Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
A recent study by the Pentagon showed a decrease in the rate of Americans enlisting in the armed forces – only 2% of all Americas in the past two years. The study further revealed that the percentage of US troops of color or coming from minorities is remarkably declining, as the interest of black people in joining declined from 20% in 2019 to 11% the next year, to reach 8% in the fall of 2020. The study attributed the results to the rise of racism and the use of violence by security forces against the protesters, in addition to the murder of George Floyd – an African-American – which had repercussions on the entire American society.
First and foremost, the US Air Force acknowledged the reluctance of troops in joining its ranks, especially among minorities. There is concern regarding the decrease of a younger generation of troops in enlisting not only in the Air Force but also at other military arms. This, in addition to the risk of the long-term retention in the posts of others in the armed forces, especially those “in the ranks of the black males, Hispanics, and women, too”.
In fact, such a study conducted by the Pentagon can’t be considered as normal or be taken for granted since as per US laws and regulations, the results of any study on an important and sensitive sector, such as the army should be published. But the repercussions of this study suppose that the results should be somehow confidential, for this topic has considerable effects on the cohesiveness of the US army, and thus on the society and the state in general.
The cohesiveness of the US army – as the case of armies in most countries – reflects the cohesiveness and situation of the state as a whole. Even more, the US army might be the first internationally within this equation, since it is assigned big missions, most of which are overseas [with more than 800 military sea, land, and air bases outside the country]. Such missions are spread and located all over the world and sometimes relocated, for the so-called purpose of protecting US interests and allies as well as maintaining American national security. Therefore, to face such a big problem in the US army [the increase of racism, for example] has tremendous effects on both, the American national security and on the status of the US in the world.
What does it mean when racism increases in any army? How does it affect the efficacy of this army, and thus its capability of carrying out its missions and properly playing its role?
Talking about racism in a certain army means that there is an outcast, unwelcomed category or group in this army, with which the other group cannot get along. It also means that trust is lacking between the two groups or among the members of each group. With this in mind, how would it be possible to appropriately lead such a military unit in order to accomplish a common mission? How would this leadership be achieved, as it requires a concerted effort and focus of all its elements to attain the bottom-line effectiveness needed to successfully fulfill the goal?
Of course, with the spread of racism that implies a superior view, disgust and mutual hatred, it is normal to have trust issues between the officers and the employees, on all the ordinal levels, if they are of different colors or ethnicities or cultural and religious beliefs, and the like of the racism-inciting points. Accordingly, where there is racism, there will be an abnormality in the cohesiveness of any military unit, especially when this unit is assigned an extraordinary or dangerous mission. This being said, distrust among its members will grow, along with the possibility of treachery and evasion of responsibility, in addition to allocating the risk to a certain party by the operational and administrative heads.
That’s in general. As for the US army, with its transcontinental nature and sensitive missions that are usually assaults and invasions [we have previously shed light on this situation in most of the wars involving the US, where its troops are fiercely confronted by the troops of the targeted or assaulted countries and by resistance movements, as in Vietnam and Lebanon, and recently in Iraq and Afghanistan], the casualties have significantly surpassed the reasonable or the average extent due to the shaken trust between the members and officers, especially when carrying out overseas operations and missions.
Consequently, we can say that a great deal of the US army’s overseas failures can be attributed to this abnormal, unhealthy phenomenon. Apparently, it has always existed historically in this army, but it wasn’t exposed to the extent it’s been recently, in the aftermath of the murder of the African-American George Floyd and its disastrous repercussions on the US society. The danger of this phenomenon entails the close bond between the US community and army, as the latter is considered the first worldwide with respect to capabilities, and the second after the Chinese army with respect to personnel [more than one million members and officers]. The reciprocal influences between this army and the community are huge and tremendous, which will certainly have a direct effect on the coherence of the state and the system.
At least 15 states are trying to ban schools from teaching critical race theory and the 1619 Project. The reactionary movement stretches back to the 1920s and the KKK
Guardian: In 25 May 2020, a man died after a “medical incident during police interaction” in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The man was suspected of forgery and “believed to be in his 40s”. He “physically resisted officers” and, after being handcuffed, “appeared to be suffering medical distress”. He was taken to the hospital “where he died a short time later”.
It is not difficult to imagine a version of reality where this, the first police account of George Floyd’s brutal death beneath the knee of an implacable police officer, remained the official narrative of what took place in Minneapolis one year ago. That version of reality unfolds every day. Police lies are accepted and endorsed by the press; press accounts are accepted and believed by the public.
That something else happened – that it is now possible for a news organization to say without caveat or qualification that Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd – required herculean effort and extraordinary bravery on the part of millions of people.
The laborious project of establishing truth in the face of official lies is one that Americans embraced during the racial reckoning of the summer of 2020, whether it was individuals speaking out about their experiences of racism at work, or institutions acknowledging their own complicity in racial injustice. For a time, it seemed that America was finally ready to tell a more honest, nuanced story of itself, one that acknowledged the blood at the root.
