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One Love.

One Heart.

One World.

Peace Out.

The Times of Oman has an interesting op-ed piece explaining the Russian support for Syria.  It touches all the right bases, and one can hardly quarrel with the analysis.  But it begs the question:  how do the Russians view the end-game in Syria?  Surely, they can’t believe that Assad will survive.  It is very difficult to determine the Russian interest under these circumstances, particularly since the UN prognosis for increased violence is so grim.

Egyptian politics is about to get a lot more difficult, as the country implements new economic austerity measures to satisfy the demands of the International Monetary Fund.  These austerity measures will certainly test the strength of the Morsi government since one can expect the general population to bear the brunt of the burden.  IMF austerity programs invariably target government programs that subsidize the consumption patterns of the largest segments of the population–always the poorer groups.  We can expect protests similar to the ones we have witnessed in Greece.

The New York review of Books has published a statement written by Nomika Zion, a member of Migvan, an urban kibbutz in Sderot, the Israeli city about a mile from the Gaza Strip border.  The statement is a powerful critique of the policies pursued by Prime Minister Netanyahu toward the Gaza Strip.  What makes the statement even more remarkable is that it comes from an individual who lives well within the range of the missiles fired by Hamas into Israel.

As Syria continues to unravel, there as been much speculation about how Assad’s possible departure will affect the balance of power in the Middle East.  The Russians have backed away from Assad to a certain degree, and Hamas has all but repudiated him and moved strongly into the orbit of the Egyptians.  Analysts are now beginning to consider whether the Iranians might be recalculating their alliance with Assad.   Such a move would move the region strongly into the sphere of Saudi influence.

The death of a young woman who was brutally raped and killed by a gang of six men in India has led to a massive protest and painful introspection.  The tragedy is far from an isolated incident in world, but its indescribable savagery raises all sorts of questions about how women are regarded in the world.  Despite some signs of progress over the last 40 years, it is hard to believe that any progress has been made to elevate the status of women.

The ruling elite of China includes many descendants of the original Maoist revolution in 1949.  This elite, however, is quite different from its predecessors, and would probably be considered traitors to the purposes of the Communist revolution.  Interestingly, the ruling elite does not appear to be particularly unsettled by the change in direction.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a young man with a distinctive political lineage in Pakistani politics, has made his first foray into the politics of Pakistan.  He is too young to enter formal politics, but he gave a speech clearly signaling that he intends to stand for office when he comes of age.  The Bhutto family has been a dominant force in Pakistani politics ever since the country was created.

Sunnis in Iraq have gathered in large protests against the rule of Prime Minister Maliki, raising the prospect of increased sectarian violence.  The stresses in Iraq resonate with the violence in Syria as well as the fear of the aspirations of Iran in the region.  There is little evidence that other Sunni states (such as Saudi Arabia) are involved in the protests, but it would hardly surprise anyone.  Iraq is just one more state becoming involved with these regional rivalries.

Foreign Policy has a round-up of the ten conflicts to watch in 2013.  It is an interesting, and not implausible, list.  Some of the possibilities are no-brainers; others will make one wonder.  We should keep the list and score it next December.

There is a long standing dispute between Argentina and Great Britain over territories in the South Atlantic, principally over the status of what the British call the Falkland Islands and the Argentinians call the Malvinas Islands (they fought a war over the islands).  The British recently renamed parts of Antarctica “Queen Elizabeth Land” in honor of the Queen’s diamond jubilee.  The Argentinians criticized the UK’s “anachronistic imperialist ambitions that hark back to ancient practices”.

Nigeria has a long-running area of conflict in the north which is usually described as tension between Muslims and Christians.  The description is not inaccurate since each event leaves bodies of one sect or the other, and not of both.  But it is hardly a religious dispute.  The Council on Foreign Relations has a great backgrounder on the violence in Nigeria.

One of the true greats of Rock and Roll, Fontella Bass, has died.  Rock on, Fontella!

For a little more background on the recent Israeli settlement decisions, Foreign Policy has published a short essay on the West Bank settlement of Ma’aleh Adumim.  This settlement has been around for some time, and all the new settlements proposals are essentially plans to expand around it.  The significance of these moves for a future peace between Israelis and Palestinians is difficult to overstate.

