“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.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Before They Preach to us about White Privilege

 AUGUST 13, 2021 

BY GILAD ATZMON

Stanford University study reveals: “Some 80% of (Jews of colour) respondents said that they had ‘experienced discrimination’ within Jewish settings, including synagogues, congregations, and Jewish spiritual communities.”

By Gilad Atzmon

 People who are familiar with the history of Zionism are aware of the rich history of White Jewish (AKA Ashkenazi) abuse towards Arab and Sephardi Jews in Israel. In the years after the creation of the Israeli state hundreds of babies went missing. Their parents, mostly Jewish immigrants from Yemen, were told their children had died, but suspicions linger that they were secretly given away to White Jewish childless families. The Israeli government approved earlier this year a NIS162 million settlement with the families of these ‘vanishing’ children.

Volunteering the Israeli population as guinea pigs wasn’t invented by Netanyahu or/and Pfizer. Blood samples drawn from Yemenites Jews in the 1950s were tested to determine whether they had “Negro blood.” According to the Times of Israel “60 hearts were harvested from the bodies of new immigrants from Yemen post-mortem for purposes of medical research, in a project purportedly funded by the US.” Also in the same period, the Jewish state irradiated children who arrived from North Africa and the Middle East en masse in an attempt to fight ringworm. In the years to follow many of these children died from cancer. In 1995 the Israeli government decided to compensate the victims and families of the Ringworm Affair.

In the late 1950-1960s Jewish immigrants from Morocco were sprayed with DDT as soon as their feet touched the ‘promised land.’ For them, this bitter departure was merely an introduction to decades of abuse and humiliation that is still taking place.

It took the Israeli Government more than a few decades to lift its 1977 ban preventing Jews from Ethiopia donating blood.  This late immigration wave of African Jews sent their children to serve in the army and to die for Israel but apparently their blood wasn’t as good as their fellow Israelis.

The Yemenites, Moroccans and Ethiopians have something in common. They are ‘Jews of colour,’ not exactly the most privileged Jews in Israel. Just slightly above the Palestinians and the African non-Jewish immigrants.  Some anti-Zionists may insist that this is exactly what we should expect from a racist criminal State. However, the fate of American Jews of colour isn’t any better, in fact it is far worse.

The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday on a study conducted by researchers at Stanford University that delved into the experiences of American Jews of Color. The new report titled Beyond the Count revealed large and systemic discrimination and scrutinization based on race in the Jewish Society.

The data was gathered at Stanford University by a multi-racial team of researchers, with over 1,118 respondents participating. It revealed that “Some 80% of respondents said that they had ‘experienced discrimination’ within Jewish settings, including synagogues, congregations, and Jewish spiritual communities.”

“Additionally, respondents indicated that they had previously experienced an increased sense of awareness regarding how others perceive them because of either their race or their Jewishness.” Some participants admitted they found it “more difficult for their identities to co-exist in predominantly white Jewish spaces than in Black indigenous people of color spaces.” Furthermore, 44% said they had changed how they dress or speak in white Jewish spaces, and 66% reported feeling “disconnected from their Jewish identities at times.”

I wouldn’t dare to ask Jews or anyone else to morph, to become more tolerant or harmonious, as that is not my task in life. I wouldn’t expect anyone who upholds racist and/or white supremacist views to change their spots. I just expect Jews in general and Jewish institutions (such as the ADL or AIPAC) in particular, to look in the mirror twice before they preach to us about ‘race’ in general or white privilege in particular.  

Donate

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

One Racism; One World

 2 Aug 2021

Source: Al Mayadeen

Bouthaina Shaaban

Any wrong or racist attitude may eclipse the truth for some time, but it cannot do so forever.

Syrian sculptor, Rami Wakkaf

When the black movement in the US raised the motto “Black Lives Matter”, after the killing of George Floyd, the rest of the world should have joined by raising the motto “human lives matter”. So many people in different countries in the world have forgotten that they belong to one human race and one human family, either due to the colors of their skins and eyes, or due to the advanced positions their countries have reached in different domains. Amidst the hard competition we witness among people in different areas, it may well suit some to discriminate against others and belittle their achievements in order to get them out of their way. Athletes competing for medals are perhaps the most exposed to this kind of racism, which lately started to infect unusual territories, such as education and art, which until recently were thought to be totally safe from such practices. 

As London Art Biennale is a huge landmark for artists from all over the world, it is important to relate here to our dear readers an important incident that has taken place in 2021 London Art Biennale. The Syrian sculptor, Rami Wakkaf, responded to the invitation to participate in this Biennale by sending two of his works, which were very well received and bought almost immediately by the Biennale. Accordingly, he applied for a visa to attend the event, but of course he was not granted a visa because he is Syrian. 

After waiting patiently for the art judges, Rami was told that one of his works has got the prize for the best sculpture in the Biennale. Of course, he was very happy and excited and put the happy item on his Facebook and received congratulations and requests for media interviews. 

