#palestinians are our cousins not our enemies

[handmedownpocketpussy]

You know how white people use being scared as a weapon? All those videos of white women saying, "I called the cops because I felt like I was in danger" and how white guys have tiktoks about, "You need at least one semi automatic weapon close at hand at all times to defend your family" kinda shit?

That's what bothers me so much about watching fellow jews acting like just seeing a Palestinian flag or keffiyeh somehow automatically makes a place unsafe.

I mostly see it in US American jews posting about how they feel threatened by a Palestinian flag, or saying that anything referencing not wanting thousands and thousands of Palestinians to die is 'a call for jewish genocide'

Y'all. No. This tells me you have never interacted with a Palestinian or even the Muslim community at large. We diaspora Jews are not the victims here.

Your assimilation has ended on the path of weaponisation of your fears, which is not a great place to be.

If you honestly believe "The only safe place in the world for Jews is Israel" you've bought into someone fearmongering. I'm begging you to investigate why you bought that lie and who is benefiting from you buying it

#I'm tired of thinking i've found jewish community only to find people who are blinded by their unfounded fears and taught to hate #palestinians are our cousins not our enemies #jumblr #i've been blocked a lot so I doubt people who need to read this will see it but I will continue sending this message #is there antisemitism? you bet your ass! #however if you think saying palestinians shouldn't die and should have their state recognised is a antisemitic you've drunk the koolaid

[theculturedmarxist]

Yves here. You are getting a Sunday extra on the conflict in Gaza and where it looks set to be headed, given Hamas’ apparent strategy, the dug in position of the US and Israel, and the so far on-track behavior of the Arab world.

John Helmer’s post clinically and persuasively draws conclusions that most commentators, including yours truly, have been loath to state clearly, perhaps because depicting the likelihood of bad outcomes somehow feels as if it increases the odds they come to pass (magical thinking cults and their lesser “intention” cousins illustrate this superstitious tendency).

Even though the earlier part of Helmer’s analysis is based on known facts (at least if you’ve been paying attention), he adds critical information about the implications of even a shortish war with Israel’s neighbors on Israel, and the apparently-not-heretofore-reported sighting that China has naval vessels in the Persian Gulf that have anti-sub and anti-missile capabilities.

It’s not hard to conclude from Helmer’s depiction that with the US and Israel unwilling to accept a loss and the lack of any adults on “our team” mean the odds of eventual nuclear war are way too high.  And if you think Helmer is too pessimistic, listen to the section from Larry Johnson in the broadcast on Judge Napolitano with Ray McGovern. Starting at 11:40, Johnson describes how Pakistan has offered to send some of its nukes to Türkiye in case of a dustup with Israel.

By John Helmer, the longest continuously serving foreign correspondent in Russia, and the only western journalist to direct his own bureau independent of single national or commercial ties. Helmer has also been a professor of political science, and an advisor to government heads in Greece, the United States, and Asia. He is the first and only member of a US presidential administration (Jimmy Carter) to establish himself in Russia. Originally published at Dances with Bears

Preamble1.  Since 1943 the US and its European allies, including Germany (Olaf Scholz’s government, not Adolf Hitler’s), have aimed to liquidate the secular nationalist Arab leadership capable of co-existence with the West and a state for the Jewish people.

2.  In Palestine Hamas has studied seventy-five years of lessons on the impossibility of coordinating Arab state war in the defence of the Palestine part of the two-state solution.

3. For more than a year, therefore, Hamas has prepared in well-kept secret an offensive against Israel to achieve five objectives – the first to demonstrate how inferior the Israeli military is, how vulnerable, how incompetent their intelligence on the Arab world. This has been achieved by the initial attack of October 7.

4. The second Hamas objective has been to demonstrate the Israeli plan of ethnic cleansing of Gaza,  genocide against the Arabs, and incorporation of all Israeli-occupied territories in a single theocratic Zionist state —  Quod erat demonstrandum. The third objective is to hold out against the expected Israeli counterattack for long enough to activate the Hezbollah forces on the northern Lebanon front;  Syrian and Iranian forces on the eastern Golan front; and the West Bank Palestinians, including the Jordanian Palestinians; the latter’s targets will be US air and armoured land force bases in Jordan. So far, so good.

5. The final Hamas objectives are to compel the vacillating sheikhdoms to resist US pressure; limit oil and gas supplies to the enemy markets; prevent regional land base and air transit rights being activated in support of Israel — so far, so good. And lastly, the fifth objective, to engage the friendly nuclear powers – Russia, China – to deter, and if necessary combat US forces in the region and Israel’s threat to fire its nuclear weapons.

The rules of war 6.  These aren’t in the code of secular international humanitarian law referred to in the western media and by UN officials in support of Israel. Those rules were eliminated by the destruction of two generations of Arab leaders willing to abide by them. The war doctrine of Hamas does not concede that international law may dictate to or supersede Islamic law.  In parallel, the war doctrine of Israel is that Jewish and Israeli law supersedes every other.

