On Military Coups and Starvation: Is Western Media’s Perception of Africa Racist?

AUGUST 23, 2023

Image by Ninno Jack Jr.

BY RAMZY BAROUD

Racism goes beyond the use of certain words or the discriminatory practices of everyday life. It is also about political perceptions, intellectual depictions, and collective relationships.

Consider the way that Africa is currently portrayed in the news.

From a political viewpoint, Africa is seen as a totality, and not in a positive way, as in a united Africa.

For example, mainstream Western media coverage of the US-Africa Summit, held in Washington last December, presented all of Africa as poor and desperate. The continent, one can glean from headlines, was also willing to pawn its political position in the Russia-NATO conflict, in exchange for money and food.

“Biden tells African leaders US is ‘all in’ on the continent,” an Associated Press headline announced on December 15.

The phrase ‘all in’ – a lingo used in Poker when someone is willing to risk it all – was cited many times in the US and Western media.

Biden offered unconditional US commitment “to supporting every aspect of Africa’s growth,” AP reported. But “growth” had little to do with Biden’s offerings. He merely tried to outbid Russia’s support for Africa so that the latter may adopt an anti-Moscow stance. He failed.

When a Russia-Africa Summit took place on July 27-28, US-western media lashed out, again presenting Africans as political vagabonds, while belittling the strategic value of such a meeting for both Russia and African countries.

A CNN headline began with “Isolated Putin ..,” while a Reuters headline read “Putin promises African leaders free grain.”

Very little mention was made of African leaders spending much time discussing a possible role in finding a peaceful resolution to the horrific war underway in Ukraine.

Indeed, several African leaders articulated a sincere political discourse, rejecting imperialism, neocolonialism and military interventions.

Moreover, there was little media discussion that Africa, like Europe, can negotiate a stronger political position in world affairs.

Instead, the coverage seemed to center around the Black Sea Grains Initiative – brokered in July 2022 – insinuating that Russia is threatening food security in an already impoverished continent.

But this was hardly the case.

In a speech at the Economic Forum in Vladivostok last September, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that, of the 87 grain-loaded ships, only 60,000 tons out of two million reached the United Nations’ World Food Program.

Though Putin’s overall figures were contested, the UN’s Joint Coordination Centre (JCC) said in a statement published in Euronews that “Putin is correct to say only a small amount has been shipped under the World Food Program.”

Even though Western countries have been the largest recipients of grains shipped through the Black Sea, no mainstream media has made it a mission to depict Europeans as starving populations, or worse.

Additionally, Europe is hardly presented as greedy, either. Indeed, the blame is never on Europe, its colonialism, arms, and political meddling. Yet, the blame is readily assigned elsewhere.

This headline in ‘The Conversation’ is a good illustration: “Putin offers unconvincing giveaways in a desperate bid to make up for killing the Ukraine grain deal.”

The bias is astonishing.

The truth is that African leaders were not looking for ‘giveaways’ but were hoping to negotiate a stronger geopolitical position in a vastly changing global political map. Just like everybody else.

Whether Putin’s “bid” in Africa was “desperate” or not, matters little. The bias, however, becomes clear when the alleged Russian desperation is compared to the outcome of the US-Africa summit last year.

Biden’s ‘bid’ was presented as an attempt at building bridges and creating opportunities for future cooperation. All is done, of course, in the name of democracy and human rights.

The misrepresentation of Africa can also be viewed independently from the Russia-Ukraine war.

Take, for example, the way Western media dealt with the Niger military coup on July 26.

Niger is part of the Sahel countries in Africa, a stretch of nations that have all been colonized by France.

Decades after these countries gained nominal independence, Paris continued to exert strong political influence and economic control.

This is called neocolonialism. It ensures the wealth of former colonies continues to be exploited by former colonizers.

In fact, Niger’s wealth of uranium ore has helped fuel more than a fourth of the EU’s nuclear energy plants, and much of France’s.

A decade ago, France returned to the Sahel region as a military force, in the name of fighting Jihadists.

Yet, violence grew, forcing African Sahel countries to rebel, starting in the Central African Republic, then Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, and, finally, Niger.

Little of that context features in the coverage of Western media. Instead, like Mali and the others, Niger is depicted as another of Russia’s lackeys in Africa.

Thus, the CNN headline, on August 2, “A Niger coup leader meets with Wagner-allied junta in Mali.” Here, CNN leaves no room for the possibility that African leaders have agendas, or political will, of their own.

The West’s problematic relationship with Africa is complex, rooted in colonialism, economic exploitation, and outright racism.

Africans are good ‘allies’ when they toe the Western line and hungry, easily manipulated, and illegitimate regimes when they reject the West’s conditions.

It is time to rethink and confront this demeaning perception.

Africa, like all other political spaces, is a complicated and conflicted region, deserving of deep understanding and appreciation, beyond the self-serving agendas of a few Western countries.

ISRAEL’S RACISM EXPOSED IN ONGOING IMPRISONMENT OF ETHIOPIAN-BORN SOLDIER AVERA MENGISTU

JANUARY 27TH, 2023

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RAMZY BAROUD

For how long will I be in captivity? After so many years, where are the state and the people of Israel? These were the words, uttered in Hebrew, of a person believed to be Avera Mengistu, an Israeli soldier of Ethiopian origin who was captured and held in Gaza in 2014.

Footage of Mengistu, looking nervous but also somewhat defiant, calling on his countrymen to end his 9-year incarceration mostly ended speculation in Israel on whether the soldier was alive or dead.

The timing of the release of the footage by Hamas was obvious, and is directly linked to the Palestinian group’s efforts aimed at conducting a prisoner exchange similar to the one carried out in 2011, which saw the release of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for the release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

The main target audience of Hamas’ message is the new government and, specifically, the new military leadership. Israel now has a new army chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, who has replaced the departing chief, Aviv Kochavi. The latter seemed disinterested in Mengistu’s cause, while the new chief arrives with lofty promises about uniting the country behind its military and opening a new page where the army is no longer involved in everyday politics.

It may appear that Hamas and other Gaza groups are in a stronger position than the one they enjoyed during Shalit’s captivity, between 2006 and 2011. Not only are they militarily stronger but, instead of capturing one Israeli, they have four: aside from Mengistu, they also have Hisham al-Sayed, and what is believed to be the remains of two other soldiers, Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul.

But this is when the story gets particularly complicated. Unlike Shalit, who is white and holds dual Israeli-French citizenship, Mengistu and al-Sayed are Ethiopian Jew and Bedouin, respectively.

Racism based on color and ethnicity is rife in Israel. Although no Israeli officials will admit to this openly, Israel is in no rush to rescue two men who are not members of the dominant Ashkenazi group, or even of the socially less privileged Sephardic or Mizrahi Jews.

Black Jews and Bedouins have always been placed at the bottom of Israel’s socio-economic indicators. In 2011, the Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post shared numbers from a disturbing report, which placed poverty among children of Ethiopian immigrants at a whopping 65 percent. The number is particularly staggering when compared to the average poverty rate in Israel, of 21 percent.

Mengistu, pictured right, poses in an undated family photo released to the media

Things have not improved much since then. The Israeli Justice Ministry’s annual report on racism complaints shows that 24 percent of all complaints are filed by Ethiopians. This racism covers most aspects of public life, from education to services to police mistreatment.

Not even enlisting in the military – Israel’s most revered institution – is enough to change Ethiopians’ position in Israeli society.

The famous story of Demas Fikadey in 2015 is a case in point. Then only 21, the Ethiopian soldier was beaten up severely by two Israeli police officers in a Tel Aviv suburb for no reason at all. The whole episode was caught on camera, leading to mass protests and even violent clashes. For Ethiopian Jews, the humiliation and violence carried out against Fikadey was a representation of years of suffering, racism and discrimination.

Many believe that the government’s lackluster response to Mengistu’s prolonged capture is directly linked to the fact that he is black.

Israel’s discriminatory behavior against African asylum seekers, which often leads to forceful deportation following humiliating treatment, is well known. Amnesty International described this in a report in 2018 as “a cruel and misguided abandonment of responsibility”.

But discriminating against a black soldier, who, by Israel’s own estimation, is believed to suffer from mental illness, is a whole different kind of ‘abandonment.’

A former Israeli army official, Col. Moshe Tal did not mince words in a recent national radio interview when he said that Mengistu and al-Sayed are a low priority for the public “on the account of their race,” Haaretz reported.

“If we were speaking about two other citizens from other backgrounds and socio-economic statuses … the amount of interest would be different,” Tal said. In contrast to Shalit’s story, the government’s “attention to the affair (and) the media pulse is close to zero.”

Israel’s Ethiopian Jews number around 170,000, hardly an important political constituency in a remarkably divided and polarized society. Most of them are immigrants or descendants of immigrants who arrived in Israel between 1980 and 1992. Though they are still known as the Falasha, they are sometimes referred to by the more dignified name of ‘Beta Israel’ or ‘House of Israel.’

Superficial language alterations aside, their struggle is evident in everyday Israel. The plight of Mengistu, as expressed in his own question, “where are the state and the people of Israel?” sums up the sense of collective loss and alienation this community has felt for nearly two generations.

When Mengistu arrived with his family at the age of 5 in Israel, escaping a bloody civil war in Ethiopia and historic discrimination there, the family, like most Ethiopians, hardly knew that discrimination would follow them, even in the supposed land of ‘milk and honey’.

And, most likely, they also knew little about the plight of Palestinians, the native inhabitants of that historic land, who are victims of terrible violence, racism and much more.

Palestinians know well why Israel has done little to free the black soldier; Mengistu and his Ethiopian community also understand how race is an important factor in Israeli politics. Although a prisoner exchange could potentially free Mengistu and an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, the suffering of the Palestinians at the hands of Israel and discrimination against Ethiopian Jews will carry on for much longer.

While Palestinians are resisting Israel’s military occupation and apartheid, Ethiopian Jews should mount their own resistance for greater rights. Their resistance must be predicated on the understanding that Palestinians and Arabs are not the enemy but potential allies in a joint fight against racism, apartheid and socio-economic marginalization.

Maduro: We Are All Part of Axis of Resistance

June 21, 2022

By Staff, Khamenei.ir

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said the ‘Axis of Resistance’ is not just confined to certain countries across the world, but it refers to all those fighting colonialism and hegemonic powers.

“The Axis of Resistance exists throughout the world; it exists in Africa, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Latin America and in the Caribbean. The Resistance also belongs to the people who are fighting against neoliberalism, racism and various forms of colonization, political, economic, cultural colonization and cyber colonization,” Maduro said in an exclusive interview with the official website of Leader of the Islamic Revolution His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei that was published on Monday.

“All of us who fight against colonialism, all of us who fight to decolonize our minds and our people, are part of the Axis of Resistance that stands against the methods of the imperialists for imposing hegemony on the world,” he added.

Lauding the deeds of the Axis of Resistance throughout the years, Maduro said, “The 21st century is our century. It is the century of the unity of the people. It is the century in which people will be liberated. It is the century of justice and truth. Empires are in decline, and people’s projects for well-being, development and greatness have just begun. This century is our century.”

Pointing to a recent meeting with Imam Khamenei and the His Eminence’s statement about the very close relationship between Iran and Venezuela, Maduro said, “Since Commander Hugo Chavez’s first visit in 2001, Iran and Venezuela have established exemplary political, diplomatic, moral, and spiritual ties.”

“During this current trip, I’ve witnessed how there is an exemplary relationship between us in terms of our increasing cooperation. We’ve had many successes. So Imam Khamenei is right when he states that the relationship between the two countries is quite unique and extraordinary,” he noted.

Asked about his latest assertion regarding the Zionist occupation regime’s conspiracies against Venezuela through Mossad, Maduro said, “Imperialism and Zionism are conspiring against the progressive, revolutionary processes taking place in Latin America and the Caribbean, especially the Bolivarian Revolution.”

The Venezuelan president stressed, “This is because we are a true alternative, an alternative of truth and justice, an alternative of freedom, an alternative of democracy, and an alternative for realizing projects that are fully humane in the Latin American region and the Caribbean Sea. In addition to this, Mossad’s conspiracies are due to our strong position of solidarity with the Palestinian people and our support of them for their regaining their historical rights and for the Palestinian Resistance. Our support of them is strong and unique, and we will continue supporting them in this manner.”

Asked about the role of Iran’s anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani and the Quds Force over the last 20 years in strengthening the relationship between Tehran and Caracas, Maduro said he met General Soleimani in March and April of 2019 when he came to Venezuela during the time of US’ cyberattacks against the country’s power plants.

“I really didn’t know. I didn’t know him. I didn’t know how amazing he was, but the discussion I had with him was very pleasant. We reviewed everything during our meeting and he immediately suggested we get help from Iranian experts. Two or three days later, Iranian experts came to repair electrical services in Venezuela,” he added.

In response to a question regarding a saying by Imam Khamenei that, “If Prophet Issa [Peace upon Him] were among us today, he wouldn’t miss a moment to fight the leaders of global oppression and arrogance,” Maduro said, “We’re believing Christians. We’re the type of Christians who take action while praying and thinking. And Christ came into this world to fight the Empires. He came to confront the Roman Empires. He risked his life. He sacrificed his life to fight the Roman Empire.”

The Venezuelan leader said, “If there’s one good thing I can say about Christianity, it is its anti-imperialist nature and its seeking of truth and justice against the oppressors. I have no doubt that if Christ were among us today, he would have been at the forefront of the battle against imperialism, colonialism and all forms of oppression.”

During the interview, Maduro pointed to several meetings he had had with Imam Khamenei over the years as well as the meeting between Chavez and the Leader of the Islamic Revolution.

“I’ve always admired Imam Khamenei’s excellent memory. That he recalls the memories of those days is important. In the talks that I have had with him, he has recalled some of the conversations he had with Commander Chavez where Commander Chavez shared some of his memories about Cuba and Commander Fidel Castro. There was a time when a hurricane was heading straight toward Cuba. It was a Category 5 hurricane. A conversation took place between Fidel and Chavez. Fidel said, “Chavez! What you need to do right now is to pray. Pray for us!” Chavez started praying. That day passed and the hurricane changed its course. It didn’t cross over Cuba. Chavez called Fidel and said, “It’s a miracle!” Fidel replied, “Yes, it’s because God helps Chavez and Chavez’s friends.” In the last talk that I had with Imam Khamenei, he told me this story in a friendly, kind way in memory of Commander Chavez and Commander Fidel Castro,” he said.

“Holding a conversation with Imam Khamenei truly fills one with spirituality and wisdom. He likes the Venezuelan people. He likes the people’s ideals, and he always offers us great ideas and recommendations,” Maduro underlined.

WOKE in Tokyo. The US Nukes Cool Japan Out Of Its Existence

April 13, 2022

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By Thorsten J. Pattberg

Hello, Dr. Pattberg here from Akihabara, Tokyo, the electronic city. Today a short lecture about the US colonial power, its Woke ideology, and the planned attack on Japan’s culture and honor.

The US had long planned a massive propaganda attack on Japan – ideally during the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. The Olympic Games themselves are actually of no interest to anyone in the East or West, and they don’t trigger much attention.

But what triggers much attention are drama, hate, racism, smut and division.

Therefore, hundreds of Western journalists in 2020 had already prepared themselves to expose and humiliate the little “backward, racist and sexist” Japanese on the world stage.

For the historians, media and social scientists among you, the “propaganda game” should be familiar and well known. The Olympic Games force a country to open up. And a lot of shit floats through the grates in four weeks.

Thousands of activists come over and dig in the dirt, wanting to embarrass the host nation. This has actually always happened, but very spectacularly so in Munich in 1972, during the 2008 Olympic Games in China, and during the 2014 Winter Games in Russia.

And to describe this phenomenon with examples, I chose Akihabara in Tokyo for today. Akihabara is – or better: Once upon a time it was – a tourist attraction and a showcase for Japan’s high-tech, Japan’s manga, Japan’s anime and Japan’s game industry.

So, if a hostile power, say the US colonial office, wanted to damage Japan’s culture…then that power would strike here!

It would sabotage everything, use all the methods of modern psychological warfare: gaslighting (reality distortion), framing, the Hitler smash, racism, sexism and much more. And Japan has no media, no newspapers, that could possibly retaliate across national borders.

Eventually, the desperate Japanese would be labeled deniers, maniacs, or just bad losers.

A revolution or emancipation from the USA after more than 70 years of foreign rule is hardly conceivable. There would be a massacre if the US declared Japan a “rival” for a fourth or fifth time in history.

The USA needs a new deadly enemy every few years or so: be it the Vietnamese, the Soviets, the Iraqis, the Germans, the Afghans, the Cubans, the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Chinese or (again) – the Japanese!

Yes, but why would the USA, as a comfortable occupying power in Japan, want to intentionally harm the Japanese? Japan after all went along with everything:

• De-Japanization;
• De-Militarization;
• Democratization;
• Capitalization;
• Americanization…

Is there more?

Yes, there is always more! A new brutal ideology has emerged in the USA: the ideology of Wokeness.

Wokeness actually just means “psychopathy”. In this deadly ideology, anything successful, competent and orderly is just the result of systematic racism, sexism, or discrimination.

With the Wokeness ideology we can sabotage, brainwash and, ultimately, cancel entire nations and peoples – friend or foe – i.e.: wipe them out.

Even the traditional genders, male and female, the father-mother-children family, national borders, the laws, the sciences —everything can and must be erased. That is the stated goal of woke or wokeness.

Everything is already “woke” in America, especially the White House, the big cartels, the ruling castes, Hollywood and the Jewish media. They all want to collapse the multi-polar world and then – after a restart – take over the planet completely.

Japan was a decent and dependable vassal from 1948 until today, 2022. It has ceded all powers of its industries, politics, education, banking and trade, and especially energy and food supply, to the USA.