But alongside this reassessment, another American tradition re-emerged: a reactionary movement bent on reasserting a whitewashed American myth. Read more…
VT Editors is a General Posting account managed by Jim W. Dean and Gordon Duff. All content herein is owned and copyrighted by Jim W. Dean and Gordon Duff
On February 6, 2021, Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza announced that she was pulling out of a World Values Network online gala with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a prominent American Zionist.
“They approached me about having a conversation about the importance of solidarity between black communities and Jewish communities,” she explained, then thanked Palestinian American activist Linda Sarsour for amplifying the larger picture.
According to journalist Michael Brown, Garza has a history of denouncing other public figures who joined propaganda trips to Israel. Boteach’s gala, Brown continued, appears just as egregious, for it “follow[s] Boteach’s years of backing the racist Donald Trump, thereby making a mockery of the efforts promoted by Black leaders and the wider Black community to advance racial justice and decolonization.”
Placed within a larger context, Boteach’s move comes at a time when Zionists are increasingly fearful of the Boycott, Divestment Sanctions Movement (BDS)’s success. Coupled with the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s decision to investigate Israel for War Crimes, any support for Palestinian rights will undoubtedly come under attack.
There is a long history of Pan-African support for Palestine which has resulted in Zionists denouncing that alignment. In a lecture series “Palestine and Us: Black and Palestinian Solidarity,” Ahmad Abuznaid traced the history of Black support for Palestine as well as the fall-out from it. Referring to Malcolm X’s Zionist Logic (1964), Abuznaid explained that this statement drew from Malcolm X’s shift from Black Nationalist to a more Pan-Africanist position, particularly after he saw connections between Pan-Arabists, represented by Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, and Pan-Africanists that he was beginning to support.
After the 1967 war, Black Radicals began to move away from seeing Zionism as a liberation movement to viewing it as a colonialist venture, much like the colonialism that was oppressing Africans around the world. Following in this direction, Ethel Minor, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), wrote a piece in their newsletter entitled “Third World Round-up: The Palestine Problem: Test Your Knowledge,” leading to a split between those, like Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) who would continue to support Palestine on principle, and others who feared that without taking a more “balanced position,” one that included mention of the Holocaust, there would be loss of funding.
Indeed, as Ture made clear, “immediately after the statement, phone calls rang in and the checks stopped coming.” Today, organizations, politicians and others who depend on funding are leery of taking a principled stance on Palestine, because, much like what happened with SNCC, Zionist supporters will use whatever means necessary to launch a targeted smear campaign of anyone who is critical of the Israeli state.
For example, in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter movement’s 2014 platform that denounced the US government’s military aid to Israel, there were claims of “one-sided” and “unfair” from pro-Israel commentators who rejected the coalition’s critique. Several years before B’tselem’s quite similar statement, which was either ignored completely or applauded for its courage, BLM charged the following:
“The US justifies and advances the global war on terror via its alliance with Israel and is complicit in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people. Israel is an apartheid state with over 50 laws on the books that sanction discrimination against the Palestinian people.”
The BLM platform also drew ire for its support of BDS. Fear of its success continues to motivate Zionists into the present time. In a piece for Haaretz, Rabbi Dan Dorsch of Atlanta declared that the mainstream Jewish community, and also Palestinian Government officials, have rejected BDS.
He continued that connecting the Black struggle in American to that of Palestinians is “unquestionably shortsighted and will only undermine the credibility of the movement and the important cause of civil rights in America”.
Like several years before, when pro-Israel donors withdrew their funds from SNCC, Rabbi Dorsch was warning that the pattern would continue as long as BLM lent its support to Palestine. Returning to the question of whether Zionists can be anti-racist, the short answer is an emphatic “no.” Quoting a message from Jewish Voice for Peace: “If you oppose racism, you should oppose Zionism too.”
As BDS successes grow and the ICC moves closer to investigate Israel for war crimes, pro-Israel groups will increasingly try to sever anti-racist movements in the US from their ties to Palestinians. Nevertheless, given several factors—the historic connections between Palestine and anti-colonial movements around the world, coupled with the waning acceptance of Progressive Except Palestine–Israel will not succeed.
For example, in a recent article Ramzy Baroud noted that
“Israeli efforts at co-opting Africa countries received a major setback on Saturday, February, 6 when the African Union issued a strong statement of solidarity with Palestine, condemning Israel’s illegal settlement activities and the US’s so-called ‘Deal of the Century’.”
In return, Palestinians have supported movements against injustice around the globe. Documenting a new round of Palestinian uprisings within the Zionist entity, Gaza-based journalist Wafaa Al-Udaini chose to use a photo from another protest against the Israeli regime.
Dating back a year to the shooting of Iyad al-Halak, an unarmed autistic Palestinian man, Palestinians in the picture also hold signs calling attention to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis the previous week, an extralegal murder that they link with al-Halak.
