Category: Uncategorized

Spanish deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz has hailed a unity deal that will see the Left run together in July’s snap election. The deal hasn’t pleased everyone — but it could help keep the far right from power.

Yolanda Diaz, Spain’s deputy prime minister and leader of Sumar, speaks at the presentation of a coalition party agreement in Madrid, Spain, on June 10, 2023. (Paul Hanna / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Sumar has reached a historic agreement made possible by the generosity and responsibility of all the political forces that have joined it,” tweeted Spain’s deputy prime minister Yolanda Díaz, as the country’s fragmented left reached a last-minute deal to run together in July’s snap general election. In total, her new Sumar [or “Unite”] platform has managed to integrate fifteen left and green formations into an unprecedented joint electoral slate, which could tip the balance in favor of the country’s progressive bloc in the general election on July 23.

Yet despite the historic nature of the agreement, the atmosphere on the Spanish left was far from triumphal as the fallout over Podemos deputy leader Irene Montero’s exclusion from the joint list dominated the discussion. She was not the only member of Podemos’s leadership who was vetoed, as Díaz sought to impose a clear-out of Pablo Iglesias’s old guard from the Left’s front bench, in the wake of the party’s disastrous local and regional election results in May.

On Friday afternoon, just hours before the midnight deadline to register the electoral coalition was set to pass, Podemos’s current leader Ione Belarra called a press conference in which she announced that her party would sign up to Sumar “without an [acceptable] agreement” because of “the threat” to otherwise be excluded from the joint lists. “I am saddened that Yolanda Díaz is proposing that the agreement between Sumar and Podemos be built on the exclusion of a colleague [Irene Montero] who has been the architect of a generation of feminist rights [in her role as equality minister],” Belarra added.

While Díaz and Montero had a poor working relationship and the Podemos number two made many enemies during recent years of splits and infighting on the Spanish left, her exclusion largely came down to a highly damaging controversy around the implementation of a new sexual consent law, which has seen hundreds of convicted rapists have their sentences reduced unintentionally. From Díaz’s perspective, Montero had become a liability that would have distracted from a campaign she wants to center on her record as labor minister, as well as on Sumar’s program for a new social democratic project based on workers’ rights and social protection.

Under the joint electoral lists, Podemos has been reserved eight relatively safe seats, including fifth in the Madrid list for Belarra, fourth in Barcelona for its head of organization, Lilith Verstrynge, and first in Álava, Granada, Gipuzkoa, Las Palmas, Murcia, and Navarre. Díaz will top the symbolically important Madrid list, followed by Spain’s current United Nations ambassador, Agustín Santos Maraver, and two Más Madrid representatives in third and fourth place: the Spanish-Sahrawi activist Tesh Sidi and party founder Íñigo Errejón. The Communist-led Izquierda Unida, which has provided a significant part of the initial organizational muscle for Sumar, has received first place in the lists for the southern regions of Córdoba and Málaga, as well as in Tarragona, and second in Seville and third in Valencia.

Despite the historic nature of the left-unity agreement, the atmosphere on the Spanish left was far from triumphal, as the fallout over Podemos deputy leader Irene Montero’s exclusion from the joint list dominated the discussion.

“Spain wants us to talk about its problems, the rest is of little interest,” Díaz insisted on Monday morning as she moved to turn the page on the Montero controversy. An El País poll last week showed a united left slate as likely key to ensuring the Spanish right fails to reach an absolute majority, with Sumar on track to win between thirty-nine and forty-six seats compared to twenty-five and twenty-seven if the Left had run rival lists. A lifelong member of the Spanish Communist Party, Díaz is now betting that a united left slate centered on the material concerns of the social majority can get the vote out and ensure a second progressive coalition government with Pedro Sánchez’s center-left Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE).

Sergio Pascual, Podemos’s former head of organization, insists that the alternative is a hard-right, Popular Party (PP)–Vox government, which threatens democratic regression in Spain. Yet, speaking to Jacobin, Pascual maintains that faced with such a threat, the Left must also be able to offer a positive vision for a new Spain, based on social justice and a new state interventionism.