The next day, and perhaps after the Committee was reminded that he is Syrian, and no need to say that Syria is subjected to coercive US measures, he received a second email, which read that “the vote was very close, and during the jury recount, the artwork by Jason Briggs won that particular prize by one vote,” expressing sincere apologies for the mistake. 

Is it possible that the first email, which was sent to inform Rami Wakkaf that his work won the first prize, was sent before the final counting of the votes and before a final decision was made by the committee to choose this work? There is no doubt that the works of Rami Wakkaf would outlive the Committee’s decision and would receive the attention and celebration they are worthy of. 

Any wrong or racist attitude may eclipse the truth for some time, but it cannot do so forever. Racism is the antithesis of everything human, creative, and exceptional. 

It is the tool of those who fail to achieve and to appreciate the excellence of the achievements of others, and always for the wrong reasons. 

People in our region never used to believe that such things may happen in a Western country as they have an exaggerated idea of the absolute moral behavior of the West. But as means of communication are bridging distances, the truth is closer at hand. 

The West cannot indulge in racist practices, whilst keeping its moral superiority or its claims that it provides criteria for human behavior and ethics. It has to choose one or the other, or the choice will be made anyway. 

The opinions mentioned in this article do not necessarily reflect the opinion of Al mayadeen, but rather express the opinion of its writer exclusively.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

The Democracy vs. Freedom Dispute

July 1, 2021 

by Lawrence Davidson

Part I—Democracy and Freedom

In the United States, there is a dispute over whether democracy and freedom are compatible. Some, such as Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, have questioned their compatibility, and even asserted that freedom, rather than democracy, is what the U.S. really stands for. These terms are often used out of context and the dispute often suffers from a lack of historical knowledge, but there is nothing surprising about that. 

Most of the men who put together the U.S. Constitution saw the world in class, racial and gender terms. While they wanted a more democratic government than that in England which, for propaganda purposes, they had portrayed as a tyranny, the new American democracy had to be carefully structured. Here is how this translated from theory into practice: the common man’s passions should be held in check by a system that kept the power to make policy in the hands of those white males who had “a material stake in society”—that is, the propertied class. For large segments of the population democracy was to be denied due to both gender and color. 

Only a relative few of these men were thinking about freedom per se. And those who did, certainly did not define it in open-ended libertarian terms. Indeed, in late 18th century America, freedom came in two flavors: (1) first and foremost, the freedom from “unreasonable” taxation. What is unreasonable in this sense, would be argued about incessantly right up into the present. (2) Protection against the abuse of government power. The notion of abuse was directly connected to a) examples of alleged British excesses leading up to the American Revolution and b) Federalist party practices (when in power) like the suppression of critical newspapers and pamphlets. It is to cover a host of these sorts of issues, collectively posited as the protection of individual rights or freedoms, that Jefferson and Madison insisted a bill of rights be added to the Constitution as its first set of amendments. Once this was accomplished (December 1791) America’s democracy and a constitutional list of protected rights/freedoms, became compatible. 

Part II—Getting Things Wrong 

Now we fast forward to the present and Republican Senator Rand Paul, who was recently quoted in the New York Times as follows: “The idea of democracy and majority rule really is what goes against our history and what the country stands for [which is freedom]. The Jim Crow laws came out of democracy. That’s what you get when a majority ignores the rights of others.” He goes on to connect Republican Party opposition to a bipartisan congressional investigation of the January 6 “protest” (it was really an attempted insurrection) with the right of the political minority to protect itself against the majority. All of this is ahistorical and illogical. 

When taking up Paul’s position there are several points to consider:

First: Historical accuracy. Paul seems confused about the status of majority and minority when it comes to freed slaves in the American South at the time Congress abandoned Reconstruction (March 1877). At this time, the Black population in large parts of the rural South constituted the numerical majority. So, the Jim Crow laws that quickly followed were the products of a local political/racial minority (southern Whites) seeking to suppress the newly won rights of their local majorities (southern Blacks). Thus, Paul has his facts backwards. He might have made this mistake because he thinks that the American Black population has been a minority at all times and in all places throughout the country’s history. Yet here we have an important exception—an exception that challenges the senator’s argument that discriminatory behavior principally has its source with oppressive majorities.

Today, if Senator Paul is looking for a minority in need of protection, he should focus on contemporary southern Blacks (who are now indeed a minority both in size and power.) They are now faced with a white Republican Party in control of state legislatures seeking to suppress the voting access of minorities.

Second. Paul seems not to take into consideration that the American majority has grown and diversified. In other words, when it comes to what the government (local, state and federal) cannot do to you (like suppress your voting rights)—the you have steadily grown larger. Theoretically this should bode ill for the rightwing state legislatures mentioned above. It is unclear how Senator Paul personally feels about this (such narrowing of the election laws has not taken place in his home state of Kentucky), but he is an active member of the Republican Party, and that is party playing fast and loose with the voting laws in a host of southern and mid-western states. Why is the Republican Party doing this? Because a growing and diversifying majority creates a growing number of voters and most come from Black and other non-white segments of the population. Exercising their participatory political rights, they tend to vote Democrat. 