While Palestinians understand the connections between their struggles and anti-colonial movements in other countries, many liberals in the U.S. do not. Nevertheless, as Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell Plitnick outline in their new book, Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics, the days are over when so-called progressive public figures can join the anti-racist struggle at home while accepting gifts from Zionist organizations who fully support the Israeli apartheid state.
As Sarah Doyel notes in her review of Hill and Plitnick’s book, the authors observe that
“Democrats will take to the global stage to champion victims of other humanitarian crises, but Palestinians in Gaza living in what is commonly described as ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’ somehow merit little succor in the liberal worldview.”
Their work, Doyel concludes, is “a crucial and ultimately hopeful tool that better equips progressives to combat injustices within their own political circles.” Combined with the work of members of anti-colonial coalitions, some of whom convinced Alicia Garza to withdraw from Shmuley’s gala, perhaps anti-Zionists in the future will be strong enough to resist what will surely be increasing attacks on their political alignment with Palestinians.
– Benay Blend earned her doctorate in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her scholarly works include Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey, Eds. (2017), “’Neither Homeland Nor Exile are Words’: ‘Situated Knowledge’ in the Works of Palestinian and Native American Writers”. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
في معرض الردّ على تصريحات منسوبة إليه يهاجم فيها الجنود الأميركيين فتح الرئيس الأميركي النار على قادة البنتاغون قائلاً: ربما يكون كبار المسؤولين في البنتاغون لا يحبونني لأنهم لا يريدون فعل شيء سوى خوض الحروب، ولذا فإنّ كلّ تلك الشركات الرائعة التي تصنع القنابل والطائرات وكلّ شيء آخر ستكون سعيدة.”
وجاءت هذه الإشارة السلبية من ترامب تجاه البنتاغون في سياق عملية تجاذب منذ ان هدّد ترامب باستخدام قانون التمرّد للاستعانة بقوات إنفاذ القانون خلال الاحتجاجات التي أعقبت وفاة المواطن من أصول أفريقية جورج فلويد على يد أحد ضباط الشرطة في جريمة وحشية ما زالت تداعياتها مستمرة حتى اليوم.
يومها أعرب الجنرال مايك بيلي رئيس هيئة الأركان المشتركة عن أسفه لانه سار مع ترامب في ساحة لافييت.
ويعتبر هذا السجال المتصاعد بين الرئيس الأميركي وكبار جنرالاته الذين عيّنهم بنفسه، كما عيّن أيضاً وزير الدفاع مارك اسبر (الذي كان مسؤولاً تنفيذياً ومقاول دفاع في شركة “رايثيون” التي تعدّ من أكبر الشركات المتخصصة في أنظمة الدفاع) تعبيراً جديداً عن عمق الأزمة البنيوية التي يعيشها النظام الأميركي، كما كان يردّد دائماً أخي وصديقي الدكتور زياد حافظ منذ عشرين عاماً، والتي يبدو أنها على ملامح انفجار كبير مع الانتخابات الرئاسية الأميركية في اوائل نوفمبر/ تشرين الثاني المقبل حيث يعلن الطرفان الجمهوري والديمقراطي رفضهما منذ الآن لنتائج الانتخابات اذا لم تأت لصالحه الى درجة انّ أحد كبار المسورلين في الحزب الديمقراطي قد أشار الى دعوة القوات المسلحة الأميركية الى إخراج ترامب من البيت الأبيض في حال رفضه الاعتراف بهزيمته.
لكن هذا السجال المستجدّ بين البيت الابيض والبنتاغون، المضاف الى سلسلة سجالات تملأ الساحة السياسية والشعبية والاقتصادية والاجتماعية الأميركية، يذكر بمقولة ردّدها الجنرال دوايت ايزنهاور رئيس الولايات المتحدة بين عام 1952 -1960، عشية مغادرته البيت الابيض محذراَ من مخاطر “المجمع العسكري الصناعي على الدولة الأميركية وسعيه لانتهاج سياسات حربية تؤمّن لشركات السلاح موارد لا تنضب، فيما تؤمّن هذه الشركات وظائف مجزية لكبار الجنرالات بعد مغادرتهم الخدمة العسكرية.
اليوم يأتي ترامب، وهو رئيس “جمهوري” أيضاً، كما ايزنهاور، ليشير الى هذه العلاقة بين كبار الجنرالات وكبار المقاولين في تعبير عن غضبه من عدم تجاوب البنتاغون مع خططه بإعاد انتشار القوات العسكرية الأميركية خارج الولايات المتحدة (وهو مطلب يرتاح اليه المواطن الأميركي)، كما لعدم تجاوبه مع رغبته بتطبيق قانون التمرّد الذي يضع بنظر أميركيين كثر، أكثريتهم من البيض، حداً للفوضى الأمنية التي تعيشها المدن والبلدات الأميركية منذ أشهر.
لا شك انّ هذه التحوّلات تستحقّ دراسة معمّقة على أكثر من صعيد، ولكن لا بدّ من دراستها على مستوى تداعياتها على حجم النفوذ الأميركي خارج الولايات المتحدة، وخصوصاً في بلادنا، حيث ما زال الكثير من الحكام والمحللين أسرى تحليل قديم يرى بأنّ “واشنطن قدر”، وأنّ سياستها تمتلك من القوة ما لا يسمح لأحد بمواجهتها.
