Liana Voia video interview with Denis Rancourt: Insights

AEI Award for Netanyahu Is Meant to Repair the US-Israel Split: Prof. Denis Rancourt -- Truth NGO

AEI Award for Netanyahu Is Meant to Repair the US-Israel Split: Prof. Denis Rancourt

Truth NGO, 08 November 2015 06:08

The conservative Washington D.C.-based think tank American Enterprise Institute has announced that it would grant the Irving Kristol Award 2015 to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recognition of his contributions to democratic leadership and the role he played in enhancing the US-Israel relations.

The AEI President Arthur C. Brooks said the Israeli PM has demonstrated the courage to defend his nation’s values and a commitment to free enterprise, democracy and human dignity.

The award is named after Irving Kristol, the late American journalist and columnist who is popularly known as the “godfather of neo-conservatism”, with close ties to the Israeli government and political institutions. Irving Kristol’s son William is also a conservative political analyst and the founder of The Weekly Standard magazine. He died of lung cancer on September 18, 2009.

Benjamin Netanyahu has called Irving Kristol a “stalwart friend of Israel and a great champion of the US-Israel alliance”, voicing his contentment with the decision by the American Enterprise Institute in naming him the recipient of the 2015 award.

In an interview with Truth NGO, the Canadian scholar and former university professor Denis Rancourt said awarding the AEI prize to Benjamin Netanyahu is mostly an effort to mend the muddled relations between the Israeli PM and his close friend, the US President Barack Obama.
“The prize and its timing are part of the on-going mediation and communication of interests between the ruling elites of the two nations [the United States and Israel], in such a way as to best advantage and protect the mega-interests that fund the influential think-tank that is AEI,” he said.

Prof. Rancourt believes this award is part of a “mechanism of repair and mediation” to haul the relations between Washington and Tel Aviv, which suffered significantly due to the US government’s insistence on sealing the nuclear deal with Iran and its opposition to the Israeli settlement constructions in the Palestinian lands.

Calling Israel the United States’ “main strongman in the Middle East,” Denis Rancourt underlined the White House’s determination to defend Israel’s modus operandi in the Middle East and Palestinian territories, which he said entails mutual benefits for both states.

Denis Racourt is a former professor of physics at the University of Ottawa, Canada. He was removed from all teaching duties in 2008 on the accusations that he granted A+ grades to 23 students in one course of a winter semester, and that he incorporated social activism into his scientific undertakings and teaching methodology. Rancourt is the author of more than 100 academic papers in peer-reviewed journals. He has been a member of “Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Physics.” In 2013, he published the acclaimed book “Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism” in which discusses the limits of academic freedom in North America.

In the following interview with Prof. Rancourt, we discussed the American Enterprise Institute’s nomination of Benjamin Netanyahu as the recipient of Irving Kristol Award 2015, the nuances of US-Israel relations and the global image of Israel at a time when its settlement policies and failed peace talks with Palestine are being seriously debated in the public and by the media.

Q: The American Enterprise Institute has announced that it would present the Irving Kristol Award 2015 to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his contributions to democratic leadership, human rights and the strengthening of U.S.-Israeli relations. What’s your feeling about this award? Why is it being awarded to Mr. Netanyahu at a time when his settlement construction policies are being widely excoriated and the chances for a solution to the conflict with Palestine are growing dimmer? In reaction to the announcement, Benjamin Netanyahu talked of the special relationship between Israel and the United States and said this relationship needs to be bolstered so that the two countries can address the common challenges they face together. Why are the U.S.-Israeli relations so “special”?

A: Israel is the USA’s main strongman in the Middle East. It has “boots on the ground”, a highly developed intelligence network, military preparedness, an ideologically uniform and committed population, and coercive influence on nations in the region. Israel is the USA’s main ally asset in this region that has a controlling share of world oil production capacity, and oil is the most important strategic and economic commodity. In addition, if the US can force oil to be purchased in US dollars, then this secures the US dollar’s preeminence as a global currency.

But Israel is much more than an asset. The USA ruling elite has, over many decades, allowed a symbiotic relationship between the political classes of the two countries to develop, which is mediated by what has been broadly termed the “Israel lobby”, which, in turn, is financed as part of the ruling and economic structure of the whole.

These two elements [that is] Israel’s enforcement role for US dominance in the Middle East, backed by a nuclear arsenal, and the symbiotic system of financed political influences between the two countries, constitute the “special” and “warm” relations that we are told about ad nauseam to generate public acceptance of the non-democratic and criminal arrangement; criminal because it enables war, occupation, and genocide.

This is the context in which we can interpret the American Enterprise Institute 2015 award to Netanyahu. The prize and its timing are part of the on-going mediation and communication of interests between the ruling elites of the two nations, in such a way as to best advantage and protect the mega-interests that fund the influential think-tank that is AEI.

I don’t mean that each national “ruling elite” is homogeneous and without internal battles, but on the global scale, the main competing and interconnected blocks agree on the overarching plan that the USA, with the aligned satellite countries, should dominate the globe completely, that only the US dollar – which the US prints at will – should prevail, that only US corporations should control the most lucrative extraction schemes in the real economy, and that all governments must be subservient. In this system, the “internal battles” are of a lower order and relate to which corporate alliance, including finance corporations, will make the most  money, which strategy of dominance will most benefit a preferred corporate alliance, and which strategy of dominance and geopolitical tactics are ideologically preferred to ensure sustained and increasing dominance.