Third. The constitutionally protected rights or freedoms are not open-ended. Yet Paul seems to suggest that they are when he asserts that to protect the Republican minority in the Senate, the party can block a bipartisan investigation of the January 6 insurrection. On the one hand, it is quite true that the bill of rights was designed as, and remains, a necessary defense of individual rights from majority demands for political or cultural uniformity. On the other, one can ask, what is Paul and the Republicans trying to protect their party from? The bill of rights does not, and never was supposed to stifle investigation of criminal acts. The only thing the bill of rights does in this regard is to guard the individual against illegal evidence gathering procedures and other abusive practices on the part of law enforcement.

Part III—Misusing the Bill of Rights

Against this background, how are we to understand Paul’s specific application of minority rights? At the very least, we can understand it as a misinterpretation of the purpose and intent of the bill of rights and the protections it offers individual citizens. In other words, he is defending his party’s refusal to allow a bipartisan investigation of an apparent crime—a crime with potentially embarrassing trail of evidence.

The Republican Party and its conspiracy-spinning allies in the press and social media (whose speech is nonetheless protected) essentially created an alternate reality for millions of Americans that led some of them to insurrection. Despite many evidence-based demonstrations to the contrary, millions have bought into the myth that former President Donald Trump was cheated—and thus they, his supporters, were also cheated—out of victory in the 2020 presidential election. While both the Republicans and their supporters may believe the unbelievable—aver the demonstrably false—they have no right under the Constitution and its bill of rights to express such a delusion by going on a rampage, destroying public property, and attacking public officials. They have no protected right—no “freedom” to do this even if they claim, probably truthfully, that they believed the president told them to do it. 

Taking the next step, what is the real-world consequence of Paul’s defense? Well, given the likelihood that the investigation would connect elements of the Republican Party to the actions of the insurrectionists, this must be seen as self-serving obstruction of justice—itself a crime. For Paul, this is the “freedom” that—conveniently—supersedes democracy. 

Finally, the whole affair is a scary example of a paradox: The protection of speech, that is the right to free speech, can  degenerate into a campaign of lies and this can easily lead people to unprotected, that is criminal, actions. This is, admittedly, a downside of the bill of rights. An individual (and keep in mind that under U.S. law corporations are seen as individuals) has a protected right to lie to the public—to wit: broadcasted fantasies ranging from those of the National Inquirer to Fox TV and, lest we forget, Donald Trump.

Part IV—Conclusion

It is worth repeating that one of the positive things about the political evolution of the United States is that it has expanded the ranks of the participatory majority. In political terms, citizens of all genders and races now have both participatory rights and protected individual rights. Correspondingly, the minority—referring here specifically to those who object to this historical expansion—is slowly shrinking. While the latter’s rights to, say free speech, will remain protected, their ability to retain political and cultural power may well diminish over time. There is no doubt that the Republican leadership has a sense of this possibility, and this accounts for their increasingly fierce and frenzied attempts to turn back the clock. 

The shift of emphasis from an expanding democracy with protected individual rights/freedoms, to a dangerously ad hoc and sometimes illogical version of freedom, is part of that frenzied activity. Senator Paul and his friends, very short on historical facts and judgment, want all of us to believe in the absurd. That is, obstruction of justice in the name of minority rights is “what the country stands for.”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

The American Left, the Jewish Question and the Repetition Compulsion

JUNE 02, 2021 BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon 

A few days ago, Ynet (the biggest Israeli media outlet) reported that the American progressive movement has come to acknowledge the problematic role of its Jewish elements. The Israeli outlet revealed that in the eyes of emerging progressive circles within the American left, Jews are perceived as “white oppressors” at the core of America’s social injustice. The Ynet report is based on a recent study made by Dafna Kaufman, an analyst at the Israeli Reut institute.

“The contemporary discourse of the American left divides society into (identitarian) squares: you are either with us or against us – and the Jews are left out.” Ynet sums up Kaufman’s argument. “Although the vast majority of American Jews support the Democratic Party, progressive circles no longer really allow Jews to be part of the struggle for social change, as long as they continue to be pro-Zionist and actively express their Jewishness.”  You may have already noticed that the Israeli outlet doesn’t refer solely to ‘Zionists’ as most Palestinian solidarity campaigners do out of fear of the ‘Jews in their movement.’  The Israeli news outlet refers to ‘Jews,’ ‘Jewishness’ and also to ‘Zionists’ as an integral organic spectrum of Jewish life, culture, identity and politics.   

Ynet stresses that the American Left has developed an intolerance towards Jewish politics and Jewish identitarianism. “The report further indicates that the radical progressive faction contributes to the growing exclusion of Jewish community organizations from the American left by denying Jews the right to complain about their discrimination or anti-Semitism.” Ynet quotes Kaufman’s report, “Jews are being identified as strong white oppressors, and so is the State of Israel.”

