US Foreign Policy & Redrawing the Middle East - 3/6

Azmi Bishara is a Christian Arab human rights activist and Israeli citizen from Nazareth. He is the founder of the Arab Students Union in Israel and the National Democratic Assembly (Balad); former Head of the Philosophy Department at Bir Zeit University; and a senior researcher in the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.

In this talk, Dr. Bishara discusses the radical change from a unipolar world, since the fall of the Soviet Union, to the mode of unilateralism and what this means in the context of international relations. Bishara seeks to highlight this shift by drawing on methods and justifications used prior to the the war on Iraq. He also investigates the dawning reality of 'global terrorism' and how this has influenced this shift. He dedicates a large part of the talk however, to the Arab-Israeli conflict and the pivotal role that US foreign policy has in settling this age-long conflict.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• azmi
• bishara
• us
• foreign
• policy
• middle
• east
• iraq
• israel
• palestine
• saddam
• sharon
• olmert
• bush
• zionism
• pnac
• analysis
• wmd

[vistavision2]

Democracy works because the symbiotic relationship of economic classes is: each generation theoretically moves up with the death of the parents: lower, middle, upper; each having threes subclasses for a sum of nine classes and the extreme lower and extreme upper or a theoretical eleven classes.

[mingoi313]

In this era of super-capitalism, with multi-billion dollar corporates standing monumentously above the deprived majority, the economic balance appears to be subverting even further the voice of the peoples.

[vistavision2]

The middle east was redrawn in 1947: Borders are static. Democracy is founded upon nationalism: where the people identify with the community as a whole becuase of the faith that economic picture shall be better for their children.

[mingoi313]

In principle I agree on both counts, however there's nuances to every region and the usage of "terminology" to describe how politics plays out. Historically, the dawn of "nation states" and its implication to the Middle East needs a lot of study, in light with cultural, socio-economic/political trends of similarity and divergence for the people of the ME.

[mingoi313]

Moving to the present however, the "redrawing" of the ME is playing out to be a political battle in search for AN or THE identity for the ME (depending on the point of view) more than an issue of borders. Condi Rice famously coined the "New Middle East" last year. On 1947, I agree - from the fact that we still see the consequences, we can take it that borders mean a lot more.

As for nationalism and democracy, it hasn't been an easy fit. The case of Lebanon is historically a poignant example.

[evcrawfish]

mingoi and vistavision, well thought out and communicated points,,, the thing you both fail to see is that the military industrial complex that eisenhower warned us about it one word... corporation,,, as the corporation has gained more prevalence in american society, there has been less and less of a true democratic republic in america.... look at the docuvideo here on youtube entitled "the corporation" there are like 15 or more parts to this video, but it explains how the corporation evolved

[vistavision2]

poverty is the father of both crime and revolution.

[vistavision2]

That there is qa 100% national identiy is false premise/paradigmA: peoples always separate into aminimum of two opposing forces-balance of power. Condi is an academic idiot. The point of the cultural spear for spreading democracy should have been Israel: impossibility when it is engaged in Crimes Against Humanity. The cultural tides fluidity and strenght is dependent on the degree of fusion of ideas. Minimal cultrual exhange is called "detente/cold war".

[vistavision2]

Politics are fluid as is the amalagamation of peoples and cultures with an particular aspects of the founding fusing cultures being rejected by the next generation. The dawn of nation-states was born with the US; spread south in western hemisphere and east from France (US ally); causing political upheavals like cultural tides.