An Uneasy Unity

Eoghan Gilmartin

How do you rate Friday’s agreement between Sumar, Podemos, and more than a dozen other formations for a left-unity ticket? After the acrimonious tone of the negotiations, which were played out in the full glare of the media, does it represent a solid basis for a left coalition?

Sergio Pascual

Many of us had thought a deal would probably be reached, but yes, it is sad that this was only achieved after a very public disagreement. Your average voter does not understand that such disputes are natural in negotiations, particularly when you are looking to redefine the balance of power between various forces. They happen across the political spectrum but on the Spanish left we have increasingly resorted to playing out such conflicts in public and this turns off many voters, who just want a quick, painless deal.

But beyond this immediate fallout, the agreement institutes a new balance between the distinct sensibilities that coexist on the Spanish left. Within this political space you have various nationalist and regional left formations (such as [Coalició] Compromís in Valencia, Más Madrid in the capital, or Los Comunes in Catalonia), the Eurocommunist left of Izquierda Unida, with its trade union tradition and revindication of labor struggles; a postmaterialist left represented by Íñigo Errejón; and a combative, antiestablishment left represented by Podemos.

In 2015/16, when Podemos was at its peak, these multiple currents were united under the leadership of Pablo Iglesias but without clear rules for their continued coexistence. As Podemos’s initial head of organization, I participated in instituting this formula, which relied heavily on Pablo’s charismatic leadership, but in reality the homogeneity it achieved simply obscured the underlying differences that later flared up.

Sumar’s success as a new political actor will not only be measured by its electoral result next month but also by its ability to then construct solid institutional structures going forward.

In contrast, this agreement explicitly recognizes the pluralism of these distinct currents. It also looks to better represent their competing weight in the current political moment, which is quite distinct to that of eight years ago when Podemos made its initial breakthrough. In 2015, its combative rhetoric chimed with the times, and its hegemony was universally accepted. But in the post-pandemic moment, people are demanding greater certainty and a politics that offer solutions to their material concerns — which Yolanda’s distinct leadership style much better embodies.

Yet, in reality, Sumar’s success as a new political actor will not only be measured by its electoral result next month but also by its ability to then construct solid institutional structures going forward. It remains to be seen if it can outlast the current electoral cycle or if this coalition will simply implode at the first major setback. That’s the wider task for those who are in charge of Sumar: to make sure that this electoral agreement is not just an electoral agreement but becomes the basis to build a left-wing organization that can survive the highs and lows of electoral pressures and can institute greater internal democracy.

Eoghan Gilmartin

In terms of negotiating a formula for this changed balance of forces on the Spanish left, is it fair to say that Podemos has been the major loser? Having already lost a lot of ground at a local and regional level to alternative political currents, its leadership has now had to accept a less central role at a national level, too.

Sergio Pascual

We have to avoid obsessing over whether this agreement has left one of the formations slightly better or worse off than its independent weight would warrant. Overall, it strikes a reasonable balance, particularly given the fact that the snap general election made holding primaries impossible. Though no longer hegemonic, it seems fair that Podemos should still represent close to 25 percent of this space but also that a further 25 percent would go to the Eurocommunist left and that the regional forces would gain a similar percentage. Furthermore certain seats also have had to be reserved for those close to Sumar and Yolanda. For me this is a reasonable balance — and we cannot now further test the public’s patience with more recriminations and infighting.

In May’s local polls, Podemos running alone and in competition with other left-wing lists meant its votes were not converted into seats.

In the end, running separately was not an option. It would have been heavily penalized by Spain’s electoral system and would likely have guaranteed a right-wing majority. While the minimum thresholds are different at a local and regional level, Podemos’s spectacularly bad results in May’s local polls really hinged on a couple of tenths of a percentage point. Above that it would have surpassed the threshold and ensured it gained representation in many city halls and regions. Instead running alone and in competition with other left-wing lists meant its votes were not converted into seats.

Eoghan Gilmartin

Clearly, however, one of the most controversial elements of the negotiations has been Sumar’s refusal to allow several of Podemos’s leading figures to run as candidates, with the veto against equality minister Irene Montero’s participation being particularly divisive.