Nonetheless, exotic Japanese culture is a tough nut to crack mainly because of the language barrier: There just aren’t enough Americans who know or want to learn Japanese. So, there’s a lot happening here in Japan that the Americans wouldn’t tolerate and wipe out at the first opportunity – if they could!

For example, they would like to mix the Japanese with other races. They would die for orchestrating mass migration to Japan. The country is very homogeneous. That’s why there are no ghettos here, no social parasites, hardly any crime, and almost everyone has good manners – citizens behave well, respect the elderly and so on.

The US would like to have black neighborhoods here, huge drug markets, racial unrest, chaos and violence – that would be ideal. Then the West could, just like in America and Europe, torment people at will, lock them up, release them, catch them again, confiscate everything, privatize public services, moderate social security systems, print fiat money.

A British agent once told me that there was so little going on in Japan that he wouldn’t be surprised if it were the Americans who started the constant earthquakes in the Pacific.

The huge market for sex and prostitution is definitely not American enough here in Tokyo.

Though some party towns like Roppongi are regularly crashed by American soldiers, and though Okinawa is one giant fat American whorehouse, all of Japan – like Thailand or the Philippines before them – could be turned into a massive whorehouse for western sex tourists.

In order to get to Japanese women though, the Americans have to cancel out the Japanese guys first, of course. So, the Japanese males are brutally portrayed as racists, sexists, patriarchs and monsters who tie their wives to the kitchen sink, bully their female secretaries, and grab young schoolgirls in the crotch on the train ride.

Since only American morals apply globally, Japan always pulls the ass card. For example, there are a lot of alien eccentricities in Japan. Every people have their own characteristics. For example, let me remind you that up until the 1990s in France and Germany it was completely normal to practice nudism – i.e. free body culture. We were naked in the garden. On the campsite. Or even on a bike tour.

We also had mixed saunas. However, this was only possible because the group was homogeneous and there was trust among its members. When migrants and competing groups of men joined in, however, things ended quickly.

This was also the case in Japan, when, before the Europeans arrived in Old Edo, it was completely normal for young women to sit bare-breasted in front of the bathhouses.

Many things in Japan are rather abnormal from the point of view of Americans. Fathers still take their daughters to the men’s changing area up to the age of six. Older men compensate high school students for a “date”.

There is also a clear fetishism of school uniforms.

Japanese have different love making rituals. They prioritize foreplay or role-play. Also, because of thin walls and super-small houses, sex is outsourced – to the so-called “love hotels”.

For 30 euros you can have a nice hour in the more than 10,000 love hotels.

There are also unusual rules for printing pornography. Pubic hair may not be shown in Japan; and also, not the act of penetration – with real people.

In art, however, anything goes, so there is a veritable pornographic market for pedophilia, gays, and animal lovers in Japan.

All of these “abnormalities” are easy targets for the American morality missionaries, who suspect a perverse male culture here and want to ban it all.

After that, only the West should run sex and porn here; with US Tinder or Canada’s Pornhub. Of course, I’m generalizing when I always cry “America”. That’s because woke Canada is just as much part of the US empire as is the City of London, which incidentally finances OnlyFans – with over 50 million registered sex workers, the largest prostitution ring in the world.

Not just porn, but also hard drugs like cocaine and heroin the West would like to sell in Japan. And that’s what western politicians want to achieve with mass black immigration. Because “black people” should never be racially profiled – that would be racist. And then they could sell cool drugs to the Japanese youth.

Japan is not yet prepared for all the grief of multiculturalism. If Japanese porn falls, then there really isn’t much Japan left.

It gets worse. Japanese men are not only portrayed as perverts or otakus (freaks), but also still, unfortunately, as mass murderers and sadists; similar to how German men are still vilified as living Nazis today.

The Japanese are doubly unlucky because they are non-white. For example, as is well known, Ida Hodolf borrowed the swastika, the swastika symbol I mean, from the Buddhist religion. There, the clockwise and the counterclockwise swastika both simply denote the grace of the Buddhas –incidentally also in Tibet, the favorite vacation spot of liberal German do-gooders.

Unfortunately, the West canceled this sacred sign as a symbol of absolute evil. What a pity that in Taiwan or in Mainland China and Japan, there are Buddhist temples with the swastika everywhere.

As a rule, and let’s be honest, every symbol can be canceled. Here is the flag of Imperial Japan: the rising sun. Today a hated, forbidden symbol –in China! And here, the swastika –banned in Europe!

In Japan the swastika is not a problem. You can buy one as a tourist. Memorabilia of the Third Reich can also be bought here. That’s “history”!

And by the way, here is the American flag, the most hated symbol on earth! Now you can believe that or not. This flag, the American flag, will one day characterize Satanism.

Japan’s imperial history and loss of World War II still get shoved up the ass of the Japanese today. They are per se the descendants of war criminals, rapists and subhumans.

Therefore, here in Japan, every US representative takes the following approach; whether the US ambassadors or US diplomats, the US media or US cultural people, they always and immediately contact critics of Japan – i.e. anti-Japanese dissidents, opposition figures and troublemakers.

This is no joke: Americans see their embassies as a government organ that actively coerces, promotes or fires local politicians and dictates foreign affairs.

Incidentally, the same British agent told me that the Americans “are the ultimate successor of Her Majesty’s Colonial Office in the last century”.

In plain language, this means that the Americans don’t cultivate any friendships at all, but simply let the colonial masters and exploiters and conquerors mentality hang out. The Japanese are conditioned to feel helpless and guilty, just as the Germans were conditioned to accept and submit to US military rule.

But now some very specific examples of how the Americans here in Japan want to undermine, sabotage and bury Japanese culture.

I won’t name names.

[Brief insertion: By “I won’t name names ” I mean the instigators and terrorists. But the names of the targets of their smear and hate campaigns are of course public figures:

Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister, has been outed in the global press as the Olympic Committee’s chief sexist.

Taro Aso, a former deputy minister, was scandalized as a misogynist for daring to say that women are best for making children.

Hakuo Yanagisawa, the former health minister, was outright destroyed in the media and on the internet.

The strategy of the Woke spirit warriors is evident: sabotage the entire political system, destroy the top performers through injury, psychological terror and arbitrariness.

Ok, and now back to you, Dr. Pattberg!]

For example, there are several crazy Americans who walk into Japanese Onsen, bathhouses, with fat tattoos. Then they are declined because tattoos are banned; and because obnoxious foreigners disrupt the operation.

Then, of course, the provocateur turned out to be an agent provocateur with contacts in the Western media, or a tolerated criminal – and there begins another smear campaign against racist and anti-Western Japan, which does not tolerate foreigners.

The American foot soldiers of the Woke-and-Cancel cult seek out all possible groups of victims, and then spin their personal stories into stories about systematic homophobia, transphobia, gender phobia and hatred of women.

In America, Americans developed the political instrument of ‘D.I.E.’, an acronym for diversity, inclusivity and equity. For these lunatics, that means that Japan is literally hell.

Japan isn’t diverse for American expats because they won’t come to power here. It’s not inclusive for them because they can’t assimilate without language skills, and not fair because they won’t be able to keep up in school with the Japanese.

In order to denigrate the Japanese into villains, quotas for skin colors and ethnic groups and minorities are needed here, just like in America!

In other words, the emasculated Japan, which is totally dominated by America, is still far too Japanese in looks –and must be diluted!

For now, the US and the EU are busy with Russia. Want to cancel Russia. The Russian economy is completely paralyzed. This bought Japan some time to relax.

The fearful Japanese politicians, not a single one of whom is known by name in the West –the current prime minister is Fumio Kishida, and you don’t need to remember that– would authorize ten more US bases in, say Yokohama, if only more time could be won.

Because a war in which Japan is dragged along cannot be a war against Japan.

In 2013, for example, Washington sent Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of ex-President John F. Kennedy, to Tokyo as the next US ambassador to Japan.

This woman doesn’t speak Japanese, has no idea about Japan. But that’s the whole point. It is symbolic. Kiss my foreign rule! Whoever is white and American is in control here. Just like General Douglas MacArthur back then.

Again, the Americans are not engaged in diplomacy at all, but in colonialism.

Ms. Kennedy was practically unable to achieve anything positive in Japan. Firstly, she was hardly ever in Tokyo. Secondly, she only met with anti-Japanese elements. And thirdly, her incompetence was whitewashed by being the “first female ambassador” –a slap in the face of evil patriarchy. Hallelujah!

Well, the Americans in Tokyo act as Supreme Commanders. They rule Japan with the help of their Japanese finger puppets. Naruhito, the current new Emperor of Japan, studied at Oxford and is married to his wife from Harvard. Incidentally, the prime minister during Ms. Kennedy’s time in Tokyo was Shinzo Abe, who had studied in California. THOSE are the supreme rulers of Japan, friends. They can’t [and probably shouldn’t be] without the West.

That demolition team had completely surrendered Japan to US BIG-Tech monopolies: Wikipedia, YouTube, Zoom, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Pornhub, Instagram, Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and so on.

Japan lost BIG banking, telecom and social media. All gone.

Anyone who comes to Japan will quickly realize that everything is American here – KFC here is the traditional Christmas turkey– and all things American are considered sacred, not to be questioned.

It’s a real American cult, with American Hollywood actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Tommy Lee Jones or Scarlett Johansson in TV commercials all over the place.

It would be unimaginable to see German or Italian or Russian stars on a billboard here in Tokyo. Even the so-called imported goods from Germany, for example Ritter chocolate or gummy bears, are imported here by Americans, for example by Costco of the Jupiter Group, the latter belongs to a US investment firm.

This imbalance exists because Europeans mostly can only access the Japanese market through American intermediaries.

The whole thing is so ridiculous it makes one cry. Japan is an island nation… AND DOES NOT HAVE AIRCRAFT OF ITS OWN. May not build aircrafts in Japan. A post-war 70 years building ban!

Where was I? The Americans now want to deal another blow to Japan. The country must accommodate imaginary trans-people, black ghettos, Indian slums and more Islam. Christianity needs more offices here, too.

Japan is too old, they say; has too few children, they say. Japan is “too Japanese” –that’s the crime.

All this moral hectoring is of course fake: first Japan will be canceled, then the West will cheer its own champions here.

The toy industry in Japan was once very Japanese. Until US Disney copied everything. America has the world market, Japan doesn’t.

Before America dispelled the Japanese from the European market [mid 80s], I grew up as a young boy in Germany with Nausica of the Valley of the Wind or Taro the Dragon Boy. And I heard from the Japanese that they were fascinated by German-Austrian culture at that time and copied Heidi from the Mountains like crazy.

The Americans canceled Germany’s and Japan’s influences in one fell swoop. Today, Japanese children are growing up with US Elsa, the Disney Ice Princess and the Minions from Universal Pictures.

Sure, there’s still a lot of Japanese here in Akihabara, for example Japanese One-Piece, Pokémon and Naruto or Kamel… excuse me… Kamen Riders.

But precisely because the [last] Japanese silverware is on display here in Akihabara, the American planners come here seeing exactly what needs to be done about it.

Now they want to swamp the market for collectibles with US Marvel and DC Comics and -figures [and Disney Princesses, Star Wars Action Toys and Barbie dolls, and so on].

Godzilla is already “American”. The last five feature films were all shot in America!

Children are important in propaganda. Japan no longer has its own children’s channels. There is US Netflix, US Hulu, US Disney, US Youtube… Comcast, Tokyo Disneyland, Pixar Animation Studios, Nickelodeon, Harry Potter World, HBO and Amazon Prime, and many more. It is very insidious. I remember how Americans educated us Germans with their Sesame Street.

The advantage in post-war Germany was that we still got stuff like comics from France, Belgium or Spain. Asterix & Obelix or Clever & Smart [comics] or whatever. But Japan is an island, and the Japanese were trapped there with their American masters.

Conclusion:

Unless Japan kicks out the Americans, at least the US military and the subversive US media and agents, things are going to get very grim. Japan can’t win this.

I don’t know how else to explain that. I’m really at a loss for words. It’s so brutal and unfair, but there’s no stopping it.

Do you perhaps know this blatant experiment with the two monkeys? There are two monkeys in cages next to each other. The first monkey is given a piece of cucumber and then has to hand out a rock if he wants more. He is satisfied with the piece of cucumber.

But then the monkey in the neighboring cage is given a red grape. Well, one monkey only gets a tasteless piece of cucumber, no matter what he does. The other monkey gets a juicy red grape no matter what he does.

And now comes the hammer: The first monkey gives up. He doesn’t want the fucking pickle. He was perfectly content with his little cucumber as long as he didn’t see the other monkey with his big juicy bunches.

This is how it is with hyper-US capitalism around the world right now, and horribly in Japan. As long as the Japanese kept to themselves, they cooperated diligently and were content with what they got.

But now the Americans control everything here, and they own the whole world, and in this global economy, they simply always get the big juicy grapes, and don’t have to put in any more work than the rest of us.

It would be completely insane if the Japanese continued like this now. What for? You’ll never get the fat rewards anyway! Never and ever again!

Ok, this was brutal, but it was necessary. Not only Japan, but also Germany and Europe, but also other countries like Russia and China, finally have to wake up.

US world domination can’t go on like this. Absolutely not.

We need a multipolar world with opportunities for all countries and cultures. And most important of all: freedom and sovereignty for all states.

Thanks for listening, and see you later!

---

The author is a German writer and cultural critic.

Is Europe Really More Civilized? Ukraine Conflict a Platform for Racism and Rewriting History

April 4, 2022

CBS correspondent Charlie D’Agata has prompted backlash after comparing violence in Afghanistan to the invasion of “relatively civilized” Ukraine. (Photo: video grab)

By Ramzy Baroud

When a gruesome six-minute video of Ukrainian soldiers shooting and torturing handcuffed and tied up Russian soldiers circulated online, outraged people on social media and elsewhere compared this barbaric behavior to that of Daesh.

In a rare admission of moral responsibility, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to the Ukrainian President, quickly reminded Ukrainian fighters of their responsibility under international law. “I would like to remind all our military, civilian and defense forces, once again, that the abuse of prisoners is a war crime that has no amnesty under military law and has no statute of limitations,” he said, asserting that “We are a European army”, as if the latter is synonymous with civilized behavior.

Even that supposed claim of responsibility conveyed subtle racism, as if to suggest that non-westerners, non-Europeans, may carry out such grisly and cowardly violence, but certainly not the more rational, humane and intellectually superior Europeans.

The comment, though less obvious, reminds one of the racist remarks by CBS’ foreign correspondent, Charlie D’Agata, on February 26, when he shamelessly compared Middle Eastern cities with the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, stating that “Unlike Iraq or Afghanistan, (…) this is a relatively civilized, relatively European city”.

The Russia-Ukraine war has been a stage of racist comments and behavior, some explicit and obvious, others implicit and indirect. Far from being implicit, however, Bulgarian Prime Minister, Kiril Petkov, did not mince words when, last February, he addressed the issue of Ukrainian refugees. Europe can benefit from Ukrainian refugees, he said, because “these people are Europeans. (…) These people are intelligent, they are educated people. This is not the refugee wave we have been used to, people we were not sure about their identity, people with unclear pasts, who could have been even terrorists.”

One of many other telling episodes that highlight western racism, but also continued denial of its grim reality, was an interview conducted by the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, with the Ukrainian Azov Battalion Commander, Dmytro Kuharchuck. The latter’s militia is known for its far-right politics, outright racism and horrific acts of violence. Yet, the newspaper described Kuharchuck as “the kind of fighter you don’t expect. He reads Kant and he doesn’t only use his bazooka.”If this is not the very definition of denial, what is?

That said, our proud European friends must be careful before supplanting the word ‘European’ with ‘civilization’ and respect for human rights. They ought not to forget their past or rewrite their history because, after all, racially-based slavery is a European and western brand. The slave trade, as a result of which millions of slaves were shipped from Africa during the course of four centuries, was very much European. According to Encyclopedia Virginia, 1.8 million people “died on the Middle Passage of the transatlantic slave trade”. Other estimations put the number much higher.

Colonialism is another European quality. Starting in the 15th century, and lasting for centuries afterward, colonialism ravaged the entire Global South. Unlike the slave trade, colonialism enslaved entirepeoples and divided whole continents, like Africa, among European spheres of influence.

The nation of Congo was literally owned by one person, Belgian King Leopold II. India was effectively controlled and colonized by the British East India Company and, later, by the British government. The fate of South America was largely determined by the US-imposed Monroe Doctrines of 1823. For nearly 200 years, this continent has paid – and continues to pay – an extremely heavy price of US colonialism and neocolonialism. No numbers or figures can possibly express the destruction and death toll inflicted by Western-European colonialism on the rest of the world, simply because the victims are still being counted. But for the sake of illustration, according to American historian, Adam Hochschild, ten million people have died in Congo alone from 1885 to 1908.

And how can we forget that World War I and II are also entirely European, leaving behind around 40 million and 75 million dead, respectively. (Other estimations are significantly higher). The gruesomeness of these European wars can only be compared to the atrocities committed, also by Europeans, throughout the South, for hundreds of years prior.

Mere months after The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed in 1949, the eager western partners were quick to flex their muscles in Korea in 1950, instigating a war that lasted for three years, resulting in the death of nearly 5 million people. The Korean war, like many other NATO-instigated conflicts, remains an unhealed wound to this day.

The list goes on and on, from the disgraceful Opium Wars on China, starting in 1839, to the nuclear bombings of Japan in 1945, to the destruction of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, in 1954, 1959 and 1970 respectively, to the political meddling, military interventions and regime change in numerous countries around the world. They are all the work of the West, of the US and its ever-willing ‘European partners’, all done in the name of spreading democracy, freedom and human rights.