Thus, when Netanyahu has a “falling out” with Obama, this is representative of a cleavage between their strategy preferences for managing dominance of the Middle East, and this cleavage will also generally exist between the Republican and Democrat blocks, or else Netanyahu would not pursue it. Such a cleavage cannot be allowed to harm the overarching project of regional and world dominance, which is the prerequisite for staggering US multi-national corporate profits. Therefore, efforts must be made to repair the “falling out” and to mediate a solution.

The AEI award is part of this mechanism of repair and mediation. The award is also a way for the AEI to increase and maintain its own status, to remain relevant and influential.

The next question is: What are the matters of disagreement regarding management of the Middle East? Palestine is certainly one matter, as you suggest.

Basically, Israel has a determined policy to annex all of the occupied territories and to deprive Palestinians of nationhood. It achieves this in reality on the ground by combining land theft, settlements, home demolitions, forced exodus, etc. and confinement, constant police and administrative harassment, mass imprisonment, apartheid, and genocidal sanctions and slaughters in Gaza.

The USA allows Israel to have its genocide, as a compromise in exchange for the role Israel plays in US world domination, especially against independent-minded nations in the Middle East.

The entire Israeli geo-psyche is anchored in the paradigm of a constant and unavoidable “terrorist threat”. Netanyahu himself is a significant promoter of this paradigm, as one can see from the titles of books he has edited or authored, [including] International Terrorism: Challenge and Response, edited in 1981, Terrorism: How the West Can Win, edited in 1987, and Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorism authored in 1995. Netanyahu has succeeded in convincing the USA to adopt this view, at least as a media cover for a devastating string of wars of aggression intended to re-model the Middle East – Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, now Syria and Yemen, with strong intentions regarding Iran and southern Lebanon.

Within this national paradigm of constant existential threat, Israel is in-all-appearance committed to effectively exterminating the Palestinians, with the main goals of stealing the land and ensuring that no viable Palestinian state or influential political formation can ever see the day, using the “terrorism” of children with rocks, desperate youth with kitchen knives, and domestic rockets, as justifications for mass slaughters and murderous military repression.

But Palestine is a problem for the nuclear regional superpower that is Israel, and Palestine has become a source of cleavage between the USA and Israel. The problem is that no empire can sustainably rule and exploit by the threat of force alone. In the age of distributed instant journalism, and thanks to the remarkable Palestinian resistance organized throughout Palestinian society, the peoples of the world have become thoroughly disgusted and outraged at Israeli massacres in Gaza, which are condoned by the USA. This popular outrage has organized itself and has achieved significant political leverage in the UK, France, Germany, etc., and to some degree even in the USA and Canada.

The world is disgusted at the military ethos of Israel, and, increasingly viewing Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya at the now too apparent military ethos of the USA. As such, the USA, under Obama, has come to understand that another Israeli massacre in Gaza could strike a serious blow to the Empire’s image, and that a war with Iran could be intolerable for Europe. These are the considerations that bring Obama to want to de-escalate, but Israel experiences de-escalation as an existential threat, thus, there are presently unavoidable tensions.

Q: Prime Minister Netanyahu is being lauded by the conservative think-tank AEI for his role in cementing the ties between Israel and the United States. However, he has had bitter confrontations with President Obama over the settlements constructions and the Iran deal, which President Obama considers his most significant foreign policy legacy, and now even the Israeli media are talking of the need for an Obama-Netanyahu rapprochement. Do you think that Netanyahu has really been successful in bringing the United States and Israel closer together?

A: Well, Netanyahu has “cemented the ties between Israel and the USA” in all the usual ways, such as co-supporting Daesh (ISIS) against Syria, as a US target for destruction, providing intelligence, providing propaganda support to attack Iran, and killing Palestine in the hope of permanent eradication. These are blood ties nourished by vast expenditures.

The Iran deal is a needed effort to de-escalate the US aggressions of sanctions and of constant and irrational threat of war. The deal was needed in order to create a barrier to prevent Israel from performing rogue airstrikes against infrastructure in Iran. The Iran deal is a huge setback for Israeli militarism. Israel sees the deal as a massive strategic error that threatens its identity as the regional bully, when it comes to nations that cannot be bought or coerced.

Thus, Iran is a major source of tension, at this time, between Israel and the USA. But the question is not so much whether Netanyahu has created the tension. The tension was the result of a dramatic shift in US foreign policy in the region, a shift that is pragmatic, in view of dominance of the entire world, whereas Israel’s ambitions are regional. The shift was away from military confrontation with Iran, and away from Israeli rogue military actions, in order to preserve an appearance of legitimacy as “leader of the free world”.

This shift was due to several factors related to real forces on the ground, in the context of the world’s reaction to Israel’s slaughters in Gaza. The first factor is the resolve and integrity of Iran itself, which is a model of national self-determination and strength of character, and which also has hardened military experience and vast resources and regional influence. Another factor is the valiant war of self-defense waged by Syria, aided by Iran, in which the Syrian people, government and army defended the territory for many years, forcing the USA and its blood-thirsty allies to create a growing monster that repelled the world.

