Dear Friend,
A new study by scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison has found climate change is making hurricanes more powerful than these were four decades ago. The risk of hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons reaching Category 3 or higher has been increasing 8% per decade, which means these are turning larger and more intense.
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Binu Mathew
Editor
Countercurrents.org
Climate crisis is creating catastrophic cyclones
by Farooque Chowdhury
A new study by scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison has found climate change is making hurricanes more powerful than these were four decades ago. The risk of hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons reaching Category 3 or higher has been increasing 8% per decade, which means these are turning larger and more intense.
Super cyclone Amphan has recently left trails of devastation in the southwestern part of Bangladesh, and in parts of the neighboring in Indian state of West Bengal. The death toll, according to EcoWatch (May 22, 2020), was at least 84.
The UN’s office in Bangladesh estimated that 10 million people were affected and 500,000 people may have lost their homes. Media reports said: Millions of people in Bangladesh and India were evacuated to cyclone shelters before the cyclone hit. The storm, according to The Guardian (May 21, 2020), “smashed windows, pulled down trees and pylons and overturned cars” in Kolkata.
The cyclone that devastated parts of the southwestern Bangladesh and the Indian city of Kolkata was born in the Bay of Bengal, a place of birth of majority of the deadliest storms. According to Weather Underground (May 15, 2020), 26 of the 35 “deadliest tropical cyclones in world history have been Bay of Bengal storms”. “[T]he frequency of intense cyclones has risen in the Bay of Bengal in recent decades.” (BBC, May 19, 2020)
Cyclone Nargis, the report referred, hit the Irrawaddy Delta in Myanmar in May 2008 with the death toll reaching to at least 140,000. Its impact displaced two million people. The last super cyclone to hit the region was in 1999, and the Indian state of Odisha received the hit, which took toll with about 10,000 deaths. (ibid.)
Western Australia battened down for its worst storm in 10 years on May 24, 2020. Remnants of a tropical cyclone met a cold front with heavy rains and storm surges. Peak wave heights were, it was warned, to reach seven to ten meters. Homes were destroyed and tens of thousands of people were without power as a “once in a decade” storm that pummeled the western half of Western Australia on May 24, 2020.
In the US, tropical storm Arthur brushed the North Carolina coast in May. In 2019, Hurricane Dorian, a monster Category 5 storm, devastated the Bahamas. Union of Concerned Scientists said: “Cutting edge research is beginning to be able to attribute individual hurricanes to global warming.” (July 16, 2008; updated June 25, 2019) And, cyclone season in the US, officially the hurricane season is June 1-November 30, is going to begin within days. In Bangladesh, cyclones are regular incidents threatening life and livelihood.
Climate change is sparking stronger hurricanes
A new study (James P. Kossin, Kenneth R. Knapp, Timothy L. Olander, and Christopher S. Velden, “Global increase in major tropical cyclone exceedance probability over the past four decades”, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, May 18, 2020, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920849117) by scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the University of Wisconsin at Madison has found climate change is making hurricanes more powerful than these were four decades ago. The risk of hurricanes/cyclones/typhoons reaching Category 3 or higher has been increasing 8% per decade, which means these are turning larger and more intense.
James P. Kossin, a NOAA scientists and the lead author of the study report, explained to CNN (May 18, 2020) the “8% increase per decade”: “[D]uring its lifetime, a hurricane is 8% more likely to be a major hurricane in this decade compared to the last decade.”
And, category 3-storms, according to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, create: “Devastating damage […]: Well-built framed homes may incur major damage or removal of roof decking and gable ends. Many trees will be snapped or uprooted, blocking numerous roads. Electricity and water will be unavailable for several days to weeks after the storm passes.” (NOAA, National Hurricane Center and Central Pacific Hurricane Center)
The study found: In almost every region of the world where hurricanes form, their maximum sustained winds are getting stronger.