انّ اشارة ترامب الى العلاقة بين كبار الجنرالات وكبار المقاولين، مجدّداً تحذيرات سلفه في الرئاسة والحزب الجمهوري، دوايت ايزنهاور، من تغوّل “المجمع’ الصناعي العسكري، الذي لا يستبعد بعض المحللين دوره في جريمة اغتيال الرئيس الديمقراطي جون فيتزجرالد كنيدي عام ١٩٦٣، وشقيقه روبرت عام ١٩٦٦، ليصبح الأمر تماماً بقبضة “المجمع” الذي لم يتوقف عن شنّ الحروب على شعوب العالم، وبشكل خاص على الشعوب العربية والإسلامية…
انها قراءة من خارج السياق، ولكنها ضرورية لكي نفهم أكثر السياسة الأميركية في منطقتنا او بالأحرى اللاسياسة الأميركية التي لا تحركها إلا مصالح الكيان الصهيوني وأمنه…
انها قراءة ضرورية لكلّ من يضع كلّ أوراقه بالسلة الأميركية وهو التحليل الذي أدخل الأمة كلها منذ عام 1977(زيارة السادات للكنيست) في اتفاقات متعدّدة باسم “السلام” الذي لم ينجب سوى الحروب لهذه المنطقة…
Footage circulating from Palestine’s occupied West Bank has shown a Zionist soldier brutally kneeling on the neck of a Palestinian man whose age is above that of the years since the ‘Israeli’ occupation entity has come to exist on his land.
The Zionist occupation soldiers brutally assaulted and arrested the Palestinian man during a protest held near the city of Tulkarm against stealing his country’s lands in Shufa village.
The video showed an ‘Israeli’ soldier push the old man to the ground and kneel on his neck — a grim reminder of the US police violence and racial injustice that led to the murder of unarmed African American George Floyd in May.
The 46-year-old died after a white officer knelt on his neck and pinned him to the ground for nine minutes in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with his last words ‘I Can’t Breath’ being a global expression that represents injustice and oppression across the world.
Dozens of protesters were also injured by ‘Israeli’ fire in Tulkarm on Tuesday, with Zionist forces firing tear gas and live rounds to disperse the demonstrators.
The protests come against the ‘Israeli’ occupation regime’s plans to build new illegal settlements in a number of Palestinian villages near the northern West Bank city.
Tulkarm Governor Issam Abu Bakr, who participated in the protest, stressed that the rallies would continue until the settlement project, which is a threat to Tulkarm, was halted.
US President Donald Trump’s so-called ‘peace’ plan on the decades-old ‘Israeli’-Palestinian conflict envisions the occupied holy city of al-Quds as the Zionist entity’s ‘undivided capital’ and allows the Tel Aviv regime to annex settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley.
The plan also denies Palestinian refugees the right of return to their homeland, among other controversial terms.
The alleged ‘deal’ was immediately rejected by all Palestinians, triggering waves of protest rallies around the globe as well.
About 600,000 ‘Israelis’ occupy over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds.
Israeli Forces Violently Suppress Anti-Settlement Protest in West Bank (VIDEO)
Israeli soldiers handcuff Palestinian protester Khairy Hannoun from Tulkarem, West Bank, during a peaceful protest.(Photo: via Twitter)
Israeli occupation forces today violently suppressed a peaceful Palestinian protest against land grab affecting several northern West Bank villages, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported.
Israeli soldiers attacked Palestinian protesters firing teargas at them and beating them up in an effort to crush their protest at a road that links the three villages of Jabara, al-Ras, and Shoufa, south and east of the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm, where Israel plans to build an illegal industrial settlement.
Talking about George Floyd… well, it’s a very common happening in occupied Palestine, under Zionist military occupation… Pics taken today of the Palestinian elder Khairi Hannoun during a nonviolent protest against establishing a huge colonial industry zone in Palestinian privately owned land of Shofa, Jbarah and Kafreyat villages, occupied Palestine, 1 September 2020. Pics: Mohammad Hamdan
The protest was organized by local nationalist forces and the Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission.
Journalists covering the event were also attacked and prevented from filming it, said WAFA correspondent.
The army set up checkpoints on the roads leading to the protest area and stopped activists attempting to reach it and prevented them from continuing on the road.
Tulkarm Governor Issam Abu Bakr, who participated in the protest, said that the protest will continue until the illegal settlement project is stopped.
Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law.
On August 21st, 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin, a black man, died after being shot 11 times by police officers in Lafayette, Louisiana.
Lafayette Police Department officers responded to a disturbance call, involving a man with a knife at a Shell gas station around 8 PM local time on August 21st.
When they tried to apprehend the suspect, identified as 31-year-old Trayford Pellerin, he allegedly ignored repeated orders to surrender as well as several taser shots fired at him.