If it were not for the Europeans, Palestine would have gained its independence decades ago, and its people, this writer included, would have not been made refugees, suffering under the yoke of Zionist Israel. If it were not for the US and the Europeans, Iraq would have remained a sovereign country and millions of lives would have been spared in one of the world’s oldest civilizations; and Afghanistan would have not endured this untold hardship. Even when the US and its European friends finally relented and left Afghanistan last year, they continue to hold the country hostage, by blocking the release of its funds, leading to actual starvation among the people of that war-torn country.

So before bragging about the virtues of Europe, and the demeaning of everyone else, the likes of Arestovych, D’Agata, and Petkov should take a look at themselves in the mirror and reconsider their unsubstantiated ethnocentric view of the world and of history. In fact, if anyone deserves bragging rights it is those colonized nations that resisted colonialism, the slaves that fought for their freedom, and the oppressed nations that resisted their European oppressors, despite the pain and suffering that such struggles entailed.

Sadly, for Europe, however, instead of using the Russia-Ukraine war as an opportunity to reflect on the future of the European project, whatever that is, it is being used as an opportunity to score cheap points against the very victims of Europe everywhere. Once more, valuable lessons remain unlearned.

– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

“Israel” – Beyond Apartheid

September 30, 2021

Source: Al Mayadeen

Fra Hughes

Many observers and organizations make parallels between the apartheid segregated Society of South Africa, the Jim Crow racial segregation laws of North America, and “Israel”.

Apartheid (/əˈpɑːrt(h)aɪt/, especially South African English: /əˈpɑːrt(h)eɪt/, Afrikaans: [aˈpartɦɛit]; transl. “separateness”, lit. “aparthood”) was a system of institutionalized racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South-West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 until the early 1990s.

20 years on from the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance, in conjunction with the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People, held in Durban South Africa, where are we now?

The use of the law, in this case, an unjust and immoral law in South Africa by the minority white Dutch Afrikaans and the minority white British colonial invaders, was designed to keep white Europeans, in the ascendancy in South Africa.

Thirteen percent of the population who were white-ruled sixty-eight percent of the population who were black with an Asian community representing the remaining nineteen percent.

First, they ruled through a brutal military occupation, using the gun.

Then they ruled through a brutal racist government using repression and separation laws.

It was the use of apartheid laws that legalized and enforced a system of ‘separateness’. A system of dual apartness which left the races unable to socialize, congregate or work together as brothers and sisters, equal and indivisible under the constitution.

In South Africa, they legalized colonial white supremism through parliamentary statute, police enforcement, and judicial sentencing.

The first apartheid law passed in 1949 was the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act. This was followed by the Immorality Act of 1950 which made it illegal for many South Africans to marry or have sexual relations across racial lines.

The Pass laws were designed to force black people to live in designated areas, corralled as it were, like animals in a pen, thereby making them available as cheap labor for white farmers.

It was the coming to power of the African National Party in 1948 who created the apartheid laws and system of governing South African society, that reinforced the racial discrimination already self-evident in the country. A series of Land Acts gave more than 80% of the land to whites and banned Black crop sharers from working the land.

A series of discriminatory, racially biased laws, saw the permanent separation of the races, alongside a parallel system of separate transport systems, public lavatories, and housing districts.

In effect, the National Party which won the 1948 parliamentary elections on the slogan of Apartheid meaning ‘separateness’ created a privileged white minority class that used the indigenous black South Africans as a labor pool to work on the farms, clean their homes, as a subjugated underclass, kept in perpetual poverty, in appalling substandard housing units in shantytowns with poor education, poor health, and poor social provision.

Like all colonialists, they strove to keep the people apart by fomenting sectarian tensions between the regional ethnic groups in order to prevent a unified opposition to their racist endeavor. They encouraged black-on-black violence in the townships and in the countryside.

A land of milk and honey for the white supremacist colonial invaders beside a land of despair, oppression, and governmental indifference for the natives.

Apartheid lasted for 50 years in South Africa and only officially ended when the ANC, African National Conference which had historically opposed the apartheid system and fought a legitimate war against the unjust white only parliamentary system, finally came to power in 1993, when the majority of citizens were given the right to vote and they elected Nelson Mandela as the first Black President of the Republic of South Africa,

It can be claimed that not much has changed for the indigenous peoples of South Africa, While it is true they have a majority black representative government, the whites still own the land. White farmers still get rich while employing cheap black labor.

The captains of industry are still white although a new elite cadre of black politicians and civil servants may now live in gated (separate) communities, much of the pain of being poor, disenfranchised, and black has changed very little for so many.

A new black capitalist class also rides high above the black dispossessed workers and those who go to bed hungry.

Many observers and organizations make parallels between the apartheid segregated Society of South Africa, the Jim Crow racial segregation laws of North America, and “Israel”. The use of Israeli-only roads and Jewish-only settlements in the West Bank are prime examples of Israeli separation laws.

The discrimination against black African Americans is again reflective of the white European racism that underpins white American society. It is mirrored in the majority of the white legislator, judiciary, police, and army aficionados in power in American civil society and in the corporate, business, and banking sectors.

White Americans control the levers of power and influence, in the media as well as on Capitol Hill.

The continued destruction of black Afro American society through the widespread use of drugs, criminal gangs, poverty, underinvestment, governmental neglect, police brutality, judicial repression, are continued proof if it were needed, that a white European colonial mindset underpins discrimination and racial prejudice in societies where white Europeans want to maintain an internal hegemonic position of superiority which is then reflected in their foreign policies of exploitation and subjugation, in order to maintain white economic privilege in the countries of the EU, North America, Canada, and Australia.

All the countries I have mentioned above are guilty of genocide, racial intolerance, oppression, military adventurism, and ethnic cleansing.

Is “Israel” any different?

“Israel” is a white European colonial settler state.

It has followed all the steps taken by previous white European settler-colonial states such as South Africa, North America, Canada, and Australia,

It has colonized, subjugated, ethnically cleansed, and marginalized the indigenous populations of the country they have militarily conquered and supplanted.

“Israel” has its Nations state Law which many international observers see as a template for a Jewish only Israeli state that separates non-Jews and others from playing an active role in the state.

“Israel” now has usurped 85% of historic Palestine.

To me, apartheid is an abhorrent manifestation of a supremacist ideology that seeks to separate one from the other, to create disharmony, bitterness, hatred, and a divided dysfunctional broken society based on racial or religious purity.

“Israel” fulfills all these roles but it does so much more.

An apartheid state might use the law to discriminate. It may use the law to repress and isolate those it seeks to subdue but it doesn’t bomb kindergartens, schools, hospitals, and bakeries, does it?

It may have separate roads and separate housing areas but it doesn’t shoot countless children in the legs for throwing stones or bringing water to the kids resisting an illegal occupation, creating crippled boys, does it?

It does not shoot paramedics and leave the wounded to bleed out on the street to die, does it?

It does not murder physicists in another jurisdiction, indiscriminately bomb bridges and civil infrastructure in neighboring countries, does it?

It does not count the calorific intake of those it is legally responsible for, to break their will to resist, to withhold food, medicine, vaccines, fuel in order to impoverish and emasculate an entire population of 1.8 million people, does it?

It does not bomb neighboring countries that are not at war with it, deny building permits to the indigenous population while simultaneously dismantling their homes in a land you are illegally occupying, and forcing homes owners to destroy their properties. To detain citizens under Administrative detention, internment without trial. To murder, maim, imprison, torture, and kill at will with impunity, is this Apartheid? I think not. Yet these are the everyday actions of a rogue unaccountable state immune to international law and international sanctions, actively supported protected, and facilitated by the other white European ethnic colonies that Israel aspires to be.

“Israel” is Beyond Apartheid.

We must find a new way to describe “Israel” based on its everyday practices of Ethnic cleansing, murder, colonization, dispossession, and expansion.

We must call “Israel”, not an Apartheid State which it is, but an Ethno cleansing pariah genocidal rogue state, because that it was, it does? That is what it is. That is what we must call it.The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

How a Black Evangelical Denomination was Duped into “Blessing” Israel

By Kathryn Shihadah

Source

“There are more than 40 million Black Americans, they spend more than $1.3 trillion a year, so we’re a measurable market, a measurable group of people, easily identified, and we think we can also contribute to the advancement of Israel.”  – Glenn Plummer, Bishop of Israel

The Church of God in Christ, or COGIC, is certainly not the first evangelical group to embrace the state of Israel. But unlike most evangelical denominations, this one is mostly African American. Its leadership includes the newly-minted and first-ever “Bishop of Israel,” Dr. Glenn R. Plummer, who now resides in Jerusalem – and he cherishes his new post.

The Plummers’ move from their Detroit home is the culmination of a years-long targeted outreach by pro-Israel organizations to the African American Christian community, including a carefully curated public relations campaign that oscillates between portraying Israel as a victim of Palestinian violence and ignoring Palestinian existence completely.

The mission: American dollars for Israel

Plummer defines his mission in terms of creating mostly commercial ties between African Americans and Jewish Israelis. The two million Muslim and Christian Palestinians who live in Israel do not figure into his plans. As he explains it:

It’s a perfect time to show our support for the Jewish people, and for Israel in particular, and we intend to do that in very tangible ways. There are more than 40 million Black Americans, they spend more than $1.3 trillion a year, so we’re a measurable market, a measurable group of people, easily identified, and we think we can also contribute to the advancement of Israel.”

Plummer, pictured in a matching tracksuit and Nike fanny pack, with a member of his congregation during a 2019 tour in Jerusalem. Photo | COGIC

Plummer’s wife, who now claims the title “the first lady of Israel,” adds that the couple hopes to correct what she calls “misunderstandings” about Israel among Black Americans. “God blesses those who bless Israel, she said, “We want to make sure that Black Americans understand that the way to bless Israel is to speak well of Israel.”

Last month, the foundation Israel Allies named Plummer one of Israel’s “Top 50 Christian Allies.”

African American views on Israel

Black Americans as a group are primarily Protestant – a characteristic usually associated with robust support for Israel – but also predominantly Democrats, the less pro-Israel party. 

Most African American Christians lean left when it comes to the Jewish State. Less than half — 48 percent — endorse Israel, and 27 percent sympathize with the Palestinians.

Although traditional religious teaching in many denominations calls on believers to support Israel, the majority of Black Christians sympathize equally with both Israeli and Palestinian struggles (seventy percent); over forty percent also believe that Israel denies Palestinians their basic human rights and that Israeli laws discriminate against Palestinians (about the same percentage say they don’t know).

The link: pro-Israel charity

The modern African American connection to Israel can be traced back to the late American Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, who in 1983 created a collaborative charity called the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ). Eckstein has since grown it into a $100 million-a-year organization. IFCJ claims to support the Israeli military, provide aid to needy Jewish families, and promote Jewish emigration to Israel.

Eckstein addresses a Baptist Church in Detroit during the Martin Luther King Day weekend. Photo | Phil Lewis | The Fellowship

In 2014, after over thirty years of cultivating support for the Jewish state among White American Christians, Eckstein began pursuing the African American Christian community. He found the work tricky. Black Christians, after all, tend to be Democrats and not supportive of the more hawkish pro-Israel policies for which he sought backing. But Eckstein had a secret weapon.

He targeted COGIC because of one particular doctrine: a belief that the creation of the State of Israel was ordained by God.

Selective pilgrimage

By 2015 a group of COGIC ministers, including the Plummers, visited Israel with Eckstein, taking in a hand-picked list of Jewish and Christian holy sites, a bomb shelter in Tel Aviv, and the Holocaust memorial.

In 2017, with financial assistance from Hobby Lobby, another COGIC group visited Israel. Notably, the week-long trip did not include Bethlehem, which is in Palestinian territory, or any meetings with Palestinians. A senior COGIC delegate explained that the purpose of the visit was to focus on the strength of Israel, adding, “that’s not to say the Palestinian issue is not deserving of consideration as well. Anything that helps humanity.”

The itinerary for African American church leaders included a stop in southern Tel Aviv, where most of Israel’s 45,000 African asylum-seekers live. The group discussed the challenges these immigrants faced, including racism and economic inequity. But again, the narrative was incomplete.

Israel has been openly trying for over ten years to stop the flow of refugees from Africa and to deport those already present. Human Rights Watch reported that it “recognized fewer than one percent of asylum applicants,” choosing instead to “bully” them or ignore their applications. The government even funded a wall on its border with Egypt and then initiated a policy of detention and expulsion, housing African refugees in large camps in the middle of the southern desert.

Despite the carefully curated itinerary, one church leader summed up his takeaway from the trip thusly, “[D]espite the achievement of some [Africans in Israel], educational and economic inequity remain.”

“From Ferguson to Palestine”

Just before the COGIC trip to Israel, the U.S. saw a surge of Black support for the Palestinian cause – something Plummer has yet to acknowledge.

The summer of 2014 highlighted the parallel issues faced by African Americans and their Palestinian brethren. As Blacks in America protested the killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Israel waged a brutal war against the people of Gaza. Over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, 65 percent of them civilians. More than 500 Palestinian children lost their lives in the Israeli campaign along with 73 Israelis, just eight percent of whom were civilians.

The 2015 Black Solidarity Statement with Palestine, signed by over 1,000 activists and 39 organizations, was born of this shared adversity and read, in part:

The past year has been one of high-profile growth for Black-Palestinian solidarity. Out of the terror directed against us—from numerous attacks on Black life to Israel’s brutal war on Gaza and chokehold on the West Bank—strengthened resilience and joint-struggle have emerged between our movements.

Neighborhood watch

Bishop Plummer and his wife made their new home in an upscale Israeli suburb of Jerusalem called Mevaseret Zion, a neighborhood whose backstory is noteworthy if one is willing to search it out.

Before 1948, Mevaseret Zion was the site of the mostly-Arab Palestinian village of Qalunya, population: 1,056. The violent Jewish paramilitary force, the Haganah, destroyed the village as recounted by historian Walid Khalidi, author of “All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.” The village was one of over five hundred depopulated and demolished in the wake of Israel’s creation.

Plummer poses with African members of the IDF in Jerusalem in 2016. Photo | COGIC

Ottoman records indicate that it had been in existence since at least 1596. Its Palestinian farmers grew (and paid taxes on) wheat, barley, and vegetables, and tended citrus and olive trees.

Kerem Navot, a non-profit Israeli group that monitors land policy, recently pointed out that Mevaseret Zion lies partly inside Palestine. But instead of resolving the trespassing issue, Israel recently approved plans for further construction in the town, requiring the appropriation of yet more Palestinian land.

Zooming toward racism

On June 4, Bishop Plummer participated in a video conference vigil hosted by Yehudah Glick on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Its objective: to pray for racial reconciliation in the United States following the death of George Floyd.

Plummer and his colleagues may not have been aware that following a 1967 agreement, only Muslims are supposed to be allowed to perform religious rituals on the Temple Mount, the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and one of Islam’s most revered sites.

In recent years, Israeli radicals have stormed the mosque compound more and more frequently, often under the protection of Israeli police. Despite having exclusive access to the Wailing Wall, a nearby Jewish holy site, they storm the compound under the auspices of a desire to pray in the mosque compound, a move seen by many Muslims as intentionally provocative. Yehudah Glick’s prayer vigil was both illegal and provocative.

Glick also ignored the fact that both the religious establishment and the Israeli government openly discriminate against the Palestinians in their midst to the point that many experts have described the government’s actions as apartheid. And even as Glick urged his listeners to chant “no more violence,” his country observed the 53rd anniversary of its brutal occupation of Palestine.

Israel’s widely publicized narrative of innocence overshadows the reality of its intolerance, though both Israeli and Palestinian historians have chronicled it thoroughly.

The state of Israel displaced 750,000 Palestinians in 1948 simply because they were not Jewish. It defied international law by refusing to allow them to return; appropriated 78 percent of their land in 1948, and occupied the rest in 1967, with no end in sight.

Numerous human rights organizations have been tallying and reporting on Israel’s decades of ongoing human rights abuses.

In Gaza alone 7,400 Palestinians have been killed through direct Israeli violence (thousands more due to lack of food and medicine caused by the now fourteen-year-old blockade); during the same time period, about 250 Israelis were been killed by Palestinians in Gaza.

Glick mourned the May 25 death of George Floyd and the nationwide unrest in its aftermath. He left unspoken the name of Eyad al Hallak, a disabled Palestinian man executed by Israeli police on May 30 in Jerusalem – not far from where Glick’s own vigil was held.

America’s Race Reality: Inhuman, Insane, Incoherent

August 14, 2020

by Ilana Mercer, published with the authorization of the author

Racism is a lot of things. One thing it is not:

A white child, aged five,  executed by a black man with a shot to the head, as the tyke rode his bike. Ask the cultural cognoscenti. They’ll tell you: That’s never racism.

Otherwise, almost anything involving the perpetually aggrieved black community counts as racism.

Students hoist a “thin blue line” flag in solidarity with police: racism.

A black male is asked for his driver’s license: racism. Of course it’s systemic. Are you stupid, or something?

A white politician proclaims that “all lives matter”: Come again? Are you kidding me?!

A museum curator fails to commit to the exclusion of the art of white men, including, presumably, the Old Masters: not racism; white supremacism. Be gone with you, Rembrandt and Vermeer.

A black student struggles with English grammar. English grammar is ruled racist. Take that, Dr. Johnson!

This, even though, logically, it is more likely that our student is not up to the task or hasn’t tried hard enough; that his tutor is not up to the task and hasn’t tried hard enough—or all of those things combined.

As you can see, accusations of racism are seldom grounded in reason or reality.

Racism, then, is just about anything other than the point-blank execution of little Cannon Hinnant (white), on August 9, by Darius Sessoms (black), and the rape, the other day, by Dejon Dejor Lynn, 25, of an old lady: his 96-year-old neighbor.

From the media industry’s modus operandi, we may comfortably deduce that the raped lady is almost certainly white.

How so?

