MEE—What is the link between Zionism, capitalism and the American empire? Fresh off the back of a deeply toxic, all consuming US election – one in which the issue of Palestine and the war in Gaza was largely ignored – we examine what it means to survive a system intent on silencing and marginalising dissenting voices. Despite the key role the Biden Administration has played in arming and supporting Israel, a position opposed by the majority of Americans, few political voices were interested in challenging or even speaking about this policy. A policy which mirrors the US’ own bloody history of colonialism, empire and exploitation. An environment in which voices who challenge the status quo have fewer and fewer platforms to express their dissenting views.
This week on The Big Picture Podcast, Mohamed Hassan sits down with human rights attorney, legal scholar and professor at Rutgers University Noura Erakat.
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RET. ADM. CEM GURDENIZ—The US and its allies continue to pay the price of the rapid downsizing at sea and in the region after the Cold War. They are falling behind in both the number of icebreakers and the number of troops ready for war in winter conditions.
In addition, Russia has advantages in the field of submarine warfare and hypersonic anti-ship missiles. However, despite its limited naval power, the US challenges Russia’s geographical superiority in these critical waterways through its allies. As the only NATO country with a permanent military headquarters north of the Arctic Circle (66°33’N latitude), Norway gives its most important security and defense priority to the protection of US interests in this region due to the newly developing Arctic geopolitics. NATO also uses Norway’s situation as a battering ram against Russia, putting it forward for the interests of the US in this region. Norway, one of the calmest, richest and most prosperous countries in the world, has now joined the group of risky countries that have to maintain high military vigilance and readiness at all times.
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OLIVER BOYD-BARRETT—In the UK there is a formal machinery of censorship through what used to be called the D Notice Committee, a system that shocks most US journalists when they learn of it, but which explains routine silences by the British media of so many stories of potential embarrassment to the UK Establishment (such as British media inability to refer to last week’s BRICS summit in Kazan as a BRICS event as opposed to what British media simply referred to as an international meeting convened by Russia).
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CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Those who bravely resist the US war machine or make themselves inconvenient for western empire managers don’t get to become popular heroes. You don’t see the westerners who work to stop weapons shipments to Gaza being celebrated for their efforts on CNN and the BBC. You don’t see antiwar activists getting Hollywood movies made about their work — at least not until the wars they were protesting lie safely in the distant past. You don’t see journalists who work to expose the most egregious crimes of the empire being elevated to fame and fortune.
The only figures who get elevated to fame and fortune in this fake plastic dystopia are those who either actively serve the interests of the empire or who passively distract people from its abuses. Donald Trump. Elon Musk. The Kardashians. Taylor Swift. Spider-Man and SpongeBob. [And a huge mob of obscenely paid sports figures and their media chroniclers and sycophants.—Ed)
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EDITOR—Laith and Garland talk about the nature of heroism and self-sacrifice so well personified in the Western/Israeli vilified Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Laith points out that this was a man who was born in a concentration camp, and soon after, in his youth, he was imprisoned by Israel in one of its many horrid dungeons where he was to spend 20 years. A “wanted man” for most of his adult life, the Israelis eventually located him and killed him while fighting with his men, on the frontlines, not hiding deep in a tunnel, an example to Palestinian resistance. Wounded horribly by a tank volley, virtually mutilated, bleeding to death, he gathered enough strength of purpose to throw an object to the drone sent in by the IDF to check if there was anyone still alive. Yahya Sinwar will live in the hearts of many people long after the names of Biden and Netanyahu have been forgotten.