As all of you know, I’ve been keeping track of the rise of right-wing parties in Europe.  Svoboda is a nationalist party in Ukraine that entered Parliament for the first time last October.  Its agenda is fervently Ukranian and its leader once referred to the “Muscovite-Jewish mafia.”  Its rise has been meteoric, similar to the rise of the Golden Dawn in Greece, Jobbik in Hungary, and the True Finns in Finland.  The overall rise of right-wing parties closely mimics the rise of fascism in the 1920s and 30s.

Now for something you already know.  Textbook prices are out of control–but more out of control than any reasonable person would believe.  Check out this graph:

Israel has announced a third round of new settlements near Jerusalem, bringing the total for a week to nearly 5,500.  It is hard to interpret these actions as anything less than a repudiation of the two-state policy that Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the US adopted in Oslo in 1993.  It is highly likely that, if re-elected in January, Prime minister Netanyahu will formally repudiate the two-state solution.  Since there is no diplomatic alternative to Oslo right now, such a stance would mean the end of peace negotiations.  Perhaps the Europeans might be able to formulate an alternative.

One of the more interesting developments in the last 20 years has been the rise of Chinese foreign direct investment in areas that are former European colonies.  The hope was that this new source of capital would give the developing world a more viable development alternative.  The verdict is still out, but it does not appear as if the Chinese are more insightful than the Europeans when it comes to cultural difference.  How these investments play out over the next few years will be an important measure of whether foreign capital can ever really be helpful to true development.

The economic troubles in Europe have been going on for 5 years now, and they are now beginning to affect how the younger generation views the future of Europe.  The departure of many of Europe’s best young professionals to other regions of the world signals a quickening of the structural factors leading to economic decline.  Notably, these young people are not going to the US or other traditional safe havens–they are more likely to go to the newly emerging market economies.  We’ll see how long-lasting this shift is.

98 years ago an extraordinary event occurred: a Christmas truce called by British and German soldiers in World War I.  It was not a truce declared by the people in authority.  It was, rather, a spontaneous event, made by soldiers who had been killing each other the day before and who would continue to kill each other the day after.  But on Christmas, they all recognized that they were humans–not soldiers, and not even citizens.  But rather men who found themselves in unbearable circumstances doing things to each other that they would not voluntarily do.  And so, for a brief moment, they did what humans always truly want to do: enjoy each other’s company.

From: The Washington Blog, 18 December 2012 (http://www.washingtonsblog.com/)

What the Soldiers Did on Christmas 98 Years Ago

By leading anti-war activist David Swanson, author of Day Break and War Is A Lie, who runs the websites DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet.org)

Frank Richards recalled:

“On Christmas morning we stuck up a board with ‘A Merry Christmas’ on it. The enemy had stuck up a similar one. Platoons would sometimes go out for twenty-four hours’ rest — it was a day at least out of the trench and relieved the monotony a bit — and my platoon had gone out in this way the night before, but a few of us stayed behind to see what would happen. Two of our men then threw their equipment off and jumped on the parapet with their hands above their heads. Two of the Germans done the same and commenced to walk up the river bank, our two men going to meet them. They met and shook hands and then we all got out of the trench.

“Buffalo Bill [the Company Commander] rushed into the trench and endeavoured to prevent it, but he was too late: the whole of the Company were now out, and so were the Germans. He had to accept the situation, so soon he and the other company officers climbed out too. We and the Germans met in the middle of no-man’s-land. Their officers was also now out. Our officers exchanged greetings with them. One of the German officers said that he wished he had a camera to take a snapshot, but they were not allowed to carry cameras. Neither were our officers.

“We mucked in all day with one another. They were Saxons and some of them could speak English. By the look of them their trenches were in as bad a state as our own. One of their men, speaking in English, mentioned that he had worked in Brighton for some years and that he was fed up to the neck with this damned war and would be glad when it was all over. We told him that he wasn’t the only one that was fed up with it. We did not allow them in our trench and they did not allow us in theirs.

“The German Company-Commander asked Buffalo Bill if he would accept a couple of barrels of beer and assured him that they would not make his men drunk. They had plenty of it in the brewery. He accepted the offer with thanks and a couple of their men rolled the barrels over and we took them into our trench. The German officer sent one of his men back to the trench, who appeared shortly after carrying a tray with bottles and glasses on it. Officers of both sides clinked glasses and drunk one another’s health. Buffalo Bill had presented them with a plum pudding just before. The officers came to an understanding that the unofficial truce would end at midnight. At dusk we went back to our respective trenches.”