Ynet asks, ‘can I be white, Jewish, liberal and Democrat?’ Kaufman answers “Of course you can be, but some of your rights are pretty much revoked. You can be an ally in social struggles, but you can’t be at the center of the issue.” I guess that what Kaufman is telling us here is that you can be a ‘Jew’ and a ‘Lefty’ but your role as controlled opposition might have come to an end.

Ynet stresses that “it is important to remember that Jews have made progress in American society through the establishment, and this is a significant part of the influence of Jews on the United States, yet the progressive movement is very anti-establishment. Therefore, the conclusion is clearly that the Jews are the oppressive white. Of course, the real picture is more complex, but this binary division puts the Jews in certain boxes.”

The above Israeli discourse reminds me of an old Israeli joke:

An Israeli arrives at Heathrow. The immigration officer asks “occupation?”

“No” replies the Israeli, “just visiting.”

In the joke, the Israeli sees himself as an occupier, and also accepts being perceived as one, but most significantly, he is totally at ease with his role as an occupier. The British immigration officer is obviously blind to all of that, as he is engaged in routine questioning. He might even miss the joke. In the American reality as depicted by Ynet’s article, the progressives are awakening to the reality that has been openly inflicted on their movement by some powerful and loud lobbies, well-funded think tanks and pressure groups.  

The Jewish fear of anti-Semitism is exactly that moment of awakening, the tormenting thought that the immigration officer actually understands the joke and even allows himself to laugh loudly. This is exactly what the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan meant by  ‘the unconscious is the discourse of the other.’ It is the fear that the other sees you for what you are and even dares to share his/her thoughts about you with everyone else. Accordingly, if Jewish power is the power to silence criticism of Jewish power, then the fear of anti-Semitism is the tormenting thought that this power wanes off: the thought about people starting to call a spade a spade and even worse: leftists sticking to their principles of equality and justice. 

The other day, I asked a progressive member of my family to define history: “we learn about our past mistakes so we don’t repeat them in the future,” he cleverly said.  I corrected him slightly. ‘We learn about our past mistakes so we can understand our future mistakes within context.’  Delving into this complexity from a psychoanalytical perspective brings to light the notion of ‘Repetition Compulsion.’ Repetition Compulsion is often defined as a psychological phenomenon in which a human subject repeats an event or its circumstances over and over again. This entails putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to happen again. The concept of repetition compulsion was first introduced by Freud who pointed at a situation in which “the patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, he acts it out, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it …”

Yet, the Freudian concept fails to accurately describe the emerging dangerous circumstances as described by the Ynet article. As we know, self-identified Jews are fully aware of and actively identify with Jewish past suffering.   But, for one reason or another, some people do not learn from their past mistakes. They keep repeating the same mistakes and expect different outcomes.

Donate

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Palestinians in Chicago Defeat Extremist Pro-Israel Candidate in Local Elections

April 12, 2021

A protest in Chicago, calling on Sharon Brannigan to resign.(Photo: US Palestinian Community Network, via Twitter)

The Palestinian community in Chicago, Illinois, succeeded in defeating extremist right-wing and pro-Israel candidate, Sharon Brannigan, in the local election, news agencies reported yesterday.

According to news agencies, the Palestinian community mobilized other Arab communities and supporters of the Palestinian cause to take part in a campaign to ensure Brannigan does not win in the Palos Township Council of Chicago election race.

Brannigan is said to have carried out “many bigoted attacks on Arab Americans and other neighbors.”

Palestinians, Arabs, and their supporters participated in the campaign against Brannigan using the hashtag #ByeBrannigan.

Brannigan and the town’s board attempted to silence the community but they consistently failed, even after they hired a security company to bully protesters and call the Palos Hills police, leading to the arrests of five leaders of the movement, Fight Back news website reported.

Protesters were vindicated, however, when the judge deemed Brannigan’s testimony “contradictory”, dismissed the case, and “essentially affirmed the right of protestors to chant and challenge Brannigan and other trustees at the township meetings,” according to an October 2020 statement from the Arab American Action Network.

Incumbent Assessor Robert Maloney appeared to win with 62 percent of the unofficial vote, however, results reported by the Cook County clerk’s office last week are unofficial until certified and all mail-in and provisional ballots are counted. The canvass deadline is April 27.

(MEMO, PC, Social Media)

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Leaked: Smith College memo demands workers admit White privilege

 

Ramin Mazaheri  (@RaminMazaheri2) is currently covering the US elections. He is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’ as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.

March 02, 2021

by Ramin Mazaheri for the Saker Blog

As a daily reporter, columnist and author it seems I have developed a reputation for unparalleled bravery in exposing truths which the 1% want to keep hidden.

That is the only reason I can think of to explain why an anonymous whistleblower chose me to release this shocking internal memo from embattled Smith College.