The focus of the study was the identification of global changes in tropical cyclone (TC) intensity. The TCs are referred to by different names in different regions, e.g., hurricanes in the North Atlantic and typhoons in the western North Pacific. But, for simplicity, the scientists conducting the study have referred to any Saffir−Simpson category 1 or greater intensity as “hurricane” intensity, and Saffir−Simpson category 3 or greater intensity as “major hurricane” intensity regardless of geographic region.
Significance of the study, as the study report says, is:
The TCs, and particularly major TCs, pose substantial risk to many regions around the world. Identifying changes in this risk and determining causal factors for the changes is a critical element for taking steps toward adaptation. Theory and numerical models consistently link increasing TC intensity to a warming world, but confidence in this link is compromised by difficulties in detecting significant intensity trends in observations. The study identifies significant global trends in TC intensity over the past four decades.
The results, says the report, should serve to increase confidence in projections of increased TC intensity under continued warming.
The study analyzed 40 years of satellite images including infrared temperature measurements to estimate hurricane intensity.
Theoretical understanding of the thermodynamic controls on the TC wind intensity, and numerical simulations implies a positive trend in TC intensity in a warming world, says the report.
However, the report says, the global instrumental record of TC intensity is known to be heterogeneous in both space and time and is generally unsuitable for global trend analysis. To address this, a homogenized data record based on satellite data was previously created for the period 1982–2009. The 28-y homogenized record exhibited increasing global TC intensity trends, but they were not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. Based on observed trends in the thermodynamic mean state of the tropical environment during this period, it was argued that the 28-y period was likely close to, but shorter than, the time required for a statistically significant positive global TC intensity trend to appear.
The study, therefore, extended the homogenized global TC intensity record to the 39-y period 1979–2017, and statistically significant (at the 95% confidence level) increases were identified. Increases and trends were found in the exceedance probability and proportion of major (Saffir−Simpson categories 3 to 5) TC intensities, which is consistent with expectations based on theoretical understanding and trends identified in numerical simulations in warming scenarios. Major TCs pose, by far, the greatest threat to lives and property. Between the early and latter halves of the time-period, the major TC exceedance probability increases by about 8% per decade.
Potential intensity has been increasing, in general, as global mean surface temperatures have increased, and there is an assumption that the distribution of TC intensity responds by shifting toward greater intensity.
The study results say:
Over the past 40-y (and longer), anthropogenic warming has increased sea surface temperature (SST) in TC-prone regions, and, in combination with changes in atmospheric conditions, this has increased TC potential intensity in these regions. An increase in environmental potential intensity is expected to manifest as a shift in the TC intensity distribution toward greater intensity and an increase in mean intensity. More importantly, the shift is further expected to manifest as a more substantial increase in the high tail of the distribution, which comprises the range of intensities that are responsible for the great majority of TC-related damage and mortality. Consequently, detection and attribution of past and projected TC intensity changes has often focused on metrics that emphasize changes in the stronger TCs.
The greatest changes are found in the North Atlantic, where the probability of major hurricane exceedance increases by 49% per decade. Large and significant increases are also found in the southern Indian Ocean. More modest increases are found in the eastern North Pacific and South Pacific, and there is essentially no change found in the western North Pacific. The northern Indian Ocean exhibits a decreasing trend, but it is highly insignificant and based on a small sample of data. With the exception of the northern Indian Ocean, all of the basins are contributing to the increasing global trend.
The new study finding is the latest evidence that capitalism-induced global warming is creating cyclones with deadly force and frequency, which take heavy toll from life and economy.
Farooque Chowdhury writes from Dhaka.
Amazon Rainforest Hit By Killer Droughts
by Robert Hunziker
Over the past 20 years, like clockwork, severe droughts have hit the Amazon every five years with regularity 2005, 2010, 2015. Of course, droughts have hit the Amazon rainforest throughout paleoclimate history, but this time it’s different. The frequency and severity is off the charts. Recent data is starting to show 2020 as another dire year.
Over the past 20 years, like clockwork, severe droughts have hit the Amazon every five years with regularity 2005, 2010, 2015. Of course, droughts have hit the Amazon rainforest throughout paleoclimate history, but this time it’s different. The frequency and severity is off the charts.