He simply kept walking, with his back turned to police, while carrying a knife and attempted to enter the gas station’s store.
Around a dozen shots can be heard in the video above, sparking accusations of excessive use of force. Authorities argued that tasers were “ineffective” and failed to stop the suspect, and that he was still armed when he tried to enter the store with people inside.
On August 22nd, violent protests erupted in Lafayette. Protesters blocked traffic as they gathered on Moss Street in Lafayette near a police precinct to protest Pellerin’s death.
Police in riot gear gave a 10-minute warning before releasing flares and smoke canisters into the crowd of protesters, KATC reported.
Afterward, Interim Lafayette Police Chief Scott Morgan said that there were two groups of protesters – those who organized an event earlier in the day and those who he said “choose to be malicious.”
He said people blocked important roadways and started several fires in a grass area, and police observed some throwing fireworks into one of their buildings.
“Our intent is not going to be to just let people disrupt our town and put our citizens and our motorists and our neighborhood in danger. We’re going to use those resources that we have and those other agencies and we’re going to enforce these laws,” he said.
Lafayette Parish Sheriff Mark Garber issued a stern warning to “out-of-town agitators,” a trope sometimes used to try to undermine protest movements.
“If any out-of-town agitators are watching this, if anyone’s planning to enhance their techniques tomorrow or the next day, we are ready for you,” he said. “We are prepared. We will not willingly give up the city. You will have to go through every resource that I have and every resource that the police have in order to do harm to the citizens or to their property.”
“Once again, video footage has captured a horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person who was brutally killed in front of our eyes,” Alanah Odoms Hebert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said in a statement.
Hebert said the shooting was an “inappropriate and excessive use of force” by the police.
“None of our communities are safe when the police can murder people with impunity or when routine encounters escalate into deadly shooting sprees,” Hebert said. “The ACLU of Louisiana will continue to demand justice for this brutal killing and push for reforms that will end the epidemic of police violence once and for all.”
Meanwhile, the trial against Derek Chauvin, who killed George Floyd on May 25th, is about to begin.
The police’s version of events is that George Floyd was intoxicated in some way, and that the use of force was needed. The general trend in cases such as this in the US when a police officer is accused of excessive brutality, is that the officer gets acquitted and it is done.
In other news of everyday American life, a black man from Bronx knocked the jaw out of a 17-year-old Pennsylvania park employee for asking him to wear a mask.
One of the BLM protesters hit a raccoon twice, then pulled out a baseball bat and beat him to death. The death of the raccoon was posted on social networks and was accompanied by an inscription that only white people care about the protection of animals.
Separately, a black man shot a 5-year-old white neighbor’s boy for driving his bicycle onto his lawn.
The news was not discussed in the American press, and if it was mentioned, instead of a photograph of the real killer, a photograph of his father was published.
News such as this are daily, this is currently considered “social activism” because it is being carried out by the correct group of people, otherwise, it would obviously be a crime.
Finally, Netflix has took it upon itself to also promote some questionable content.
For example, the French “coming-of-age comedy-drama film” Cuties. The main plot detail of the movie is pre-teenage girls twerking on camera. This is the synopsis of the film:
“Eleven-year-old immigrant girl Amy, originally hailing from Senegal, lives with her mother Mariam (Maïmouna Gueye) in one of Paris’s poorest neighbourhoods in an apartment along with her two younger brothers awaiting for her father to rejoin the family from Senegal. Things turn swiftly as Amy is fascinated by her disobedient neighbour Angelica’s twerking clique called Cuties, an adult-style dance troupe which has contrasting fortunes and characteristics to Mariam’s traditional customs, values and traditions.”
Another piece of content by Netflix is show AJ And the Queen, which features a 10-year-old transgender child, who fellow transgender actors joked about being a “top” or the person doing the penetrating in a homosexual relationship.
In the show, the child, who is the 10-year-old daughter of a drug-addicted prostitute, says she wants to be a boy “because people leave boys alone.” Netflix argued that the film was chosen by the fact that it received a prize at the festival Sundance, the founder of which, by coincidence, is also in prison for pedophilia.
Finally, the Democratic National Convention featured a convicted kidnapper and murderer – Donna Hylton.
On March 20, 1985, Donna Hylton and three female accomplices drugged and kidnapped 62-year-old Long Island real estate broker Thomas Vigliarolo at the behest of Louis Miranda, who thought Vigliarolo had cheated him out of $139,000 on a mutual con, in which the two allegedly sold shares in New York City condos and pocketed the money.
The kidnappers held Vigliarolo prisoner for 15–20 days. During that time, three men and four women, including Hylton, starved, burned, beat, sexually assaulted, raped, and tortured him. On April 5, 1985, with Hylton asleep in the next room, Vigliarolo died of asphyxiation. Three days later, his body was found locked in a trunk in a Manhattan apartment.