This report is the most comprehensive record in English to date of the official Israel statements of genocide against the Gaza Palestinians in intention, policy and practice. Source:  https://ccrjustice.org/ In 1948, the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide expressly included in Article II “the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Forty years later, in 1988, the US Congress added two qualifiers to the provision in the US criminal code which defines genocide as a crime to be prosecuted if Americans commit it. This new US law declared genocide is “the specific intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group”. “Substantial part,” the statute now said, meant “a part of a group of such numerical significance that the destruction or loss of that part would cause the destruction of the group as a viable entity within the nation of which such group is a part.” So long as the genocidal Arab killer isn’t “specific” in intention and the part of the people attacked isn’t “substantial”, the killer is off the hook in the US criminal code.  This was a calculated US change to the crime of genocide. The US senator who drafted it and promoted it into law was Joseph Biden. For more, read The Jackals’ Wedding – page 14-18.

7. The Hamas offensive of October 7, OPERATION AL AQSA FLOOD ( عملية طوفان الأقصى,  amaliyyat ṭūfān al-ʾAqṣā), is, as its code name indicates and in the interpretation of Islamic law, lawful self-defence, and the killing of Israelis, including civilians, lawful according to the retribution doctrine of Qisas.  It’s clear there is a Koranic injunction against killing non-combatants, particularly children, the infirm, the old, and women.  When women are combatants, as they are in the kibbutzim, they lose their exemption; also children, if they are armed and trained. So, the evidence question is — how many children under the age of arms-bearing were killed at the border settlements on October 7? And how did they die – by Hamas directly, or in crossfire between Hamas and IDF?  The Israelis say one thing; Hamas says nothing.

8. It is clear the Israeli rules of war allow indiscriminate killing of children in offensive and defensive operations, in retribution and in collective punishment. No Palestinian Arab or Iranian is in any doubt that this has been Israeli policy from the beginning; that it has always been US policy to support it; and that the destruction of Gaza is the current episode of the long laid plan.

The two-state solution 9. Zionist ideology and Israel’s constitution have ruled out the two-state solution.

Source: https://perma.cc/9PZN-DJGY 

10. The Arab state supporters of the two-state solution (including Fatah and the Palestine National Authority) cannot support it when Gaza is being liquidated by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), supplied by the Pentagon.

11. President Joseph Biden’s (lead image) recent public remarks endorse Israel’s one-state solution, adding his personal religious benediction — “may God protect our troops”.    Until he said that, Biden had limited himself to invoking God’s protection of “our troops” in speeches on the Afghanistan  War in April 2021  and on the war against Russia in the Ukraine in February 2023.  Before Biden, it was President George Bush Jr. who claimed God on the US side when he meant self-defence – “we will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others and we will prevail. May God bless our country and all who defend her.”  With Biden the Christian, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken declaring himself Jewish in Israel,   the war of Israel against Gaza is a theocratic one, a crusade.  This is how it is understood now throughout the Muslim world.

12. According to God, therefore, there is only a one-state solution – it is either Palestine or Israel.

The current battlefield situation 13. On the Gaza front, Hamas has fought the IDF to a standstill outside the Gaza border wall. The Israel Air Force has dropped about 4,000 tonnes of bombs per week, 8,000 tonnes to October 21; that is more than the US Air Force dropped on Afghanistan in the peak year of 2019.   More than 3,500 Palestinians have been killed so far, including at least 1,030 children  and hundreds of family units; more than 12,500 people have been injured, one million Palestinians displaced, and thousands of homes destroyed. About 1,200 are missing believed to be trapped under the rubble. The Israeli and US government record, reported by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in Washington, documents the continuing firing from Gaza into Israeli territory in what the ISW calls its “Iran updates”.   A prolonged IDF siege threatens to kill several hundred thousand Palestinians by starvation, dehydration, disease, and a combination of artillery and aerial bombardment,  while leaving the Hamas forces relatively unscathed and waiting to inflict a higher rate of casualties on the IDF than it has ever experienced.

14. On the northern front across the Lebanon border, there have been exchanges of missile, drone, anti-tank rocket, artillery, and mortar fire between the IDF and Hezbollah. There have been casualties on both sides. Border settlements on the Israeli side have been evacuated to the south. For a summary of the ISW reports favouring Israel, read this;    For maps and summaries of military action as of October 20 on the Gaza and northern fronts, as well as the Golan and West Bank, click to open.

Incident map on the northern front between October 12 and 17; source:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/

15. US forces on the Jordan front. The Israeli press has been reporting some details of USAF reinforcements at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in the northeastern corner of Jordan and possible Marine deployments in Jordan.  Whether the Marines will be moved to defend the Al-Tanf base on the Syrian side of the border, 230 kilometres northeast of Muwaffaq Salti, isn’t known.