Recent data is starting to show 2020 as another dire year. “The old paradigm was that whatever carbon dioxide we put up in [human-caused] emissions, the Amazon would help absorb a major part of it,” according to Sassan Saatchi of NASA’s JPL. (Source: NASA Finds Amazon Drought Leaves Long Legacy of Damage, NASA Earth Science, Aug. 9, 2018)
But serious episodes of drought in 2005, 2010 and 2015 are causing researchers to rethink that idea. “The ecosystem has become so vulnerable to these warming and episodic drought events that it can switch from sink to source depending on the severity and the extent,” Saatchi said. “This is our new paradigm,” ibid.
According to a detailed study: “Several studies indicate that the region has been suffering severe drought since the end of the last century, as in 1997/1998, 2005, 2010 and 2015. The intensity and frequency of these extreme drought episodes in the AB during the last years, approximately one episode every five years with a significant increase in the coverage area, is remarkable.” (Beatriz Nunes Garcia, et al, Extreme Drought Events Over the Amazon Basin: The Perspective from the Reconstruction of South American Hydroclimate, Departamento de Meteorologia, Instituto de Geociências, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Nov. 7, 2018)
This year 2020 is shaping up to be a repeat performance, another “remarkable event.” Recent studies indicate: “The data suggests 2020 could be a particularly dire year for the Amazon.” (Source: “14 Straight Months of Rising Amazon Deforestation in Brazil,” Mongabay d/d June 12, 2020)
All of which begs the question: How much more abuse can the magnificent rainforest handle for how long?
However, hard-hitting droughts are not the only negative hitting the Amazon rainforest. Failure by political forces is also pounding the rainforest, as the Bolsanaro regime gooses abuse and overuse. As a result, people are striking back. Civil society groups and public prosecutors in Brazil are taking President Jar Bolsonaro’s government to court for failing to protect the rainforest.
“The Amazon rainforest — 60 percent of which lies in Brazil — is one of the world’s great carbon sinks. Preserving its trees and plants is crucial to meeting international targets that limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.” (Source: To Stop Amazon Deforestation, Brazilian Groups Take Bolsonaro to Court, Deutsche Welle, June 13, 2020)
Meanwhile, hydrologic studies clearly indicate the Amazon rainforest is “drying out.” Nothing could be worse.
Matthew Rodell, a scientist and hydrologist who works with NASA’s GRACE-FO (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On) satellite system monitors water levels stored deep beneath Earth’s surface. The data is important for predicting droughts on a worldwide basis.
Based upon current images, GRACE’s satellite shows an Amazon that is in tenuous condition in an unprecedented state of breakdown.
Within only the past few months, the world’s two leading Amazon rainforest scientists made a startling announcement. Thomas Lovejoy (George Mason University) and Carlos Nobre (University of Sao Paulo) reported: “Today, we stand exactly in a moment of destiny: The tipping point is here, it is now.” (Source: Amazon Tipping Point: Last Chance for Action, Science Advances, Vol. 5, no. 12, December 20, 2019)
Tipping points are equilibrium between life and death.
Of recent, GRACE’s images detected large areas of Brazil’s Amazon and Cerrado biomes in what’s classified as “Deep Red Zones,” meaning severely constrained water levels. According to Rodell: “If we see normal to low precipitation this year, then there is potential for drought… I would be concerned.” (Source: Satellite Data Show Amazon Rainforest Likely Drier, More Fire-Prone This Year, Mongabay, April 23, 2020)
Rodell’s statement “If we see normal to low precipitation, then there is potential for drought,” is like a slap to the face, a wake up call, implying “normal precipitation” by itself will not get the job done. Problem: Precipitation has been way below normal for way too long.
Today’s potential for a fourth major drought within only two decades magnifies into a virtual horror show when conjoined with the recent record. According to NASA, damaging episodes of three-100/yr droughts back-to-back-to-back, 2005, 2010, 2015 have already undercut and damaged the stability of the Amazon ecosystem. Of major concern, it’s already starting to lose its special “carbon sink” status. That’s unprecedented.
