Mannie Blog, LGS, SPAIDS, InterSection, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Issues

Mannie Blog, LGS, SPAIDS, InterSection, Israel/Palestine, Jewish Issues



and new blog:

red-jos.blogspot.com

COUNTDOWN TO NET NEUTRALITY DEADLINE IN US CONGRESS

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CHILDREN LOCKED UP IN AUSTRALIA'S FOREIGN CONCENTRATION CAMPS

Content warning: this email mentions incidents of self-harm, suicide attempts and sexual assault.~



Dear Mannie,

Imagine if you heard about a government that was locking up children up in a place where they were being exposed to violence and assault,and suffering from significant mental health distress.

A place where children were detained out of sight and locked up for prolonged periods of time – in many cases, more than a year. Kept in conditions so inhumane and hopeless, that they were wetting their beds at night for fear of being assaulted on the way to the bathroom, subject to such mental distress that they were biting their nails down to the knuckle. Imagine if you heard kids as young as 12 were so mentally distraught that they were ready to give up on their young lives, and were resorting to acts of self-harm.

Would you intervene and ask that country to free those children? Welcome to your Australia.

We're said to live in a lucky country, which prides itself on providing a "fair go for all". Yet, Australia is being called out around the world – by the United Nations, international personalities like Russell Brand and human rights watchdogs – for its barbaric policy of indefinitely detaining children.

Today's long-awaited release of the Human Rights Commission's report on children in detention, titled "The Forgotten Children", paints a sobering picture of Australia's immigration policies – which could only be described as government sanctioned child abuse. But while these children have remained forgotten by our leaders for far too long, it's not too late to make a difference – starting right now.

Many of us are all too aware of the harmful effects of detaining children, but there are many more who aren't even aware it's happening. This is why it's so important for us to speak up. We've produced a video with a message from those who worked directly with children in detention. Our plan is to put it on the air to reach as many Australians as possible, for as long as possible. There's no time to waste. Will you speak up for all children, who remain locked in detention, and get the word out now? 

LET THE CHILDREN GO!

Click here: https://www.getup.org.au/kids-out

It will come as no surprise to most that the Human Rights Commission's inquiry found "detention was inherently dangerous for children". These are just some of the more disturbing findings uncovered by the Human Rights Commission's inquiry that show why it's so dangerous:

• There are still 221 children being held in mainland detention centres, and a further 119 children in detention on Nauru.¹
• More than 300 children in detention committed or threatened self-harm in a 15 month period.² This includes incidents of self-inflected cuts, repeated head banging, and ingesting harmful substances such as insect repellent.
• In the same 15 month period, there were three attempted hangings and five incidents of self-stranglulation.
• "Children are exposed to danger by their close confinement with adults who suffer high levels of mental illness. Thirty per cent of adults detained with children have moderate to severe mental illnesses."³

Now we've heard the evidence, it's up to us to ensure others hear it too. If we're to have any hope of changing government policy, we first need to change the way Australians think about the issue. We need to encourage as many people as possible to add their voice and speak up on behalf of all children in detention. Because no matter your position on this issue, or your politics – there aren't many Australians who would agree with locking up children.

The public outrage has definitely been there – at a simmer that heats up from time to time – but we need to reach boiling point, fast. Now is when our movement, our country, needs to band together to show we have a conscience that will not be silenced. It's time to free all children from detention and show them they're not forgotten.

Speak up. Get the kids out. Chip in to help us get the word out: https://www.getup.org.au/kids-out

Now is the time for renewed hope. The GetUp community is partnering with Amnesty International, the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, ChilOut, Save the Children, the Human Rights Law Centre, Welcome to Australia and Children's Rights International, who are supporting the call for all children to be immediately released from all Australian immigration detention facilities, including Nauru where 119 children still remain.

Our movement and its many friends are still lighting the dark, and our light is growing stronger by the day. We can provide hope for all the children still being detained in our name, and together we will make sure Australia returns to the right side of history.