Fully 73 percent of the residents of Ann Arbor, Michigan, are white. If the race of an unnamed victim of black crime is withheld, she’s most likely white. Were the victim Hispanic, the media industry would say so, and would forthwith withhold the picture and race of the “suspect,” so that the crime became an attack against a “minority.”

Similar black-on-white atrocities are a daily occurrence, documented, “in moving images,” by “the fearless and indefatigable journalist Colin Flaherty.” They are either ignored by the media industry or described as racially neutral.

In a powerful responsorial that is almost religious in cadence, Jack Kerwick, a Frontpage.com columnist, commands us to “say their names”:

David Dorn was a 77-year-old retired African-American police captain and family man. Say his name.

Paul and Lidia Marino, a couple in their mid-80s. Say their names!

Wendy Martinez: Say her name.

Jourdan Bobbish and Jacob Kudla: Teenagers tortured and murdered. Say their names.

Karina Vetrano: Attacked, sexually assaulted, and strangled to death while jogging. Say her name.

Phil Trenary: Treasury of the Chamber of Commerce in Memphis who was trying to rejuvenate the city’s economic life. Say his name.

Scott Brooks; Sebastian Dvorak; Serge Fournier; Tessa Majors; Dorothy Dow; Lorne Ahrens; Brent Thompson; Michael Krol; Patrick Zamarripa.

Say their names. (“Remembering the Victims of Black Violence – Black and White,” By Jack Kerwick)

The prototypical American victims of racial hatred were 21-year-old Channon Christian and 23-year-old Hugh Christopher Newsom, of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Their slaughter, in 2007, was dismissed as a garden-variety murder and rape. But there is no finessing the white-hot racial hatred seared into their mangled, white bodies.

Read the description of the crime in Into the Cannibal’s Pot, and pray tell how white America can thus forsake its children by accepting the racial innocence of their defilers:

Five blacks—four men and a woman—anally raped Hugh, then shot him to death, wrapped his body in bedding, soaked it in gasoline and set it alight. He was the lucky one. Channon, his fair and fragile-looking friend, was repeatedly gang raped by the four men—vaginally, anally and orally. Before she died, her murderers poured a household cleaner down her throat, in an effort to cleanse away DNA. She was left to die, either from the bleeding caused “by the tearing,” or from asphyxiation. Knoxville officials would not say. She was then stuffed in a garbage can like trash. White trash. (pp. 35-36)

The object of hate is so often a remarkably beautiful woman or man. It is as if the aim is to forever obliterate beauty unattainable.

On the Dark Continent, the same dynamic was in play when “Hutus picked up machetes to slash to bits nearly a million of their Tutsi neighbors in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.” There,

… tribal allegiance trumps political persuasion and envy carries the day. The Tutsi—an alien, Nilotic African people, who formed a minority in Rwanda and Burundi—had always been resented by the Hutus. The tall, imposing Tutsis, whose facial features the lovely supermodel Iman instantiates, had dominated them on-and-off since the 15th Century. On a deeper level, contends Keith Richburg, an African-American journalist, the Hutus were “slashing at their own perceived ugliness, as if destroying this thing of beauty, this thing they could never really attain, removing it from the earth forever.” (Into the Cannibal’s Pot, p. 43)

Such was the murder of Tyler Wingate, “a 24-year-old man from Berkley [who] was brutally beaten to death after a seemingly minor car crash on Detroit’s west side [in July of 2019]. The crash and beating were caught on surveillance video from a nearby gas station.” (The Unz Review)

Undeniably, it is a kind of race-based annihilation of beauty unattainable, for that is certainly what poor Tyler Wingate was blessed with.

For America to have incorporated and assimilated the unreason of “racism” on such a self-immolating scale, as American society has done, is to be mired in self-contradiction. To the Greek philosophers, to be mired in self-contradiction was to be less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.

This is where American society finds itself: less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.

Patriots, please quit the “rest in peace” platitudes. Tyler Wingate and all the rest rage, rage from the grave.

***

Ilana Mercer has been writing a weekly, paleolibertarian column since 1999. She’s the author of Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America From Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011) & The Trump Revolution: The Donald’s Creative Destruction Deconstructed” (June, 2016). She’s currently on Gab, YouTube, Twitter & LinkedIn, but has been banned by Facebook.

Macron in Lebanon: Hijabi Reporter Not Allowed to Speak and Dual Standards on Protesters

Source

By Nour Rida

On Thursday, August 7, 2020, Western mainstream media covered French President Manuel Macron’s visit to Lebanon in the aftermath of the Hiroshima-like explosion that hit Lebanon three days earlier. News headlines and stories covered his visit as he called for “reforms and change”, and told Lebanon that any money to help Beirut recover must come with what he called a “new political order” to replace a “system that no longer has the trust of its people.”

Of course the media failed to mention two things; Macron’s (indirect) racist attitude towards a Lebanese reporter when he got her prevented from asking a question during a press conference, and his dual standards in dealing with protesters in Lebanon and protesters back in France.

Mona Tahini, a Lebanese citizen who has been working as a news reporter for the past 13 years was prevented from asking Macron a question during his press conference at the Pine Palace in Beirut on Thursday, one single question, at the time other reporters were allowed to ask multiple questions or even have discussions and pose for pictures with the French president.

The reporter who works for al-Manar TV, posted a video on her Twitter account which shows Macron having a side talk and taking selfie pictures with a number of journalists although the pretext for preventing her from raising her question was that that the French President Macron did not have enough time before heading to the airport to back into France.

Tahini said that some journalists consumed a long time while raising their questions, adding that she was not given her turn to ask although she had already taken a permission for that.

Interpreting the instance, Macron’s attitude towards Tahini can be explained as prejudice and bias towards the female reporter in what clearly indicates a racist attitude towards her wardrobe as she was the only reporter wearing the Hijab. Macron was unfair, and did not give Tahini the chance to ask a question for wearing her Hijab. Else, there would be one more interpretation to preventing Tahini from asking: he is afraid of the question itself in advance.

It is said that people usually fear what they are unfamiliar with. But for someone like Macron, a President of what he claims to be a “modern” and “developed” France, he should have educated himself a bit more on that piece of cloth called Hijab; supposedly a personal and religious freedom.

Both, banning Tahini from speaking and his double standards on confronting French protesters with violence while supporting Lebanese protesters (for political aims obviously) refute the claims about Macron’s France holding the values of democracy and freedom of speech. Not only does his attitude contest his claims of being democratic, but also highlights the lack of values France claims as one of its major legacies in its motto of the so-called French revolution: “egalité” i.e. equality.

Now before discussing Macron and his dual standards on protesters, it is interesting to see how Western mainstream media frames the story. It reported that “Lebanese protesters” seemed to feel like Macron was on their side and reporting that they said “he was their only hope.” Quoting one protester, the media allowed itself to do what it does all the time, have one speak on behalf of a few million who do not agree with that view point necessarily.  Western media and Macron are similar in one aspect: they both allow themselves to speak on behalf of others.

Now Macron warmly reacted with Lebanese protesters who chanted “Revolution!” as he walked through the Gemmayze street. The scenario seems a bit odd when remembering France’s 2019 which offers a preview of Macron’s real face and how he could not take in any criticism: growing protests against liberalism—and growing brutality against the protests.

Protesters in France believed they were objecting Macron’s Neoliberal policies which have brought so much poverty & human misery to France, but Macron could not digest it. Thousands of Yellow vests or “Gilets Jaunes” took to the streets in for long consecutive weeks and were confronted with severe violence.

Never mind, we are by no means in a place to impeach Macron for his violence against his own people, they can sort out their issues within their country, but of course it remains sad to see how French protesters are confronted with tear gas bombs and severe ferocity.

What should be unclouded and completely transparent is that Macron, who enjoys no tolerance back at home towards his people and is accused of standing behind a corrupt system is by no means eligible to guide Lebanon on what to do and how to sort out its issues.

An Attack on Edward Said’s Legacy

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by Lawrence Davidson

Part I—Meeting Caroline Glick

I traveled to Israel and the Occupied Territories in the early 2000s with the progressive group Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace. We made an effort to gain insight into most of the players in the conflict, and so a series of interviews was arranged with members of the Israeli right wing. I remember that one of them was Caroline Glick, an ardent American-Israeli Zionist. She lectured us on the positive personal relationships allegedly prevalent between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. 

It was an interesting and somewhat embarrassing experience. Glick and I are both American and both Jewish. Growing up, I had this understanding that American plus Jewish always meant being anti-racist. To be so was, in my mind, the prime lesson of modern Jewish history. What being anti-racist meant to Glick was unclear. She spent the better part of an hour giving us a defense of Israeli-Jewish treatment of Palestinians based on the classic “some of my best friends are Black” (read Palestinian) defense. In the words of the New York Times journalist John Eligon, this line of argument “has so often been relied on by those facing accusations of racism that it has become shorthand for weak denials of bigotry—a punch line about the absence of thoughtfulness and rigor in our conversations about racism.” And so it was with Glick, who explained that she, and many other Israeli Jews, had Palestinians who do small jobs for them and are treated well, and that this proves a lack of cultural and societal racism. It was such a vacuous argument that I remember feeling embarrassed for her. 

Things haven’t gotten much better when it comes to Ms. Glick’s worldview. She is now a senior columnist at Israel Hayom (Israel Today, a pro-Netanyahu newspaper owned by the family of Sheldon Anderson) and contributor to such questionable U.S. outlets as Breitbart News. Shealso directs the Israeli Security Project at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. There can be little doubt that she continues to see the world through the distorting lens of a particularly hardline variant of Zionism.  

Part II—Glick’s Attack on Edward Said’s Legacy 

Recently, Caroline Glick launched an attack on the legacy of the late American-Palestinian scholar and teacher Edward Said. Entitled “Edward Said, Prophet of Political Violence in America,” it was recently (7 July 2020) published in the U.S. by Newsweek—a news magazine with an increasingly pro-Zionist editorial stand. As it turns out, one cannot find a better example of how ideology can distort one’s outlook to the point of absurdity. Below is an analysis of Glick’s piece in a point-by-point fashion. Ultimately, the ideological basis for her argument will become clear. 

1. Glick begins by resurrecting a twenty-year-old event. “On July 3, 2000, an incident occurred along the Lebanese border with Israel that, at the time, seemed both bizarre and … unimportant. That day, Columbia University professor Edward Said was photographed on the Hezbollah-controlled Lebanese side of the border with Israel throwing a rock at an Israel Defense Forces watchtower 30 feet away.” She goes on to describe this act as “Said’s rock attack on Israel” and the “soldiers protecting their border.”

We need some context to put all of this in perspective: Israel is an expansionist state, and the original Zionist aim (as presented to the Paris Peace Conference following World War I) was to incorporate parts of southern Lebanon into what is now Israel. Southern Lebanon also briefly became a staging area for Palestinian retaliatory attacks into Israel. Thus, Israel invaded Lebanon multiple times only to be forced to withdraw in the face of resistance led by Hezbollah, a strong Lebanese Shiite militia in control of much of southern Lebanon.  

Said relates that during his 2000 visit to the Lebanese border with his family, he threw a pebble (not a “rock”) at a deserted Israeli watchtower (no Israeli soldiers were “defending their border”).  Said saw this as a symbolic act of defiance against Israeli occupation. Over the years stone throwing by Palestinian youth had become just such a symbolic act. And, it was from their example that Said might have taken his cue.

2. However, Glick wants to draw highly questionable consequences from Said’s act. She tells us that “with the hindsight of 20 years, it was a seminal moment and a harbinger for the mob violence now taking place in many parts of America.” By the way, the “mob violence” in America she is referring to is the mass protests against police brutality that followed the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police on 25 May 2020.

3. Now that sounds a bit odd. How does Glick manage this segue from Edward Said’s symbolic stone toss in the year 2000 to nationwide inner-city rebellions against police brutality in 2020 America? Here is the contorted sequence she offers: 

a. Said was a terrorist because he was an influential member of the alleged “terrorist organization,” the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). “Terrorist organization” is a standard Zionist descriptor of most Palestinian organizations. Actually, the PLO is the legally recognized representative of the Palestinian people and as such has carried on both a armed and a diplomatic struggle to liberate Palestine from Israeli Occupation. In 1993, the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist. This made little difference to the Zionist right wing who, like Glick, continued to use the terrorist tag for propaganda purposes. It is to be noted that all liberation movements are considered to be “terrorist” by those they fight against. And, indeed both sides in such a struggle usually act in this fashion on occasion. Certainly, Israel is no innocent in this regard. 

b. For Glick, Said’s alleged terrorist connection transforms his “rock attack” into a terrorist act. This is simply an ad hominem assertion on Glick’s part. There is no evidence that Said ever engaged in any act, including the tossing of stones, that can sanely be characterized as terrorism.

c. Glick tells us that, at the same time Said was ‘committing a terrorist attack’ on Israel, he was also “the superstar of far-Left intellectuals.” It is hard to know what she means here by “far-Left.” It is seems to be another ad hominem slander. Said was a scholar of Comparative Literature and, when not in the classroom, he advocated for the political and human rights of oppressed Palestinians—how “far-Left” is that?

d. Nonetheless, Glick goes on to assert that as a “far-Left” academic, Said waged a “nihilistic” and “anti-intellectual” offensive against Western thought. He did so in a well-known work entitled Orientalism published in 1978.

What does Orientalism actually say? Using mostly 19th century literary and artistic examples, the book documents the prevailing Western perception of the Near East and North Africa, which stands in for the Orient. This perception reflects a basically bipolar worldview—one which, according to Said, reserved for the West a superior image of science and reason, prosperity and high culture, and for the Orient an inferior somewhat mysterious and effeminate image of the “other” fated for domination by the West. Over time this view became pervasive in the West and influenced not only literary and artistic views of the Orient, but also impacted political, historical, anthropological and other non-fictional interpretations. Having helped create a superior sense of self, this orientalist perception served as a rationale for Western world dominance. It should be said that whether one agrees with every one of Said’s details or not, there is no doubt his well researched and documented work has made most scholars more aware of their biases.

e. Glick refuses to see Orientalism asjust an influential academic work. Instead, in what appears to be a pattern of illogical jumps, she claims that “in Orientalism, Said characterized all Western—and particularly American—scholarship on the Arab and Islamic worlds as one big conspiracy theory” designed to justify empire. This then is the heart of Said’s alleged “nihilistic” repudiation of Western scholarship. She particularly points to Said’s claim that “From the Enlightenment period through the present every European, in what he could say about the Orient, was a racist, an imperialist and almost totally ethnocentric.” While this is a far-reaching generalization, it basically reflects an equally pervasive, very real Western cultural bias. What Glick describes as a “conspiracy theory” is Said’s scholarly demonstration of how that bias has expressed itself. And, it should be noted that such pervasive biases are not uniquely American nor even Western. Chinese, Japanese, Arab/Muslim, Hindu and Jewish civilizations have their own variants of such biases. Yet, it is Said’s effort to expose and ameliorate the orientalism of the West that seems to madden Caroline Glick.

f. For Glick, Said’s suggestion that both past as well as many present scholars have culturally biased points of view of the Orient becomes an accusation that any “great scholar” with a classical Western worldview “is worse than worthless. If he is a white American, he is an agent of evil.” Glick is now building a real head of steam and her account becomes more and more grotesque. She now claims that Said’s work is “intellectual nihilism.” How so? Because it “champions narrative over evidence.” What Glick is implying here is that Said’s work is an anti-Western screed presented without evidence. This is demonstrably wrong, but nonetheless provides a platform for Glick’s further assertion that Said’s fantastical narrative is told in order to “manipulate students to engage in political violence against the United States.”

Part III—What Is This All About?

Caroline Glick makes repeated illogical jumps. As egregious as these are they actually point the way to her larger ideological agenda.

1. Said is a terrorist because he opposes Israel and supports the Palestinians. Participation in the PLO is her proof of this. 
2. Because Said is a terrorist, his throwing of a stone at the southern Lebanese border is a terrorist attack against Israel and its defense forces. 
3. Somehow, Said’s throwing the stone was also “a harbinger for the mob violence now taking place in many parts of America.” The connector here is Said’s tossing of an intellectual “rock”—his thesis presented in Orientalism.
4. Just as his “rock attack” was terroristic, so Said’s book, Orientalism, is itself an act of terrorism as well as a “nihilistic” project. 
5. It is all these nasty things rolled into one because it calls into question established cultural assumptions that had long underpinned colonialism and imperialism, and which also just happens to underpin Israel’s claim to legitimacy.
6. But there is more. Glick tells us, “Said’s championing of the Palestinian war against Israel was part of a far wider post-colonialist crusade he waged against the United States. The purpose of his scholarship was to deny American professors the right to study and understand the world [in an orientalist fashion] by delegitimizing them as nothing but racists and imperialists.”
7. And finally, “Orientalism formed the foundation of a much broader campaign on campuses to delegitimize the United States as a political entity steeped in racism.”

Part IV—Conclusion

Glick’s attack on Edward Said’s legacy is beset with leaps of illogic. So let me conclude this analysis with my own leap, hopefully a logical one, to an explanation of what may be Glick’s larger agenda. Glick is attempting to turn the ideological clock back to a time before decolonization. Specifically, she wishes to resurrect an overall acceptance of Western colonialism as a benevolent endeavor whereby progress and civilization was spread by a superior culture. 

Why would she want to do this? Because if we all believe this proposition, then Israel can be seen as a legitimate and normal state. After all, Israel is the last of the colonial settler states—the imposition of Western culture into the Orient. It rules over millions of Palestinian Arabs as the result of a European invasion made “legal” by a colonial document, the Balfour Declaration, and its acceptance by a pro-colonial League of Nations. Our post-colonial age in which Edward Said is a “superstar intellectual,” is seen as a constant threat to Zionist Israel’s legitimacy. 