The rainforest doesn’t react like it used to. It does not have enough time between droughts to heal itself and regrow. Throughout all of recorded history, this has never been witnessed. In a word, it’s a horribly dreadful discovery. (Source: NASA Finds Amazon Drought Leaves Long Legacy of Damage, NASA Earth Science News Team, August 9, 2018)
In many respects, the Amazon ecosystem is a facsimile of the larger biosphere but more sensitive to climate change, similar to the Arctic. In other words, some ecosystems are ultra-sensitive to changes in the climate system and thus serve as proxies or early warning signals prior to recognition of the looming threat by civilization at large. Meantime, whilst climate change disrupts ecosystems on the fringes of civilization, society comfortably exists in artificial complexities of concrete, steel, glass, and wood within a vast chemically induced world that only recognizes the danger of collapsing ecosystems after it’s too late. Then, it is too late!
Because of fabricated/artificial life styles, humans are the last living organisms to see and feel, and indeed, truly comprehend the impact of climate change. Artificial life styles masquerade the bigger issues. Artificiality thus breeds ignorance and stupidity, as reflected in political elections. It’s the “Steel, Glass, Wood, Chemically Induced Syndrome,” and it’s deadly.
Meanwhile, Amazon deforestation is on a bender. According to INPE (National Institute for Space Research in Brazil National Penitentiary Institute) it’s up 40% since January.
“The rise in deforestation troubles scientists who fear that the combination of forest loss and the effects of climate change could trigger the Amazon rainforest to tip toward a drier ecosystem which is more prone to fire, generates less local and regional rainfall, sequesters less carbon from the atmosphere, and is less hospitable to species adapted to the dense and humid forests of lowland Amazonia.” (Source: Rhett A. Butler, 14 Straight Months of Rising Amazon Deforestation in Brazil, Mongabay, June 12, 2020)
The question arises what is the impact of deforestation?
For starters, hands down, it’s the leading cause of extinction on the planet. Secondly, forest loss contributes approximately 15%-20% to increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions as loss of forests mass removes one of the planet’s natural carbon sinks. Additionally, forests play a critical role in the hydrological cycle, all the way north to Iowa’s cornfields with remarkable “rivers in the sky.”
A long list of additional major benefits could be enumerated, but suffice it to say that, of significant interest, scientists have discovered up to one-half of all trees greater than 4 inches in diameter in the Amazon are more than 300 years old, some 1,000 years old.
Ergo, artificial life supplants hundreds and thousands of years of nature with one quick cut of a buzz saw, but in all honesty, 300-year-old trees take quite a bit longer than one quick cut.
Robert Hunziker, MA, economic history DePaul University, awarded membership in Pi Gamma Mu International Academic Honor Society in Social Sciences is a freelance writer and environmental journalist who has over 200 articles published, including several translated into foreign languages, appearing in over 50 journals, magazines, and sites worldwide. He has been interviewed on numerous FM radio programs, as well as television.
Problematic environmental
concerns
by Faizan Farooq
If I were to be asked ‘What is the most pressing problem faced by the world today?’ I would not say Covid-19. Not terrorism or nuclear proliferation either. No, not even the Hollywood’s favorite end-of-the-world events: alien invasions, zombie apocalypse etc. It is the problem regarding which we are most inadvertent: the irreversible damage we are causing to this delicate balance called environment of our planet.
If I were to be asked ‘What is the most pressing problem faced by the world today?’ I would not say Covid-19. Not terrorism or nuclear proliferation either. No, not even the Hollywood’s favorite end-of-the-world events: alien invasions, zombie apocalypse etc. It is the problem regarding which we are most inadvertent: the irreversible damage we are causing to this delicate balance called environment of our planet.
Sooner or later though, humans will overcome corona virus owing to their ingenuity of preserving their immediate existences. Terrorism is a political offshoot and can be fixed by disentangling political-quagmires. Nuclear power can be put to appropriate uses like power generation. But this very delicate fabric of our environment which is holding our existence intact once damaged cannot be undone.