Thank you for speaking up,
Alycia and Erin for the GetUp team

PS. It's worth noting that this report was tabled at literally the last possible minute in Parliament this evening, in order to meet the deadline for its release. But we won't let this strategic timing, which coincidentally is the time when the media are less likely pick up on stories, prevent the plight of these children from reaching as many Australians as possible. Can you help ensure it does? https://www.getup.org.au/kids-out

~ References ~

[1] Immigration Detention and Community Statistics Summary, 31 January 2015
[2] Children in detention exposed to danger, Human Rights Commission finds, The Guardian, 11 February 2015
[3] The Forgotten Children: National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention 2014, The Australian Human Rights Commission

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GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you'd like to contribute to help fund GetUp's work, please donate now! To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Our team acknowledges that we meet and work on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We wish to pay respect to their Elders - past, present and future - and acknowledge the important role all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within Australia and the GetUp community.
Authorised by Sam Mclean, Level 2, 104 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010.

Petition "Federal Government: Fund SBS properly to stop mid-programme advertising!"

Hello!

I've started the petition "Federal Government: Fund SBS properly to stop mid-programme advertising!" and need your help to get it off the ground.
Will you take 30 seconds to sign it right now? Here's the link:
http://www.change.org/p/federal-government-fund-sbs-properly-to-stop-mid-programme-advertising
Here's why it's important:

SBS Television and advertisements
author: Mannie De Saxe
target: SBS Management in Australia and the Federal Government

SBS television was started in Australia some 30 years ago to assist the multicultural aspects of modern Australia's changing demographics. SBS was funded by the federal government but successive governments reduced their budget, so SBS began putting commercial advertising at the beginning and end of their programmes in order to raise revenue.
 When a new CEO was apponted some 12 years ago, he decided that if the advertisements were played in the middle of programmes, more revenue would be raised for the station. This ploy failed miserably, and as a consequence SBS lost viewers and the quality of its programmes deteriorated rapidly.
Now in 2015, SBS has a new management and this petition is to urge the new team to drop the advertisments in the middle of programmes. SBS used to have the best news bulletins of all tv stations in Australia, and, because of the advertisements, it has lost continuity and quality - and some of its best newsreaders!
 We are hoping to get enough signatures on this petition to induce SBS management to reconsider, and restore the service to its former glory!
 Late in 2012 SBS started a new channel specifically for Indigenous programmes. These too are interrupted in the middle of interesting programmes by commercials. These need to be stopped now in order to make SBS what it was originally - the world's first - and best - multicultural broadcaster.
It now seems that because the Federal government is determined to ruin SBS and the ABC, the government wants to join them together and reduce accommodation and staffing.
Margaret Pomeranz and Quentin Dempster, together with GetUp, have also started a petition, so there will now be at least two petitions for everyone to sign - Urgently!!

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Here's something you may not already know about: the government is proposing major changes to SBS' advertising arrangement – which, if passed, would see primetime broadcasting interrupted with more ads, more frequently, than ever seen in Australia's public broadcasting history.

Read on for a message from former SBS & ABC TV presenter Margaret Pomeranz, and public broadcasting advocate and journalist Quentin Dempster, on what you can do to stop this proposal in its tracks – and click here to sign the petition: www.getup.org.au/saveoursbs

~ A message from Margaret and Quentin ~

Mannie,

Want to stop the further commercialisation of our already under fire public broadcasters?

When Parliament re-commences next month, MPs and Senators will face a proposal on whether to allow the doubling of ads and commercial breaks on SBS, a move that will have a significant negative impact on our public broadcaster and its devoted viewers.

If the government's proposed amendments to the SBS Act are passed, SBS will look no different from the commercial networks. It will effectively be turned into Australia's fourth fully commercial TV channel, by stealth.

We will be doing everything we can to get the word out about the threat that these amendments pose to public broadcasting – but we need your help to demonstrate we have the support of the Australian public. The more signatures we can collect, the more seriously MPs and Senators will take us.

Now is the moment that Australians need to stand up to fight for sustainable, multicultural public broadcasting, and stand up for our SBS. Sign our petition urging the Federal Parliament to reject amendments to extend advertising on SBS: www.getup.org.au/saveoursbs

Our SBS is unique. It emerged in 1978 as an initiative of the Fraser Government, because of the shortage of services for the growing population of newly arrived Australians who didn't speak English.

In 2015, SBS' reason for being is more relevant than ever. Australia is one of the world's most multicultural countries, with an increasingly culturally diverse population. Thirty-three per cent of Australians weren't born here, nor were their parents. In a time when the risk of segregation and polarisation are greater than ever, our SBS can break down xenophobia, racism and bigotry through intelligent, engaging journalism, informed conversation, satire, documentary, movies and entertainment programming.

