And you thought garlic left a bad taste in the mouth...

The recent death of former South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has surprised nobody, as there have been concerns about her health since 2006.  What I did personally find shocking, though, were the reactions of some to the news.

Msimang is of course infamous for her emphasis on treating AIDS with vegetables rather than ARVs, and garnered much well-deserved criticism.

I really hate to be "that guy" and get on my soapbox (no, really, I do!), but sometimes I feel like my hand is forced.  The news of Msimang's death prompted some comments on news sites, Facebook, and elsewhere, which are, at best, unfortunate and unpleasant.

Some choice quotes:

I danced around my house when I got the SMS. And to miss quote Elvis Costello, all I wanted to do is live long enough to dance on her grave.

Good riddance. Sorry her family has to loose [sic] the free ride.

Finally! At last a cadre is correctly deployed.

Manto Tshabalala-Msimang has died! oh happy day! They should of [sic] tried to revive her by rubbing garlic on her forehead!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that in death she should be free of the criticism that she very much deserved in life.  That would be illogical and absurd.  The truth is that she was and is responsible for the deaths of many, many people, and probably should have been tried for genocide.  Nonetheless, there is a point where untempered criticism can stray into the realm of viciousness and bad taste, and I think the above comments exemplify the wrong side of that line.

If your first reaction at the news of a person's death is delectation and glee, perhaps you should stop for a moment and realise that that says more about you than it does about them.

It's a pity that these comments - and the death that prompted it - occurred on what was supposed to be Reconciliation Day.  Sadly, though, most people with whom I spoke didn't even know what specific public holiday the 16th of December is; to them it's just another excuse to stay home, get fat, and get drunk.

How significant is the SACP?

The recent spat between ANC Youth League president Julius Malema and Deputy General Secretary of the South African Communist Party Jeremy Cronin, or rather the ANC's reaction to it, has been telling.

The SACP's recent hostility towards Malema - one of the ANC's own - has been met with little more than an attempt to placate the Communists.  How is it, then, that a political party with fewer than 100,000 registered members finds itself in the position of being the proverbial mouse bullying the elephant of the ANC?

Despite being small in representation, the SACP has managed to get its members into many of the highest positions of public office.  Examples include Reserve Bank president Gill Marcus, former Minister for Intelligence Services Ronnie Kasrils, and, of course, President Jacob Zuma.

Despite this, the SACP directly represents a negligible voter contingent.  This fact, combined with the communist influence within parliament, has encouraged some to ask: why not boot the SACP out of the Tripartite Alliance?

The fact is that the recent ANC schism, and the resulting formation of the Congress of the People, was one of the best things that could have happened for the Communists.  Another significant internal struggle is likely to leave the ANC weak enough to stand a good chance of losing the next election, and a significant struggle is exactly what a hostile course of action against the Communists would lead to.

In such a hypothetical scenario, COSATU will find themselves realising that the ANC is not in search of "allies" so much as "lap dogs."  They will either have to make peace with playing by the ANC's rules, or the knowledge that they will likely also be expelled and the alliance dissolved as soon as they cease to represent a tactical advantage to the ruling party.  In the face of this dilemma, they will refuse to show weakness and an acrimonious split would result.  Communist sympathizers and COSATU elements within the ANC would revolt against the party, leaving the door open for another party - perhaps COPE or even a new party born out of the schism - to join in an advantageous alliance with the Trade Unions.

In any event, none of the remaining political factions would have a significant majority support, and the ANC would be dead.  For this reason, the ANC needs the Communist Party a great deal more than the Party needs them, and despite numbering comparatively few registered members - though SACP membership has doubled over the last four years due to Alliance supporters' frustration with the ANC's infighting, corruption and general impotence - the Communist Party is and will remain a strong influence and important player in the South African political landscape.

So what's the deal with Israel and Palestine, anyway?

Unless you've been in a vegetative state for the last century or so, you'll know about the Arab-Israeli conflict.

If you're like most people, you've probably picked a side already, and if you're really like most people, you'll have done so despite the fact that you don't know very much - if anything - about the situation.  Most people choose a side for personal reasons ("I'm of Arabic descent, so I support Palestine"), or political reasons ("I'm an American and the USA has good relations with Israel, so I support them.").  Being a fence-sitter is bad, but picking sides with no knowledge of the issues involved is even worse.

The big question is usually, "why all the violence over a piece of land?"  It's a hot-button topic, but here is one take:

The story so far.

In 1916 the British, who controlled the area, promised the land to the Arabs in return for their help in World War I.  Think Lawrence of Arabia.

With the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the British promised the same land to the Jews.  After being kicked out of Israel by the Romans in the first century, the Jews had no state of their own, and the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine - called Zionism - had gained a lot of currency from the mid-19th century onwards.

Following World War II, the United Nations decided that, because of the Holocaust, an attempt should be made to create Israel.  However, this required the agreement of the Arabs, who were not too keen on giving up the land where they had lived for generations, and in any case hadn't the British promised it to them?  The plan was to carve up what was called the British Mandate of Palestine into Jordan, Israel, and Arab Palestine.

Despite the lack of an agreement regarding the break up of Palestine into Arab and Jewish territories, Israel unilaterally declared its independence in 1948.  There was bloodshed on both sides: Jewish attacks such as the Deir Yassin massacre caused many Arabs to flee.  The Arabs states retaliated, invading Palestine and attacking Israel.

Israel beat the Arabs in 1948, with Egypt crossing over into the Gaza strip which they occupied.  Jordan took control of the West Bank. The UN passed a resolution guaranteeing a Right of Return for the Arabs who had been forced to flee their homes.