As always, the military battles on the ground, just like the present Russian involvement in Syria, are the main determinants of adjustments in the US foreign policy of dominance, rather than personality differences with leaders such as Netanyahu.

Q: During his upcoming visit to Washington D.C., Benjamin Netanyahu will also meet the experts and fellows at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning advocacy and research organization that falls on the extreme end of the political spectrum as opposed to the American Enterprise Institute, a neo-conservative group which backs Israel’s policies unreservedly. Is he trying to appeal to the Democratic Party and the American liberals and improve his status in their eyes?

A: The shift in US foreign policy of world dominance that has led to the Iran deal is significant, which suggests that the shift is not a mere Democrat policy preference but rather an actual US-regime decision. The decision appears to be to move away from Israel as the sole nexus of Middle East policy, towards a multi-polar approach. For that reason, Netanyahu’s efforts cannot be limited to the Republican block.

Netanyahu will use the occasion of this award to continue selling his vision of military might as the only agent of sustainable advancement for a USA-Israel partnership of dominance in the Middle East, to extract military “aid” increases to compensate for his perceived loss of security, and to continue testing the strength of his Israel lobby in America. He is understandably concerned and must make it a priority to salvage the relationship and secure the most profitable role for Israel.

In a sense, this catastrophe for the Israeli regime is partly of Netanyahu’s making because he is responsible for his mass slaughter campaigns in Gaza, which significantly mobilized anti-Israel sentiment across the world, including among strongly allied nations of the USA, which could decide to have more foreign policy independence on select issues, such as not supporting USA war campaigns, US sanction campaigns, and US-led economic exchange deals that are meant to exclude global rivals.

The US needs its allies to align with its campaigns because it wants to vigorously oppose the economic emergence of the BRICS association [made of] Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. BRICS is poised to leave the US Empire’s economy behind and to eventually abandon the US dollar as its trading currency. BRICS will attempt to play following market forces, whereas the US is habituated both to global control and to an irrelevant debt, since it prints the money.

At this stage, it is difficult to see how the US-Israel partnership will be impacted by Russia’s now-demonstrated willingness to militarily assist its allies and to defend against the threats that US carnage has created. No doubt Netanyahu is promoting Israel’s battle readiness as a needed shield or intervention capacity in what he will project as a grim future.

Q: In 1973, the godfather of neo-conservatism, Irving Kristol, the award which Benjamin Netanyahu will receive is named after him, said the people of Israel wouldn’t be happy with a cut in the U.S. military budget proposed by Senator George McGovern, who was running for the 1972 presidential election. Why should the people of Israel oppose the reduction of U.S. military budget? What Israeli interests could be at stake when the U.S. moves toward demilitarizing its expenditures and investing more capital on the social security of its people?

A: I don’t think the USA will “demilitarize”, in the sense of shifting its foreign policy away from military intimidation as its main instrument and towards economic competition and distributed development, until it is forced to do so by global reality. The USA will certainly never voluntarily “demilitarize” in order to improve the living conditions of its working and non-working class citizens. It is not a simple trade-off. The US prints the global currency at will, and uses loans of this fabricated currency to extort real labor and material resources from its areas of exploitation. It enforces this racket with its military and covert operations and ensures that its corporations make disproportionate profits. The US has over 1,000 major military bases around the globe. Therefore, unlike in other countries, the US does not need to balance a budget. It only needs to dominate. The treatment of US citizens by the US regime is an ideological choice. The regime prefers to fund a massive prison system and paramilitary police rather than create equitable opportunities.

Israel is not about to dismantle its apartheid system. Likewise, the USA is not about to dismantle its economic apartheid within its national borders. The US maintains its apartheid by, among other mechanisms, approximately 1,000 murders of unarmed US citizens – virtually all black citizens – by police officers per year. Israel, by comparison, has a policy beyond solely maintaining apartheid, beyond containment, towards intimidation to abandon territory, and towards complete suppression of Palestinian freedoms. Consequently, the yearly rate of murder of unarmed Palestinians, including children, by Israeli military and police, on a population basis, is typically fifty to one hundred times greater than the rate per capita of US murders of unarmed civilians by police. These numbers do not count the injuries and early deaths from the horrendous conditions of occupation, in both countries. Thus, there is indeed a “special relationship”, an “unbreakable bond”, and a “mutual admiration” between the US and Israel. And Netanyahu is certainly one of the eminent creators of that bond.

Q: There are intellectuals and academicians as Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer who have elaborately documented the influence of a powerful Israeli lobby in the United States, which significantly sways the U.S. politics, including the decision-making of the Congress and the foreign agenda of the administration, as well as the media and entertainment industry. There are pundits like Walter Russell Mead, however, who reject such a notion basically and call the Israeli lobby a “myth”. What’s your viewpoint on these two different convictions?

A: It is beyond doubt that Walt and Mearsheimer have described a real political structure. The Israel lobby is as real as any major institution in the USA. It is well organized into an intricate hierarchy, and it is exceedingly well funded, more than the traditional think-tanks. The lobby has been allowed to flourish because it provides large political campaign funds, while helping to create public acceptance of the US Empire’s actions via Israel in the Middle East.