But if proposed amendments to the SBS Act pass, the SBS will be brought back to a shadow of its former self. It will be severely hindered in its ability to comply with its very own Charter, and provide quality content for Australians from diverse backgrounds.

Audiences love SBS, but love it less with commercial breaks continually disrupting programs. Together, let's remind our Parliament that we want our public broadcasters to treat us as audiences and as citizens in a robust democracy, not as consumers to be delivered up to advertisers.

Will you sign this petition, urging Parliament to protect SBS and reject these amendments? www.getup.org.au/saveoursbs

This isn't just about SBS. Australian commercial media networks rely upon advertising revenue to underwrite its financial viability – and they don't need a taxpayer-subsidised SBS competing for precious ad revenue. Public broadcasters weren't designed to be run on a commercial media business plan.

Here's what we need to tell our politicians: we want a strong and creative private media sector in Australia, complemented by robust public broadcasters with their independent Charter roles. It's this that has helped to make Australia a great and peace-loving country. Please join us and the Save Our SBS our campaign to fight for a non-commercial future for Australia's great multi-cultural broadcaster: www.getup.org.au/saveoursbs

With every good wish,

Margaret Pomeranz & Quentin Dempster

PS - We believe a public broadcaster that reaches Australia's diverse communities through multi-lingual radio, online services and television programming is crucial to a sense of inclusion. SBS is an investment in our communities – let's show politicians that we won't stand for cuts by stealth: www.getup.org.au/saveoursbs

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GetUp is an independent, not-for-profit community campaigning group. We use new technology to empower Australians to have their say on important national issues. We receive no political party or government funding, and every campaign we run is entirely supported by voluntary donations. If you'd like to contribute to help fund GetUp's work, please donate now! To unsubscribe from GetUp, please click here. Our team acknowledges that we meet and work on the land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We wish to pay respect to their Elders - past, present and future - and acknowledge the important role all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people continue to play within Australia and the GetUp community.
Authorised by Sam Mclean, Level 2, 104 Commonwealth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010.

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Please get every one you know to sign the petitions so that there will be hundreds and thousands of signatures to the Federal Government and SBS!

You can sign my petition by clicking here.
Thanks!
Mannie De Saxe

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NO PLACE TO HIDE BY GLENN GREENWALD

 Glenn Greenwald's book "No Place To Hide" has the subtitle - 'Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State'.

The dedication explains the importance of the book's contents:

"This book is dedicated to all those who have sought to shine a light on the US Government's secret mass surveillance systems, particularly the courageous whistle-blowers who have risked their liberty to do so."

This gives an indication of the direction in which the unfolding narrative will take us, and it is a journey which will leave you wondering whatever happened to the concept of democracy which is the supposed political system in which we live.

The dust-cover of the book gives an excellent summary of the book's contents and I can do no better than to reproduce the item in its entirety:

"In May 2013, Glenn Greenwald set out for Hong Kong to meet and anonymous source who claimed to have astonishing evidence of pervasive government spying and insisted on communicating only through heavily encrypted channels. That source turned out to be the twenty-nine-year-old NSA contractor Edward Snowden, and his revelations about the agency's widespread, systematic overreach proved to be some of the most explosive and consequential news in recent history, triggering a fierce debate over national security and information privacy. As the arguments raged on and the government considers proposals for reform, it is clear that we have yet to see the full impact of Snowden's disclosures.

Now, for the first time, Greenwald puts all the pieces together, recounting the high-intensity ten-day trip to Hong-Kong, examining the broader implications of the surveillance detailed in his reporting for The Guardian, and revealing fresh information on the NSA's unprecedented abuse of power with never-before-seen documents entrusted to him by Snowden himself.

Going beyond NSA specifics, Greenwald also takes on the establishment media, excoriating their habitual avoidance of adversarial reporting on the government and their failure to serve the interests of the people. Finally, he asks what it means both for individuals and for a nation's political health when a government pries so invasively into the private lives of its citizens - and considers what safeguards and forms of oversight are necessary to protect democracy in the digital age. Coming at a landmark moment in American history, No Place to Hide is a fearless, incisive, and essential contribution to our understanding of the US surveillance state."