Top, right – the US airbase at Muwaffaq Salti; source: https://twitter.com/ According to an Israeli report, “a squadron of U.S. F-15E Strike Eagle bombers based in Britain was deployed over the weekend at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base east of the Jordanian capital of Amman. Another squadron of A-10 attack aircraft has also been deployed there.”  Bottom, the location of Al-Tanf in Syria across the Jordanian and Iraqi borders.

16. Russian and Chinese navy deployments. The Russian fleet based at Tartous, Syria, is at sea, as reported here.   At the moment, there are as many, possibly more Chinese vessels of the 44th Naval Escort Task Force in the Persian Gulf.   The anti-surface, anti-submarine, and anti-air missile capabilities of the Type-052D destroyer can be followed here,  and of the Type-054A frigate here.  For the time being, the significance of this Chinese screen to deter a US-Israeli missile and aircraft attack on Iran has been missed in the western press and by Russian military reporters.

Top:  https://russianfleetanalysis.blogspot.com/ Bottom: the Chinese Defense Ministry announcement of the arrival of the destroyer Zibo and frigate Jingzhou at Kuwait on October 19.  

Armageddon strategy 17. US Afghanistan War veteran: “Suppose Israel and the US understand they are facing an existential survival future in which they must combat swarm attacks on three or four fronts — Gaza/Hamas, North/Hezbollah, Golan/Syria/Iran, and West Bank/Jordan, and they calculate the Arabs have at least a 30 to 60–day arms supply in stock, do they calculate they can withstand a multi-front offensive for enough time, resupplied by air from the US? If they calculate that they can withstand a 30-day multi-directional swarm, they must understand that, at a minimum, Israel’s infrastructure and economy will be ruined. In a scenario like that, even if they ‘win’, they lose. In terms of airlifting and shipping supplies, we’ve already seen that the Arabs can hit Israeli military and civilian airfields, airports and seaports. Defending Israeli infrastructure with their air defence capability is the main mission of the strike groups the US is deploying in the eastern Mediterranean and in the Red Sea.

According to the Pentagon on October 19,  the USS Carney, a part of the USS Gerald Ford group, had transited into the Red Sea through the Suez Canal the day before and was in the northern Red Sea when it intercepted three land attack cruise missiles and several drones.

Western societies like Israel cannot function without solid, reliable, electrical power and communications services. We can be certain that power generation, transmission and distribution will be targeted by the Arabs non-stop. The cell towers and central communications centres will be too.”

18. Moscow source. “When does the threat to Israel become so dire, they go nuclear, and when they do, against what targets will they fire – Hamas, Beirut, Damascus, Teheran?*  The US won’t accept a Palestinian state so the only option left for the Palestinians, Arabs, Iranians, possibly Turks is to fight with this new kind of warfare whose objective is to cut into the flesh and bones of the Israeli adversary, and make life in that state unviable. Without a Palestinian homeland, all of Israel and the Arab territories become a battlefield. The IDF options then shrink to two – carpet bombing and mass killing of the civilian population centres on all fronts at once. If that isn’t sustainable or effective for the Israeli-American purpose, then option 2 is to attack Lebanon, Syria and Iran to stop the flow of reinforcements. But that’s regional war, and it can only be conducted by the Israelis with full US military participation. This becomes nuclear very quickly because President Putin has already placed the Kinzhal missiles in range of the US carrier fleet in the eastern Mediterranean, and the Chinese have installed their screen to protect Iran. It’s obvious that the race hatred policies of Biden and Netanyahu, and their belief that God has chosen them both as destroyers for their people, lead to the final, nuclear weapons solution. The Russians and Chinese can maximise their limited military projection by deterring, or if need be pre-empting a nuclear attack on the Arab cities or Teheran. For this to work, the Russians and the Chinese need to say more – loudly so there’s no mistaking what they mean.”

[*] In 1983, in conversation with his General Staff, Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein said: “the Iraqis would be able to withstand three years of fighting in a war. However, the Israelis cannot withstand one year of fighting in a war.” In April 1990 Hussein was hosting Yasser Arafat of the PLO in Baghdad. “[Israel] has 240 nuclear warheads, 12 out of them for each Arab capital,” Arafat said. Saddam replied: “I say this and I am very calm and wearing a civilian suit [everyone laughs]. But I say this so that we can get ready at this level.” Quoted in The Jackals’ Wedding, page 16.  

#israel palestine conflict #us imperialism #israel #palestine #china #russia #nuclear war #world war 3

[coralgreenroses]

My mind cannot comprehend the bravery of the Palestinians.

If you want to see the level of eeman, go and research about the people of palestine.

Now I am going to connect this with my own life.