The memo demands that their White workers, “admit to White privilege, and work on my so-called implicit bias as a condition of my continued employment”, to nick a phrase from a recently resigned employee of the school, Jodi Shaw.

A thorough recap of the Smith College saga (and the above quote) can be found by reading this article from The New York Times, “Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College”. To summarise: In 2018 an 18-year old Black female student at Smith College (which is part of the nation’s elite “Seven Sisters” historical women’s colleges) wrongly accused several White service workers of racism, “misgendering” and other threatening behaviors. The workers were later found innocent of all accusations, but they still lost their community standing, personal safety, privacy and socioeconomic well-being, and all without apology or compensation.

The case has remained in the American spotlight mainly because it serves as an example of fake-leftism run amok. In order to distinguish the real from the fake, I agreed to publish this leaked form which White Smith College employees must now sign in order to avoid another embarrassing incident.

—RM

From: Smith College Board of Trustees

To: White Smith College employees

Re: Work Sets You Free (sign or be fired)

We at Smith College are committed to providing these United States of America – excepting the states which swung for Donald Trump in either 2016 or 2020 – with the highest quality of education possible in order to create a more perfect and enlightened union.

This is why our annual tuition is set at $78,000 per year – in order to deny any sort of deplorable infiltration by the non-elite – be they financial, sexual, ethnic or ideological non-elite – into the upper echelon of American society.

Therefore I, the undersigned and guilty White defendant/employee, hereby agree with, consent to, and admit the following in order to continue my employment with Smith College:

By being White I benefit from “White privilege”.

Repeat and internalise the following:

“Whether I am a tenured professor who cannot be fired or a longtime janitor, as a White person we Whites are all the same. This is true in ideas, speech and – of course – looks.”

“I confirm that Whiteness is our only important socioeconomic characteristic. By being White we have undoubtedly reaped enormous financial and social benefits from being White.”

“Even if we are signing this pact from our single-wide trailer home while our neighbour is having yet another meth-induced psychotic episode, our Whiteness has always guaranteed prosperity and social success.”

“By being White I cannot possibly have an intelligent analysis of racial and social relations in the United States and/or beyond. I hereby swear to stop reading books as it will just confuse me further, due to my Whiteness.”

The White workers in the service sector who were falsely accused in this case by must additionally admit: “My experience being falsely accused, dismissed from work, socially harassed and/or unfairly shunned has no bearing on anything at all, nor should it, because these problems happened to a White person.”

By being White I have an implicit bias.

Among White people an implicit bias is universal. It includes but is not limited to: White supremacism, Nazism, the supremacy of Whites, race-based totalitarianism, White supremacy and the Confederacy.

Smith College is in Massachusetts, but any service sector worker whose ancestors died for the North in the Civil War must still admit their bias in favor the defeated Confederate States of America who killed their ancestor.

Being non-White means never having to say you are sorry.

The 18-year old Black student who accused our uppity hired help was not at all just another overdramatic, socially brutal and self-centered 18-year old for the following reason: she was Black.

Also: because she was a “she”. Smith College trustees fully support #MeToo’s “Believe all women” motto, yet we even more strongly support, “Believe all rich liberal arts college students”.

In fact, Smith College – a hallowed, 145-year American institution – has always had the same motto: “The customer is always right.” Thus we commend The New York Times for accurately reporting that we have lived up to that very demanding slogan: “We used to joke, don’t let a rich student report you, because if you do, you’re gone,” said Mark Patenaude, a janitor.” We proudly note that Smith College gives as many as six scholarships to non-rich students over every three-year period.

Smith College will immediately implement the following, as relayed by The New York Times: “…the creation of dormitories — as demanded by (the accusing student) and her A.C.L.U. lawyer — set aside for Black students and other students of color.” Smith College employees must ignore complaints from Smith College students who find a cross burning in front of their dorm room in order to expedite this “re-segregation” plan.

Being White means you are an obstacle to any and every “social justice mission”.

We hold such a truth to be self-evident in enlightened 21st century America, where – with the recent restoration of Joe Biden – a true leftism now reigns supreme. It is one which must be ruthlessly implemented in all non-American nations.

This is why we denounce The New York Times’ introduction of pernicious class warfare – which is not at all acceptable in “leftism with American characteristics” – and so very, very early in their article: By relaying the following intellectual concept proposed in the 61st paragraph of a 66-paragraph article (and from someone from the untouchable janitor class, no less!), all Smith College employees are now banned from talking to The New York Times.

“He (Patenaude) recalled going through one training session after another in race and intersectionality at Smith. He said it left workers cynical. (Editor’s note: such classes were not for teaching faculty but only for workers.) “I don’t know if I believe in white privilege,” he said. “I believe in money privilege.”

This worker will soon be fired for suggesting that economic class is even close to being as important as race, gender, sexuality, religion, ableness, handedness, hair color, height, weight, eye color, favourite sports team or shoe size in modern American society.