One of the most important aspects of this book is the fact that the main-stream-media shy away from telling the citizens of our so-called democracies exactly what our governments are doing and what they are keeping hidden from everybody.

An ongoing case in point is the secret number of free-trade agreements the USA is busy negotiating with countries in the Asia-Pacific region and in the Trans-Atlantic area and one only has to examine what the USA has done with the Trade agreement between the USA, Mexico and Canada to see the disastrous outcomes of the populations of those countries.

The more the USA is involved in secret deals and agreements, the worse it will be for all those countries involved. In the end all of us end up with NO PLACE TO HIDE!

TONY ABBOTT THE LAUGHING STOCK OF AUSTRALIA AND THE WORLD!

It is unfortunate that one's vote has so little value on its own, and very little value with a few in the community whose views are similar to one's own.

When it comes to the current prime minister of Australia who makes a fool of himself every time he opens his mouth, the possibility of more and more people reaching consensus on the overall picture confronting us with the worst prime minister in living history seems to be growing by the minute.

Thank goodness yet again for people like Michael Leuning whose cartoons continue to reach to the essence of those around us as this cartoon from a few years ago illustrates so tellingly:

How much longer we are going to have to put up with the inanities pouring out of Canberra - well, nobody knows, but we have to live in hope that our collective agonies will end at the latest by the next election, due in September 2016.

LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE - BUT NOT FOR EVERYONE IN FRANCE!

The following item came from a Verso blog following on from a Shlomo Sand article in CounterPunch on 16 January 2015 after the recent events in France with Charlie Hebdo. At the end of the article was a link to this item from 3 December 2014, and the one article explains the other.

Shlomo Sand banned from speaking

By Rosie Warren / 03 December 2014

Shlomo Sand, author of The Invention of the Land of Israel, The Invention of the Jewish People, and most recently How I Stopped Being a Jew,was this month prevented from speaking at the University of Nice.

The following is a statement from the UJFP, the French Jewish Union for Peace:

Already banned (effectively) from the Maison des Associations on Nice’s Place Garibaldi two years ago, Shlomo Sand is now silenced in the place where we would least have expected it: the university!

The UNIA (Université de Nice Inter-Âge) had planned a public lecture for Wednesday 19 November entitled ‘Actuality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’, organised and presented by Yvan Gastaut (professor of contemporary history) with Shlomo Sand, professor at the University of Tel Aviv, invited to come and speak. We learned on the 6^ththat this meeting had been cancelled – without any explanation.

What had happened, then? A technical problem at the venue? A participant falling ill, or being otherwise occupied?

No!

With a simple email dated 2 November (and all our citations come from this document), Mr. Roger Guedj, emeritus professor at the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, warned the ‘leadership’ of the UNIA against the invite offered ‘to a questionable and widely-questioned historian on a particularly sensitive subject linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ and who ‘questions the creation of the State of Israel’.
Is the university not the proper place for controversy and debate? Alas! Mr. Guedj decided already: ‘lectures on current topics must be the object of consensus…’ In conclusion, he ‘hope[d] that it [would be] postponed, awaiting our leadership’s discussion of whether it is appropriate’. There was soon consensus at the UNIA… and this was put into action, with the meeting cancelled.

Two professors from the University of Nice, alerted to this, immediately expressed their indignation:
Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond (extracts): ‘S. Sand’s theses are, certainly, the object of doubt, but that does not at all make him a “dubious” historian, and his academic position is testament enough to this…

No, Sand does not at all challenge the existence of the State of Israel, indeed he is an Israeli citizen… the UNIA has the vocation of developing (rather than doling out....) culture, and in a convivial atmosphere, I shoud hope; but I do not much believe in harmony, since culture is only alive through and in confrontations’.

André Tosel (extracts): ‘I know and have read this historian of great intellectual talent and moral courage. This decision silences and sullies the university world for which UNIA claims to stand. Intellectual life does not consist of giving your blessing or dodging the issue. The contradictions of history have to be taken head on, arguing loyally and with respect in the discussion of analyses, rather than being neutralised by the reigning moral order’s prejudices regarding what can be expressed.

 These latter, alas, are a speciality of Nice’s. The university body and the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis must restore their intellectual prestige marred by this decision, repudiating and overturning it without delay!

The Zionists will not dictate their rewriting of history, in Nice or anywhere else!

