, reinstating the sacked workers, raising salaries […]
What Does the Egyptian Revolution Mean for the United States Government?
The US has not supported democratization in Egypt, or really anywhere else in the Middle East, because US policymakers would not like the outcome of democratic processes. Policies made by governments that are freely elected by the people would not reflect, would not support, let alone enforce, the US polices that are unpopular, whether that’s […]
Egypt: Middle Class for Military Junta, Workers for Permanent Revolution
Since yesterday, and actually earlier, middle-class activists have been urging Egyptians to suspend the protests and return to work, in the name of patriotism, singing some of the most ridiculous lullabies about “let’s build new Egypt,” “let’s work harder than even before,” etc. In case you didn’t know, actually Egyptians are among the hardest working […]
On the Egyptian Revolution and the American Strategy
7 February 2011 . . . Today we declare our solidarity. One of the forms of our solidarity is to defend this revolution, this intifada, this great historic popular movement. One of the responsibilities of defending this revolution is to reveal its true image as all data indicate. . . . We contact those on […]
Mubarak the Laughing Cow
Carlos Latuff is a Brazilian cartoonist. Cf. ; Mark Landler and Helene Cooper, “Allies Press U.S. to Go Slow on Egypt” (New York Times, 8 February 2011); James Besser, “The Best Lobbyists for Egypt’s U.S. Aid: Israeli Diplomats” (Jewish Week, 9 February 2011). | Print
Revolution 2.0: Interview with Hossam el-Hamalawy
Hossam el-Hamalawy is a member of the organization Revolutionary Socialists as well as of the Center for Socialist Studies in Cairo. A journalist and blogger, he is one of the “cyberguerrilla” youth at the heart of the revolutions underway in the Arab world. While constantly occupying Tahrir Square, he seeks to regularly disseminate alternative […]
Counter-Revolution Field Manual
In a speech attacking ‘multiculturalism’ Prime Minister David Cameron argued for a “muscular liberalism” that would actively confront “extremist” ideologies — principally radical Islamism — that fail to conform to “Western values”. The problem is not with Islam per se, he argued, but with those “distortion[s]” of Islam that reject “democracy, the rule of law, […]
Rallies throughout Occupied Palestine in Solidarity with Egypt and Tunisia
5 February 2011 More than two thousand people rallied today in the center of Ramallah at Al-Manara Square in solidarity with the popular uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, calling for freedom, social justice, democracy, and human rights. Parallel rallies took place in Bethlehem and Nazareth. Previous rallies have been held by Palestinian activists in […]
Plan B for a Post-Mubarak Egypt?
“Freedom lies behind a door closed shut,” the great Egyptian poet Ahmed Shawqi wrote in the last century. “It can only be knocked down with a bleeding fist.” More than that is bleeding in the Arab world at the moment. The uprisings we are witnessing in Egypt have been a rude awakening for all those […]
Egyptian Protests, Grounded in Decades of Struggle, Portend Regional Transformation
Egypt is throbbing with resistance. Cairo is cloven between the forces of revolution and those of counterrevolution. Hundreds of thousands of people — on Tuesday, February 1, well over a million — have been streaming each day into Tahrir Square, the largest plaza in the Arab world, located in the heart of downtown Cairo. Army […]
Betting on the Winning Horse: The People!
3 February 2011 In the battles of yesterday and today, fought bravely by the Egyptian revolutionaries against the militias of the regime, many martyrs fell by the bullets of the thugs. Now it is clear to all that the regime is maneuvering, on the one hand offering concessions (declaring that Gamal Mubarak will not run, […]
Islam as Democracy against the Dictatorships of the Western Powers
The West has financed dictatorships in the Middle East and Arab World for more than a century. The pro-democracy protests against Western-backed dictatorships in the Arab world have shown, once again, the immense hypocrisy of our rulers. Which side are the Western governments on — the side of protesters or the side of dictators? The […]
Will There Be War on Iran? Two Divergent Views
In 2002 Iran was added to the neoconservative-designed ‘Axis of Evil’ and thus declared ripe for US military intervention. The threat of war in the ‘greatest crisis of modern times’ (John Pilger in the New Statesman, July 12, 2007) was at its height in 2006-2007. With President Obama assuming office in 2009, a great hope […]
Egypt: On the Barricades
2 February 2011 Every revolution, sooner or later, has to stand on the barricades and fight a counter-revolution. The scenes today at the Tahrir Square are nothing short of a scene that we imagine from the French revolution: the people holding ground against hordes of militiamen of a dying regime. Young and old, women and […]
Movements in Egypt: The US Realigns
Egypt is a cornerstone in the US plan of control of the planet. Washington will not tolerate any attempt of Egypt to move out of its total submission, also required by Israel in order to pursue its colonisation of what remains from Palestine. This is the exclusive target of Washington in its ‘involvement’ in the […]
Iran Is Neither Egypt Nor Tunisia
What explains the diametrically opposed stances of the imperialist powers and corporate media: promoting regime change in Iran while endeavoring to preserve the fundamentals of the regimes, with or without modification, in Egypt and Tunisia? In part, the increasingly anachronistic legacy of the policy and ideology about Israel developed in the wake of the […]
On Recent Attacks on Civil Liberties
GEB Statement on Recent Attacks on Civil Liberties On September 24, 2010, the FBI carried out coordinated raids on the homes and offices of fourteen anti-war activists in Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan. During the raids, the FBI confiscated everything from computers and mailing lists to children’s drawings and photos of Martin Luther King. Ten of […]
Egypt: Retrofitting “Operation Ajax” to Support the Pharaoh against the People
“As soon as I saw the defiant tone and substance of Mubarak’s speech, I realized that he is not speaking for himself but for the US/Israeli sponsors. . . . I just read the speech by Obama: it confirmed my suspicion, that basically Mubarak was permitted by the US to do with the Egyptian […]