Years ago, I used to watch an anime called Attack on Titan with my cousins. Highly impactful. Would recommend anyone to watch. 10/10.

A scene which is in my heart even to this day will be Commander Erwin Smiths Speech. If you have watched this, you can refresh your memory and for those who do not know, Ill post the contents below:

Commander Erwin Smith: I will now announce our final operation! All soldiers, line up! All units will now perform a mounted charge! Our objective is to rush the Beast Titan! Obviously, this will make us a perfect target for the enemy! We will observe and take into account the target's throws, then, we will all fire signal flares simultaneously! We'll do everything we can to reduce the accuracy of his attacks to whatever extent possible! While we act as a diversion, Captain Levi will take down the Beast Titan! That is all!

Nameless Soldier: (falls to her knees and voids her stomach's contents)

Erwin: Standing around here simply means waiting for rocks to come raining down on us! Now hurry up and get ready!

Floch Forrester: (Terrified out of his mind) Are we... about... to die?

Erwin: That's right.

Floch: So you're saying... if we're going to die anyway, we might as well die fighting?

Erwin: That's right.

Floch: No... if we're going to die anyway... we can die however we want... we could even die while disobeying orders... There's no meaning to any of it, is there...?

Erwin: That's absolutely right. It is all utterly meaningless. No matter what dreams or hopes you may have, no matter what kind of blissful life you've lived until now... what happens to your body when it gets shredded by a rock... is the same. All men die sooner or later. Does that mean all life is meaningless? Was there no purpose to any of us ever being born? And if so, would you say the same of our dead comrades? Were all of their lives... meaningless? NO, ABSOLUTELY NOT! IT IS UP TO US TO GIVE MEANING TO OUR COMRADES' DEATHS! THOSE BRAVE FALLEN MEN AND WOMEN! THOSE POOR FALLEN MEN AND WOMEN! THE ONLY ONES WHO ARE CAPABLE OF PAYING RESPECT TO THEM, ARE WE, THE LIVING! WE TOO SHALL ALL DIE HERE TODAY, AND ENTRUST THOSE NEXT IN LINE WITH THE SAME DUTY OF GIVING MEANING TO US! THAT IS THE SOLE WAY WE CAN OPPOSE THIS CRUEL WORLD! RAGE, MY SOLDIERS! SCREAM, MY SOLDIERS! FIGHT, MY SOLDIERS!!!

This Scene has my heart and soul.

Even though it wasnt from real life, my mind was captured by this scene.

Now I realise, this is what the Palestinians are going through. Fighting even thought death is inevitable. Do you realise what strength that takes? Lions. They are lions.

Their levels of eman makes me cry. And strengthens my hope.

May Allah swt give them victory.

Our hearts and soul is with Palestine.

The world has ended for them for years and yet they fight back.

You cannot destroy a nation protected by Allah swt.

Keep them in your prayers.

Never forget, we are one Ummah.

#Attackontitan #Erwinsmithspeech #CaptainErwinsmith #Palestine #Gaza #Muslim #Strength #Eman #muslim #Fightback #duaa #islam #OneUmmah #Prayers #Dua

[1americanconservative]

@persianjewess

Many of my aunts and uncles didn’t flee #Iran as quickly as my parents did. They were older. They had multiple children. And they had established lives with businesses and homes. In many ways, they were also hopeful. “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” they thought. They were wrong. Seemingly overnight, the #Jewish schools my cousins attended fell under a new administration. Jewish teachers were fired and replaced with radicals loyal to the Islamic Regime. Each day in class, my cousins - some as young as 5 - and all their Jewish classmates had to stand up and recite “Death to America!” “Death to Israel!” as part of their morning ritual. If a child didn’t scream these phrases loud enough to the satisfaction of their sadistic teachers, they were punished. Parents were interrogated. If their answers weren’t satisfactory, they were imprisoned as “Zionist spies.” So the Jewish children made sure to scream these calls for death as loud as they could, to save their parents the wrath of the goons of the IRGC. And then, right on the heels of the Islamic Revolution, came the Iran-Iraq War and with it, the indoctrination of child soldiers into martyrdom. The IRGC drafted young boys, some as young as 9 years old, for mine-sweeping and other suicide missions. The children were given plastic ‘keys to paradise’ and promised that they would go directly to heaven if they died as martyrs against the Iraqi enemy. 9 out of 10 Iranian child soldiers died. An estimated 95,000 child soldiers were sacrificed by the Iranian Regime. My oldest cousin was 14. My aunt and uncle, desperate to save their son, scraped together what money they had to hire smugglers to sneak him out of Iran. The journey would take 2 weeks, with zero communication, and fraught with danger. Thousands who sought to escape via the smugglers never made it to their destination: killed or captured along the way. Their bodies lost to the desert. But staying was certain death. And so they sent off my 14 year old cousin by himself, praying they would be one of the lucky ones who would receive a phone call from their son in two weeks time once he reached Pakistan. It would be years before my aunt and uncle would be reunited with my cousin again. Today, we see the same sickening disregard for human life being carried out by the Islamic Regime’s proxy: Hamas. Islam is distorted and perverted to indoctrinate children into martyrdom and terrorism. Islamic Jihad and murder for the sake of “Allah” is glorified. Democratic countries like the #USA and #Israel are vilified. Because Hamas doesn’t care for Palestinians. Hamas is no more than Iran’s puppet. And Iran’s end goal is not Palestinian statehood, but the spread of radical Islam via the destruction of democracy. Israel, the only bastion of democracy in the Middle East, is just the Islamic Regime’s first target. This was NEVER about land. This was ALWAYS about the destruction of western values. And the war is already on our shores, in our schools, and in every violent Pro-Hamas protest we see in the streets.