It was in the year 1985 that the scientific community for the first time announced it to the world that ozone layer is getting depleted and has developed in it a ‘hole’. Following years many environmental conferences and summits were conducted in which world leaders deliberated over plans of overcoming this crisis, most notable among which is the 1992 ‘Earth summit’. The conferences also led to the development of many protocols for environmental preservation but over the years many product manufacturers and MNC’s seem to have developed methods of “evading” those rules.
In this article, we will try explaining those problematic environmental concerns which we find are embraced not only by the product-manufacturers but also by the consumers. In a post we-know-we-are-damaging-the-environment world where degradation of the environment is happening concomitant to illusion of its preservation.
The first problem is in shifting the onus of preserving the environment disproportionately onto the average common man, a mere consumer whose economic behavior/purchasing decisions are decisively impacted by a strong and manipulative advertisement campaign owned by big cooperates. And giving full autonomy to the manufacturers for producing the same environmentally hazardous products in rampant. That is, the damage done to the environment by capitalists/manufacturers (those who can do something about it) is somehow thought to be rectified by consumers (those who can do nothing or little). Here I do not intend providing impunity to us, the consumers, to degrade the environment (the protection of which is a duty we all are bound by) but rather explain the double standards ‘from above’ which ultimately seeps down into them as well.
A problem as serious and universal as the environmental degradation requires a ‘top down’ approach with rectifications first being initiated at the highest levels, like MNC’s, World Trade Organizations, State-governments, Bureaucracy and other such top hierarchies. But in practice our approach is ‘bottom up’, with all emphasis being put on ‘changing lifestyle’ of the end consumers only with very little being done from the ‘above’. Yes we need to change our lifestyles (for instance end our dependencies on environmentally harmful products like, say, polythene) but that’s not all because consumers merely shunning polythene usage is not going to help if polythene continues to get manufactured and no alternative is developed. Think about it like this: people did brought groceries before polythene existed, it is its manufacturing which made people dependant on it and the problem cannot be rectified without the governments interfering to stop its manufacturing altogether and not just ‘appealing’ people not to use it. Marxist philosopher Slavoj Zizek once jokingly said in a lecture that world leaders meet to discuss environment, in the meeting they decide the venue of next year meeting and this they deem as a ‘success’. But jokes apart, the higher we go up in politico-economic hierarchies the incompetency tends to increase. “It is easier and more common to macro-bullshit than to micro-bullshit” as Nassim Taleb puts it. The ‘cash value’ of these global organizations and meetings is not as beneficial as they should be.
The problem also lies in exhortations often coming from big cooperates regarding the environmental preservation, particularly by those who are directly involved in its degradation. For instance, many of you would have come across ‘Trees are man’s best friend’ sort of supposedly educative adages on cover pages of widely used notebooks here in India which is very ironic because the company endorsing such slogans basically survives and earns huge profits not by preserving but cutting more and more trees (howsoever you recycle it, the good quality paper which the civilized world is accustomed to use would, nonetheless, be made directly from wood pulp). We do not intend underestimating the complexities of modern economy or truly powerful consumerism. Nor are we unaware about the value which paper possesses in today’s society. But it is the behavioral pattern of modern capitalism today which we want to highlight and which is far more manipulative than its colonial background.
Corporate, capitalists and states need to reanimate the concept of ‘Skin in the Game’. The phrase simply means ‘own the risk that you introduce into this world’. One of the earliest known codes of law pertaining to human social interactions the Babylonian ‘Hammurabi’s code’ contains a legal provision that if a building collapses, the builder should be killed as the punishment. This is one of the simplest applications of Skin in the Game concept in civil law, whose application we can find in diverse fields in almost all traditional societies. In modern capitalism however, the principle of risk sharing has been twisted the other way round with corporate introducing the risks into the world and the commoners bearing its consequences. The concept needs to be resurrected.
If the world countries had responded earlier to the corona virus and taken steps right on time to contain its spread then the world might not have been engulfed by the pandemic the way it did. “It is better to panic early than to panic late”-as Nassim Taleb puts it. Same can be said of environmental protection as well. If we want to prevent our future generations from bearing catastrophic consequences of our actions, irreversible damage to the planet and to the world economies, then we must ‘panic early’.