And to prove there is no “money privilege” at Smith College: White Smith College service sector workers who additionally pay the $78,000 yearly tuition are hereby exonerated from signing this agreement.

Your signature here _______________________________

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

America’s Demise Is Near At Hand January 18, 2021 by Paul Craig Roberts reposted on the Saker by permission source: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/01/18/america-r-i-p-2/ For years I have been cataloging America’s decline into collapse, not merely economic collapse from economic concentration and the offshoring of jobs and investment, but also the collapse of the belief system that created some unity among a diverse population. Today not only is the economy done for but so is the belief system that sustained social and political stability. America no longer exists. A geographical entity exists of diverse peoples and interests, but not a country, much less a nation. The United States itself has degenerated into an empire. It is no longer simply a country with an empire. The 50 states are themselves the Establishment’s empire, and it can only be held together by force. Earlier in my life, free speech was used by liberals to legalize pornography, homosexual marriage, and abortion, all of which were opposed by the majority of the population. This did not stop liberals from imposing their agendas on the people. Today free speech is impermissible, because it can be used to protest what half of the population sincerely believes was a stolen presidential election. Even attorneys and legal firms that brought legitimate cases of electoral fraud for clients are being punished for doing the ordinary work of attorneys. The same is happening to university professors and to average Americans who exercised their Constitutionally protected right of free speech and association and attended the Trump rally. See for example: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/01/18/americans-no-longer-live-in-a-free-society/ In America today, free speech can only be exercised in narrow and controlled channels. It can be used to demonize President Trump and his supporters as “enemies of democracy.” It can be used to demonize white people as “systemic racists” and “white supremacists,” and to demonize heterosexual white males as “misogynists.” Its one other use is to demonize countries—Russia, China, and Iran—that stand in the way of Washington’s hegemony. There are no other permissible uses of free speech today in the United States, an inappropriate name of the country as the country has been throughly disunited by Identity Politics and a presidential election widely perceived by voters to have been stolen. I have provided for my readers a massive, but only partial, list of evidence of a stolen election. See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/01/15/dont-fall-for-the-establishments-tall-tales-there-was-no-violent-assault-on-the-capitol-and-there-is-abundant-evidence-of-electoral-fraud/ But a simple question suffices: If the election was not stolen, why is it impermissible to raise the question? Explanations that are off limits to investigation and public discussion are unlikely to be true. The reason they are off limits is because they cannot withstand examination. You don’t have to go back far in time to get a long list: Assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Waco, Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, Assayd’s use of chemical weapons, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russiagate, 2020 electoral fraud, January 6 Trump Insurrection. And, yes, I left out some, but the point stands without them. A country in which explanations are controlled is a country in which people live in lies. In America and Western civilization generally, the concept of objective truth has essentially been destroyed, especially in educational and communication institutions. Throughout the Western World the basis of truth has been shifted from evidence to emotion. Emotion has become the important evidence. Objective truth is dismissed as a construct that serves white males. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/12/23/on-truth/ In America today everything is aligned against the white heterosexual population. The Democrat left, universities, and media are aligned with race and gender victims of alleged white racism and transphobia. Kristen Clarke has been appointed to the Justice (sic) Department to ensure that employment and promotion policies are aligned with race and gender victims. https://www.rt.com/usa/512341-civil-rights-pick-racism/ Immigration policy is aligned against white Americans. Powerless as a majority, white Americans have no future as a minority. https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-immediately-send-congress-bill-would-offer-citizenship-11-million-illegals?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter Also: https://www.rt.com/usa/512765-migrant-caravan-biden-policy/ Even if white Americans could escape their insouciance and realize that their country is being taken away from them, they are powerless to do anything about it. With the new domestic terrorism bill on the way, even a protest against dispossession is criminalized as sedition. There are many interesting aspects of the situation that we could explore. But let’s take only one. The Biden regime seems to be filling up with neoconservative zionists who are agents of Washington and Israel’s hegemony. The pursuit of this hegemony involves conflict with Russia, China, and Iran. Washington will be entering these conflicts with a collapsed economy and a sharpely divided population. Will the real backbone of the American armed forces—Trump deplorables—fight for an Establishment that hates its guts? Will an economy drowning in debt and destroyed by corporate offshoring of investment and American middle class jobs and now by lockdowns that are destroying the remaining pieces of the middle class—small businesses—be able to sustain a conflict with nations more unified and free of external debt and unmanageable internal debt? If so, it will be the first time in history. How long will Trump deplorables remain docile when they realize that they are being exterminated by being cut off from equal rights, constitutional protection, employment and avenues of success? As for the Establishment itself, when will its arrogance and confidence be shaken by the realization that it cannot control the anti-white, anti-American ideologues it has created and is itself facing the situation faced by Kerensky, the Brownshirts, and the Chinese Communist Party when Mao unleashed the cultural revolution? Having empowered hatred and having let it out of the bottle, the Establishment itself will be destroyed by it. Who will the Establishment appeal to when the revolution turns on them? What answer will the Establishment have when they are asked the question Bolsheviks put to Kerensky: “Who chose you?”