Since the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, his name has (or should have) become a household word. When Mawusi Ture, an activist with the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), asked if I would write about a similar incident, I was embarrassed that I had to look up the particulars of the case. John Neville also died in police custody, his last words were those of Floyd: “Let me go.” “Help me up.” “Mama.” “I can’t breathe.”
Neville’s death, and others like it both in America and Occupied Palestine, bears mention beyond the tragedy of this man. The circumstances of his final moments are indicative of the systemic racism embedded in America’s policing and in Israel where many of our police are trained
On December 1, 2019, guards booked John Neville into the Forsyth County jail in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Reporting for the New York Times, Michael Levenson summed up the subsequent events. About 24 hours after his arrest, Neville fell from his top bunk onto the concrete floor. After what appeared to be a seizure, detention officers and a nurse moved him to another cell for observation.
In reality, he was left restrained on his stomach, calling out for help, much like George Floyd. Two days later he died from a brain injury due to cardiac arrest, which in turn was caused by asphyxia during a prone restraint.
In early July, five former detention officers and the attending nurse were charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of John Neville, yet another Black man who called out “I can’t breathe.”
“Good men and women made bad decisions that day and, as a result, a good man died,” the Forsyth County sheriff, Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr., whose office runs the county jail, said at the news conference.
However, this case was not about good cops who make bad decisions, but rather systemic racism that has long been embedded in America’s policing. As Levenson observes, the charges were the newest in a long string of similar incidents that have inspired global protests against police brutality due to systemic racism in the force.
Over the past ten years, The New York Times found at least 70 people have died at the hands of the police after reiterating Floyd’s words: “I can’t breathe.” On an interactive page, the Times recorded all the words, that of the victim but also the victimizer’s failure to respond, that were said at the time of death.
After the death of George Floyd, videos surfaced of Israeli police performing the same knee-on-the- neck procedure with Palestinians that was responsible for Floyd’s demise. According to Sheren Khalel, the images have renewed concerns about programs that send American police to train under Israeli military forces.
Neighboring Durham, North Carolina’s City Council voted two years ago to bar its police department from engaging in “military-style training” programs abroad. While there seems to be no documentation specific to Winston-Salem, Khalel notes that North Carolina remains one of many states that participates in what Jewish Voice for Peace has labeled Deadly Exchange.
Palestinian Americans had long drawn comparisons between the US and Israeli use of tactics. Palestinians, too, quickly showed support after the murder of George Floyd, partly because of their own long history of oppression at the hands of Israeli cops.
Indeed, on July 8, Middle East Monitor (MEMO) reported that a Palestinian prisoner detained in Israeli jails had died of “medical negligence,” in much the say way as John Neville. In Saadi Al-Gharably’s case, a local NGO conveyed that Al-Gharably had suffered from prostate cancer, diabetes and blood pressure, none of which received medical attention during his time in prison.
Referring to a report from the Media Office of the Palestinian Prisoners, MEMO related that around 222 Palestinian detainees are said to have died in Israeli prisons, while over 5,500 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli jails where they are now even more at risk from the Covid-19 virus.
Shortly after Floyd’s death, Mohammad al-Qadi, a Palestinian marathon runner from the Occupied West Bank tweeted several pictures showing Israeli police using the same chokehold on Palestinians that had been employed on Floyd. “Crazy how the same thing happens in Palestine but the world chooses to ignore it,” al-Qadi captioned, describing with some anger the world’s indifference to suffering in his country.
What does it take to ignite an uprising that draws awareness to injustice? In occupied Palestine, it was the burning alive of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, 16, by three young Israeli settlers that called attention to the 2014 war on Gaza. In America, the murder of George Floyd sparked protests that continue on today.
Both events were watersheds, a spark after decades of Occupation in Palestine and centuries of the same in the United States. Such tragedies need to be put into historical context. Without that kind of grounding, movements that are organized around one event, like for example the anti-war campaign during Vietnam, run the risk of losing momentum when the original galvanizing force is gone.
Other pitfalls, too, could be avoided by placing each victim of police brutality within a timeline. For example, there have recently been important analyses on the tendency of brands and corporations to commodify Black lives. “As brands all over the world are taking a stand,” writes Leonie Annor-Owiredu, the questions should be: “where were you then, why now, and for how long will you take a stand?”
“Brands must be willing to take on struggles,” she continues, “instead of simply supposing/announcing themselves to be allies to the cause.” Context also plays a part in highlighting the Wall of Moms, a group that Dani Blum observes first started at the Portland protests but more recently have mobilized collectives across the country. Arm-in-arm, they have formed human shields between protestors and federal agents.
While admirable, McKensie Mack noted in a Facebook post that Black mothers in Englewood have been protesting violence in their community for years by creating a wall of justice around it in the same way as the Wall of Moms, by using their bodies as a shield. “We have a history,” Mack reminds her readers. “Let’s honor it. Let’s tell it right.”
By placing targeted groups—whether Palestinians or African Americans—at the center of their struggles, by placing those movements within historical contexts, there is a continuity that is less likely to be commodified by opportunists who soon move on to the next thing when they get tired.