The mental attitude created out of the shallow understanding of environmental protection not only discourages the public from thinking about real solutions to the problems but also makes them, in a way, inadvertent towards them. ’Crush the bottle after use’ wouldn’t just vanish the bottle from existence, (Plastic being non biodegradable) it would remain there crushed or not crushed adding to the collective trash of the most intelligent species of the planet. Plastic leaves its impact on the environment even if it is burned, so mere ‘crushing’ the bottle or using the dustbins cannot save the environment. It merely satisfies our aesthetics. Environmental degradation in our time is an issue of utmost seriousness which simply cannot be left on the generous involvement of common man. Those at the helm of power simply cannot leave this momentous issue merely on the goodwill of the public. It’s a primal problem pertaining to the very existence of our species and as such requires radical efforts. The solution which we propose to the crisis is the same as the solution we would have offered to counter increasing cases of lung cancer due to smoking. Instead of advertising and appealing people not to smoke on “moral grounds” why not ban the industry itself right away? How ethical is this current approach of earning taxes from smoking industry on one hand and preaching on humanitarian grounds its ill effects to society on the other? How logical is it to impose fines on small retailers for using the polythene-bags and allowing industries producing it to flourish and supply the same? Why can’t the government ban the industry and take to itself the task of manufacturing (or outsource the task) on a very large scale bags made of cloth/paper or other such biodegradable material? Doesn’t the modern nation state bear the task of welfare state as well? Why should government confine itself to mere exhorting the people to plant more and more trees? Why can’t the government itself initiate the task? By not throwing garbage and polythene on streets and using dustbins is merely satisfying our aesthetics and not protecting the environment, why not come up with genuinely helpful measures of doing the same? The state cannot eat the cake and have it too.
The writer is a student of management at Aligarh Muslim university and can be mailed at faizanhra969@gmail.com
Can any of our buttons be reset?
by Sultana Raza
The pandemic has forced us to hit the reset button in many aspects of our lives: daily routines, multi-tasking, relationships, etc. Forced to share space 24/7 with family, we have had to re-evaluate our bonds with them.
‘Ordinary’ Israelis Don’t Perceive Themselves As Ordinary People
by Rima Najjar
On reading the enduring horrific daily news coming out of Palestine/Israel relating to the ongoing Jewish-state Nakba, I invariably feel a strong desire to discuss what is often the elephant in the room. It’s an issue constantly on the minds of Israelis and Palestinians alike, while at the same time being difficult to discuss frankly and directly in polite society.
The issue is Jewish supremacy as it manifests itself in the Zionist settler-colonial state of Israel and beyond. (See my blog post, What is Jewish supremacy and how is it different from White supremacy?). I say “beyond”, because there is a strong existing connection to Israel by ‘ordinary’ Jews outside of Israel/Palestine, whose Jewish communities, in Europe and America, feed Israel. Even at a mature age they go there, either to visit or to stay (which is a support and confirmation for the state), but more often to serve in the military which is the most militant of brainwashing in Jewish supremacy.
Most activists skirt the issue of Jewish supremacy and some deny it outright in a way they would not dream of doing with White supremacy. The only safe place to discuss the issue of Jewish supremacy, it sometimes appears, is within the confines of Mondoweiss.
But even there, we are more likely to read forceful critiques debunking the Zionist idea of a ‘Jewish nation’ as sold to the world by the world Zionist movement. A necessary exercise. Nevertheless, I often wonder, what about the concomitant fact of the religious Jewish character of the state as expressed in its Basic Law? What about the self-professed Jewish identity of millions of Jews, in Israel and outside Israel — not to mention Palestinian perceptions of them — as Jews first, and Zionist second?
It therefore seems at times that, in order to liberate Palestine from the Zionist settler-colonial regime, Palestinians must first undertake the impossible task of convincing the world that those who espouse the Zionist settler-colonial regime are less Jewish than Zionist, which of course strips them of their self-identified Jewish identity and is unacceptable to them.