Why did Díaz consider her exclusion as a redline for any agreement? And what do you think of the argument coming from Podemos that allowing an embattled feminist leader to fall “sends a dangerous message” to the far right, which can only see this as a victory given its witch hunt against her.

Sergio Pascual

There are two major factors informing the veto. The first is the need for electoral pragmatism and when you look at the polling you are talking about a figure with a very low approval rating beyond Podemos’s core base. On whether Irene’s exclusion implies a failure to defend a figure who has been persecuted by the right-wing media — well, the problem is we lost the battle around the new “only yes is yes” sexual consent law a long time ago and it makes little sense to reopen it now just to smooth the way for an agreement on internal lists.

This would be a gift to the Right, who are determined to set the campaign’s agenda with a series of cultural wars. Over the last year, Yolanda has tried to keep the focus on economic questions but Podemos has repeatedly looked for greater protagonism by taking on the Right along such cultural lines. It has had little success, in this respect, and it clearly lost the battle for public opinion around the “only yes is yes” law, particularly after PSOE chose to side with the Right [around the need for a counterreform].

‘Spain wants us to talk about its problems, the rest is of little interest,’ Yolanda Díaz insisted on Monday morning as she moved to turn the page on battles within the Left.

A second factor informing the veto is outstanding personal issues. While Podemos was hegemonic, let’s just say, it made its strength count and many people from other formations have felt that in imposing its own lists; the party failed to properly recognize them. These resentments have cost Podemos now that it is negotiating from a weaker position [after its losses in local and regional elections], with some of its former allies demanding Sumar take a tougher line in the unity talks.

Turning the Page

Eoghan Gilmartin

Comments from the Podemos leadership over the weekend suggest that they will continue pushing for Montero’s inclusion. Do you think the Left can now turn the page and focus on fighting the campaign? And how can it mobilize its vote?

Sergio Pascual

What is at stake now is the need to stop a PP–Vox coalition that would see far-right ministers enter government for the first time since Spain’s transition to democracy. Before this challenge, the Left needs to park its differences and throw itself into fighting a positive campaign. Díaz is a powerful electoral force and she is going to dominate the media component of the campaign, while on the ground at a local level, it will be the organizations who are strongest in each region that will take charge. So that means Izquierda Unida in Andalusia, [Coalició] Compromís in Valencia, and Podemos in the territories it still has more weight in.

But more broadly, Sumar’s campaign needs to focus on three major elements. First, both it and PSOE must be able to offer a much more active defense of the current coalition government’s record against the Right’s attacks. For Sumar the focus will be particularly on those areas around employment and labor rights in which Díaz herself has spearheaded policies.

In this respect, against the Right’s focus on a supposed wave of house squatting or on how many sex offenders have had their sentences reduced in the courts under the “only yes is yes” law, we need to make clear how many people have benefitted from the substantive raises in the minimum wage over the last five years and from the coalition’s new guaranteed minimum income scheme. These types of concrete gains, which have improved the lives of millions, are at risk from a right-wing government.

Second, while not making it a central plank in the campaign, the Left needs to be clear that it is the only force with a  workable model for the Spanish state that can avoid further confrontations on the national question. The Right wants to use our cooperation with Basque and Catalan independentists as a weapon against us and we cannot be afraid to offer a frontal defense of our position, which offers a more confederal vision for the state. We also need to spell out that a right-wing government will just reignite the Catalan conflict and could potentially see a loss of regional autonomy.

Third, Sumar must be able to offer a positive vision as a counterpoint to the threat of democratic regression under the Right. This could be framed in various ways but basically as a new Spain of labor protections and social rights, such as those around the right to housing, free time, or access to public services.

Eoghan Gilmartin

Yes, the last point seems key. The sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo said recently that “the [Spanish] left has implemented very good public policies but that you don’t win elections by simply saying how much you have raised the minimum wage by. Such figures and data also have to form part of a discourse that talks about desires, or about the enemy — otherwise people forget.”