It also makes clear that certain communities have entire systems and structures set against them. George Floyd and Mohammed Abu Khdeir were not one-time tragedies, but rather the latest in an entire history of atrocities meted out by settler-colonial states.
“The revolution won’t be sustained in diversity schemes,” Annor-Owiredu warns. It requires structural changes to bring about real justice.
Palestinians and people of color understand the importance of narration from below. In the words of journalist Ramzy Baroud, such history must rely on “the collective memory of the Palestinian people,” an accounting that defines “what it means to be Palestinian…what they stand for as a nation, and why they have resisted for years..”
– Benay Blend earned her doctorate in American Studies from the University of New Mexico. Her scholarly works include Douglas Vakoch and Sam Mickey, Eds. (2017), “’Neither Homeland Nor Exile are Words’: ‘Situated Knowledge’ in the Works of Palestinian and Native American Writers”. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
If Britain were a healthy society the #Wiley saga would have triggered an open discussion about race and privilege. Wiley would be invited to BBC Newsnight, he would be challenged by one of BBC’s anchors, he would be confronted by one or two representatives of the Jewish community, he would have a chance to explain where he comes from. We would be better able to understand the emerging clash between Jews and Blacks.
But Britain is not very healthy at the moment and none of the above has happened.
What happened instead was George Floyd all over again, but with a few major and significant differences. In the case of George Floyd a few policemen engaged in a deadly brutal and insidious act. In the case of Wiley, the entire Zionist league and its allies used a collective public knee to attempt the annihilation of the Black music icon. Another difference reflects on all of us. Following the Floyd murder thousands of Brits went to the streets to loudly proclaim that Black Lives Matter. They confronted the British police, they destroyed statues of slave traders. Who took to the streets to support Wiley? Do Black Lives Matter only so long as Blacks do not open their mouths?
Watch Wiley in action:
Wiley’s comments didn’t trigger the desirable, if heated, debate because Jewish power, as I define it, is the power to silence criticism of Jewish power. Every means that serves this cause is considered legitimate. Interestingly, the disabling of speech is so extreme that one can’t find out what it was that Wiley said that was so offensive. His tweets were initially removed by Twitter and as his twitter account is suspended.
Every news outlet in Britain and beyond has told us that Wiley’s tweets were horrid and anti-Semitic but no one dares to provide an example. It seems we are not even allowed to know what it is that we shouldn’t say. Possibly the censorship is even more sinister, they don’t want Wiley quoted only to find out that a large number of Brits, possibly including prominent Jewish voices, actually agree with the gist of Wiley’s statement.
Wiley is accused of promoting “Conspiracy Theories” about Jews and their power. This is slightly confusing because Jews often brag about their power and success. According to the Jewish site Israelunwired, Alan Dershowitz’s message to the Jews reflects a celebration of the power of Jews: “Why is it that Jews feel they need to apologize? Why do they feel that because they are strong and have contributed so much to the world, that deserves an apology? On the contrary! Jews should feel proud that God has given them such strength. And they have used it to help others. It is crazy that the world still has such negative beliefs about the Jewish people!”
On its face, it seems as if today’s Number One ‘Amalek,’ Wiley, a Black celebrity rapper and our prime Zionist mouthpiece, Dershowitz, agree on the significance of Jews in different domains. However, Dershowitz is entitled to brag about Jewish achievements, the Black voice Wiley is reduced to dust and declared public enemy number one.
Back in 2018 Dershowitz admitted in an Washington Examiner article that “it is true that Jews are represented in large numbers in various professionals such as the academy, finance, and the media.” Dershowitz also believes that Jewish prominence “is not because they are given preferential treatment. It is because they have proved to be successful at these enterprises. Should they be blamed for that?”
Like Dershowitz I believe that some Jews are gifted in certain areas, I also believe that people who work hard deserve acknowledgment. I am pretty sure that Wiley also agrees with that. So where is the dispute?
In both my writing and talks I keep insisting that there are no “Jewish conspiracies,” all is done in the open, whether it is AIPAC domination of USA foreign policy or Epstein flying world leaders on his Lolita Express, but you can’t talk about it. Dershowitz can brag about Jewish achievements: the rest of us can’t. Maybe we are tapping here into the true meaning of Jewish privilege.
In the last two days I searched the net to find out what words Wiley said. I found no trace, but the BBC, the failure news outlet, was proud to provide us with an extended monologue delivered by Emma Barnett.
Emma Barnett told her BBC listeners that she went through Wiley’s tweets and they where “straight out of the Hitler playbook of 1930s Nazi Germany.”
According to Barnett, Wiley tweeted that “Jewish people are cowards do something to me, I am waiting.” This doesn’t sound like Hitler to me. It is crude, it is a challenge, it involves an essentialist generalization but contains nothing that echoes Hitler or Nazi Germany. However, they still came at Wiley as hard as they could. Maybe Wiley should be recognized as the last prophet. They may want to consider integrating his tweets into the Hebrew Bible.