More and more Jews worldwide today are saying “not in our name”, in reference to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. However, they too, don’t have the power to rename Israeli Jews as something else. This brings to mind Israel’s chief rabbi’s statement that “some Jews are more Jewish than others.”
When we talk about Israel, we can discuss apartheid, demographics, settler-colonialism, but we are often silenced when the issue is Jewish supremacy and the Jewish nature of the state — issues that are central to Israeli society as well as to the current and future dynamics of Palestinian-Israeli relations.
If the goal of all the analysis about Israel is to find realistic solutions for an impossible status quo, we ought not to dismiss this very real and troubling issue. It doesn’t make sense to do so.
In a 2015 article published online and titled ‘Palestine‒Israel: Decolonization Now, Peace Later’, Alaa Tartir (researcher at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and a policy advisor at Al-Shabaka) lists a number of basic but fundamental obstacles to any future lasting peace in Israel/Palestine. Among them is the following characterization of Israeli society:
Another dominant observation that I noticed in my small, random and unrepresentative sample is the sense of superiority [among Israeli Jews]. liberal, leftist, fundamentalists, secular, religious and progressive voices, from different generations living in different cities, shared the feature of superiority, which is problematic at the very personal and human level, before it extends to politics. Statements like ‘we are God’s chosen nation’, ‘we don’t care about international law’, ‘we help those poor Palestinians to end the occupation’, ‘we offer Palestinians jobs and they work for us’, ‘Gaza is irrelevant’, ‘I have Palestinian friends but would never trust them’ characterized the discussions. Therefore, unless ‘ordinary’ Israelis perceive themselves as ordinary people and not superior to other nations it is impossible to imagine how a one-state or two-state solution could work.
Tartir goes on to say,
Just as the Palestinian people and leadership need to engage in a serious process of reforming their strategies, so do the Israelis. The Israelis need to reconcile internally a number of issues mainly related to the apartheid structures, Jewish supremacy, the Jewish nature of the state, the demographic phobia and the return of the Palestinian refugees from exile.
When we are forced to ignore the perceptions of Israelis and their set of values and beliefs (which are the root manifestation of the Zionist Jewish state in Palestine), when we are unable to confront them candidly, we Palestinian will never be able to achieve justice and equality.
Lena, a former Israeli, writes:
Many Jews, even if not overtly Zionist, share this basic belief that in order to prevent another extermination, they must become DOMINANT and exercise superiority, because “this is how the world works, either you dominate or be exterminated”. Although nobody ever has persecuted or offended these young Jews, they share the view of Goyim as a bunch of people who inherently want to erase Jews from this planet. I honestly do not know how to combat a basic belief that the world is based on domination, that whoever does not dominate will be subjugated or killed, that Jews must forever fight against an inherent existential threat, therefore not letting them dominate is the same as wanting them all dead.
Lena describes the mindset of any group of people who have been conditioned to see the world through us vs. them.
“Confronting the occupier, colonizer or oppressor is the main lesson from the history of liberation movements across the world,” writes Tartir. We must confront Israelis on the issue of Jewish supremacy, as on all others.
_____________________
Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank.
‘Suralakshmi Villa’ – A rich tapestry of narratives
by Meenakshi Malhotra
Suralakshmi Villa (2020) is a novel based on a short story in a previous collection of short stories by Aruna Chakravarti. In the afterword to the novel, the author explains how the novel came about: Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, on whose fiction Chakravarti had done her Ph.D thesis many years ago, commented how the short story had possibilities of being extended
into a novel. In doing so, the author’s redoubtable skills have come to the fore yet again.
Treacherous Road to Make Manu History
by Subhash Gatade
Even today the attempt is to whitewash Manusmriti, not shun it. But all is not lost as the ripples of Black Lives Matter have reached Indian shores.
‘No More War, Never Again’: Pandemic Of Nazi Hatred-Story Of Artists
by Anil Pundlik Gokhale
It is to pay tribute to the Artists and Painters who Lived through the Painful Horrendous span of Human History and raised their Heads above to protest and stop the rollout to Wars, Hatred and Holocaust. The occasion is Centenary Year of Modern Art being declared as ‘Degenerate Art’ by NAZIS.