Edward Said’s legacy provides a strong theoretical foundation for understanding why the Western imperialists thought and acted as they did, and hence helps both Western and non-Western peoples to confront their own modern historical situation. However, Glick cannot see any of this except through the Zionist perspective. Thus, Said’s legacy is just part of an anti-Israeli conspiracy—an attack on those scholars who support the legitimacy of an orientalist point of view and of the Zionist state. 

She also suggests that Said’s undoing of historically accepted biases lets loose the “mob violence” seen in the U.S. There is no evidence for this, but it may be Glick’s  roundabout way of undermining student support for Palestinian rights on American campuses. 

Ultimately, what Glick is interested in is preserving the image of Israel as a Western democratic enclave in an otherwise uncivilized sea of Arab and Islamic barbarians. That fits right into the traditional orientalist belief system and justifies the continuing U.S.-Israeli alliance. Said has successfully called that perspective into question. Hence Glick’s assault on his legacy. 

Finally, Glick’s present attack on Said, and her attempt to tie his work into the protests that followed George Floyd’s murder, shows how frightened the defenders of one racist state, Zionist Israel, become when their principle ally, the United States, comes under attack for racist practices. Said as a “superstar” foe of all racism becomes the lighting rod for that fear. 

“But The Jews Also Suffered An Injustice”

By Rima Najjar

Source

Question: Have there been other examples in history where victims of gross injustice, like that perpetrated against Palestinians by colonizing European Jews, are asked to acknowledge and embrace the poisonous and false claims of their oppressors?

Of course, there have been. Those with the military or political power to oppress have historically imposed their “narratives” on their victims and written their history books accordingly. When liberation came, when the oppression was lifted, the colonial downtrodden and dispossessed were able to reclaim their geographic territory and their history. The oppressors were forced to reevaluate their racist/supremacist self-education.

I am not saying, by any means, “and they all lived happily ever after,” because they haven’t, as we observe in continuing struggles today, many years after liberation technically occurred, especially in settler-colonial countries. To use Angela Davis’ words, freedom is a constant struggle. But “progress,” albeit in fits and starts, is still evident in many, if not all (Kashmir!), of these causes.

The case of Palestine has many similarities with other settler-colonial cases. These are often pointed out in discussion. Our case, however, has been stubbornly resistant to “progress,” even in a century in which “progressive causes” are largely self-evident — except for Palestine.

The reason for the cognitive dissonance embedded in the expression “progressives except for Palestine” lies in the Jewish identity of those who orchestrated the implementation of Zionism on Palestinians. By that I mean Jewish history in Europe continues to pose a challenge to Palestinian liberation.

There was/is something about Palestinian liberation that plays havoc with the minds of Jews on the Left in the “diaspora,” not to mention in the minds and hearts of Israeli Jews. Now that Peter Beinart has opened the door for some revision — not of that history, but of the mindset that balances Palestinian human rights against Jewish interests and reluctantly (or in anguish) finds room for Palestinians in a “Jewish tent” — the key to acceptance of the Palestinian cause as a “progressive cause” appears to lie in the hands of Jews, especially young American Jews, who are growing up rejecting their parents’ beliefs that Jews worldwide are “a people” with a right to self-determination outside their countries of origin.

But it’s still “complicated.”

In pleading our cause, it appears, we have the burden of convincing our oppressors that they have nothing to fear and everything to gain by recognizing our humanity and by sorting out what many have described as their pathology. What’s more, we must, it seems, also be credentialed as their allies in the struggle to end antisemitism — an antisemitism we in Palestine have had nothing to do with, and in which they themselves are complicit!

Israel celebrates its so-called “independence,” as the US does; both are settler-colonial states; both perpetrated genocide/ethnic cleansing and displaced native inhabitants — a criminal project that’s ongoing in Israel. But when people say about “the Middle East” that “it’s complicated,” they are referring to the Israeli phenomenon of successfully selling the status of colonizing Zionist Jews as indigenous. Therein lies the “complication.”

What it is, really, is a hoax. Deception has always been Israel’s first option for the attainment of its Zionist goals. And through deception, Israel has turned the internationally recognized Palestinian right of return into a “redemption fantasy of return across the Green Line,” and the Biblical fantasy of Jewish redemption, i.e., “God redeeming the people of Israel from their exiles,” into a reality.

If reconciliation in conflict means restoring the right relationship between adversaries, our biggest challenge as Palestinians is to persuade all those otherwise rational Jews and non-Jews who understand, on the one hand, that the creation of Israel in Palestine in 1948 was a terrible injustice to the Palestinians, and on the other, fully accept the legitimacy of Israel, that they are wrong.

When you ask such people for an explanation, the answer invariably begins with: “But the Jews also suffered an injustice.” This is exactly what Israeli historian Avi Shlaim says.

To that I say, give us Palestinians a break!

How Two Seemingly Unrelated Events Laid Israel’s Racism Problem Bare

A viral video showing an Israeli family mocking impoverished Palestinian children and a controversial New York Times editorial by famed Zionist commentator Peter Beinart have exposed the racist underpinning of the so-called Jewish state.

Source: MintPress News

by Miko Peled

Protesters attend a rally against Israel plans to annex parts of the West Bank, in Tel Aviv, June 6, 2020. Sebastian Scheiner | AP

Two seemingly unrelated items hit social media recently and both received a lot of attention. The first was an article by Peter Beinart that was published in the New York Times where Beinart claims he no longer believes in a Jewish State and calls for a binational state with equal rights in Palestine. The other, a video clip showing an Israeli family riding in a car when two children approach them. The car window opens and we hear the father ask the children in Hebrew, “Who wants to feed a Bedouin?” While these two seem unrelated, there is something equally disturbing about both of them.

A Jewish home in Palestine

One might think that the epiphany experienced by yet another liberal Zionist, and one that has access to the mainstream media, should be celebrated. After all, another well known Jewish American has reached the conclusion that Palestinians deserve equal rights in their own country. However, as we read this article there are several disturbing elements that dampen the excitement.

Beinart shares with the readers, “I knew that Israel was a source of comfort and pride to millions of other Jews.” He explains that this is why he believed in the Jewish state. One could argue that slavery was a source of comfort and pride for millions of white Americans, yet to support slavery is still abhorrent.

Peter Beinart, center, talks to people after speaking at the University of Washington Hillel, October 23, 2014. Photo | Joe Mabel

He goes on to describe a sentiment that one hears from many liberal Zionists. “One day in early adulthood, I walked through Jerusalem, reading street names that catalog Jewish history, and felt that comfort and pride myself.” Jerusalem was an Arab city for over a thousand years. In 1948, Palestinians in Jerusalem were subjected to a total and complete ethnic cleansing, and not a single Palestinian was allowed to remain in the city. Jerusalem then became the capital city of the state of Israel and the street names, which used to catalog the long and magnificent Arab history of the city, were changed.

“I knew Israel was wrong to deny Palestinians in the West Bank citizenship, due process, free movement and the right to vote in the country in which they lived.” What about the rights of millions of Palestinians languishing in refugee camps? This country that gave him, and Jews like him, such pride is denying millions of Palestinians their right to return to the lands and homes from which they were expelled.

“But the dream of a two-state solution that would give Palestinians a country of their own let me hope that I could remain a liberal and a supporter of Jewish statehood at the same time.” That was precisely what the scam of the Two State Solution was set to do. To allow liberal Zionists to support the crimes of Zionism and the creation of a racist state in Palestine while still feeling good about themselves.

The idea that the Two State Solution would give Palestinians “a country of their own,” is puzzling. Palestinians have a country of their own, it is Palestine. According to historian Nur Masalha, it has been Palestine for thousands of years before the establishment of the Zionist state on May 15, 1948.

The epiphany experienced by liberal Zionists who suddenly realize they can’t have it both ways is really not an epiphany at all. It is a compromise that allows them to continue to justify their patronizing attitude towards Palestinians. Beinart is not unlike another liberal Zionist, Avram Burg. Burg, a staunch Zionist who served as speaker of the Knesset and chairman of the Jewish Agency, and in between, profited greatly from peddling Israeli weapons. He is a Zionist through and through, and yet, he too claims it is time for a single state. In a piece he authored in 2018, he writes, “Since 1967 Israel had occupied Palestinian territory.” Not unlike Beinart, he sees only the West Bank as Palestinian territory.

To feed a Bedouin

A disturbing video clip was recently shared on TikTok by Roy Oz, also known as Roy Boy, an Israeli entertainer who hosts various programs for children. In the clip, an Israeli family is driving comfortably in what appears to be an SUV, with young children in the backseat and the parents in front. The father, Roy Oz, is driving. As they drive, two young children approach the car. The children in the car are white, the children outside are brown. The landscape is barren, like a desert, and we can safely assume it is the Naqab region in southern Palestine.

An Israeli family films itself "feeding" two Bedouin children as if they were animals in a zoo. The dehumanization of Palestinians by Israeli Jewish society is so much more totalizing than anyone here wants to admit or imagine. This is the face of the Jewish state in 2020. pic.twitter.com/PRVayf5QtQ

— Edo Konrad (@edokonrad) July 11, 2020

The father opens the window and hands a cookie to the children outside and says to his children in Hebrew, “Who wants to feed a Bedouin?” He speaks to the children outside in Arabic and then turns to his children again, asking in Hebrew, “You don’t want to feed a Bedouin, Ariel?” One of the two children outside is older than the other and hands the cookie to the younger child. Then, the father turns the camera, showing his children’s faces and asks again, “Do you want to feed a Bedouin? You don’t?” We hear him also saying to himself, “they are so cute,” referring to the children outside.

The father then turns to the children outside and asks in Arabic how much money they want. “One thousand shekel?” He asks. “No, just ten” one of the children answers. “Only ten?” The father asks at which point the mother reaches out of the car and hands one of the children a coin.

Expressions of Shock

Expressions of shock came fast from Palestinian communities, who demanded an apology and an explanation. Some even said this was the worst expression of racism they had ever seen. But there is nothing shocking about this clip because this was a normal Israeli middle-class family expressing what countless Israelis express all the time. The appalling racism and patronizing colonial attitude toward Palestinian Bedouin children, as we see in the video, is the foundation upon which the state of Israel was established and exists throughout Israeli society.

Without structural, systemic, deeply ingrained racism, Israel would not exist. Furthermore, without this white supremacist attitude, no Israeli pilot would be able to push the button that releases the bombs which then burn and rip Palestinian children in Gaza to shreds. No sniper would be able to pull the trigger and kill and maim Palestinians. It is an essential part of Zionist education.

Many Israelis had expressed their displeasure at this expression of racism. However, their displeasure aside, this is nothing new or abnormal. It is not unlike the incident where an Israeli army medic, who is charged with saving people’s lives and had taken an oath to do so, executed a wounded Palestinian laying on the ground. The incident was caught on video and went viral, resulting in the medic being court-martialed and receiving a slap on the wrist. This medic also acted as he was trained, as he was taught, that a Palestinian life does not matter.

Recognizing that Palestinians have rights within a Zionist construct is a symptom of Zionist racist supremacy. This racism is what allows a family to drive by Palestinian children and treat them like animals in a safari. It is how the state of Israel is able to continue the Naqba, the systemic, catastrophic destruction of Palestine and its people for close to one hundred years.

Feature photo | Beinart speaks at a 2012 event in Atlanta after being banned from a Jewish book festival over his criticism of Israel. David Goldman | AP

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Related

• Learning From the Past: History Provides Clues into Israel’s West Bank Annexation
• The Murders of Floyd and Halak Exposed the US and Israel as Settler-Colonial Enterprises

ليتني كنت حماراً وحشياً…!‏

نصار إبراهيم

وقف حمار وحشي في سهوب أفريقيا الأمّ، أطرق برأسه حزيناً وهو يتابع ما يجري من ويلات وجنون وبؤس في المجتمعات التي تدّعي الإنسانية والحرية والمساواة والعدالة وحقوق الإنسان. سرح بنظره في السهوب الممتدّة وقال: أيّ حمقى أنتم أيها البشر، ما هذا الجنون والقباحة؟ ماذا تفعلون، كيف تبيدون ذاتكم بسبب اللون أو غيره؟ هل تعون ما تفعلون؟

انظروا إليّ جيداً ها أنذا، فهل أنا أبيض أم أسود؟ وهل يمكن أن أكون أنا أنا إذا عبثت بجوهري الطبيعي؟

ألا ترون أنني جميل بذاتي ولذاتي ولم يخطر ببالي لحظة أنني في حالة تناقض.

إنني جميل كما أنا، تشكلت هكذا عبر صيرورة تعود لملايين السنين، فتكوّنت على أجمل وأكمل ما يكون، ولا يشغلني شئ حول طبيعتي وماهيتي.

لو سرت على طريقكم لكنت اليوم مجرد «إنسان حمار» غبي وحشي أمزق ذاتي لكي أتخلص من هذا اللون أو ذاك. يعني حمار عنصري.

هل تعلمون إيها «الحضاريون» جداً أنّ العنصرية والتمييز القائم عليها تشكل ذروة البشاعة الواعية في تناقضها المهين مع الطبيعة والقيم الإنسانية النبيلة التي تدّعونها والتي تتمحور – كما أعرف – على الإنسان ككائن اجتماعي مشروط بقاءه موضوعياً وذاتياً باحترام وتعزيز المبدأ التكويني الإبتدائي: التضامن الإنساني من أجل البقاء ومواجهة المخاطر والتحديات والمشاكل المتواصلة على مختلف الصعد.

العنصرية أيها البائسون بكلّ ما يترتب عليها من ثقافة وممارسة متعاكسة بالمطلق من بديهة الوحدة في التنوّع الطبيعي، الذي هو شرط بقاء الحياة، حياة الإنسان والنبات والحيوان وتوازن البيئة.

والعنصرية هي الإبن الشرعي لنظم الهيمنة والاستغلال والسيطرة والنهب والتملك والجشع والأنانية الضيقة التي أنشأتموها، والتي تهبط بالتنوع والاختلاف الطبيعي وتجعل منه مبرّراً للسيطرة والتمييز الدوني والإبادة الاجتماعية والجنسية والثقافية والقومية.

والعنصرية لكي تكون وتزدهر تنشئ منظومات عميقة وممتدة وشاملة:

العنصرية الجنسية ضد المرأة، العنصرية العرقية، عنصرية اللون، العنصرية القومية، والدينية والطائفية.

وبقليل من التدقيق تجدون أنّ هدف العنصرية النهائي هو السيطرة والنهب والسرقة والاستغلال الوحشي.

ولكي تبرّر أنظمة ومنظومات العنصرية ذاتها فإنها تخلق وتؤسّس أيديولوجيتها الخاصة التي تقوم على:

التفوّق العرقي

انها ذات رسالة أخلاقية وإلهية.

وأنّ التميّز والتفوّق للجماعات العنصرية هو معطى طبيعي.

ثقافة التمركز على الذات.

الاختلالات الاجتماعية والتاريخية كالتخلف والتقدم هي بسبب الاختلافات الطبيعية والقصور والعجز العقلي الوراثي وليس بسبب النهب وعلاقات القوة والاستعمار والهيمنة والقهر والاستعباد.

الاختلافات البيولوجية (الأنثى والذكر، الأبيض والأسود..) هي تعبير عن اختلالات بنيوية تبرر الإهانة والتمييز والاستغلال والإخضاع والعنف.

أنهى الحمار الوحشي مطالعته، صمت قليلاً، هزّ ذيله ثم قال سأروي لكم الآن قصة جميلة قرأتها بعنوان «نعم… أفتخر أنني «حمار ابن حمار»! وهي بالمناسبة لكاتب شاعر من جنسكم اسمه أحمد مطر، تقول القصة:

«ذات يوم أضرب حمار عن الطعام مدة من الزمن، فضعف جسده وتهدّلت أذناه، وكاد جسده يقع على الأرض من الوهن، فأدرك الحمار الأب أن وضع ابنه يتدهور كلّ يوم، وأراد أن يفهم منه سبب ذلك، فأتاه على انفراد يستطلع حالته النفسية والصحية التي تزداد تدهوراً. فقال له: ما بك يا بني؟ لقد أحضرت إليك أفضل أنواع الشعير.. وأنت لا تزال رافضاً أن تأكل ..أخبرني ما بك؟ ولماذا تفعل ذلك بنفسك؟ هل أزعجك أحد؟

رفع الحمار الابن رأسه وخاطب والده قائلاً:

نعم يا أبي… إنهم البشر.

دُهش الأب الحمار وقال لابنه الصغير:

وما بهم البشر يا بني؟

فقال له: إنهم يسخرون منّا نحن معشر الحمير.

فقال الأب وكيف ذلك؟

قال الابن: ألا تراهم كلما قام أحدهم بفعل مشين يقولون له يا حمار! وكلما قام أحد أبنائهم برذيلة يقولون له يا حمار! أنحن حقا كذلك؟ يصفون أغبياءهم بالحمير. ونحن لسنا كذلك يا أبي. إننا نعمل دون كلل أو ملل. ونفهم وندرك، ولنا مشاعر ..

عندها ارتبك الحمار الأب ولم يعرف كيف يردّ على تساؤلات صغيره وهو في هذه الحالة السيئة، ولكن سُرعان ما حرّك أذنيه يُمنة ويسرة ثم بدأ يحاور ابنه محاولاً إقناعه حسب منطق الحمير.

انظر يا بني إنهم معشر البشر خلقهم الله وفضّلهم على سائر المخلوقات لكنّهم أساؤوا لأنفسهم كثيراً قبل أن يتوجّهوا لنا نحن معشر الحمير بالإساءة.