Bruce Bairnsfather remembered:

“The dawn of the 24th brought a perfectly still, cold, frosty day. The spirit of Christmas began to permeate us all; we tried to plot ways and means of making the next day, Christmas, different in some way to others. Invitations from one dug-out to another for sundry meals were beginning to circulate. Christmas Eve was, in the way of weather, everything that Christmas Eve should be.

“I was billed to appear at a dug-out about a quarter of a mile to the left that evening to have rather a special thing in trench dinners—not quite so much bully and Maconochie about as usual. A bottle of red wine and a medley of tinned things from home deputized in their absence. The day had been entirely free from shelling, and somehow we all felt that the Boches, too, wanted to be quiet. There was a kind of an invisible, intangible feeling extending across the frozen swamp between the two lines, which said ‘This is Christmas Eve for both of us—something in common.’

“About 10 p.m. I made my exit from the convivial dug-out on the left of our line and walked back to my own lair. On arriving at my own bit of trench I found several of the men standing about, and all very cheerful. There was a good bit of singing and talking going on, jokes and jibes on our curious Christmas Eve, as contrasted with any former one, were thick in the air. One of my men turned to me and said:

“‘You can ‘ear ‘em quite plain, sir!’

“‘Hear what?’ I inquired.

“‘The Germans over there, sir; ‘ear ‘em singin’ and playin’ on a band or somethin’.’

“I listened;—away out across the field, among the dark shadows beyond, I could hear the murmur of voices, and an occasional burst of some unintelligible song would come floating out on the frosty air. The singing seemed to be loudest and most distinct a bit to our right. I popped into my dug-out and found the platoon commander.”

“‘Do you hear the Boches kicking up that racket over there?’ I said.

“‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘they’ve been at it some time!’

“‘Come on,’ said I, ‘let’s go along the trench to the hedge there on the right—that’s the nearest point to them, over there.’

“So we stumbled along our now hard, frosted ditch, and scrambling up on to the bank above, strode across the field to our next bit of trench on the right. Everyone was listening. An improvised Boche band was playing a precarious version of ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, uber Alles,’ at the conclusion of which, some of our mouth-organ experts retaliated with snatches of ragtime songs and imitations of the German tune. Suddenly we heard a confused shouting from the other side. We all stopped to listen. The shout came again. A voice in the darkness shouted in English, with a strong German accent, ‘Come over here!’ A ripple of mirth swept along our trench, followed by a rude outburst of mouth organs and laughter. Presently, in a lull, one of our sergeants repeated the request, ‘Come over here!’

“‘You come half-way—I come half-way,’ floated out of the darkness.

“‘Come on, then!’ shouted the sergeant. ‘I’m coming along the hedge!’

“‘Ah! but there are two of you,’ came back the voice from the other side.

“Well, anyway, after much suspicious shouting and jocular derision from both sides, our sergeant went along the hedge which ran at right-angles to the two lines of trenches. He was quickly out of sight; but, as we all listened in breathless silence, we soon heard a spasmodic conversation taking place out there in the darkness.

“Presently, the sergeant returned. He had with him a few German cigars and cigarettes which he had exchanged for a couple of Maconochie’s and a tin of Capstan, which he had taken with him. The séance was over, but it had given just the requisite touch to our Christmas Eve—something a little human and out of the ordinary routine.

“After months of vindictive sniping and shelling, this little episode came as an invigorating tonic, and a welcome relief to the daily monotony of antagonism. It did not lessen our ardour or determination; but just put a little human punctuation mark in our lives of cold and humid hate. Just on the right day, too—Christmas Eve! But, as a curious episode, this was nothing in comparison to our experience on the following day.

“On Christmas morning I awoke very early, and emerged from my dug-out into the trench. It was a perfect day. A beautiful, cloudless blue sky. The ground hard and white, fading off towards the wood in a thin low-lying mist. It was such a day as is invariably depicted by artists on Christmas cards—the ideal Christmas Day of fiction.

“‘Fancy all this hate, war, and discomfort on a day like this!’ I thought to myself. The whole spirit of Christmas seemed to be there, so much so that I remember thinking, ‘This indescribable something in the air, this Peace and Goodwill feeling, surely will have some effect on the situation here to-day!’ And I wasn’t far wrong; it did around us, anyway, and I have always been so glad to think of my luck in, firstly, being actually in the trenches on Christmas Day, and, secondly, being on the spot where quite a unique little episode took place.