Shlomo Sand is an Israeli academic who teaches at the University of Tel-Aviv –and he isn’t censored there – and is the author of many works of history including The Invention of the Jewish People and The Invention of the Land of Israel. The Zionists cannot forgive him for having questioned the founding myths of their ideology, namely the exile of the Jews and their return.

We can have disagreements with Shlomo Sand, as with any researcher. The Zionists have chosen to try to gag him. The meeting that was meant to take place at the Université de Nice Inter-Âge on 19 November was banned without explanation after the intervention of a professor from the Université de Nice Sophia-Antipolis, arguing that a lecture on the subject ‘Actuality of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ would have to be the object of consensus, this not being the case for ‘such a dubious historian’.

Too much – it’s too much! The Israeli government has just committed acts against the Palestinian population that the Russell Tribunal on Palestine called war crimes, crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide. Israel society in its majority approves of these crimes, partly because it is worn down by an incessant propaganda that denies Palestinians their dignity and their rights.

We will not let those who support a criminal policy silence our voices. We salute the two Nice academics, Jean-Marc Lévy-Leblond and André Tosel, who have protested against this attack on freedom of expression. Nice, whose mayor treats Roma people as ‘delinquents’ and banned Rachid Bouchareb’s ‘outlaw’ film, is a city where this freedom is under threat. Already two years ago, Shlomo Sand was forbidden from speaking in Nice. And in that same city in 2003, a meeting with Leila Shahid, Michel Warschawski and Dominique Vidal was also banned.

We can also recall the case of Stéphen Hessel, barred from speaking at the École Normale Supérieur in 2011, or the ‘Israel, Apartheid State’ conference banned at Paris VIII in 2012. The UJFP (French Jewish Union for Peace) denounces these attacks on freedom of expression, which serve only to cover up for the destruction of Palestine that is currently underway. It demands that Shlomo Sand be able to speak freely at the university.

UJFP-PACA

Translated from the French by David Broder. 

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CounterPunch Weekend Edition January 16-18  Suis Charlie Chaplin

A Fetid Wind of Racism Hovers Over Europe

by SHLOMO SAND

Nothing justifies an assassination, all the more a mass murder committed in cold blood. What has happened in Paris, the beginning of January, constitutes an absolutely inexcusable crime.

To say that involves nothing original: millions of people think and feel likewise on this account. However, in the light of this appalling tragedy, one of the first questions that occurrs to me is the following: in spite of the profound disgust experienced by the murders, is it obligatory to identify oneself with the victims’ actions? Must I be Charlie because the victims were the supreme incarnation of the ‘liberty of expression’, as the President of the Republic has declared? Am I Charlie, not only because I am a secular atheist, but also because of my fundamental antipathy towards the oppressive roots of the three principal Western monotheistic religions?

Certain caricatures published in Charlie Hebdo, that I’ve seen ages ago, appeared to me to be in bad taste; only a minority amongst them made me laugh. But isn’t the problem to be found there! In the majority of the caricatures on Islam published by the weekly, in the course of the last decade, I have discerned a manipulative aggro intended to further seduce the readership, obviously non-Muslim.

The reproduction by Charlie of the caricatures published in the Danish magazine seemed to me appalling. Already, in 2006, I had perceived as pure provocation the drawing of Mohammed decked in a turban in the form of a bomb. This is not so much a caricature against Islamists as a stupid conflation of Islam with Terror; it’s on a par with identifying Judaism with money!

It has been affirmed that Charlie, impartially, lays into all religions, but this is a lie. Certainly, it mocks Christians, and, sometimes, Jews. However, neither the Danish magazine, nor Charlie would permit themselves (fortunately) to publish a caricature presenting the prophet Moses, with kippah and ritual fringes, in the guise of a wily money-lender, hovering on a street corner. It is good that in the society these days called ‘Judeo-Christian’ (sic), it should no longer be possible to publically disseminate anti-Jewish hatred, as was the case in the not-too-distant past. I am for the liberty of expression while being at the same time opposed to racist incitement.

I admit to, gladly, tolerating the restrictions imposed on Dieudonné from expressing too far and wide his ‘criticism’ and his ‘jokes’ against Jews. On the other hand, I am positively opposed to attempts to restrain him physically. And if, by chance, some idiot attacks him, I will not be very shocked … albeit I will not go so far as to brandish a placard with the inscription: ‘je suis Dieudonné’.