فانظر مثلاً… هل رأيت حماراً خلال عمرك كله يسرق مال أخيه؟ هل سمعت بذلك؟ هل رأيت حماراً يعذب بقية الحمير ليس لشيء إلا لأنهم أضعف منه، أو أنه لا يعجبه ما يقولون؟ هل رأيت حماراً عنصرياً يعامل الآخرين من الحمير بعنصرية اللون والجنس واللغة؟ هل سمعت عن قمة حمير لا يعرفون لماذا مجتمعين؟ هل سمعت يوماً ما أنّ الحمير الأميركان يخططون لقتل الحمير العرب! من أجل الحصول على الشعير؟ هل رأيت حماراً عميلاً لدولة أجنبية ويتآمر ضدّ حمير بلده؟ هل رأيت حماراً يفرّق بين أهله على أساس طائفي؟ طبعاً لم تسمع بمثل هذه الجرائم الإنسانية في عالم الحمير! ولكن البشر هل يعرفون الحكمة من خلقهم ويعملون بمقتضاها جيداً؟ لهذا يا ولدي أطلب منك أن تحكّم عقلك الحماري، وأطلب منك أن ترفع رأسي ورأس أمك عالياً، وتبقى كعهدي بك حمار ابن حمار، واتركهم يا ولدي يقولون ما يشاؤون. فيكفينا فخراً أننا حمير لا نكذب، لا نقتل، لا نسرق، لا نغتاب، لا نشتم، لا نرقص فرحاً وبيننا جريح وقتيل.

أعجبت هذه الكلمات الحمار الابن فقام وراح يلتهم الشعير وهو يقول: نعم سأبقى كما عهدتني يا أبي. سأبقى أفتخر أنني حمار ابن حمار ثم أكون تراباً ولا أدخل النار التي وقودها الناس والأحجار».

أنهى الحمار الوحشي الجميل والشجاع حديثه، ثم مضى يركض ببهجة عفوية عارمة وغاب في القطيع، فلم يعد بالإمكان تمييزه عن غيره.

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ليتني كنت حماراً وحشياً وليس إنساناً وحشياً…!

SITREP: Tucker Carlson Damns Republican Party, Calls for ‘New Leaders’ and Condemns Trump as a ‘Weak’ President, Lauds ‘Strong’ Obama

by Eric Zuesse for The Saker Blog

Fox ‘News’ host Tucker Carlson effectively abandoned the Republican Party on June 19th as “too weak,” and urged “it’s time to find new leaders.” If he were attempting to start a third-party run for the White House, this rant would be ideal, especially because, as of noon two days later, on June 21st, it had nearly 1.4 million views and nearly 20 thousand viewer-comments — overwhelmingly favorable. Here are its highlights:

Jun 19, 2020, 1,389,994 views and 20K comments, overwhelmingly favorable — [all as of noon on Jun 21]

A supporter of the Democratic Party is (1:30) someone who “wants more foreign wars and enjoys sucking up to banks … You vote for Republicans to protect you from this.” Confederate statues in Old Dixie were removed because of (2:00) “illiterate vandals.” Carlson (3:00) condemned the president of the conservative Heritage Foundation, who had said “racism is America’s Achilles’ heel. It has been embedded into our culture for 400 years” as “accusing America of being ‘irredeemably racist’,” as if such an allegation shouldn’t even be published but instead banned. He condemned “so many on the right” for doing “exactly the same thing” (alleging that America is “irredeemably racist” or “racism is America’s Achilles’ heel. It has been embedded into our culture for 400 years”). They “did everything possible to accommodate the demands of … rioters. .. They didn’t blame the rioters, they blamed the cops.” “Ordinary Americans came under attack for the color of their skin, actual racism [against Whites]. … And yet no Republicans rose to defend them.” Carlson (5:25-) condemned Trump and said that Obama would have crushed the rioters, not like Trump and the Republicans who were (7:50-end) “too weak. … The crisis has revealed the truth. Now we know who they are. It could not be clearer. And now it’s time to find new leaders.”

Tucker Carlson has, perhaps, been running for the U.S. Presidency ever since at least the time when he started to become an advocate of the anti-regime-change-war candidate for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination, Tulsi Gabbard.

Here you see it from 5 March 2019.

Here you see it from 27 June 2019.

Here you see it from 1 August 2019.

Here you see it from 8 January 2020.

Here you see it from 10 March 2020.

Here is another Fox PR for Gabbard on 10 March 2020.

All of those were Republican Fox ‘News’ pumping the only anti-neoconservative (or anti-imperialist) Democratic Presidential candidate, and Tucker Carlson was the leader of that anti-neocon thrust, as if the Republican Party weren’t just as neocon (supportive of U.S. imperialism) as is the Democratic Party.

In all of the polling of Democratic primary voters, Gabbard never received an average level of support that was above 3%; so, she was one of the least appealing candidates to Democratic Party voters. If anything, her frequent appearances on Republican Party ‘news’-media reduced instead of increased her support from Democratic Party voters. Clearly, the Democratic Party is strongly neoconservative, not only from the donor class, but also from the voter class.

Carlson has therefore been running (if he is) in order to appeal to Republican and independent Whites who support police (even racist ones), consider racial integrationists to be mainly “illiterate vandals” instead of peaceful demonstrators, and feel that a “strong” President would put down any violent demonstrators by prohibiting the demonstrations and cracking the heads of anyone who would demonstrate against barbarically racist cops.

What this might suggest to be the case is that Carlson is planning to run third-party to appeal to the most disadvantaged Whites who compete against Blacks. As the February 2020 Brookings study “Examining the Black-white wealth gap” said, “At $171,000, the net worth of a typical [median] white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a [median] Black family ($17,150) in 2016.” However, since the numbers of people increase at the lower end of the wealth-distribution and decrease very sharply at the higher end of it, there are a great many poor Whites in the U.S., and Carlson is pitching to them. Poor Whites receive none of the extra consideration from the Government that all Blacks can on many federal and state “affirmative action” and other programs, and they therefore compete against black applicants at a disadvantage on the existing legal basis.

Regarding Carlson’s alleged opposition to U.S. imperialism, Trump himself spoke not much differently from today’s Carlson on that, but it has merely become a Republican talking-point against the neoconservative Barack Obama’s policies, just as Obama himself talked up a storm against George W. Bush’s neoconservative policies while running against Hillary Clinton in 2008. However, the American people have never really rejected neoconservatism. For example, Americans have no objection to the U.S. Government invading a country that never  so much as threatened to invade the U.S. During 1992-2003, Gallup kept polling Americans on the question “Would you favor or oppose invading Iraq with U.S. ground troops” and consistently there were 2-to-1 to 3-to-1 margins saying “Favor” instead of “Oppose” on that. Moreover, during Gallup’s 7 pollings on that question during December 2002 and January 2003, the detailed demographic breakdowns showed that every category of Americans except post-college graduates, Democrats, Liberals, and Blacks were in favor of invading. That’s because invading Iraq, and even being neoconservative, were considered ‘Republican’ policies then. Americans have no problem with the Government’s committing the international war-crime of “aggressive war.” None whatsoever.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of  They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of  CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

Protests And A Prognosis

 Posted by Lawrence Davidson

Part I—A Dangerous Dichotomy

If we go with the United States’ own picture of itself as a constitutional democracy that aims to guarantee citizens equal rights under law, how are we to interpret President Donald Trump’s reported desire to use ten thousand active duty troops to “dominate the streets” and quell largely peaceful protests against racist police behavior? A reasonable interpretation of President Trump’s attitude, and that of his supporters as well, is that they seek to prioritize the political and cultural desires of a largely racist subgroup of whites over the constitutional rights of citizens in general. This sets up a very dangerous dichotomy that constitutes a danger to the country’s democracy—at least as defined above.  

It should be kept in mind that the right-wing side of this dichotomy, and its challenge to a democracy based on a liberal interpretation of the Constitution has always been with us. Considering just the 20th and 21st centuries, figures such as Woodrow Wilson and his consistently racist use of power both prior to and during World War I; J. Edgar Hoover and his rights-defying use of the FBI; Joseph McCarthy and his pernicious use of anti-Communism; George W. Bush and his initiation of war on false premises; and now the clearly autocratic aspirations of Donald Trump. Such “leaders” have ruined countless lives while eroding the constitutional basis of equal rights.

Part II—The Bureaucratic Factor 

Why has the Constitution proven so fragile in this regard? One reason is the autocratic nature of bureaucracies. All these men wielded power through bureaucracies, and their power was magnified by such institutions. Bureaucracies are top-down affairs, and so those operating within them are expected to, and almost always do, follow the orders of their superiors. For instance, the President of the United States is also “Commander-in-Chief” of the armed forces—which in turn are themselves top-down bureaucracies. When, in early June, Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump demanded ten thousand active duty soldiers for deployment onto the streets of America, none of them could be expected to pull out a copy of the U.S. Constitution and fact-check the legitimacy of the orders issued. Nor were they expected to take seriously their induction oaths to “defend” the integrity of that same document. They were expected to readily follow their orders regardless of constitutional limits. Thus, all things being equal, President Trump should have gotten what he asked for. We are very fortunate that at that moment all things were not equal—a factor is to be considered below. 

If the regular army had hit the streets in June of 2020, they would have done so in order to suppress largely peaceful protests over the lack of equal rights and lack of legal treatment under the law. Indeed, in Washington, D.C.—the only place Trump’s order was partially followed—active-duty military police and the D.C. National Guard did act side-by-side against peacefully demonstrating citizens. Elsewhere, the National Guard called up by governors abetted the police in “riot control,” during which almost no distinction was made between looters and peaceful demonstrators. A few National Guard troops have subsequently expressed regrets over their participation.

The typical police force is also a bureaucracy with its own institutional culture that in many ways mimics the military. Most (there often proves to be a small number of exceptions) of those in the ranks are going to follow the orders of whomever they recognize as having authority. Quite frankly, there is a strong tendency over time for the police, particularly those assigned to minority neighborhoods, to forget all about the U.S. Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and other niceties of law, and slip into a fraternal (often white supremacist) culture which sets them apart from those they are “policing.” They are then easily used as an arm of establishment power. That certainly was the expectation of President Trump and many of the nation’s chiefs of police.  

Part III—All Was Not Equal

At this point we can ask, What were the demonstrators protesting? Specifically, thousands of citizens across the country were protesting the behavior of the police, who had long been brutalizing African American and other minority group citizens in the name of law enforcement. Most of the demonstrators understood their cause within the context of both human and U.S. Constitutional rights of citizens to live in a community where the law serves the cause of equitable justice. “No justice, no peace.”

The nation was fortunate that most of the protesters understood rights in this way. That understanding allowed them, in their great numbers (less a relatively small number of both black and white looters), to quite literally save American democracy. They did so by demanding that those who had authority confront one of the autocratic threats of our day—racist police forces, the brutality of which was captured repeatedly on video. The demonstrators used that evidence to force the issue, and this, in turn, caused the bureaucrats to eventually stop acting in a knee-jerk fashion. Thus, city councils, mayors, governors and even military officials had to choose between oppression (which included, in this case, following Trump’s order that they “dominate the streets) and the Constitution. Choosing oppression would have resulted in two things: erosion of the constitutionally sanctioned rule of law and the burning of cities across the land. No one, except perhaps Donald Trump and his white racist base, wanted either of those two consequences. So the notion that “without the right to protest, there can be no [liberal] democracy” was upheld, and that made the protesters “the nation’s true patriots.”

Part IV—Will the Changes Last?

According to a recent piece in the HuffPost, the demands of the protesters for a just and safe America are being heeded. As proof, the article notes the following:

—Police officers are being held accountable for brutal behavior.

—Some police departments are reforming police practices.

—Monuments to racist and hardline historical figures are coming down.

—Technology companies are halting cooperation with police departments when it comes to facial recognition techniques. 

—Finally, there has been a shift in public opinion: Americans “support the anti-racism protests by a 2 to 1 margin.”

 All this is for the better, but will it last? Barack Obama has compared the present protests to those of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He believes that they have brought about a similar “sea change” or profound transformation. Is that actually the case?

It should be recalled that the earlier civil rights protests led to a series of changes in law and, ultimately, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, that banned discrimination in the public realm. These changes smoothed the way for other legislation expanding rights to people with disabilities, to homosexuals, lesbians and transgender folks, and to others. However, and quite significantly, these events triggered a culture war that focused white resentment and resistance within conservative political and fundamentalist religious movements. Among their unofficial institutional allies were and are some of the nation’s police forces. The racism, now exhibited by today’s Republican Party and its leader, President Donald Trump, as well as modern episodes of police brutality toward African Americans, should be understood within the context of that on-going culture war.

Looking at things this way, we can ask if the progressive response to today’s protests is best described as a “sea change” or a continuing, albeit important, chapter in what is still a very long-term struggle? As one activist and organizer, Sajari Simmons, realizes this is certainly not the end of the struggle for justice. Referring to the protests, she noted that “This is not just it. This is just one component,” she said. “There’s a lot more that we can do to help impact and educate and support.”

Part V—Conclusion

The American political system is lobby based. If the average citizen is important, it is only to be rallied at election time. However, if they are organized into politically potent interest groups, those citizens can have a long-term impact. To ultimately win the culture war, today’s protesters must be somehow united into a standing movement capable of “educating and supporting” their cause at local, state and national levels over the long run. 

Lest we forget, the enemies of a liberal, non-discriminatory interpretation of the Constitution are still out there and they have power. President Trump and his minions are still in place, as are millions of racist voters. Their political power must be broken at the polls, in the courts, and through a multigenerational process of reeducation. In working toward these goals, demonstrations are necessary, but not sufficient. Without a competently led and lasting movement, police brutality will come back, and “ten thousand soldiers” might, someday, really “dominate the streets.”

About Lawrence Davidson

Lawrence Davidson is professor of history emeritus at West Chester University in Pennsylvania. He has been publishing his analyses of topics in U.S. domestic and foreign policy, international and humanitarian law and Israel/Zionist practices and policies since 2010.

SYRIA CAESAR’S LAW: WHO DOES IT TARGET, AND HOW WILL IT AFFECT PRESIDENT ASSAD?

By Elijah J. Magnier: @ejmalrai

In mid-June, the US sanctions against Syria will escalate, with the enactment of “Caesar’s Law“, sanctions designed to “pursue individuals, groups, companies, and countries that deal with the Damascus government.” This law – purportedly named after a Syrian army officer who smuggled out thousands of photos of torture by the Syrian army in prisons – is designed to prevent companies and countries from opening diplomatic channels with Syria, and to prevent them from contributing to reconstruction, investment, and the provision of spare parts for the energy and aviation sectors in Syria. The sanctions also affect the Syrian central bank, freezing the assets of individuals who deal with Syria and invalidating any visa to America. Who will abide by this law, and what are its consequences for Syria, Lebanon, and the countries that stand beside Syria?

Torture is a common practice in many nations around the world. Syria practised torture (the case of Maher Arar) on behalf of the United States of America and the Bush administration. At least 54 countries (Middle Eastern and African nations but also western countries like Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and more) supported US “extraordinary renditions” in 2001 and secret detentions under President Barack Obama. Washington thus lacks any moral authority to claim opposition to torture as a basis for its policies. Over recent decades the US has become notorious for authorising gruesome forms of torture, stripping people of their most basic rights, and generally violating human rights in defiance of the Geneva convention and above all the 1984 UN convention against torture. James Mitchell, a CIA contract psychiatrist who helped draft and apply “enhanced interrogation techniques“, disclosed several methods approved by the US administration to torture prisoners placed in detention in “black sites” outside the US, illegally but with official authorisation. Images of torture in Abu Ghraib prisons showed the world that the US use of torture and illegal methods of interrogation against detainees in Iraq. 

Thus, US sanctions on Syria cannot plausibly indicate US concern for human values and opposition to the abuse of power. Moreover, the US administration’s adherence to its own Constitution is in grave doubt, given the reaction of the security forces against demonstrators in America in response to widespread racial discrimination and racially motivated police attacks.

These new US sanctions, under the name of Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act, can in no way be ascribed to some moral value, but rather to the failure by the US, Israel and several Western and Arab countries to change the regime in Syria, and their refusal to acknowledge defeat. They keep trying, and in this case, imagine that through harsh sanctions against Syria and its allies they can achieve what they have failed to accomplish through many years of war and destruction.

In the 1990s, the US imposed sanctions on Iraq (oil-for-food). Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens died as a result of US sanctions on Iraq without Saddam Hussein’s regime and his entourage being affected. Consequently, we can predict that US sanctions in general primarily affect the population and not the leaders.

The US fails to realize that it is no longer the only superpower in the world, and in the Middle East in particular. Russia has done what many thought was impossible and elbowed its way into the Levant to remain in Syria and confront NATO at the borders. China has followed as a rising economic superpower to make its way into the Middle East, mainly Iraq and Syria. Iran has already a strong presence and powerful allies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Palestine. These three countries, along with Syria, are playing a leading role in actively eliminating US hegemony in this part of the world.

In Beirut, the government cannot adopt and abide by “Caesar’s Law” and close its gates to Syria. Lebanon’s only land borders are through Syria since Israel is considered an enemy. Any national economic plan to revitalise the abundant local agriculture sector and export to Syria, Iraq or other countries in the Gulf would fail if “Caesar’s Law” were put into effect. Any regenerated industry or import/export from the Middle Eastern countries must go through the “Syrian gate”. Besides, the current Lebanese government risks falling if it implements the US sanctions. Washington is not providing any financial assistance to the Lebanese economy in crisis and clearly has no intention of offering necessary and immediate help to the crippled Lebanese economy. The US, as has become the norm, seeks to impose sanctions and conditions on the nations it targets but offers little in return to affected countries. In the case of Lebanon, its budget deficit is close to 100 billion dollars following decades of corruption and mismanagement.

The government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab is, theoretically, a technocratic and non-political government. It does not consider the US an enemy but neither is it likely to follow US dictates, since it is close to the “March 8 Alliance” whose strongest members are not US friendly. Hence, the only solution for this government or any future government is to go east towards China, Russia and Iran. America will likely lose in Lebanon, with its “March 14 Alliance” allies rendered voiceless and powerless. 