At times Díaz has achieved this, particularly during her so-called “listening process” where she toured the country laying out plans for a ten-year program for a new country, but in other moments she has centered her appeal rather narrowly on her capacity for institutional management and social dialogue. Clearly her proven track record in government is a real benefit in reaching out to PSOE voters but what also marks her out from Sánchez is her ability to articulate a broader social democratic vision of a new post-pandemic era of state interventionism and social protection. This has to be front and center.

Sergio Pascual

I agree that her team has done important work in building this program. I say this from the point of view of someone who tried to do something similar during my time with Podemos. If we didn’t manage to do it, they, however, have succeeded in uniting an impressive group of experts to build a program for several decades, a program for a different Spain. We now just need the labels and slogans that allow you to connect with people and explain these proposals in a straightforward way. The question is how exactly she is going to communicate this vision to the electorate over the next six weeks.

I would also insist again that Yolanda’s profile as an institutional leader is a real asset in a moment when people are looking for concrete solutions to problems like the cost-of-living crisis. We are talking about a lifelong, left-wing activist who was brought up in a historic Communist family. Her father was a leader in the Comisiones Obreras union and her training as a labor lawyer and her work with the unions has ensured that she is used to institutional negotiations and managing differences.

She was my colleague when I was a member of the Spanish parliament and at that time, when the initial infighting began in Podemos, her political profile was characterized by two points: first a tireless capacity for work, and second her willingness to work with others and to cross such internal divides to achieve her political ends.

Eoghan Gilmartin

Clearly the Right have the momentum after their major gains in last month’s local and regional elections. But national projections based on these results also suggest that PP and Vox would fall just short of an absolute majority in a general election — not least because of their weakness in Catalonia and the Basque Country. So, is it fair to say we have a very open contest?

Sergio Pascual

I really believe so, even though right now the terrain is difficult for the Left. In particular, the media is a factor that still tilts the field against us. But after Sánchez’s surprise call for a summer election, people are once again talking about politics and suddenly reengaging with the issues — something that did not happen in the runup to the local polls in May. And, in turn, this will generate an undercurrent of opinion that may change many minds during the campaign — hopefully to the benefit of the Left and Sumar. Without fear or hesitation, we must take the battle to the Right and meet their challenge head on.

…

The post La geopolítica euroasiática frente al imperialismo appeared first on Global Research.

Barack Obama abandoned his commitments to unions, and many top staffers went to work for the gig economy. In his Netflix series Working, the former president bears witness to workers’ suffering as if it were immutable — and something he had nothing to do with.

Barack Obama in his new four-part docuseries, Working. (Netflix)

The cognitive dissonance becomes overwhelming around twelve minutes into the first episode of Working, a four-part docuseries by (and sort of starring) Barack Obama that premiered on Netflix on May 17. Each episode looks at a different category of job, ascending up the ranks: “Service Jobs,” “The Middle,” “Dream Jobs,” and “The Boss.”

The first episode follows three people who do service work: hotel housekeeper Elba, home care aide Randi, and delivery driver Carmen. At minute twelve, we follow Carmen as she delivers meals for Uber Eats. The camera zooms in on her phone’s display, where we can see the app’s interface. Carmen accepts a delivery order that the app tells her is $16.61 including the expected tip.

“They say that, but sometimes you don’t get a tip,” Carmen tells us, her voice edging into frustrated sarcasm by the end of the sentence. “Also, you don’t have their address, so it’s not like you have an idea of how far you’re gonna go,” she adds.

In other words, a driver might accept an order only to then learn that the cost of gas to deliver it is greater than the money she will make from the order. But by that point, it’s too late. Efforts are underway to change this by requiring a minimum trip payment for delivery drivers, but thus far, Carmen’s powerlessness is the norm for gig workers.

In the series, the only mention of the idea of minimum trip payments comes when Carmen says, “It would be nice if you got at least minimum wage,” only to continue, “but they don’t do that.” There is little discussion of such policy questions about Uber or its gig-economy counterparts, much less their right to continue on with a business model whose main innovation comes down to labor arbitrage.