At this stage, from the perspective of those actually running the Empire, the lobby’s influence probably needs to be reined in because Israel’s hunger for genocide and desire for regional control is somewhat counter to the broader interests of the US regime.

Another feature of the Israel lobby is that it achieves public “acceptance” of the Israel-US dominance projects by outright intimidation of academics and intellectuals in all the professions, which is contrary to the purported values of “the freest country in the world”. The firings of university professors and media professionals have become routine, as has the blacklisting of entertainment industry workers.

Likewise, there is a disturbing trend, organized and spurred by Netanyahu, to criminalize criticism of Israel in all the allied states, such as France, Canada, etc. The US-led Israel lobby is multi-national. Here, in Canada, technically the government could criminally prosecute me for “hate speech” against the state of Israel for writing this very article, using a newly amended provision of the Criminal Code of Canada. For this alone, and many other such achievements, Netanyahu amply deserves the AEI 2015 Award.

But there is backlash and a societal price to pay, and the days of being suppressed by the Israel lobby may come to an end if the US regime decides to give Israel a lesser role. Disallowing the intelligentsia and political activists of a nation from being critical of the nation’s foreign policy investments is a recipe for disaster, a disaster that for now mostly Palestine, Libya, Syria and other nations have suffered.

By Kourosh Ziabari

How politically correct culture promotes racism, and on the crucial role of collaborators in hierarchical oppression

The continuing interview about my book... highlighting another theme in the book.

Alwaght News interview with Denis Rancourt -- Every Day Must be Quds Day

Monday, July 6, 2015, 5:22 PM

Every Day Must Be Quds Day, We Must All Be Palestinians: Prof. Denis Rancourt

Alwaght - Professor Denis Rancourt, a Canadian scholar who was fired from the university where he was teaching under Israeli lobby pressures, is of the opinion that everyday should be marked as the International Quds Day, stressing that world’s nations ought to close ranks against the arrogant powers’ murder campaigns and support popular resistance movements.  
“Any country that serves US geopolitical machinations is protected by the US regime, and is thereby shielded from war crime prosecutions, no matter how horrendous and obvious its mass murders may be. The history of this pattern is unambiguous, and the protection typically extends to the economic, diplomatic, and military spheres. This is especially true for Israel which is in a symbiotic relation with powerful Israel lobbies in the US, France, Canada, Australia, … In the UK the domestic Israel lobby is somewhat kept in check by strong popular activism that impacts electoral politics,” Dr. Denis Rancourt said in an exclusive interview with Alwaght news website.
He also said that the Saudi regime, by its actions and alliances, is an integral part of the empire that is attempting to exterminate Gaza’s life and spirit, and the Saudi regime’s war crime of aggression against the people of Yemen is most despicable. Israel is not the only active war criminal aggressor in the region. All will enjoy immunity under the empire’s disproportionate influence on world institutions until the newly balanced emerging world has sufficiently matured. 

Alwaght: In August 1979, the late founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Khomeini declared the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as International Quds Day, calling on Muslims across the world to mark the annual occasion by holding street rallies. Millions of people around the world take to the streets on this day in a show of support for the people of Palestine, demanding an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. What's your take on International Quds Day?

Rancourt: The International Quds Day is an important statement of recognition and of profound gratitude towards all occupied Palestinians who fight back and reject collaboration with the occupying force. We must honour and celebrate their inspiring, courageous and tenacious endurance, resistance, and dignified self-defence. Quds Day is a vital link to the extraordinary spirit and strength of occupied Palestinians, who are a world treasure in the global fight against organized oppression and evil. The world desperately needs Palestinians, and Palestinians need a conscious and moral world that respects itself enough to actually fight for justice. Every day must be Quds Day, and we must all be Palestinians. Our personal actions involving risk must oppose domination in every area of society, starting close to home in priority, and extending to all the peoples against which enslavements, genocides and wars have been and are being perpetrated.

We, free people of the world, owe much to Palestinians for their stellar and heroic resistance against a most brutal empire. That empire, which includes my country (Canada) as a participant in these global crimes, is vicious and immoral. It has enslaved and exterminated millions and millions of victims on all inhabited continents, in its insatiable quest for power and material gain. It strives for and imposes total and uncompromising dominance -- not just dominance over territory and national administrations, but over peoples and peoples’ minds and spirits also.

Quds Day is a statement that the dominant global empire will be stopped, and is being stopped, by the actuated will of people, who do not want to be dominated, by the actuated will of people who want freedom and influence over their own communities. Through widespread resistance, a new world is emerging as a mosaic of collaborating nations that control their own destinies and associations, and that do not want to be a plantation and killing field for a global empire. As this new reality is achieved, we must not allow Israel’s on-going genocide project to be continued any further, and we must not allow any more nations to be annihilated by total destruction. We must always stand against the empire’s brutal plans, most visibly, the on-going murder campaigns against Gaza, Palestine, Yemen, and Syria in the immediate, while continuing to support resistance in every region that it is manifested.

Alwaght: Palestinians are seeking to create an independent state on the territories of the West Bank, East al-Quds (Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip, and are demanding that Israeli regime withdraw from the Palestinian territories occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War. Despite pressures by international rights bodies, it seems that Tel Aviv doesn't plan to put an end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip and in fact is benefiting from the prolongation of the siege. Do you believe that Tel Aviv needs to keep the siege in place in order to safeguard its own existence and legitimacy?  