There is no doubt that the Christian party within the “March 8” political group will be challenged and affected by US sanctions. These have an international relationship to look after and maintain as well as external bank accounts. Regardless, “Caesar’s Law” cannot be implemented in Lebanon, whatever the consequences of its violation.

As for Iran, it has already been subject to “maximum pressure” and harsh sanctions increasing year after year since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, for daring to reject US hegemony. Hence, it has no consideration whatsoever for the US “Caesar’s Law”. Even more, Iran is certainly not unhappy that the US blocked the return and reopening of Gulf countries’ embassies – who dare not disobey the US wishes – in Syria. Gulf companies are no longer in the field as competitors to divide shares in Iran’s reconstruction contracts related to projects in the field of industry, trade and energy. Iran has already challenged US and EU sanctions on Syria by sending oil tankers to Damascus. Also, Tehran sent five tankers to Venezuela, another country suffering from harsh US sanctions. The Gulf and European countries – US’s allies – are thus losing their opportunity to return to Syria, to be involved in its reconstruction and to regain their foothold in the Levant.

As for Russia, it has just signed a deal with the Syrian government to expand its military airport and naval bases in Tartous, Hasaka and Hmeymim. Furthermore, it is supplying Syria with modern military hardware and fulfilling the Syrian army needs to come up to full strength. It supplied Syria with squadrons of the updated MiG-29 fighters this month in a clear message to the US and its “Caesar Act” sanctions.

As for China, it is now in a “cold war” situation over US accusations that Beijing is responsible for the outbreak of COVID-19. The US is seeking to prevent Beijing from doing business with the European market, and particularly to prevent Europe from embracing China’s 5G network and technology. The US administration is also pushing Israel to curtail trade with China and to call off its billion-dollar contracts signed with China to avoid “hurting the relationship with the US”. Moreover, the Iraqi-US relationship took a severe blow when the former Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi signed off on a $20 billion “oil for reconstruction” agreement with China. Thus China, already involved in different projects in Syria, is not likely to abide by “Caesar’s Law”.

As for Syria, it will never accept starvation nor buckle under the US’s economic siege. President Bashar al-Assad is reconstructing the liberated areas under the government forces’ controls. He is rebuilding infrastructure for the Syrian population present in the homeland, excluding the areas abandoned by refugees who fled the country many of whom will not return. The Syrian government is not suffering from the absence of the five to seven million refugees in Idlib, in refugee camps outside the control of the government or in nearby bordering countries. Those refugees are financed and looked after by the international community and the United Nations. This relieves the central government of a considerable financial burden.

Consequently, Syria does not need to reconstruct the refugees’ homes or provide them with oil, electricity, schools, infrastructure and subsidies for as long as Western countries want them to stay outside Syria. The international community wants these refugees to remain away from the central government’s control and is doing everything in its power to prevent their return so as to be able to reject a future Presidential election- where Bashar al-Assad’s victory is guaranteed.

President Assad will work with Iran, Russia and China to secure his needs. Iran has defied US-European sanctions by sending oil tankers to Syria through the Straits of Gibraltar twice. Iran is building drug and medicine factories in Syria, and is also working on other projects that it shares with Russia and China. Syria is heading toward the east, not the west, since that it is the only remaining option left to it. This is the long-awaited dream of the “Axis of Resistance”. Lebanon, Syria and Iraq are looking to Asia to reverse the US-European sanctions against them and their allies in the Middle East. By imposing further unaffordable sanctions on Syria, the US is helping the Levant come out of the US sphere of influence and presence.

Iran, Russia, China and Syria are uniting as allies with an integrated project against US hegemony. There is no place for the domination of one state over another in this gathering of nations because solidarity is required to help Syria, for example, stand as a healthy and reliable country to confront the US. Their strength grows as the weakness of the US becomes more apparent, at a time when President Donald Trump is struggling domestically and his world influence is weakening. Washington is unilaterally imposing sanctions on nations and populations, forcing some allies to follow but also forcing them to consider seriously future possibilities for detaching from this burdensome “umbilical cord.”  

The US “Caesar’s Law” aims to submit and suppress the Syrian nation and people, as Washington has attempted with Iran and Venezuela, so far failing miserably. This policy can no longer be effective because the Russian – Chinese – Iranian alliance has now become important to many countries in the Middle East. The influence of this alliance now extends to the Caribbean Sea. “Caesar’s Law” will turn against its architects: “he who prepared the poison shall end up eating it.”

Proofread by:  Maurice Brasher and  C.G.B.

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أحداث أميركا ومستقبل ترامب

د. جمال زهران

لا شك في أنّ ما حدث ولا يزال مستمراً، من تمرّدات وانتفاضات شعبية أميركية في كلّ ولايات أميركا الخمسين، بل في العاصمة واشنطن وأمام البيت الأبيض، على مدار الأسبوعين الماضيين، إثر حادث مقتل مواطن أسود، هو: (جورج فلويد)، من قبل شرطي عنيف أمسك رقبته بقدمه حتى الموت، هو من أكبر الانتفاضات التي وقعت في أميركا منذ نشأتها في أواخر القرن الثامن عشر، على يد جورج واشنطن. فقد تقع بعض الأحداث الغاضبة، نتيجة سوء معاملة الشرطة الأميركية لبعض المواطنين، خصوصاً السود منهم! إلا أنها تستمرّ ساعات أو أياماً محدودة، وتنتهي بإجراء من الإدارة الأميركية. وكان من أكبر ما حدث من انتفاضات، في عهد الرئيس الأميركي بيل كلينتون، حيث صدر حكم قضائي كان قاسياً ولا يتفق أو يتوازى مع الجرم، على مواطن أسود في كاليفورنيا في التسعينيات من القرن العشرين، وكانت هيئة المحكمة كلها من أصحاب «الوجوه البيضاء» فوقعت المظاهرات العنيفة، من تكسير وتخريب ونهب، للمحكمة ومحيطها، شملت الولاية كلها، رافعة شعار رفض هذا الحكم وضرورة إلغائه. ولم تتوقف هذه المظاهرات العنيفة، إلا بقرار رئاسي من كلينتون، بإلغاء هذا الحكم، واعتباره كأنه لم يكن، وإعادة محاكمته أمام دائرة أخرى، برّأت المواطن. وقد كان ذلك التدخل الرئاسي، رسالة لكلّ المؤسسات بضرورة إعمال مبادئ العدالة وعدم ظلم السود، وضرب التمييز العنصري، وتوقفه فوراً!

وقد لوحظ أنّ هذه الانتفاضة الحالية، من أكبر الانتفاضات التي شهدتها أميركا منذ الحرب الأهلية التي استمرت سنوات، حتى توحّدت كل الولايات، وذلك من حيث الفترة الزمنية، ومن حيث الانتشار في كل الولايات، وليس في ولاية واحدة، ومن حيث حجم الخسائر الضخمة، ومن حيث التداعيات، حتى أنها شملت كل المجتمع ضد التمييز العنصري، ولم تقتصر على أصحاب الجباه السوداء، بل شملت كل الوجوه بألوانها، وكل الفئات بأديانها. كما أنّ اللافت للنظر أنّ هذه الانتفاضة الكبرى، تضمّنت إشارات وصلت إلى تصريحات رسمية إلى العصيان المدني من قبل حكام بعض الولايات على الرئيس الأميركي، والوصول إلى حدّ الإعلان عن الانفصال عن الاتحاد، وإعلان الاستقلال! وشهدنا كلّ ما كان محرّماً من الحديث قولاً أو فعلاً، لدرجة أنّ بعض العمُد اتخذوا قرارات عكس قرارات الرئيس، وهو ما يحدث للمرة الأولى.

والسؤال هنا: ما هو انعكاس ما يحدث على مستقبل ترامب؟ بل ما هو انعكاس ذلك على مستقبل أميركا ووحدتها؟!

فقد كثر الحديث عن قرب تفكك أميركا وانتهاء حقبة الولايات المتحدة، وأن سيناريو التفكّك الذي شهده الاتحاد السوفياتي في نهاية عام 1991، هو ما ستشهده الإمبراطورية الأميركية كما شهدته بالضبط الإمبراطورية السوفياتية. كما كثر الحديث عن أنّ ظاهرة ظهور ترامب، هي الظاهرة ذاتها التي أظهرت من قبل ميخائيل غورباتشوف بنهاية مارس 1985، فكان كلّ همّه تفكيك الاتحاد السوفياتي بالانسحابات المتتالية والانكفاء على الذات وطرح وثيقتي (الغلاسنوست والبيروسترويكا)، بمعنى المكاشفة، وإعادة البناء! وخلال 6 أعوام (1985 – 1991)، تفكك الاتحاد السوفياتي، واختزل في دولة روسيا العظمى، من بين 15 دولة كان يضمّها هذا الاتحاد السوفياتي. والآن وبعد مرور ما يقرب من 4 سنوات من تولي دونالد ترامب حكم أميركا، فبدأ بالانسحابات الأميركية من الاتفاقيات والمناطق، وغيرها، وتغيير السياسات والاستراتيجيات الأميركية، واستعداء الأصدقاء، وخلق أعداء جدد، ثم انتهاج سياسات التمييز العنصري منذ بداية توليه في 20 كانون الثاني/ يناير 2017! فكانت النتيجة هو تعرّضه للعزل في مجلس النواب، وأنقذه مجلس الشيوخ! ثم فوجئ بنتائج أعمال سياساته الداخلية، في الشارع الأميركي الذي تفجر ضدّه على خلفية اغتيال وقتل عمدي لـ جورج فلويد «الأسود»!

في ظلّ ذلك، هل لترامب مستقبل في الاستمرار في حكم أميركا لمدة ثانية 4 سنوات أخرى، تنتهي في كانون الثاني/ يناير 2025؟!

هناك سيناريوان عند الإجابة على هذا التساؤل:

الأول: توقع نجاحه، الأمر الذي يؤدي إلى استمرار سياساته الداخلية والخارجية، والنتيجة هو تفكيك الولايات المتحدة، وانتهاء الإمبراطورية الأميركية ودورها العالمي، ودخول النظام الدولي في مرحلة جديدة، حيث محدودية التنافس الدولي بين الصين وروسيا من جانب ولهما الغلبة، وبين الاتحاد الأوروبي الذي يدخل مرحلة التفكك نتيجة تفكك المركز، المتمثل في الولايات المتحدة الأميركية.

الثاني: هو التوقّع بفشله في الانتخابات، خاصة بعد فشله في إدارة أزمة كورونا، والانتشار الأفقي لهذا الوباء في أميركا كلها (بلغت الإصابات حتى تاريخه أكثر من 2 مليون إصابة، 115 ألف وفاة)، وفشله في مواجهة الانتفاضة الشعبية الأميركية واحتوائها، حيث إن الشارع الأميركي انقلب عليه، وتآكلت شرعيته ورصيده الشعبي. وقد يرتب رحيله من الحكم وفشله في الانتخابات إلى صعود الديمقراطيين، وعودة استراتيجياتهم الناعمة، فيتأجّل تفكك الولايات المتحدة إلى موعد آخر، رغم أنه حتمي، ولكنه التوقيت… لا أكثر! ويتأجّل انتهاء الدور العالمي لأميركا رغم أنّ هذا الدور دخل مرحلة الأفول أيضاً.

وفي تقديري، فإنّ السيناريو الثاني، بفشل ترامب في الفوز بمدة ثانية هو الأرجح، لأنّ الرأسمالية المتوحشة ربما تزيحه حفاظاً على استمرارها متحكمة في النظام الاقتصادي العالمي، خاصة بعد أزمة وباء كورونا الذي لم يتوقف بعد، وليس مرجحاً الانتهاء منه قريباً.

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*أستاذ العلوم السياسية والعلاقات الدولية، والأمين العام المساعد للتجمع العربي الإسلامي لدعم خيار المقاومة، ورئيس الجمعية العربية للعلوم السياسية.

Education Is Offensive and Racist and so is America

June 13, 2020

Paul Craig Roberts

Years of teaching blacks to have grievances against white people for things that happened centuries ago have come to fruition. Rioting and looting are not enough, the violent thugs and ignorant woke creatures are pulling down historic monuments in public parks and defacing public buildings while police and public authorities stand down.

In Richmond, Virginia, a statue eight feet tall of Christopher Columbus in a public park has just been pulled down and rolled into a lake by a group of thugs.  Why?  “Columbus represents genocide.”  What the barbarians mean is that by discovering America, Columbus exposed the inhabitants to invasion from abroad, which is what the US has been undergoing since 1965. 

Who hasn’t suffered invasions?  Why of all the countless invasions in history is European entry into the new world so upsetting.  Columbus wasn’t looking to invade any country.  He was testing a theory and hoping to find a shorter route to the spice trade.

Any number of Confederate memorials are being pulled down.  Not even Robert E. Lee will be spared.  Are public authorities  so stupid that they do not understand that their acquiescence to lawlessness and destruction of property lets the genie out of the bottle?  

The new word for racist is white.  By definition a white person is a racist.  The two words are synonyms.  Every stature of every white person is a statue of a racist and can be pulled down. The Republican-led Senate Armed Services Committee has amended the defense bill to require the US military to rename bases named after anyone who served under the Confederate flag. They don’t understand that as white is a synonym for racist, all whites, including Union officers, are racists. All US military bases will have to be named after blacks or it will be racist.  Grant and Lee were both white and served together fighting for American empire in the war against people of color in Mexico. The only difference between Grant and Lee is that in addition to fighting for American empire against Mexico, Grant also fought for American empire against the South. 

History is also being pulled down.  Future historians will be perplexed to find no signs of the racism on which the NY Times says America was founded.  

Ignorance is everywhere. RT describes Columbus as “another notorious figure in the history of slavery.”  What!? The year 1492 was long before the black Kindgom of Dahomey created the black slave trade and long before there were any colonies needing a labor force.  But facts no longer matter.  Truth is whatever is emotionally satisfying.

America is said to be a superpower, but its inhabitants collapse in excruciating pain over a mere word. The pain felt by mental and emotional weaklings is so severe that it has caused universities to overthrow academic freedom.  At UCLA, once a university and now a propaganda ministry, a faculty member is under investigation for reading Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” to the class he teaches.  The letter (April 16, 1963) was King’s reply to black pastors who expressed their concern to him about his arrival as an outsider to their community to stir up confrontation when they were working to negotiate the achievement of the same goals peaceably. King’s answer was that confrontation sharpens the issue and will aid their negotiations. Creating a crisis, King told the pastors, fosters tension and forces a community to deal with the issue.

What did the professor do wrong by reading King’s own explanation of his strategy?  The professor is in trouble because King in his letter used the word “nigger” and in reading King’s letter to the class, the professor read the word “nigger.”  OhMyGod, a white man said “nigger.”

Oh, the hurt, the offense!  University administrators have denounced the professor. To keep the controversy going students are urged to come forward with complaints. A town hall will be held to outline future next steps. 

Think about this for a minute. According to reports “numerous students plead (sic ) with Professor Ajax Peris to not use the n word.”  But it was King, not Peris, who used the n word. What is the message here?  Does it mean that a white person cannot read out loud Martin Luther King’s letter?  If the professor wanted students to be aware of the letter, would he have to bring in a black guest lecturer to read the letter?  Would the professor still be accused of insensitivity if he gave  Martin Luther King’s letter to the students as a reading assignment?  Does it mean that King himself committed an offense by using the n word?

The professor also showed the class a documentary about lynching. The documentary had graphic descriptions that distressed and angered the students.  Do we have here the plight of what sounds like a leftwing professor trying to rile up blacks against whites and finding that he cannot succeed because the necessary words and images cause them paroxysms of pain?

In our oh-so-sensitive-times, no one is concerned about giving offense to Southerners.  White Republican senators are leading the charge to rename military bases. Not to be outdone, black members of the House want to remove what they call Confederate statues from the vicinity of the Capitol as part of the protest against police violence in Minneapolis. They are having a fit over Jefferson Davis, who for 3 or 4 years of his life was president of the Confederate States of America. Much more of Davis’ life was spent serving the United States of America as a military officer, a US Senator and as US Secretary of War (they were more honest in those days; today they call it “defense”).  Davis was a West Point graduate. As an officer in the US Army he fought for the US empire in the Mexican-American war. It was Davis who led the sucessful charge on the La Teneria fort in the Battle of Monterrey.  He was married to the daughter of US President Zachary Taylor. He argued against secession.  These are the reasons that there is a statue of him.

Davis, like Robert E. Lee, and so many others from Southern states spent their life in service to the United States. They rallied to the Confederacy only because Lincoln invaded their states.  People are so ignorant today, especially those who go around shouting “racist,” that they are unaware that in those days people regarded their home state as their country.  The US Constitution gave governing power to the states, reserving to the states all powers not ennumerated to the federal government.  All of this was changed by Lincoln’s war which consolidated power in Washington and eventually turned largely independent states into vassals of Washington.

Robert E. Lee, a West Point Graduate, spent his life in the US military fighting wars for the US empire. He served as Superintendent of the United States Military Academy. He was so highly regarded that he was offered a Union command in Lincoln’s war. Lee’s response was that as a Virginian, he could not lead an army to invade his country.  If the US was going to invade Virginia, he would have to resign his commission in the US Army.

An ignorant person once wrote in CounterPunch that Lee had 200 slaves.  Lee had no plantation. He spent his life fighting against Indians and Mexicans for the American empire. It did not occur to the peabrain at CounterPunch what a person fighting Indians on the frontier and Mexicans in Mexico would do with 200 slaves.  But as I have often observed, it you are out to demonize someone—Trump, Putin, or Lee—you say whatever does the job.