It is hard not to conclude that Carmen is powerless to change anything. Apparently, so is Obama — which is odd, since the gig economy as we know it today was effectively created during his administration. Uber was founded two months after Obama’s inauguration. The company launched Uber Eats in 2014. And many of Obama’s former staffers have played a key role not only in expanding the gig economy in general, but in the growth of Uber specifically.

David Plouffe, Obama’s 2008 campaign manager and a senior advisor to the president, joined Uber as a senior vice president of policy and strategy in 2014, using his access to the president’s circle to combat what Uber’s then CEO Travis Kalanick described as the company’s opponent: “the Big Taxi Cartel.” Plouffe also worked these connections to export the company’s labor arbitrage abroad, playing a key role in Uber’s global lobbying effort.

Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign manager in 2012 and the president’s deputy chief of staff, helped too. He introduced Plouffe to Kalanick, advising the company on how to smooth over frictions as it expanded into new markets. Kalanick also considered hiring Jay Carney, the president’s former press secretary, to lead the company’s communications strategy; instead, Carney joined Amazon as senior vice president of global affairs in 2015.

Yet here is Obama, showing us the consequences of his milieu’s actions, his failure to institute even relatively tame protections for workers as Uber and other gig-economy companies spread across the United States, burrowing into the marrow of our cities and towns until they were so entrenched as to become almost unavoidable and untouchable. We hear no mention of his former vice president Joe Biden’s disinterest in this issue either, as gig companies’ continue apace with their efforts to ensure their workforce’s lack of protections by creating a nonsensical “third category” of worker, a nefarious middle ground between worker and independent contractor that allows bosses to better exploit their employees.

Lest we forget, Obama reneged on his commitment to prioritize the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which among other things would have instituted “card check.” This would mean that when a majority of workers have signed union authorization cards, the union would be certified without having to submit to the onerous process of holding a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) election that is lopsidedly stacked in bosses’ favor.

Without even going into the corporate-friendly bailout over which he presided during the Great Recession, Obama also backed out of all sorts of other commitments he made to the working class to win their support. To name just one, here’s a speech he gave during his first primary campaign in 2007 to a crowd in South Carolina: “If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America.”

Obama did not, in fact, join anyone on a picket line during that first term — not even as Wisconsin gutted unions under right-wing governor Scott Walker.

Unions do show up in Obama’s show. One of the three workplaces the series follows from the lowest-level employees up to the boss is the Pierre Hotel in New York City. The hotel is unionized (though the show never mentions which union; it’s the Hotel and Gaming Trades Council, an affiliate of UNITE HERE) and it’s why the lower-level workers we meet at the Pierre have been at the same job for decades, unlike their counterparts at nonunion jobs.

“I don’t work for tips because I know I can count on my paycheck,” says Elba, the housekeeper we follow in the first episode, explaining that she makes around $4,000 a month. “You have to be a member of the union here.”

As she and her coworkers discuss the threat automation might pose to their jobs, they’re interrupted by the arrival of Beverly, one of the hotel’s switchboard operators and their union representative. “We’re talking about what happens when they replace you with a machine,” one worker explains to her.

“It’s not that easy to take us out, that’s the reason why we have a union,” says Beverly. “Look at the other hotels that closed for good. A lot of the places where there is no union, those people walk away with nothing.”

The scene leads into a narrated history lesson by Obama. A hundred years ago, explains the former president, there were factory jobs, and they were terrible. Then, Franklin Delano Roosevelt “pushed through new protections for workers: the New Deal.” Obama notes that “a conservative Supreme Court tried to block these changes from taking effect.”

“Factory work was still hard, but the jobs were better,” says Obama. The catch, though, was that domestic and farmworkers were excluded from these protections. “Service workers,” says Obama, are the “direct descendants of the legacy that undervalued certain types of work.” He continues, “A lucky few work at union shops like the Pierre, but with most domestic care jobs or in the gig economy, you’re still on your own.”

So it’s luck that makes some workers union members and others not. Too bad — yet another path that could resolve this problem turns out to be a matter of chance, rather than, say, something Obama himself could have worked to change during his two terms in office.