Rancourt: Israel’s blockade against the Gaza Strip, in combination with Israel’s periodic military massacres of Palestinians in Gaza and all-out destruction of public infrastructure, is an international crime of the highest order. There is no rational justification for the blockade against Gaza, unless the ultimate Israeli goal is progressive genocidal extermination and evacuation of Gaza. Israel’s policy and practice of periodic military slaughters and destruction of public and housing infrastructures, combined with an effectively permanent blockade, can only be objectively understood as a long-term Israeli goal to annihilate Palestinians. This is the on-going, systematic, and long-term Israel genocide that is clear for everyone to see, and that is explicitly managed by Israeli political and opinion leaders.

Israel’s mass crimes cannot be justified as part of any legitimate political or military tactic. There is no realistic existential threat to the Jewish State. Israel is the regional superpower, with one of the most powerful armies in the world. Israel’s fabricated myth of an existential threat is untenable in the face of its history and of the hard evidence. On the contrary, if anything it is Israel’s power, predatory designs, and influence and interference in the interest of empire that are a sustained threat to stability in the region.

There is no sign that enough will ever be enough. Israel could choose to respect human rights and the right of return, in negotiating reparations and resource sharing, or it can continue to practice its criminal campaigns. It has the power to make those decisions. There is every sign that Israel will never make just reparation decisions without sufficient global pressure.

Quds Day is one manifestation of a desire of world citizens to pressure their governments to bring Israel in line with international norms of decency. Quds Day should not be solely an expression of “hope” or solely an occasion for spiritual reflection. In my view, Quds Day also needs to be an affirmation of a moral contract to act and speak-out to exert needed political influence for good. When I have been honoured to be a speaker at Quds Day celebrations, I have expressed this view.

Alwaght: Israeli regime warplanes pounded residential areas in the Gaza Strip during Tel Aviv's 51-day war, killing and injuring thousands of civilians, mostly women and children. International rights bodies and the so-called advocates of democracy and human rights such the US and some Western countries are privy to the fact that the massacre of innocent people is a crime under international law. What has turned Israel into an immune regime while it has repeatedly violated international law by its ongoing atrocities?  

Rancourt: Any country that serves US geopolitical machinations is protected by the US regime, and is thereby shielded from war crime prosecutions, no matter how horrendous and obvious its mass murders may be. The history of this pattern is unambiguous, and the protection typically extends to the economic, diplomatic, and military spheres. This is especially true for Israel which is in a symbiotic relation with powerful Israel lobbies in the US, France, Canada, Australia, … In the UK the domestic Israel lobby is somewhat kept in check by strong popular activism that impacts electoral politics.

The UK is an example where represented active citizens can moderate some of the attempted excesses of the US regime. In response to such a democratic threat, the US and Israel have been using regional tensions and hired-thugs such as ISIS to attempt nation annihilation and dismantling through proxy wars, in targeted countries where collaborating elites cannot easily be installed, such as in Iraq and Syria. These fuelled proxy wars are the most despicable mass crimes imaginable, without declarations of war, without UN approval, and without the protections of the Geneva Conventions.
The Saudi regime, by its actions and alliances, is an integral part of the empire, the same empire that is attempting to exterminate Gaza’s life and spirit, and the Saudi regime’s war crime of aggression against the people of Yemen is most despicable. Israel is not the only active war criminal aggressor in the region. All will enjoy immunity under the empire’s disproportionate influence on world institutions until the newly balanced emerging world has sufficiently matured. 

A similar scenario of empire-supported fractioning and destruction was partly actuated in the Ukraine recently. The US regime is enthusiastic about fermenting war in such a way as to attempt to halt the inevitable global economic development of independent blocks, such as BRICS. Here and elsewhere, the empire’s now-common duplicitous use of economic “sanctions” is both morally criminal, in the potential harm caused to ordinary citizens, and geopolitically irresponsible, in the potential instability that is knowingly created. By any objective standard, the empire’s “sanctions” are mass criminal aggressions.

In view of the emerging world economic realities, the US regime is a failing empire with disproportionate military strength, which is a most dangerous situation. The best we can do in this transition period is to stop the ongoing nation destructions and genocides. And the best way to do that is to support the freedom fighters and resistors as much as we can by taking our governments out of the murderous US-led campaigns of destruction. We must impose domestic democracy as much as we can, in such a way as to protect Gaza, Yemen, Syria, and our own oppressed domestic populations that are needed in the unified struggle for actual democracy. This is why the present wave of US-empire campaigns of terror and proxy wars are currently accompanied by the most aggressive attacks against civil liberties in the US-aligned world seen in many decades, from criminalizing BDS and criticisms of Israel, to prosecuting thought crimes of every variety. Independent thought and democracy are the new undeclared enemies of satellite administrations such as France and Canada, and in the US itself. Even in Israel now, a world bastion of freedom of speech, Palestinian national politicians are being summarily imprisoned. These are all clear signs of a failing empire, and of an emerging generalized will to resist. More and more, every day is Quds Day.