“They act rough,” she quotes Wiley as writing, “but they hide behind the police” – in fact, this sounds to me like a tweet by a Jewish pressure group bragging about its intimate “partnership” with UK police (also look here and here).
Barnett quotes Wiley, “who writes the laws, who changes the law, who implements the laws?” 80% of our conservative MPs are members of the Conservative Friends of Israel so the priorities of our ‘lawmakers’ are obvious. Maybe Barnett should use this opportunity and tell us how many Conservatives are friends of Hartlepool, Liverpool or any other Pool in the Kingdom.
“Who runs the world?” Wiley asks. I guess that when Epstein, Maxwell, Wexner and Weinstein are constantly in the headlines, this question may be rhetorical. Does Mrs. Barnett need me to introduce her to the work of Jared Kushner and his role in the Trump administration? Maybe the name Rahm Israel Emanuel rings a bell? Do I have to tell Barnett about AIPAC, CFI, LFI or the Crif?
“Who runs banking?” Barnett quotes from Wiley’s tweet. Maybe Dershowitz could help defend Wiley as he calls upon Jews to be proud of their achievements in this domain. Barnett can also look at George Soros and Black Wednesday. She can look at Goldman Sachs, Greenspan, Yellen… the list is pretty endless and growing by the day.
I guess that Barnett is sincere when she complains that “these words play of a very deep Jewish hidden fear that anti-Semitism rises up.” Yet, is “hidden” the right term? I ask because we are blitzed day and night by repetitions of this very specific Jewish fear. If there is anything that isn’t ‘hidden’ in Britain it must be the ‘Jewish fear of anti-Semitism.’
Emma Barnett doesn’t want us to talk about #Jewishprivilege. I am afraid that pushing all of social media to blacklist a Black cultural hero just a month after George Floyd, with No 10 and Priti Patel also pushing on behalf of Zion, is a privilege no other ethnic minority enjoys, certainly not the bronze community of former world leaders that were toppled one after another in recent weeks.
I do partially agree with Emma Barnet when she says “Jews don’t run the law.” Absolutely correct Emma, Jews don’t run the law, but Jewish pressure groups do and they boast about it 24/7.
Barnett declares, “Jews do not run the banks,” True again Emma, but Jews are vastly over represented in every banking and investment sector as Dershowitz boasted above.
“Jews do not run the world!” Absolutely true but AIPAC dominates American foreign policy and is proud of it.
“Where did it get his anti-Semitic memo from?” Barnett asks. I find this question slightly perplexing since statistics confirm that a large segment of Europeans may agree with Wiley. A recent major survey of public attitudes for CNN found more than a fifth of the 7,000 people polled in seven countries believed Jewish people have too much influence in finance and politics. The ADL is telling us in its latest survey that 1.09 billion “People in the world harbour anti-Semitic attitudes” out of 4 billion surveyed. Once again we are talking about 25%. To answer Barnett’s question, If Wiley was really looking for an educational source he had more than a billion people to choose from. It seems as if according to the ADL, one out of four people admit to their feelings about Jews as long as they stay anonymous. This may reveal what Wiley’s ‘crime’ was. He uttered that which most people are trained to keep to themselves.
Wiley gave us an opportunity to meet our demons, to understand what we are for real. The picture that is unfolding from that saga is grim and points to a darker future. We are terrified of our rulers and we are tormented by our own thoughts which we are scared to admit to ourselves. We are living in a world where maintaining a social media account is way more important than our own truth. This is how far we are removed from our Athenian cultural, spiritual and intellectual ethos that made the west into a distinct civilization.
For those who are confused by the Jewish institutional reaction to Wiley, the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan offers an explanation. “The unconscious is the discourse of the Other,” was, I believe, Lacan’s most important insight. The unconscious is the fear that everybody out there sees you as you are and even worse, discusses you with others behind your back. The unconscious is the fear that if you fail in bed tonight; tomorrow your neighbours will refer to you as ‘the impotent.’ In Lacanian perspectives, for self identified Jews, it seems the unconscious is the discourse of the Goyim, it is the fear that those one billion identified by the ADL as ‘anti-Semites’ will start to explore their views in the open. It is the unbearable fear that the ‘Goyim Know.’
Lacan’s insight helps us grasp the hysteria around Wiley and anti-Semitism. Self-identified Jews are very happy to brag about their successes but the idea that the same success is scrutinized by others devastates their entire existence.
If Britain were an open space, we could openly discuss all of this and move our society forward towards harmony and reconciliation. Both Jews and gentiles would benefit from such a discourse. But Britain is an occupied zone and for more than a while. It is invaded by fear and dominated by the politics of fear. This type of politics, when it appears in other countries, is called ‘terror,’ ‘fascism,’ ‘authoritarianism,’ ‘totalitarianism,’ and ‘tyrannical conditions.’ Maybe time is overdue for Jews and Goyim alike to decide if these are the conditions they want to live in.
Thanks for supporting Gilad’s battle for truth and justice.
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