What is going on here? The show’s title, Working, is an homage to Studs Terkel, the fantastic chronicler of working-class life in America. In addition to his radio broadcasts, Terkel published numerous books of oral history, and Working is his most well known. In the show’s opening minutes, Obama tells us that he discovered Terkel as a young college student in Chicago, which was Terkel’s city too.

The former president describes the book as “a chronicle of people from every walk of life and what it was like for them to work.” We hear a quote from Terkel about the method of his characteristically winding interviews, which in Working (the book) often elicit specific, lively gold: “There is no one way to begin, it’s arbitrary. But you want to find that quintessential truth. The essence of a truth.”

What truth is Obama trying to get at? From the first episode, one might reasonably conclude that the message is: none of us are stronger than the system in which we live, and the best we can do is bear witness to the suffering of American workers. Spoiler alert: that remains one of the takeaways throughout the series.

At the end of episode one, Obama joins Randi, the home health aide, on a grocery trip, listening to her explain that she now works at a private, adult-supervised living home for the handicapped, a job that gives her some flexibility as a single mother but which only pays her $1,400 a month.

“A month?” Obama asks her.

“Yeah,” she responds. “I can get by but—”

“But at the end of the month, it’s tight,” says the former president, finishing the sentence.

“It’s tight,” agrees Randi.

It’s a good start to an in-depth conversation about the poverty wages Randi earns, but we don’t get much more. And this is about as curious as Obama gets, which is one of the central problems with the series. Labor reporting requires interest about the lives of working-class people, and one of the more astonishing aspects of Working is that one gets the sense that Obama is not actually interested in the people around him.

By contrast, Terkel’s curiosity about the people he interviewed was unmissable. He resented the indignities and violence to which capitalism subjected them. As he writes in the first sentence of Working’s introduction, “This book, being about work, is, by its very nature, about violence — to the spirit as well as to the body.” This is a stronger moral judgment about wage labor than anything we get from Obama, whose line of inquiry throughout the series concerns whether jobs are just a paycheck, or a source of meaning for people now, too. But surely he made it that far into Terkel’s book?

Yet even with Terkel’s disdain for the wrongs inflicted upon human beings by capitalist work, he never reduced his interview subjects to mere suffering, as Obama’s Working sometimes does; workers’ personality and, most importantly, intelligence shone through in his interviews. It’s what makes them classics of the form.

By contrast, Obama’s show seems more concerned with the former president himself; isn’t it odd that this great man is speaking to regular people? Isn’t it funny that he went from president to television producer?

“This is Barack Obama,” he tells Beverly, the switchboard operator at the Pierre Hotel when calling down to order room service. The scene would be cute if surprising average people with the fact that they’re interacting with the former president weren’t the part of this gig that he seems to enjoy the most. The problem is that if you’re bored of talking with working people, the onscreen results will be boring, and Working makes labor reporting dull. Thanks, Obama.

…

The post Los BRICS en espiral ascendente appeared first on Global Research.

On Sunday, an 11-year-old girl died after becoming ill during a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to New York. The flight crew diverted the plane to Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt International Airport to make an emergency landing and provide medical care for the child. Despite an onboard doctor’s swift and professional assistance and subsequent on-ground emergency medical teams, the girl couldn’t be saved.

The medical emergency occurred mid-flight, prompting the captain to redirect the plane to the airport in Budapest. A doctor, who was one of the passengers on board, attempted to help the child, yet her life could not be saved.

The young girl’s family members disembarked the aircraft in Budapest, while the flight continued with a four-and-a-half-hour delay. The girl’s identity has not been released, and the country the child was a citizen of is uncertain.

Following the incident, Turkish Airlines issued a statement conveying sympathy and support to the family of the deceased child. “We offer our heartfelt condolences to the family and loved ones and share their pain,” they said.

Former MK Avraham Burg, the Jewish partner in the new movement, has served as chairman of the Jewish Agency for Israel, Speaker of the Knesset, and Interim President of Israel. 

By Moshe Phillips, JNS

A new political movement in Israel is calling for the creation of a binational Arab-Jewish entity instead of a Jewish state. The movement’s plan includes eliminating the anthem “Hatikvah,” the Israeli flag and the Law of Return. So, why is an American Zionist organization providing a platform to such extremists?