“Everything looked merry and bright that morning—the discomforts seemed to be less, somehow; they seemed to have epitomized themselves in intense, frosty cold. It was just the sort of day for Peace to be declared. It would have made such a good finale. I should like to have suddenly heard an immense siren blowing. Everybody to stop and say, ‘What was that?’ Siren blowing again: appearance of a small figure running across the frozen mud waving something. He gets closer—a telegraph boy with a wire! He hands it to me. With trembling fingers I open it: ‘War off, return home.—George, R.I.’ Cheers! But no, it was a nice, fine day, that was all.

“Walking about the trench a little later, discussing the curious affair of the night before, we suddenly became aware of the fact that we were seeing a lot of evidences of Germans. Heads were bobbing about and showing over their parapet in a most reckless way, and, as we looked, this phenomenon became more and more pronounced.

“A complete Boche figure suddenly appeared on the parapet, and looked about itself. This complaint became infectious. It didn’t take ‘Our Bert’ long to be up on the skyline (it is one long grind to ever keep him off it). This was the signal for more Boche anatomy to be disclosed, and this was replied to by all our Alf’s and Bill’s, until, in less time than it takes to tell, half a dozen or so of each of the belligerents were outside their trenches and were advancing towards each other in no-man’s land.

“A strange sight, truly!

“I clambered up and over our parapet, and moved out across the field to look. Clad in a muddy suit of khaki and wearing a sheepskin coat and Balaclava helmet, I joined the throng about half-way across to the German trenches.

“It all felt most curious: here were these sausage-eating wretches, who had elected to start this infernal European fracas, and in so doing had brought us all into the same muddy pickle as themselves.

“This was my first real sight of them at close quarters. Here they were—the actual, practical soldiers of the German army. There was not an atom of hate on either side that day.”

Peace on Earth, to all of you.

The Egyptian press is reporting that the new constitution was indeed approved by 64% of the electorate–if true, a stunning victory for President Morsi.  The opposition, however, is claiming that the election was fraudulent and is pressing for an investigation.  It is difficult to assess the legitimacy of the election from so far away.  The numbers suggest that the election was indeed valid since it is hard to imagine fraud on such a scale.  But everything rests on what the Egyptian people perceive to be true.

The rebels in Mali are enforcing a rigid interpretation of Sharia law and are destroying all the holy shrines in Timbuktu that they regard as inconsistent with their interpretation of Islam.  From a cultural and historical perspective, these losses are truly tragic since Timbuktu has been an extraordinary crossroads for numberless peoples over the years.  The African Union has attempted a feeble response to the rebellion, but there is virtually no hope that the rebels can be contained without outside support.  This change in Malian politics is directly attributable to the downfall of Gaddafi in Libya–an unanticipated consequence of his downfall.

The most recent studies of the temperature in Antarctica are especially troubling, indicating that temperatures have risen much faster there than any climate models have yet predicted.  The studies have found that “since 1958 average temperatures at the American Byrd research station in the middle of the vast reaches of western Antarctica have risen by 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 Fahrenheit)” and that these changes are “one of the fastest gains ever recorded on the planet and three times the global average.”  We don’t have very good data for Antarctica, so one must be cautious about interpreting these studies.   But one should be very concerned by the suggestiveness of the study.

There have been protests all over the world in the last year, fueled primarily by economic uncertainty and discontent.  There have not been many, however, in Latin America where, until recently, economic growth has been robust.  The entire region has begun to slow down, and Argentina has been hit by a wave of protests that signal growing discontent with the administration of Cristina Kirchner.  The IMF and other international economic organizations have long been angry with Kirchner–if the domestic population becomes disaffected as well, then it is likely that Kirchner’s days are numbered.

We tend to think about the question of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories in terms of Israeli land vs. Palestinian land, and that framework is certainly the most important from a political perspective.  There is, however, another dimension which is rarely referenced: many Palestinians are Christians.  Many of these Christians oppose the Israeli settlements that tend to limit their access to the city of Jerusalem.   If there ever is a peace settlement that includes the status of Jerusalem, this issue will need to be resolved as well.

It appears as if the new Egyptian constitution was approved in the second round of voting.  The most recent report is that the approval rate over the two elections was 64%.  This result, if confirmed, gives President Morsi a big boost.