U.S. faces another deadly health problem as a massive dust cloud from Africa covers Florida, Gulf of Mexico
by
Countercurrents Collective
Two large blobs of dust blown off of Africa’s Sahara Desert – which some experts say could be the biggest and most intense Saharan plume in 50 years – are on their way to North America, driven by the same high-pressure system that pushes hurricanes across the same route. The largest is already over the Gulf of Mexico and parts of Florida. The second is in transit in the deep Atlantic.
Lives of Marginalized Matter: When will their suffocation End?
by Dr Ram Puniyani
US is not the only country where the brutal acts of violence torment the marginalized sections of society. In India there is a list of dalits, minorities and adivasis who are regularly subjected to such acts. But the reaction is very different.
We have witnessed the case of Tabrez Ansari, who was tied to the pole by the mob and beaten ruthlessly. When he was taken to police station, police took enough time to take him to hospital and Tabrez died.
Uttar Pradesh is now Colombia in the business of Crime
by Dr Rahul Kumar
The ferocious attack on two Additional District Judges (ADJ) indicates that the law and order situation in the state of Uttar Pradesh(UP) is the worst
Early India, Goats And Brahmins
by Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd
Review of Tony Joesph's Book "Early Indians - the History of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From"
Battleground States
by Kathy Kelly
The time for manufacturing of weapons of war has passed as a viable industry for our nation, despite the way some of our political
leadership clings to economies of the past.—Lisa Savage, U.S. Senate candidate in Maine
Indicting Hashim Thaçi: The Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor’s Office Gets Busy
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
Behind such triumphalism, scrutiny about the conduct of KLA officers has been levelled, notably within European Union circles. In December 2010, Council of Europe rapporteur Dick Marty brought the issue to light in a report alleging a range of human rights abuses, crimes and atrocities committed by a good number of Kosovo’s current luminaries. A prominent figure in the report was Thaçi himself, a member of the “Drenica Group” who had “played vital roles as co-conspirators in various categories of criminal activity”.
If India is Secular!
by Bilal Ahmad Dar
The Constitution of India is based on the premise
of secularism and unbiased principles. But the question is: Are these secular principles practiced in true sense of the term in our country at present? The obvious answer that echoes from the events and episodes have been happening around us from the last many years is: No with the capital ‘N’. The atmosphere that is hovering here and there does not sound secular in India these days.
Privatising commercial extraction of Coal not beneficial for coal reserve states
by Manas Jena
The decision of the centre for privatize commercial extraction of Coal may not be beneficial for Odisha having 25 percent of the Coal reserve of the country. The plan to increase in mining activities is not being accompanying with rise in fair royalty rate and its share of state and locals.
Rise up against a `Situation Worse than the Emergency’!!
by People's Union For Civil
Liberties
25th June, 2020 marks the 45th year of the Declaration of the infamous Emergency Declaration of Indira Gandhi. It is a day remembered as the day in 1975, when the Indian Government waged a war on its own people, suspending the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Indian Constitution and turning India into an authoritarian country.
BJP-Modi’s Undeclared Emergency (2014-20) Is More Dangerous Than Declared Emergency (1975-77) Of Indira Congress
Press Release
On the eve of Anti-Emergency Day (25th June, 2020) a Mass Protest Against Undeclared Emergency by Modi-BJP Regime was organized today at Bhubanewar, Odisha & also condemned the Declared Emergency (1975-1977) by Indira- Congress Regime.
Echoes of Emergency
by Ish N Mishra
Modi began its first tenure by making the constitutional institutions like planning commission etc. as subservient to the government. It filled the institutions like Indian Council of Historical Reserch (ICHR), IIFT, NCERT etc with conformist people with doubtful credentials. Its attack on educational institutions is ongoing. JNU is its main target as it is the first fortress of resistance. The echoes of emergency being heard today in the state of undeclared emergency after 45 years of the declared one are quite frightening.