These are frustrating times for the far-left in Israel. Its main voice, the Meretz Party, did not win enough votes in the last election to enter the Knesset. It is unclear whether the party will survive.

One party is hoping to take Meretz’s place on the far-left. Former Knesset Member Avraham Burg and Haifa University professor Faisal Azaiza have created a new party called “All Its Citizens.” In an early June webinar, Burg and Azaiza explained their platform and their goal of attracting those who voted for Meretz and other far-left parties in the last election.

The Burg-Azaiza platform is noticeably more extreme than that of Meretz. In fact, they want to completely strip Israel of its Jewish identity. Burg said that the music to “Hatikvah” would be retained, but the lyrics would be removed. The national flag would not display a Star of David. Instead, it would just be “a color.” The Law of Return—which grants automatic citizenship to any Jew who needs or wants it—would be repealed. Instead, Burg said, “An individual Jew who is persecuted might be given a fast track to citizenship.” He quickly added, “Palestinians seeking shelter would have the same right.”

Burg explicitly denounced the idea of any connection between Israel and world Jewry. “Israel does not belong to the whole Jewish people—it belongs only to the citizens of Israel,” he asserted.

Obviously, Burg and Azaiza have the right to promote their anti-Zionist vision. What is noteworthy, however, is that they did so via a webinar hosted and promoted by an ostensibly Zionist organization—Partners for Progressive Israel (PPI).

PPI is the U.S. equivalent of Meretz. The Burg-Azaiza party, however, is much more extreme than Meretz ever was. Meretz does not reject such basic tenets of Zionism as the idea that Israel belongs to the entire Jewish people. The very first paragraph of its platform calls Israel “the country of the Jewish people” and “the national home for the Jewish people,” as well as a country of its citizens. This is the opposite of what Burg now advocates.

The Meretz platform does not call for eliminating “Hatikvah,” the Israeli flag or the Law of Return. In fact, it contains language that indicates the party expects the Law of Return will never be abolished.

Moreover, the Meretz platform speaks of an Israel-Diaspora relationship that is very different from what Burg demands. On page 29 of its platform, the party states, “There is a historic and national connection between Jews in the State of Israel and Jews in the Diaspora.”

The platform then explicitly embraces the statement from Israel’s Declaration of Independence, “The State of Israel will be open to Jewish immigration and to the ingathering of the exiles.” Meretz emphasizes that it “openly welcomes Jews who are interested in settling here.”

As a former member of the board of the American Zionist Movement, I know that its member organizations take its principles seriously. AZM’s mission statement, as featured on its website, declares that it “is comprised of 42 national Jewish Zionist organizations and works across a broad ideological, political and religious spectrum linking the American Jewish community together in support of Israel, Zionism and the Jewish people.”

AZM has accepted PPI as a member, which means it believed that PPI accepts AZM’s basic principles. But promoting the Burg-Azaiza anti-Zionist party is not “promoting and defending Zionism.” It is doing the exact opposite. Their party clearly opposes the most fundamental principles and symbols of Zionism.

Perhaps PPI will claim that it was merely presenting the Burg-Azaiza webinar for informational purposes, not as an endorsement. Perhaps it will say that PPI’s former executive director, who hosted the webinar, was just being polite when he offered to send links to Burg’s podcasts and other activities to members of the listening audience. Perhaps.

Yet the webinar did not offer any opposing points of view. It didn’t contain critical or challenging questions. It was essentially a free infomercial for the “All Its Citizens” party, including helpful offers of assistance from PPI’s host.

Partners for Progressive Israel owes it to the American Zionist community to clearly reject and denounce the anti-Zionist principles that were presented in its webinar by Burg and Azaiza. If it does not do so, AZM’s other member organizations may justifiably conclude that PPI, while claiming to be Zionist, is in fact promoting anti-Zionism itself.

Moshe Phillips is a commentator on Jewish affairs. He was previously a U.S. delegate to the World Zionist Congress and served as a member of the board of the American Zionist Movement.