January 18, 2021

by Paul Craig Roberts reposted on the Saker by permission

source:  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/01/18/america-r-i-p-2/

For years I have been cataloging America’s decline into collapse, not merely economic collapse from economic concentration and the offshoring of jobs and investment, but also the collapse of the belief system that created some unity among a diverse population.  Today not only is the economy done for but so is the belief system that sustained social and political stability.

America no longer exists.  A geographical entity exists of diverse peoples and interests, but not a country, much less a nation.  The United States itself has degenerated into an empire.  It is no longer simply a country with an empire.  The 50 states are themselves the Establishment’s empire, and it can only be held together by force.

Earlier in my life, free speech was used by liberals to legalize pornography, homosexual marriage, and abortion, all of which were opposed by the majority of the population.  This did not stop liberals from imposing their agendas on the people.

Today free speech is impermissible, because it can be used to protest what half of the population sincerely believes was a stolen presidential election.  Even attorneys and legal firms that brought legitimate cases of electoral fraud for clients are being punished for doing the ordinary work of attorneys.  The same is happening to university professors and to average Americans who exercised their Constitutionally protected right of free speech and association and attended the Trump rally. See for example:  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/01/18/americans-no-longer-live-in-a-free-society/

In America today, free speech can only be exercised in narrow and controlled channels.  It can be used to demonize President Trump and his supporters as “enemies of democracy.”  It can be used to demonize white people as “systemic racists” and “white supremacists,” and to demonize heterosexual white males as “misogynists.”  Its one other use is to demonize countries—Russia, China, and Iran—that stand in the way of Washington’s hegemony.  There are no other permissible uses of free speech today in the United States, an inappropriate name of the country as the country has been throughly disunited by Identity Politics and a presidential election widely perceived by voters to have been stolen.

I have provided for my readers a massive, but only partial, list of evidence of a stolen election.  See: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2021/01/15/dont-fall-for-the-establishments-tall-tales-there-was-no-violent-assault-on-the-capitol-and-there-is-abundant-evidence-of-electoral-fraud/

But a simple question suffices:  If the election was not stolen, why is it impermissible to  raise the question?  Explanations that are off limits to investigation and public discussion are unlikely to be true.  The reason they are off limits is because they cannot withstand examination. You don’t have to go back far in time to get a long list:  Assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, Waco, Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11, Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, Iranian nukes, Assayd’s use of chemical weapons, Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russiagate, 2020 electoral fraud, January 6 Trump Insurrection.  And, yes, I left out some, but the point stands without them.  A country in which explanations are controlled is a country in which people live in lies.

In America and Western civilization generally, the concept of objective truth has essentially been destroyed, especially in educational and communication institutions. Throughout the Western World the basis of truth has been shifted from evidence to emotion.  Emotion has become the important evidence.  Objective truth is dismissed as a construct that serves white males.  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2020/12/23/on-truth/

In America today everything is aligned against the white heterosexual population.  The Democrat left, universities, and media are aligned with race and gender victims of alleged white racism and transphobia.  Kristen Clarke has been appointed to the Justice (sic) Department to ensure that employment and promotion policies are aligned with race and gender victims. https://www.rt.com/usa/512341-civil-rights-pick-racism/

Immigration policy is aligned against white Americans. Powerless as a majority, white Americans have no future as a minority.  

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-immediately-send-congress-bill-would-offer-citizenship-11-million-illegals?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter   

Also: https://www.rt.com/usa/512765-migrant-caravan-biden-policy/

Even if white Americans could escape their insouciance and realize that their country is being taken away from them, they are powerless to do anything about it. With the new domestic terrorism bill on the way, even a protest against dispossession is criminalized as sedition.

There are many interesting aspects of the situation that we could explore.  But let’s take only one.  The Biden regime seems to be filling up with neoconservative zionists who are agents of Washington and Israel’s hegemony.  The pursuit of this hegemony involves conflict with Russia, China, and Iran.

Washington will be entering these conflicts with a collapsed economy and a sharpely divided population.  Will the real backbone of the American armed forces—Trump deplorables—fight for an Establishment that hates its guts?  Will an economy drowning in debt and destroyed by corporate offshoring of investment and American middle class jobs and now by lockdowns that are destroying the remaining pieces of the middle class—small businesses—be able to sustain a conflict with nations more unified and free of external debt and unmanageable internal debt?  If so, it will be the first time in history.

How long will Trump deplorables remain docile when they realize that they are being exterminated by being cut off from equal rights, constitutional protection, employment and avenues of success?

As for the Establishment itself, when will its arrogance and confidence be shaken by the realization that it cannot control the anti-white, anti-American ideologues it has created and is itself facing the situation faced by Kerensky, the Brownshirts, and the Chinese Communist Party when Mao unleashed the cultural revolution?  Having empowered hatred and having let it out of the bottle, the Establishment itself will be destroyed by it.