So WAKE UP AMERICA, It’s time to smell the Jihad. Before it’s too late.

[drmaqazi]

JEWISH TERRORISM & GENOCIDE OF PALESTINIANS IN THE OCCUPIED HOLY HAND SINCE 1948, AND STILL CONTINUING BY KILLING OF HELPLESS & INNOCENT CHILDREN, WOMEN AND OLD PEOPLE UNDER THE EYES OF IMPOTENT WORLD LEADERS, GOD FORBID, AMEN.

July 3, 2014, Rabbi Noam Perel, Head of the largest Orthodox Judaic youth movement, B’nei Akiva, calls for indiscriminate murder:

July 4, 2014, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Minsiter for Strategic Threats Moshe Ya’alon, and Chief of Israeli Central Command Major General Avi Mizrahi honor the racist Rabbi Dov Lior who endorsed the manual on killing gentiles, Torat Hamalech.

July 7, 2014, Israelis abducted and burned alive a teenager, Mohammed Abu Khedair, then ferociously beat his American cousin, Tariq Khdeir, visiting on holiday.

Warning: The videos are graphic.

After his cousin was abducted and burned alive by Israelis, Tariq Khdeir, an American, was ferociously beaten.

July 1, 2014, Jewish “Defense” League provokes French opponents of Israeli genocide in Gaza:

http://mauricepinay.blogspot.com/2014/07/video-of-jdl-provocateurcowards-at.html

July 14, 2014, Israeli Member of the Knesset for the “Jewish Home” party (and Justice  Minister since 2015) Ayelet Shaked stated that all Palestinian mothers should be killed so they do not raise any more “little snakes.”

“On Monday [June 30, 2014] Shaked quoted this on her Facebook page: ‘Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.’

‘They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists,’ said Shaked. Standing behind the operations on Gaza, ‘they are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists,’ Shaked added.

A day before Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khudair was kidnapped and burned alive [above] allegedly by six Israeli Jewish youths, Shaked published on Facebook a call for genocide of the Palestinians

Try watching this video on www.youtube.com,

[ammcgee-author]

219. Sorry, I was Assassinated <3

As Mark Twain once said, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” I’m not dead, yet, but trying to regroup and make some kind of sense out of the world around me.

In the old days, you could count being assassinated as an “occupational hazard” of being a Peacenik, an AntiWar Activist, or even holding a non-mainstream opinion. (Sort of like how losing an arm or getting sucked into a machine is an occupational hazard of working in a factory, dying in a fire is an occupational hazard of being a firefighter, getting shot is an occupational hazard of being a police officer; and having your whole family slaughtered in front of you is an occupation hazard of being a Palestinian journalist.) Just look at what they did to John Lennon, and more recently, the lead-singer of Audioslave, Chris Cornell.

My favorite half-baked conspiracy-theory is that he was assassinated for the AntiWar stance he took at his last concert. Although I know, that in reality, it’s just as likely he planned his suicide in advance; and wanted his last message to the world to be one of peace, love, and brotherhood.

I was never really much of a Soundgarden or Audioslave fan but I really liked their instrumental song “Night Surf," and of course “You Know My Name,” Chris Cornell’s Bond theme and one of my favorite 007 theme songs of all time! It’s worth noting that, although James Bond movies are fun and exciting action flicks, full of international intrigue and traditionally sexy women, they’re also composed of the most blatant pro-war propaganda; rivaled only by Disney/ABC’s Marvel Movies or HBO’s Game of Thrones, which tend to be slightly more allegorical; which is fine, as long as you’re aware of that going into them and treat them only as the lightest of all light entertainment.

Though, in spite of whatever Mr. Cornell’s personal issues might have been, I can’t help but think “selling out” to the war-machine is one of the factors that led him to suicide. At the very least, it probably didn’t help.