Soon, I hope, in my naïve view, the Muslim world will find a way to unite and become the independent and powerful world leader that it deserves to be. It will further and effectively reject US regime interference, and any emerging interference, and it will negotiate and collaborate as an equal in the world, in the interest of its citizens and their diverse democratic ambitions. The fall of absolute US domination need not be a hell of destruction. It can be an occasion for unity and new possibilities. It can occur as an emergence of justice, with inspired and principled new and renewed leaders. This can even occur in the US and its satellite countries if we show these governments the way. Gaza is already eminently showing the way by its resourcefulness, determination, and pure courage; by its Sumud [Steadfastness]. Gaza calls for our involvement every day, which must be Quds Day.

Alwaght: Some certain Arab and Western countries have been always seeking to deflect world's attention away from the Palestinian Cause which tops the priorities of the Muslim world. What's your perspective on the issue of Cause of Palestine and the attempts to put it on the road of oblivion?

Rancourt: The Zionist project has shown itself to be an expansionist and genocidal project, rather than a benign national emancipation project. This has been more than clear to all observers for a long time. Israel is now seen for what it is: a criminal and rogue state deeply motivated by racist exceptionalism, with a majority population that apparently wants to exterminate Palestinians. Israel’s hate is the hate of a genocidal campaign. It can only be stopped by resisting the campaign and shunning the murderers. A sufficiently firm treatment of Israel can constrain it to follow international law, and to accept the needed reparations and equal-party justice-based negotiations regarding illegally occupied land and the right of return.

The US regime will continue to protect Israel’s immunity, even while the genocide is perpetrated, until the US itself sees Israel’s crimes as an intolerable liability. As the US Empire fails to maintain absolute dominance, even in its own backyard and over its own domestic population, it may come to see Israeli crimes as an intolerable liability. At that point, the US Israel lobby will also see the light. Therefore, this is a race for the survival of Palestine. Israel will do everything it can to steal and break Palestine before the circumstances of the faltering US and an awakening world put a definitive stop to the genocide. If Israel succeeds, the world will have lost Palestine, and we all will share responsibility for this greatest catastrophe. I just don’t know that Palestine can survive without our own real contributions to the global struggle, but I hope that Palestine can overcome even our cruel indifference if we cannot be moved beyond “remembering”.

Dr. Denis Rancourt was a professor for more than 20 years at the University of Ottawa, up to the highest rank of Full Professor, until 2009. In the fall of 2008, he was removed from all teaching duties under the pretext that he had granted A+ grades to 23 students in one course during the winter 2008 semester; however, it's quite clear to everybody that his outspoken criticism of Israel and his pro-Palestinian activism had triggered his dismissal from the university. Professor Rancourt's classes were always attended by tens of students and he was considered as one of the popular university professors at the Faculty of Science.

He has authored more than 100 articles published in leading peer-reviewed scientific journals, in the fields of physics, and environmental science. He is currently an independent social theorist and science critic, author of several social analysis articles posted on internet venues, and the author of the book “Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism” (Stairway Press, 2013). He is an active volunteer with the Ontario Civil Liberties Association, and an experienced self-represented litigant.
Interview by Javad Arab Shirazi

Broad-ranging media interview with Denis Rancourt about Israel's massacre in Gaza

FARS News Agency published this broad-ranging interview, done while the recent Israeli massacre in Gaza was ungoing:

Prof. Denis Rancourt: The United States Supports Israel for Constant Bloodletting in the Middle East (LINK)

TEHRAN (FNA)- A Canadian scholar and academic, who was fired from the university where he was teaching because of his pro-Palestinian viewpoints, believes the US government is funding and supporting Israel for its continued bloodletting in the Middle East.

According to Prof. Denis Rancourt, Israel's plan in the Middle East is ethnic cleansing and the total obliteration of Palestine and its citizens in order to realize a colonial, imperial agenda backed by the US military, economic and finance empire.

"Israel’s program is to eradicate or neutralize all Palestinians who make claim to a home in Palestine. This is exactly what Israel has been doing since before its artificial creation," said Prof. Rancourt in an exclusive interview with Fars News Agency.

"Israel’s program is planned incremental dispossession and an ongoing attempted genocide. This has been repeatedly and explicitly expressed by the Zionist architects and executioners," he noted.

Prof. Denis Rancourt has also praised the resistance movement in the Gaza Strip for its steadfastness against the Israeli aggression during the past two months, maintaining that it was awe-inspiring that Hamas could kill some 70 invading Israeli soldiers.

Denis Rancourt is a former professor of physics at the University of Ottawa. In the fall of 2008, he was removed from all teaching duties under the pretext that he had granted A+ grades to 23 students in one course during the winter 2008 semester; however, it's quite clear to everybody that his outspoken criticism of Israel and his pro-Palestinian activism had triggered his dismissal from the university. Prof. Rancourt's classes were always attended by tens of students and he was considered as one of the popular university professors at the Faculty of Science.

Rancourt has published more than 100 academic papers. He was a member of Ottawa-Carleton Institute for Physics and the Ottawa-Carleton Geoscience Centre. He is the author of the book "Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight Against Racism."