Who will the Establishment appeal to when the revolution turns on them?  What answer will the Establishment have when they are asked the question Bolsheviks put to Kerensky:  “Who chose you?”

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

‘Times are a Changing’: Launch of Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace & Justice Project

 

British politician Jeremy Corbyn. (Photo: File)

By Ronnie Kasrils

I salute Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace & Justice initiative which could not be more timely, and I am proud to be part of it.

We live in troubled times: the raging pandemic, rise of neo-fascist forces; the rapacious neoliberal global system.

For so many, survival against war, police brutality, starvation, disease, collapsing economies, refugee camps, is the stark reality.

All of this is compounded by the climate crisis; environmental pollution; collapse of food and water security.

The pandemic has exposed to the light of day too often hidden or denied chasms of inequality both within and between nations and peoples around the world — both in the disproportionate impact on the poorest, most vulnerable, people of color, in getting the virus, and especially in the inequities of access to the vaccine.

The rich grow obscenely richer, the poor grow poorer. Less than one percent owning more than half the world’s population.

Yet “the times are a changing”; Bob Dylan sang at the time of the civil rights and anti-colonial liberation struggles; and the melody continues to rhyme with history – reflected to this day by the pressure of billions across the planet demanding a better life.

Two centuries ago the poet Shelley wrote in the wake of the Peterloo massacre “you are the many they are the few”.

Not long after, Marx and Engels pointed to the consequences of the increasing concentration of the means of production and wealth in fewer and fewer hands. Then, as now, the challenge was to understand the world in order to change it.

To do that we must not ignore the repercussions of colonial conquest as a prelude to the rise of the capitalist era.

The hangover of that colonial past exists: in power relations between peoples and nations; between global north and south; in the neo-colonial masquerade of the Bolsonaro’s, Modi’s and El Sisi’s trying to subvert progress.

Progress such as the Black Lives Matter movement, which is energized not only by revolt against police crimes but to overturn the weight and consequence of centuries of slavery, white supremacy and inequality.

Struggle for change, as ever, requires an understanding of the material conditions of political and economic life, to avoid reductionism into identity politics and racial or gender essentialism, at the expense of class-conscious clarity.

Likewise, loser Trump’s rage and the mob that attacked the Capitol building are a consequence of America’s past, and symptomatic of the frustration of white supremacists whose psychosis, as in the 1930s, is stoked by demagogues.

Enormous irony is seen in the double standards of the “Free World”. On the one hand: unbelievable shock that the USA’s seat of democracy has been assaulted. On the other: the sanguine promotion of military intervention, neo-colonial coups, punitive sanctions abroad in the name of that democracy.

To control the Middle East, Israel – a colonizing project – receives massive US military and financial aid. Disregard for Palestinian rights is reflected in Trump’s Deal of the Century and the so-called “normalization” between Israel and corrupt Arab fiefdoms.

If Biden is to commit to democracy, he must quit the double standards of previous administrations and apply the visions of a Franklin D Roosevelt and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Biden needs to apply and significantly extend a “New Deal” project which in FDR’s day cut black Americans short; he must commit to world peace in recognition of the national and human rights of all peoples; uphold international law under the writ of the United Nations – an institution whose authority the US has systematically undermined.

And as King’s birthday is commemorated this weekend, Biden needs to note King’s most important speech – “Beyond Vietnam” which described the US government as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world”, and crucially identified the three interlocking evils that must be challenged – systemic racism, poverty, and militarism.

For the Corbyn Project to succeed it must become an international champion, furthering both FDR and King’s visions – and connect with movements for peace and justice throughout the world.

From the multitude that filled the streets opposing the invasion of Iraq, to the Arab Spring and BLM rebellion; waves of protest are signaling a new dawn. In India alone, over 250 million participated in strikes and protests last year. We must spare no effort in making this rising tsunami unstoppable.

And if we wish to talk about courage under fire, note the men, women and children of Palestine, facing the bombs and bullets of the Israeli Defense Force in their peaceful protests, refusing to submit.

Like others around the world, we South Africans have developed a vibrant civil society, with grassroots movements, encouraging our and all governments to act decisively in tackling the fault lines of the 21st Century, as we did in the struggle against Apartheid in the previous century:

For people’s involvement in the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccine and global vaccine equality;

For the protection of the eco-system and food security through a Climate Justice Charter and Global Food Sovereignty Agenda;

For a global anti-racist, anti-war, pro-peace platform. Together we must defeat a second coming of fascism – for in Berthold Brecht’s words (referring a system, not the gender) – “The beast is on heat again.”

No Pasaran! They shall not pass. This is a time when, in Seamus Heaney’s words, “hope and history rhyme.” Through people’s power, in unity, action, and international solidarity, we will win. For people and the planet. For the many, not the few!

– Ronnie Kasrils, veteran of the anti-apartheid struggle, and South Africa’s former Minister for Intelligence Services, activist and author. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!