Speaking of “international intrigue,” my grandmother who was a pilot and an electrical engineer in the United States Air Force, (who also helped design the American-Made cruise missile systems Russia is currently using against the Ukrainians) was once questioned by the CIA because she ran a small airport gift shop, and routinely flew from continent to continent looking for exotic wares to sell in her shop. She was accused of being a spy, and sharing government secrets with overseas enemies. As outlandish as it sounds, stories like this are not uncommon, and cause a lot of generational trauma and general mistrust of the government within families. Of course, the government likes it that way, they enjoy keeping people on their toes and out of their way, especially militarily. Because of this experience I’m always sympathetic to people with seemingly “paranoid” or “schizophrenic” views of the government because the government does enjoy terrorizing people for their opinions. This danger obviously increases, exponentially, the more exposure and influence you and your ideas have. Both my grandmother and grandfather were in the Air Force, and being in the Military after World War II, caused my grandparents both to take a decidedly AntiWar stance against our wars of conquest, imperialism, and liberal interventionism overseas. Even as they worked as civil engineers for the Defense Industry and Military Industrial Complex.

Another notable member of my family is my distant cousin, Pat Robertson, someone who up until his death, recently, was literally paid to promote Zionism and Zionist pro-war propaganda on television. (He’s the reason why I feel I’m able to view the Israel/Palestine situation in a more fair and nuanced way, than I might otherwise be inclined to… And also the reason why most of my immediate family generally vote independent and identify as Democrats.) I don’t mention this because I’m at all proud of the association, but because it does seem to loom over my Christian family, our AntiWar history, and my activism; even if we’re not all doomsday Christian Evangelists like my famous cousin Pat and his televangelist heir, Gordon Robertson.

Understanding my history and ties to both the military and Christian evangelism is important to understanding who I am as a person, and why I choose to take such a profound moral stance on issues of justice and international policy. Though that association somehow seems particularly important to mention, now, even if it alienates me from the other Pro-Palestine demonstrators protesting today, because it makes me feel like a kind of mediator who can sympathize with the views of both pro-war Zionists and Palestinian AntiWar demonstrators. Though I myself am committedly Pro-Palestine, and of course, AntiWar.

A pragmatic way of looking at Israel’s current campaign of ethnic-violence and genocide in The West Bank and Gaza, in particular, is that is not a “war” but the result of the Palestinians losing a war in 1948. This is hardly “politically correct,” and is probably the most politically insensitive thing you could say to people on both sides of the conflict. It also in no way delegitimizes Palestinian resistance to Israeli Apartheid, but does explain the situation better than simply damning and condemning vague things like “colonialism” and “whiteness,” altogether. (Which, let’s be honest, was only ever a trick or tactic used by Jewish protesters to manipulate Blacks and People of Color to take either side, which when used outside of the limited scope of Black Muslims, like Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X, who have always stood by Palestinians, where the language was first borrowed and misappropriated from, is often used to keep people of all races and nationalities from understanding the issue; while also distracting attention away from the larger issues at hand, ones that may or may not actually affect them; such as how America’s unfettered support for Israel could potentially lead to a U.S. war with Iran.) The world has taken on the overly vague and sometimes idealistic language of Jewish-Israeli Peaceniks and Refuseniks without knowing what, specifically, they were protesting. If those protesters just said, “We’re against Zionism and Jewish-Supremacy” rather than mincing words, then they surely would have gained a lot more followers and supporters on both the left and right, though they might not be the supporters they wanted.

Actually, in a recent video of Israeli IDF refuseniks (a slang term referring to conscientious objectors) they do just that, refer to Zionism as Jewish Supremacy. Which a refreshingly positive change of course from the usual vague allusions to “indigenousness,” (in regards to who is or is not indigenous where) “white-supremacy” (to describe several only vaguely related and oftentimes incompatible political ideologies) and other debatable variables, coming from the far-left.

Nowadays, it’s much easier to silence people.

You don’t even have to assassinate them, for their views and opinions, because you can just as easily discredit them by “cancelling” them, locking them out of social media, downvoting or shadow-banning their comments to keep them from having a prominent voice by limiting their influence on public discourse; and otherwise intimidating them into compliance. (Usually through a combination of online and IRL terror-tactics and good old-fashioned character assassination.) Or by simply confusing them with political double-speak until their ideas disappear into oblivion.

Celebrities, today, rarely take an AntiWar stance because the entertainment industry is run by, well, Zionists — And thus anyone “fated for fame” is heavily vetted by the Military Industrial Complex before you ever even hear their names or see them on a marquee. (Though that very likely may be a coincidence, because most people today aren’t really very political, especially on international and foreign policy matters, except for performatively, and because most celebrities only have a high-school or grade-school education.) Jewish guest, Timothee Chalamet’s, recent rather distasteful mention of Hamas on SNL, during Israel’s current genocide of Gaza, is just one example of how Hollywood acts as an eternally out of touch propaganda machine. Thankfully, Tim’s character offed himself at the end of the skit, which was funny and well-deserved, but which might also be read as a distasteful reference to Israel accusing Palestinians of causing their own destruction.