During the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip that just ended on August 26 following the victory of Hamas and the declaration of ceasefire between the Israeli regime and the resistance movement, FNA did an interview with Prof. Denis Rancourt on the influence of the Israeli lobby over the media, politicians and universities in the West, the history of Israel-Canada relations and the international reactions to the recent Israeli war on Gaza. The following is the text of this in-depth interview. CONTINUE READING

The Controls & Confines of Our Obedience Based Education System -- video

Published on Aug 22, 2013

EBTV presents host Evita Ochel (http://www.evitaochel.com) with special guest Denis G. Rancourt (http://rancourt.academicfreedom.ca/) in a dialogue about the limits of the current education system.

Denis is a former tenured and full professor of physics at the University of Ottawa in Canada. He practiced several areas of science (including physics and environmental science) which were funded by a national agency and ran an internationally recognized laboratory. He is the author of over 100 articles in leading scientific journals, social commentary essays, and his book "Hierarchy and Free Expression in the Fight against Racism".

General topics discussed in the video episode include:

1. Denis shares his story of why he is no longer a professor at the University of Ottawa. (1:30)
- how Denis discovered the true nature of the system
- the impacts of confronting the system

2. What the larger framework and pretext was for Denis' dismissal from his position as a professor. (6:00)
- the inside political story

3. The role of transparency and secrecy in governing organizations. (9:20)
- the political endeavour of educational systems

4. The helpful and harmful role of mainstream media in Denis' case. (11:20)
- the corporate ties of mainstream media
- the media blackout of certain topics

5. How awareness influences obedience and indoctrination within the education system. (16:15)
- the role of awareness, as connected to action
- the importance of "praxis"
- the symbiotic combination of reflection and action
- the importance of finding authentic rebellion

6. Denis shares his views and opinions about the shortcomings of the current education system. (21:00)
- the oppression of the education system
- the battle between hierarchal system and the individual
- the atomization and destruction of the individual
- the importance of gaining independence as an individual, and consciousness about one's own oppression

7. Inspiration to face our own oppression. (28:20)
- the role of whistleblowers

8. The limits of the curriculum forced upon teachers and students. (31:15)
- the necessity of natural exploration and interaction within the scope of learning
- Denis shares an example from his teaching methods to promote true learning

9. The limits of the grading system and standardized testing. (39:00)
- inadequacy of appropriate measurement of understanding through testing
- the importance of feedback that is student-centered
- the benefit of authentic dialogue between teacher and student

10. The increasing trend of students not pursuing post-secondary education due to not wanting to participate in the education system. (45:00)
- the economic control over education
- the forced certification for many jobs
- the alternative paths, which do not necessarily require post-secondary education

11. Denis shares some solutions and advice for teachers who wish to be part of the education system and contribute positively. (50:00)

12. Denis shares some solutions and advice for students who are part of the education system. (54:00)

13. Denis shares his next steps, work and projects. (57:22)

Fired for inciting learning -- Video interview series

Joshua Blakeney interviews Denis Rancourt about the professor's conflict with the University of Ottawa.

"Western freedom-lovers cry truth" - Quds News Agency, Tehran

The Quds News Agency, Tehran (photo), Iran, ran a story including an interview with Denis Rancourt. The story is linked HERE. The interview part of the report is reproduced below.

"The Canadian scientist believes that as a solid method to resolve the Palestinian issue, countries of good will must recognize Palestine as a state and establish embassies in Gaza. In this regard, he suggests dispatch of a flotilla to establish an embassy in Gaza."
-- Quds News Agency, July 3, 2010.

Qudsna: We know your academic ordeal which took place against any standards of freedom of expression. We’d like to know what has motivated you in championing the Palestinian issue and objecting the Israeli racism and oppression even at the cost of your convenience.

Denis Rancourt: After living the lies of professional indoctrination and of academic elite incorporation for too long, I felt I had harmed myself enough and decided to start living in truth, or at least on the truth side of the street. I decided to make as few compromises as possible in trying to live up to the standards of authentic inquiry into real and important matters. These matters were related to the concerns of my students from around the world, to concerns of members of my community in Ottawa, and to my own oppression and servitude within the institution. In hindsight I can say that my motivation was liberation and that my struggle was and is a personal rebellion against the insanity of the university as violator of young persons and producer of service intellectuals.

Qudsna: According to one of your latest articles, the “the right to exist” is an absurd posturing by Israel which must be ridiculed because “No country has a recognized God-given or otherwise right to exist” and “The right of return is a human right.” The argument might provide the ground for the idea of staging a referendum over the Palestinian issue in which the original population of historic Palestine, whatever their religion, might be allowed to vote. What do you think?

DR: I agree that all important decisions should be made by democratic means rather than by officials concerned about their power more than anything else. However, the referendum that you suggest sounds exceedingly difficult to organize and just as difficult to have recognized by influential world bodies. Instead of such a referendum in which one only expresses one's opinion to referendum organizers, a more participatory process may be better in which individuals in their communities affirm their desires for Palestine and their right of return with actions. For example, a small group of returning Palestinians who organize to physically return and who do it publicly and with ties to local and global community support could have more impact than any poll or referendum or election. We see this with the aid flotilla movement. There can be many such ideas for action. The actions must arise from those being denied their rights and must involve "fighting one's own oppression". Fighting one's own oppression is the strongest source of motivation and leads to liberation.

Qudsna: Reports say American people are increasingly grow sensitive about the Palestinian issue and the oppression of Israel. How do you see the extent of anti-Israeli inclination in your community?