In 1967, the Arabs attacked again.  Again Israel beat them back, but this time their military remained outside their borders, occupying the Gaza strip and the Sinai; the Golan Heights, which is a part of Syria; and the West Bank.  The UN passed a resolution stating that the borders of Israel were those that were present before the invasion.

Israel ceded the Sinai when they made peace with Egypt, but the Gaza strip remained under Israeli occupation.

Israel withdrew from Gaza a few years ago, but the military occupation of the West Bank continues to this day.  It is this military occupation which is the cause of the problem between the Israelis and the Palestinians.  There is also the issue of Israel building settlements in the West Bank, as transplanting of your people to occupied territory is forbidden by the Fourth Geneva Convention.

While there are inevitably some extremists who would like to see Israel wiped off of the map completely, the view of the world as expressed by the UN, and by the Arabs through the Saudi Peace initiative, is for Israel to return to its 1967 borders, according to what is called Resolution 242, and for the Palestinians, freed from occupation, to create their own state.  However, there are also extremists on the Israeli side who want all of Palestine for Israel, with the settlements in places such as Hebron - the second holiest site in Judaism after Jerusalem, but in the occupied West Bank - being "facts on the ground".

Then why is there US support for Israel?

The best way to understand why a US-Israeli relationship exists is to study how the relationship was formed.

The United States and Israel were intimately tied together since Israel's previously mentioned declaration of Independence - the future Israelis notified Truman of the declaration prior to its publication.  However, the issue found no consensus in the higher levels of the US government.  George Marshall famously stormed out of a meeting in protest of the recognition of Israel, and most of the State Department thought that a prompt recognition of Israel by the US would damage relationships with the Arab states.  The bigger point was that the USA's prompt recognition of Israel would do little for the US-Israeli relationship, seeing as the Soviets did the same.

In 1953 when Eisenhower and his Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, came into office, they intended to be impartial in the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Initially, this was not too difficult.  The US even aided in the successful Suez Base negotiations with Britain and Egypt.

However, things changed between 1955 and 1958.  For one, Gamal Abdel Nasser's rise to power posed a political threat to Israel, and his 1955 purchase of arms from the Soviet bloc also made him a military threat to Israel.  The US press were very unhappy about this, and wasted no time comparing him to Hitler.  Eisenhower ultimately resisted public pressure to intervene in the Suez war, and was publicly opposed to Israeli actions.  Neutrality prevailed.

But in 1958 everything changed.  Eisenhower intervened in Lebanon partly because he feared that another Munich crisis was on the table.  Moreover, the Eisenhower administration began to view Israel as a strategic asset in the Middle East, and the US became closer to Israel while the Soviets got in bed with the Arab states.  During the second Eisenhower administration, they forged closer ties with Israel for strategic reasons.

However, this is not to say that culture had no influence: Even before the Eisenhower administration decided to forge close ties to Israel, the memory of World War II allowed the press to compare Israel's enemy, Nasser, to Adolf Hitler.  Jewish people were being publicly assimilated into American life, and many Americans praised Israel as a democracy.

This relationship endures because these cultural factors remained after Israel became a strategic liability during the cold war.  The cultural attachment to Israel, which aided the strategic relationship, persisted despite the death of the strategic rationale for supporting Israel.

Where do I stand on the issue?

The US needs to put pressure on Israel.  Without significant nudging from their strongest ally, Israel will remain perfectly happy with the status quo.  Considering Russia's history with Chechnya, Israel is probably paranoid about seeing a long-time enemy end up with even more land and, like Russia, adopt the hardest possible line for fear of losing their grip on other areas. Withdrawal to the 1967 borders will obviously not end violence in the Middle East, but it's the only viable first step.

Oh, and despite what the propogandists will tell you, anti-Zionism is not the same thing as anti-Semitism.

So, let's imagine...

"So, let’s imagine how [the September 11th attacks] could have been worse for example. Suppose that on September 11, Al-Qaeda had bombed the White House and killed the President, instituted a murderous, brutal regime which killed maybe 50,000 to 100,000 people and tortured about 700,000, set up a major international terrorist center in Washington, which was overthrowing governments all over the world, and installing brutal vicious neo-Nazi dictatorships, assassinating people. Suppose he called in a bunch of economists, let’s call them the 'Kandahar Boys' to run the American economy, who within a couple of years had driven the economy into one of the worst collapses of its history. Suppose this had happened. That would have been worse than 9/11, right? But it did happen. And it happened on 9/11. That happened on September 11, 1973 in Chile. The only thing you have to change is this per capita equivalence, which is the right way to look at it. Well, did that change the world? Yeah, it did but not from our point of view, in fact, who even knows about it? Incidentally, just to finish, because we [the U.S.] were responsible for that one."

-- Noam Chomsky

1973 Chilean coup d'état

Tip of the tinfoil hat to Mark_Logan on Reddit.

How will you fix the economy?

"Our economy and putting it back on the side of the public trust. And that contract that should be inherent in corporations who are hell bent on destroying America and American troops are providing in his country. But no, the Pakistani people also, they want freedom. They want democratic values to be able to speak with him the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain's running mate, the first thing I said to him was, if you ask that question until somebody answers for me what is it exactly that the lobbyists play in an issue that we see right now in Washington and that is strong and that important an issue that we saw with that invasion of Georgia shows us some steps backwards that Russia has recently taken away from the other day and giving him my commitment, as John McCain's running mate, the first thing I said to him was, if you really think I can give you examples of things that John McCain and I have not and I have understood the world is and how important it is about doing a lot of background work first and foremost, taxpayers cannot be looked to as that leadership, that light needed across the world."

http://www.interviewpalin.com