This kind of gross insensitivity and feigned ignorance might have been forgivable if Americans had forgotten that this is the exact same comedy and variety show that held prayers and candles for Ukraine, after the U.S. forced Russia’s hand by manipulating Putin into intervening in the region by first orchestrating the U.S.-backed illegal Maiden coup, and creating a civil-war, there, under the Obama Administration; and then threatening to make The Ukraine, which is historically part of Russia, part of the NATO alliance, (which was only created to oppose Moscow and the former Soviet Union, in the first place,) during the Biden administration. (Simplifying the issues of today is of course this current movements’ greatest weakness, because in order to understand what is happening in Syria and Ukraine, you have to have an in-depth understanding of American foreign policy over the last decade, at least. Gen Z may seemingly have a greater sense of morality when it comes to America’s wars of conquest and colonialism overseas, but not when it comes to holding members of their own generation accountable, like Mr. Chalamet.) SNL did that, of course, because “standing with with Ukraine,” a U.S. puppet ally like Israel, is obviously a pro-war not an AntiWar position.

It’s also more than merely noteworthy that Ukraine’s acting President, Zelensky, is a Zionist himself; and thus any attempt to equate Palestine with Ukraine, or Russia with America’s ally, Israel… (especially when the current Banderist government in Kyiv has been massacring ethnic-Russian civilians in the Donbas region, critical of the U.S.-led coup, since the Obama administration) Is a bit of a stretch.

Nor is the humor lost on me, that many of the people in the George Floyd/BLM/ANTIFA rallies who worked so hard to get President “Genocide Joe” into office, are the exact same ones who are currently protesting his foreign policy in regards to Israel/Palestine, now. It’s pretty damn hilarious, in fact! Are they all just fools who genuinely feel betrayed by the person they campaigned and possibly also voted for, or is something deeper going on? And who exactly is funding and organizing these protests, anyway?

If I sound cynical, it’s only because I remember the (20 year!) long period of Hipster political burnout and apathy to U.S. foreign policy following the invasion of Iraq in 2003. That was also a landmark year for AntiWar protests, but as the years went on people became more and more indifferent to the joint Republican/Democrat-backed wars in the Middle East and elsewhere. (It might even be too optimistic to refer to the protests that are going on now as “AntiWar Protests” since they’re really “anti-genocide” protests with a more narrow focus and simpler demands. Which is honestly great! Since in order for a protest to work, it needs to have clear demands that can be achieved; but at the same time I think many of these protesters are missing the bigger picture, that Zionism isn’t just a threat to Palestinians, but to the whole world. This is true mainly because of the relationship between war and industry, banking, lobbyists, and foreign investors. What we AntiWar protesters sometimes refer to as “The Military Industrial Complex” describes this relationship between war, industry, finance, and propaganda; and regardless of whether it’s labeled a “Jewish conspiracy theory” or not, for most of Israel’s 75 old history the MIC has been decidedly pro-Zionist.) Many of these protesters weren’t even alive back then, or were simply too young to protest, but many of us who have been carrying the AntiWar torch are turned-off by the phoney political correctness and “wokeness” demonstrated at these rallies. Mostly, since these are the exact same “politically correct” ideas that got us here in the first place. The same censorship, and the same policing of language and ideas, and the same silencing of sincere foreign and domestic policy discussion.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the numbers are great! And I wish we saw this same turnout when the U.S. and NATO bullied Russia into war on its borders in the Ukraine, or when America’s “Worst Black President” Barack Obama, and his Vice President “Genocide Joe,” created ISIS and invaded Syria in 2012… But I digress. It’s just that begging your oppressor for a ceasefire, rather than getting to the root of that oppression — U.S. foreign policy towards Israel — is asking for far too little far too late. The only way to reverse course, though it will never bring back the lives of the roughly 12,000 Palestinian civilians who have been killed in the last few weeks, is to sanction Israel rather than supplying it with the weapons it needs to continue to commit genocide against innocent people.

Protest and protesters have the power to block the shipment and dissemination of weapons, temporarily, but not permanently. Only policy can do that, that’s why more action is needed. By action I don’t mean more reactionary protests, when the fires of the obscene immorality of our sacrificing literally tens of thousands of innocent civilians for our foreign interests grow too hot to bear, but the kind of sustained action that puts pressure not only on Israel, but on American policy makers, as well.