The post Why is ostensibly Zionist organization promoting party that opposes Jewish statehood? appeared first on World Israel News.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article …

The post Eurasian Geopolitics Versus Imperialism appeared first on Global Research.

The tragedy of the shooting at a birthday party in Antioch, California, on Sunday, is yet another example of the devastating effects of gun violence in the United States. The shooting occurred shortly before 1 a.m. when uninvited guests showed up to the 19-year-old’s birthday party at a home in the northern California city. Gunfire ensued, causing panic among the partygoers who fled in multiple directions, some of them with gunshot wounds.

When police arrived at the scene, they found a large crowd and shooting victims outside the home. A total of seven people had been shot, including an 18-year-old woman who later died of her injuries at a hospital. The woman’s identity has not been released at this time. The other victims ranged in age from 18 to 20 years old, and all suffered gunshot wounds that weren’t considered life-threatening.

It is unclear who or how many people opened fire and whether they knew any of the victims. Police did not detail the circumstances leading up to the shooting or any possible motive. The suspect or suspects fled the area in a vehicle before officers arrived, and detectives are working to identify who was responsible.

The shooting in Antioch is yet another example of the devastating effects of gun violence in the United States. It is a tragedy that a young woman lost her life, and six others were injured in a senseless act of violence. It is important that we continue to work together to find solutions to reduce gun violence and create a safer environment for all.

From Alduous Huxley’s Brave New World to George Orwell’s 1984 to Lois Lowry’s The Giver, dystopian stories dominate school reading lists. When I was a kid, I assumed that this was because the adults in charge hated children and wanted to give us Major Depressive Disorder. But anthropologist Kristen Ghodsee, author of Why Women Have […]

Netanyahu’s lawyer identified a contradiction in Lapid’s version of events.

By TPS

Opposition leader Yair Lapid testified at the corruption trial of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday.

The Yesh Atid party leader arrived at the Jerusalem District Court to take the stand as part of Case 1000 — one of three cases brought against Netanyahu in the trial.

Under Case 1000, known by Israelis as the Gifts Affair, the prime minister is charged with fraud and breach of trust.

According to the indictment, Netanyahu asked then-Finance Minister Lapid in 2013 to assist in the personal affairs of Israeli businessman and Hollywood mogul Arnon Milchan.

Milchan allegedly gave the Netanyahus expensive gifts in exchange for amendments to a law granting tax exemptions to immigrants and returning residents.

Under cross-examination by Netanyahu’s lawyer Amit Hadad at the beginning of Monday’s hearing, Lapid said that he knew about the close relationship between Netanyahu and Milchan but that he “didn’t know then about the issue with the gifts.”

Hadad identified a contradiction in Lapid’s version of events when he “spoke twice” with Netanyahu about Milchan’s request to extend the tax exemption. At the hearing, Lapid said that they met at the Prime Minister’s Residence at Balfour Street and also at the entrance to the Cabinet room on Givat Ram. However, Lapid claimed during a 2017 investigation that both incidents occurred at Balfour Street.

After the judge asked Lapid about the contradiction, he said: “It was a marginal incident so I didn’t remember where it was, but the content is important because when a prime minister addresses me regarding a tax matter, you remember the conversation and the content, not the place.”

The Gifts Affair is one of three cases which Netanyahu is on trial for.

In Case 2000, also known as the Yediot Affair, the Prime Minister is charged with striking an illegal quid pro quo with Arnon “Noni” Mozes, the publisher of the Yediot Aharonot daily in 2009 when Netanyahu was Minister of Communication. In exchange for supporting legislation that would weaken the rival Israel Hayom daily, Yediot would provide more favorable coverage of Netanyahu.

Case 4000, known as the Bezeq Affair, regards a quid pro quo with Shaul Elovitch, Bezeq’s majority shareholder. Specifically, the PM is accused of giving the telecom regulatory benefits in exchange for favorable coverage on the Elovitch-owned Walla! News site.

Netanyahu insists he is innocent of all charges.

The post Lapid testifies in Netanyahu corruption trial; lawyer notes contradiction appeared first on World Israel News.