DR: There is a shift in Canada and the US, a developing movement that opposes the Israel lobby and its illegitimate and disproportionate influence on our governments and on our corporate media. This is seen in the academic world where more and more critics of the Israel lobby and of Israel are pushing forward, in the corporate media where the reporting is less completely skewed, in the student movements where Students Against Israeli Apartheid and Israeli Apartheid Week have made great strides, in the labour movements where progressive resolutions to support Palestine are adopted, in civil liberties activism, in coalescing social justice activism movements, in the art world such as film making, and in legal battles where the Israel lobby's bogus "anti-Semitism" attacks are being challenged.

On my own campus, the president of the University of Ottawa (Allan Rock, a former federal Minister and former Canadian ambassador to the UN) has been trained partly by my public exposure via my UofOWatch blog and by strong criticisms from civil society to change his behaviour from bold attacks against Palestinian rights efforts towards silence on these matters.

I think Canadians and US citizens are more and more against the aggressive policies of Israel and reject more and more the overt and aggressive stance of the Israel lobby. We are winning the public opinion battle against Zionism and this will help to keep our Israel-lobby-serving and military-economy-serving governments in check, to some degree.

Qudsna: What must the world do to prevent Israel from such cruelties?

DR: Countries of good will (in which citizens would somehow gain actual democratic power) could recognize Palestine as a state and establish embassies in Gaza. Which country will be the first to do this? A flotilla to establish an embassy! I think countries, like individuals, must do bold acts to fight their oppressions. We need an array of bold and diversified actions by individuals, organizations, and countries, to fight against militarism and against both physical and economic occupations. These actions will coalesce into a stronger cultural and societal rejection of domination and oppression. An important element in all these actions is to expose the oppression and the crimes as much and as loudly as possible. Oppressors need to build and preserve a false image of legitimacy in order to continue oppressing and occupying - we must continually deconstruct that false image.

Qudsna: Do you consider the UN as an effective body in harnessing the cruel Israeli regime?

DR: Shamefully, Canada now joins the US and Israel in voting against Palestinian rights resolutions at the UN. The Canadian ambassador to the UN responsible for that change was Allan Rock, the now president of the University of Ottawa who fired me for my politics. As a Canadian, personally, I find the UN to be ineffective in opposing US domination and militarism. I also see US militarism, expansionism, interventionism, and economic predation as a major problem in the world, a problem that the UN cannot solve.

Qudsna: How do you think about the Hamas entity and what they call ‘resistance’ against Israel? Is their idea working?

DR: Hamas is a legitimate political representation and expression of Palestinians. Israel, the US, and Canada's vilification and criminalization of the Hamas political entity is disgusting and hypocritical. I know little about Hamas' work on the ground but from what I see from Canada Hamas is a mostly responsible and very dedicated resistance movement that is doing a remarkable job against tremendous odds and in the most difficult circumstances. Palestinians need Hamas. The world needs Hamas. The alternative is oblivion or complete servitude.

Hamas is the best placed as the completely occupied and targeted entity representing Palestinians in Gaza to judge its own methods and tactics in trying to survive Israel's persistent attempts to occupy, dominate, and exterminate. As an outsider I can see that Israel and the US are the aggressors, that is obvious, but I am not in a position to dictate tactics in such an asymmetric conflict with such tremendous losses on the Palestinian side. The US claims that dropping atomic bombs on two civilian cities was justified against a weakened and capitulating Japan yet it freaks out in horror at a few suicide bombs (when was the last one?) that may actually deter the aggressor and draw much needed world scrutiny on the Israeli extermination of Palestinians. The hypocrisy is gargantuan.

Qudsna: How your colleagues in general think about Hamas?

DR: Most of my colleagues would be too uncomfortable to say such clearly positive things about Hamas, even those that say positive things about Che Guevara. But this is changing, as I explained above.

Hamas is practicing self-defense. It is the US and Israel that must justify their aggressions and criminality. This is obvious but it will only be understood via the struggles against our oppressions that must occur. As we liberate ourselves we see more clearly than ever before, through our own eyes.

Qudsna: How do you see the role of Islamic Republic of Iran in the Palestinian issue?

DR: As the only major power in the Middle East that has not been corrupted and bought out by the US, I hope that Iran can provide the resistance with as much help as possible - to stem the horrendous crimes that are under way. I fear for the Iranian people because the US and Israel want the destruction of Iran in order to accelerate their expansionism and domination in the region. I hope that there will be popular revolutions in several other Middle Eastern countries, as there are in Latin American countries, to force governing elites to work for and with their citizens. I hope that there will be such popular or cultural revolutions in Canada and the US to make Canada and the US into democratic entities, instead of the plutocracies that they now are. I admire, for example, what has happened recently in Iceland regarding taking back democracy and I hope that this model can be applied to Canada? I believe that truly democratic states do not live from war.

Qudsna: How do you forecast the future of Palestine?

DR: I forecast that the future of Palestine will be the future of the world.

Qudsna: Any further comment about Palestine as a ‘country’?

DR: How did Israel become such a racists and despicable state? How did its citizens allow this to occur? This is not natural for a state constrained by the necessity to be sustainable - it must be partly the result of a continuous large influx of military "aid".

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