Lee had to take a leave from the US army for 2 years in order to settle his father-in-law’s estate, which had land holdings and slaves on one side of the ledger and massive debts on the other. The aim was to emancipate the slaves. Knowing that, some slaves pushed it before it could be done. They were punished, and ever since it has been used to blacken Lee who had fiduciary duties.

The current line is that Confederate memorials “pay tribute to white supremacy and slavery,” as the most ignorant Barbara Lee (D, CA) put it.  So, according to a person regarded by people in California of sufficient intelligence and integrity to represent them in Washington, a Southerner who resists the invasion of his country is a white supremacist.

As has been proven so many times, the so-called “Civil War” was fought over economics, not slavery. Lincoln himself intended to send the blacks back to Africa, judging them unfit to live among white people.  Lincoln said over and over that the war was fought to preserve the Union. He gave assurances to the South that they could have slaves as long as they stayed in the Union and paid the tariff. Historians have researched the letters and diaries of participants on both sides of the war and found that soldiers were not fighting for or against slavery. The North was fighting for the Union, and the South was fighting because the South was invaded.  There is a famous book in which the contents of the wartime letters and diaries are recorded.

Yet the real documented history has been replaced with a false made-up history that serves the sole purpose of creating dissention and hatred in a vulnerable and fragile multicultural society.  

As I recently wrote using Richard Weaver’s title, ideas have consequences. The stand downs of police and public authorities while criminals loot and destroy are consequences of the false history that has been created for the United States. 

The United States is a Tower of Babel from which white people should flee. The state of collapse is advanced. With mayors and governors refusing to protect property from black looters, President Trump threatened to call out the US military.  His own Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, and his own Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Mark Milley, quickly informed the US military that their duty was to the Constitution, not to the President. The two made a show of this to undercut President Trump and to present him as a tyrant for trying to fulfill his constitutional obligation to protect private property and the lives of citizens.  Apparently, both Esper and Milley are too dumbshit to understand that it is a constitutional duty to protect property.

Trump is not Establishment, but his government is. Trump is a President surrounded by his enemies. Trump attempted to be a president of the people, but the Establishment will not permit it.  Trump will be the last president who attempts to represent the American people.  All future presidents will have learned the lesson in advance. An American president serves the ruling elite and no one else.  The elite have worked long and hard to acquire a divided population that cannot unite against them.  They have succeeded. 

Trump Attacks China and Others Falsely, Puts More Bodies in Bags

By Nour Rida

Amid the coronavirus chaos, US President Donald Trump has shown that he is probably the worst at tweeting, his political discourse standards reached a new level of unprecedented frenzy and panic in US history and the best he could is ask people to explore disinfectants as a possible treatment for COVID-19 virus — an extremely dangerous proposition that medical experts warn could kill people.

He has also succeeded in a few things; attacking friends and foes and making accusations such as the case of China, cutting funds for international organizations like the case is with WHO or the UN, setting a blind eye to US theft of coronavirus aid and equipment if not giving consent to the hijacking of the medical aid of other countries, and attacking the people of his own country and carrying out racist and violent actions against them. Of course we must not forget his contradicting statements throughout the crisis reported by mainstream media outlets.

Media reports suggest that the growing public distrust in Trump’s ability to lead the country in its fight against COVID-19 is why he attacked China in first place, accusing it of spreading the virus.

“Trump is trying to divert public outrage over China as he is increasingly accused of the unwillingness the US has encountered in the pandemic. Because of this, Trump also targeted the World Health Organization [WHO],” read a report in late April.

Sarcastically, the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence released a statement in late April debunking false claims about COVID-19 origins, saying that the virus was “not manmade or genetically modified.”

This came while China has extended a helping hand, sending out tens of millions of protective wards, masks, medical equipment, medicines as well as medical teams to the world, with Italy as a clear example.

Known now for his threads of racism, lies and imprecision, he used the term “China Virus” multiple times when referring to coronavirus, a phrase of racial discrimination which had drawn criticism for both domestically and internationally since it was coined in mid-March.

The World Health Organization has issued guidance against “stigmatizing certain communities” when naming illnesses. US lawmaker Judy Chu – a California Democrat and chairwoman of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus – was not impressed by Trump’s remarks, according to NBC News.

According to Chu, Trump’s comments would not “be necessary if he and his supporters had not already endangered so many by spreading this toxic xenophobia”.

With the mainstream media of the US and some of its allies creating a collective media campaign attacking China, the same media which claims impartiality sets a blind eye to reports on how US deportation flights increase the spread of the virus, which remains to be a fact and not just rumors.

According to Michele Heisler, medical director at the US-based nonprofit Physicians for Human Rights and a professor of internal medicine and public health at the University of Michigan, “the flights do not only put people in deportation proceedings at risk, but also threaten to spread the coronavirus to countries ill-equipped to deal with the disease.”

Countries in the region have been forced to deal with deportees infected with the virus, including Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, and Haiti, many of which have fragile health-care systems.

As the US sinks in its own chaos amid the incompetence of its administration in facing the coronavirus, it has been accused of “modern piracy”. One instance of it is redirecting 200,000 Germany-bound masks for its own use. The local government in Berlin said the shipment of US-made masks was “confiscated” in Bangkok.

Countries including the US, France, and Turkey have been accused of confiscating shipments, holding on to supplies, and last minute outbidding each other in an escalating war for supply goods.

Following Trump’s furies and fits, media reports have harshly criticized Trump and his attitude towards the pandemic and his justifications. Commenting on Trump’s dealing with the coronavirus crisis, the Foreign Policy wrote in a report “Like Bush, who couldn’t grasp the fact that al Qaeda was not the tool of an adversarial state, Trump refused to believe—or professed not to believe—that the virus was not an instrument of a hostile Chinese state, invented in a laboratory, and unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Just as Bush shifted the nation’s focus to Iraq, Trump seized the coronavirus to justify his obsession with China.”

The US did not stop at pouring all the blame falsely on China, or deporting thousands regardless of health concern warnings. In mid-April, Trump decided to suspend funding to the World Health Organization. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it was “not the time” to be reducing funds to the WHO or any other organization fighting the pandemic.

“Now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences,” Guterres said in a statement.

Reacting to Trump’s action and threats, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said last week that it was not the time for such rhetoric.

“The focus of all political parties should be to save their people. Please don’t politicize this virus,” Tedros said at a press briefing in Geneva last week.

“If you want to have many more body bags, then you do it. If you don’t want many more body bags, then you refrain from politicizing it … We will have many body bags in front of us if we don’t behave.”

Trump made his decisions; he keeps contributing in isolating America rather than making it great as he claims, and helps put more body in bags in the US as well as around the globe.

كيف يُواجَه «قانون قيصر» الإجراميّ ومشتقاته وأمثاله…؟

العميد د. أمين محمد حطيط

تصاعدَ التهويل واشتدّت الحرب النفسية التي تشنّها أميركا على سورية وحلفائها والمتعاملين معها في المجال الاقتصادي والمالي تهويل وضغوط من باب تطبيق “قانون قيصر” الأميركي الكيدي الإجرامي الذي يستهدف خنق الاقتصاد السوري وتجويع الشعب السوري عبر عزل سورية عن العالم اقتصادياً ومنع التعامل معها على أيّ صعيد مالي واستثماري، بقصد دفعها إلى موقع تتخلى فيه عن انتصاراتها في الحرب الكونية التي استهدفتها خلال 10 سنوات ولا تزال، ثم القبول بشروط الاستسلام الأميركي التي طالما رفضتها منذ العام 1973 وحتى اليوم.

بيد أنّ القانون الذي أقرّه الكونغرس الأميركي مستنداً إلى أسباب موجبة لفقها تحت عنوان “محاسبة النظام السوري لانتهاكه حقوق المدنيين السوريين وسلامتهم” يشكل (أيّ القانون) أكبر طعنة لهذه الحقوق في أبسط أشكالها من حيث الغذاء والدواء ومتطلبات العيش الأوّلي الضروري، ولا يغيّر من طبيعته ومفاعيله الإجرامية وتصنيفه كجريمة ضدّ الإنسانية، ادّعاء أميركا انه لن يمسّ بمصالح المدنيين. فأميركا احترفت النفاق والتزوير وتستسهل الكذب والخداع فتقتل الإنسان مدّعية أنها تقدّم له مساعدة للحياة.

فأميركا التي تتشدّق بحقوق الإنسان وتشنّ الحروب زاعمة السعي لحمايتها تحترف وبكلّ وقاحة انتهاك حقوق الإنسان أينما كان. فالسياسة لدى أميركا هي سياسة جمع المال وتراكم الثروات لطبقة من الرأسماليين على حساب الإنسان أينما وجد ولنا في ما يحصل اليوم في مدن أميركا وشوارعها من اضطرابات ومواجهات سببها العنصرية وانتهاك حقوق الإنسان خير مثال على ما نقول، حيث إنّ الحكومة الأميركية تتصرف خلافاً لما تتشدّق به حول حقوق الإنسان إلى الحدّ الذي يجعلنا نعتقد ونؤمن بأنّ مقولة “حماية حقوق الإنسان” هي سلعة أميركية معدّة للتصدير وللاستهلاك الخارجي فقط وليس للتطبيق والاستعمال الداخلي”.

إنّ أميركا وتحت عنوان “حماية حقوق الإنسان السوري”، سنّت قانوناً لتقتل هذا الإنسان ولتشنّ عليه حرباً تؤدي إلى القتل الممنهج عبر قرارات تتخذها هيئاتها الدستورية وتفرضها على العالم في تجاوز واضح لسيادة الدول واستقلالها. ونحن نفهم أنّ تتخذ أميركا تدبيراً تلزم به نفسها ضدّ دولة ما، وهذا حقّ سيادي لها، أما أن تفرض تدبيراً هي قرّرته، وتلزم به دولاً أخرى فهو أمر في منتهى العدوان والانتهاك للسيادة الوطنية لأيّ دولة أجنبية تكرهها أميركا على تطبيق قراراتها العدوانية.

فالجريمة الأميركية من باب “قانون قيصر” ومشتقاته وأمثاله من التدابير الكيدية التي تسمّيها أميركا “عقوبات” خلافاً لمدلول الكلمة الاصطلاحي قانوناً هي جريمة ضدّ الإنسانية يرتكبها من ليس له الصلاحية بالقيام بها. لأنّ العقوبة هي ما تقرّره وتفرضه جهة مخوّلة شرعاً وقانوناً بحقّ طرف وضع تحت سلطتها وكان لها حياله صلاحية العقاب. وأميركا ليست وليّ أمر سورية وليست مخوّلة من أيّ جهة دولية بأن تكون شرطي العالم بل إنها جعلت لنفسها هذه الصلاحية افتئاتاً على القانون والشرعية الدولية وأحكام وقواعد القانون الدولي العالم. وتكون الجريمة الأميركية من باب هذا القانون مركبة من جرائم عدة أوّلها التصدّي لأمر ليس من صلاحيتها، ثانيها عدوان على شعب لم يمارس هو وحكومته أيّ سلوك عدائي ضدّها وثالثها انتهاك لسيادة الدول التي تكرهها أميركا على التقيّد بقانونها. وهنا يطرح السؤال كيف نواجه القرار حتى نعطل مفاعيله ثم هل من طريق لمحاسبة أميركا على جريمتها المتمثلة بهذا القانون وسواه من الجرائم المشابهة؟

نطرح هذا مع علمنا بأنّ أميركا تتصرّف على أساس أنها فوق القانون وأن ليس من سلطة في العالم قادرة على محاسبتها وهي في الوقت الذي تطالب بملاحقة الدول أمام القضاء الدولي لا تقبل بأن تلاحق كدولة أو يلاحق أفرادها لدى هذا القضاء الذي لم توقع على اتفاقيات إنشائه.

أما عن المواجهة فإنها برأينا تكون بمنع تحقيق القرار لأهدافه التي هي في الحدّ الأدنى:

1

ـ إطالة أمد الصراع في سورية ومنعها من تحرير ما تبقى من أرضها في يد الإرهاب أو تحت الاحتلال التركي أو الأميركي وترى انّ الخنق الاقتصادي يعطل العمل العسكري ويمنع الحسم.

2

ـ حمل الشعب السوري على العودة إلى الشارع والانفضاض من حول قيادته تحت وطأة الجوع والمطالبة أو الاستجابة للمطالب الأميركية بإسقاط النظام.

3

ـ منع حلفاء سورية من مساعدتها ومنع تمتين أواصر العلاقات البينية معها وبشكل أدق منعهم من الانتظام في دورة إعادة البناء التي تعمّق الحلف أو الأحلاف الاستراتيجية بين سورية وأصدقائها.

4

ـ عرقلة عودة سورية إلى الانتظام في المنظومة الدولية كدولة قوية مؤثرة متمسكة باستقلالها وسيادتها، رافضة أيّ تبعية أو تنازل عن حقوقها وحقوق الأمة خاصة في فلسطين.

هذه هي الأهداف المباشرة التي ترمي أميركا إلى تحقيقها من خلال تطبيق قانون قيصر وأمثاله مما سبق أو قد يلحق من تدابير كيدية تتخذها بحقها وتباهي بها وبكلّ وقاحة وفجور، مؤكدة أنها تؤلم سورية كما سمعنا جيمس جيفري المبعوث الأميركي إلى سورية والمنطقة الذي باهى وبكلّ صلف “انّ تدابير أميركا تسبّبت بانهيار الليرة السورية”… (ما تسبّب بضائقة اقتصادية مسّت المواطن السوري بلقمة عيشه ودواء دائه).

وعليه فإنّ مواجهة هذا التدابير يجب أن تتركز قبل كلّ شيء على منعها من تحقيق أهدافها عبر سلة من التدابير التي تفهم أميركا بأنّ خطتها الإجرامية لن تنجح، ولن تحقق رغباتها في استسلام سورية. فسورية التي عانت ما عانت وضحّت ما ضحّت خلال حرب الدفاع عن نفسها وحققت الانتصار الاستراتيجي التاريخي في إفشال العدوان عليها من المستحيل ان تضيّع ما قدّمت وضحّت به وتسلّم لأميركا بما تريد بمجرد أنها مارست التضييق الاقتصادي عليها. وانّ في الردّ السوري الأوّلي على القانون هذا برفض الإذعان للشروط والإملاءات الأميركية ما يؤكد أنّ سورية اتخذت قرارها بالمواجهة الدفاعيّة ويبقى وضع استراتيجية الدفاع الاقتصاديّ ومطالبة كلّ مَن يعنيه الأمر في الداخل السوري والخارج بالقيام بدوره في هذا الدفاع. دفاع يكون مركباً من تدابير عسكرية وإعلامية واقتصادية وسواها التي تقدّر سورية وحلفاؤها نجاعتها خاصة في مجال:

أ ـ العمل العسكري: حيث سيكون من المفيد العودة إلى الميدان سريعاً واستغلال الظرف الدولي والأميركي القائم والانشغال التركي الحالي واستئناف معركة تحرير إدلب التي اتخذ قرار تحريرها بشكل لا عودة عنه. وسيكون هذا الأمر محرجاً لأميركا عندما يتمّ إنجاز التحرير لأنها ستجد نفسها وحيدة في احتلال شمال شرقي الفرات وستجد إمكان انطلاق المقاومة لمنع إنضاج الحالة الانفصاليّة أمرأ في متناول يد الشعب والدولة السورية وعندها ستوقن أن لا طائل من قيصر وقانونه لأنّ الدولة السورية تعمل لاجتثاث أسس المشروع الأميركي في سورية.

ب ـ العمل الشعبي والإعلامي والحرب النفسية إذ بعد أن أثبت الشعب مناعته في مواجهة الضغوط الأجنبية وقدرته على التحمّل، فإنّ تحصين هذه المناعة والقدرة سيكون مطلوباً من أجل تمتين علاقة الشعب بقائده وحكومته وإفهام أميركا أنّ الجوع لن يخرج الشعب عن مبادئه. طبعاً ويجب أن يترافق ذلك مع أقصى ما يمكن من تدابير من أجل تخفيف الضغط الاقتصادي على الشعب، وهنا ننوّه بما شهدته السويداء مؤخراً من تظاهرات شعبيّة تؤكد رفض العدوان الأميركي وتتمسّك بالدولة المركزية وقيادتها.

ج ـ أما الدور المعوّل عليه وبشكل أساسي فهو دور الحلفاء خاصة إيران وروسيا والصين، وهم جمعاً أو فرادى، قادرون على تحدّي أميركا في قانونها وقادرون على كسر إرادتها ولنا في عملية ناقلات النفط الإيراني الخمس إلى فنزويلا خير مثال. إن بضعة مليارات من الدولات مع عمل شركات هذه الدول داخل سورية كافية لتعطيل مفاعيل قانون قيصر.

د ـ وأخيراً يكون مفيداً جداً الذهاب إلى السوق المشرقيّة والتكامل الاقتصاديّ بين الدول التي تحيط بسورية، لبنان والعراق، إيران ما يعطل مفاعيل انهيار العملة في هذه الدول ويشجع الإنتاج والتبادل البيني للسلع من دون الخضوع لسلطان الدولار.

إنّ سورية ومعها وحلفاؤها خاصة إيران وروسيا والصين قادرون مجدّداً على إفشال أميركا في جريمتها الجديدة، وقادرون على إفهامها أنّ قانونها يسري عليها هي ولا يتجاوزها للغير وان قرارها ليس قدراً، ومن انتصر على أميركا في الميدان وفي مواجهة الإرهاب وفي الحرب النفسية والسياسية قادر أيضاً على إضافة انتصار جديد في المجال الاقتصادي. فأميركا اليوم تتراجع وتنهشها الاضطرابات والارتباكات وغير مؤهّلة لتحقيق نصر مهما كانت طبيعته.

*أستاذ جامعي – خبير استراتيجي