In 1886, there was published in Paris La France juive of Edouard Drumont. And in 2014, the day of the assassinations committed by the three idiot criminals, there appears, under the title: Soumission [Submission], effectively Muslim France, of Michel Houellebecq. The pamphlet La France juive was a genuine bestseller by the end of the 19^th Century. Even before its appearance in the bookstores, Soumission was already a bestseller!

These two books, each in its own time, have benefited from sizeable and heated media coverage. There are, certainly, differences between them. Amongst other things, Houellebecq knows that, at the beginning of the 21^st Century, it is no longer acceptable to generate fear-mongering of a Jewish threat, but that it remains readily acceptable to sell books implying a Muslim threat. Alain Soral, less adept, has not understood the ‘rules’ and, for this fact, he is marginalized in the media – and so much the better! Houellebecq, on the other hand, has been invited, with much fanfare, to appear on the coveted 8 o’clock program (journal de 20 heures) of French public television, while his book is simultaneously responsible for the dissemination of the fear of Islam.

A bad wind, a fetid wind of dangerous racism, hovers over Europe: there exists a fundamental difference between challenging a religion or a dominant belief in a society, and that of attacking or inciting against the religion of a dominated minority. If, in the breast of ‘Judeo-Muslim’ [no less ridiculous than the Judeo-Christian label] society – in Saudi Arabia, in the Gulf Emirates – there is a groundswell of protests and warnings against the dominant religion that oppresses workers in their thousands, and millions of women, we have the responsibility to support the persecuted protestors. Now, as one well knows, Western leaders, far from encouraging the would-be disciples of Voltaire and Rousseau in the Middle East, maintain their total support to the religious regimes the most repressive.

On the other hand, in France or in Denmark, in Germany or in Spain populated by millions of Muslim workers, more often forced into the worst jobs, at the bottom of the social scale, it is necessary to show the greatest prudence before criticizing Islam, and above all to not crudely ridicule it.

At the moment, and particularly after this terrible massacre, my sympathy goes to the Muslims who reside in ghettos adjacent to the metropolises, who are at considerable risk of becoming the second victims of the murders perpetrated at Charlie Hebdo and at the Hyper Casher supermarket. I continue to take as a reference point the ‘original Charlie’: the great Charlie Chaplin who never mocked the poor and the little-educated.

Moreover, and knowing that one’s writings always occur in context, how to not raise the fact that, for more than a year, so many French troops are present in Africa to ‘combat the jihadists’, when no serious debate has taken place in France on the usefulness or the damage of these military interventions? The colonial gendarme of yesteryear, who carries an incontestable responsibility in the chaotic heritage of [arbitrary] borders and regimes, is today ‘recalled’ to reinstall ‘law and order’ by means of its latterday neo-colonial gendarmerie.

France joins the military coalition in Iraq, beside the US military, firefighting pyromaniac, responsible for the chaos created in the region, and notably in the rise to power of the frightful ‘Daesh’. Allied with the ‘enlightened’ Saudi leadership, and other ardent partisans of the ‘liberty of expression’ in the Middle East, [France] shores up the illogical border carve-up that it had imposed a century ago according to its imperialist interests. It is summoned to bombard those who threaten the precious oil reserves whose product it consumes, without understanding that, in doing so, it invites the risk of terror attacks in the heart of the metropolis.

But, in fact, it is possible that this process is well understood. The enlightened West can’t possibly be the naive and innocent victim as it loves to present itself. Of course, for an assassin to kill in cold blood innocent and unarmed people it is necessary to be cruel and perverse. But it is necessary to be hypocritical or stupid to close one’s eyes on the particulars that have provided the foundations of this tragedy.

This is also proof of a blindness that we had better understand: this conflict will further escalate if we don’t all work together, atheists and believers, to open true ways of living together without hating each other.

Shlomo Sand is the author of How I Stopped Being a Jew, Verso, 2014.
In November 2014 Sand was denied the opportunity to talk at a University in France (seat of the liberty of expression). The UJFP summarises the affair here.
An earlier version of this article was published on the site of the Union Juive Française pour la Paix, and reproduced on Mediapart. Translated from the Hebrew by Michel Bilis; translated from Bilis’ French by Evan Jones.