I was locked out of my Facebook account, without explanation or violation, right before the U.S. publicly sent depleted uranium and cluster munitions to Ukraine, (which is surely a coincidence) and that’s why my usual online activism on my AntiWar Pages: Peace & Love and The AntiWar Independent Party, have been silent throughout this most recent escalation in Israel and Palestines’ 75 year old long conflict. While I obviously feel both inspired and encouraged watching the younger and older generations marching together for peace, and while I wish I could somehow position myself as Gen-Z’s foreign policy professor, since I know so much of the brainwashing “information” they’re getting is incorrect, just as it was when I was young. I believe moving forward we have to be more direct with the particular policies we oppose, if we ever stand a chance to make a real difference in the world, and limit the influence of foreign bad actors (like Benjamin Netanyahu, Volodymyr Zelensky, and Benny Gantz) on American politics.

Like Chris Cornell said in his final speech, at his final concert, “They don’t give a sh*t about me, and they don’t give a sh*t about you!” He was talking about American politicians, lobbyists, and war-profiteers who perhaps in their own minds are looking out for long-term American interests, (or their own short-term financial or political gains,) but at the sacrifice of American soldiers and our National Conscience.

I say this with all humility, since I was only ever really an outspoken AntiWar Activist during the Obama years when the AntiWar Movement was most dormant. I created my own political party, simply because I could not abide by the pro-war policies of either major political party, as a lifetime AntiWar Activist. As an American I believe I should have some say in who dies in my name, and why. As an Independent I wanted to create a political party that I would be proud to be a part of, one that I felt was looking out not only for my country’s best interests, but the best interests of my fellow countrymen. (Although I first became politically aware as a child during Kosovo, and opposed “The War On Terror” campaign in Afghanistan and Iraq, as a teenager; I only, truly, politically came of age during Obama’s invasion of Syria; something that even many American veterans and active duty servicemen protested.) Nor do I delusionally count myself as some kind of charismatic leader, quite the opposite in fact, as I often limit my own activism (such as paying for advertising for my political party) simply because I know that I am not, nor have I ever claimed to be. (And also, because I can’t afford it!) Rather, I am simply a concerned citizen who cares about peace and the future of American Foreign Policy; as just another American who, like millions of others; is right now witnessing the results of our policies of endless war, rampant political Zionism, capitalist imperialism, liberal interventionism, modern-day colonialism, war-profiteering, Genocide, and destruction overseas.

— A.M. McGee

#prose poetry #freepalestine #AntiWar #truthisshadowbanned #stopthewar #stop censorship

[mohindi12]

Blog Post 10/1-10/5 week #11 Media the imposter

Q1. Have you ever been at a protest? 

As we read in the article Communication Power in the Arab Spring and the Occupy Movement, we learn how vital face-to-face protests are compared to online activism. It was voted that face-to-face activism was the most critical form of activism. I remember my first protest back in 2008-2010 when I lived in Jordan. The Palestinian people were under attack once again, The whole world saw what was happening, and not one country helped. Protests began everywhere, and as a young kid, I wanted to be a part of something, So my cousins and I went out to the streets to make our voices heard. Ever since that day, I have always wanted to help others. I also got to volunteer in the BLM protest these past couple of years. It's a great way to make your voice heard and a great way to spread a message that needs lighting shining on it. 

Q2.  Is one form of activism  more important than another?

 Some would say online activism isn't as effective as an in-person protest. There are many reasons why some people contribute online, and that should not take away from the changes they are making. I feel this is the new age of activism we can do so much from. We are also able to spread out much farther all over the world. But I also believe that the older generation appreciates still seeing people out and expressing their freedom of protest by marching. 

Q3. Is the media an enemy to African Americans?

We have noticed how the news we read and watch can change the way we see things. The way the media word certain things can hurt what we believe. Trayvon Benjamin Martin was labeled as a grown man when he was only seventeen years old when George Zimmerman shot him, a 28-year-old grown man now walking freely. Another example of the media twisting things is during hurricane Katrina, two pictures that looked very similar. The only difference was one was a picture of two African American couples, and the other was two white people. The caption for the African Americans in the image said that they were looting, while the caption for the white couple was how brave they were doing a hurricane.

Q4. Does the internet make us more aware?

We have access to so much information sometimes it's hard keeping track. We can refresh our page every few seconds, and we will see new information in front of us. This can be good and bad; we can become overwhelmed with everything going on. It's hard to help one group sometimes because we are trying so many other groups. Also, there can be so many kinds of misinformation," fake news." We are fed information from TVs, radios, and even ads and not everything we see should be taken seriously.  We must be very careful with the things we hear and take things with a grain of salt. 

References:

Fuchs, C. (2018). Communication Power in the Arab Spring and Occupy Movement . In Social Media: A critical introduction (pp. 83–88). essay, SAGE.

Lee, L. (2017). Black twitter: A response to bias in mainstream media. Social Sciences, 6(1), 26. https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci6010026

Vegh, S. (2013). Classifying Forms of Online Activity . In Cyberactivism: Online activism in theory and Practice. essay, Routledge.

#csufwgst320baddies

[peaceandlovenoonecanstopthewar]

6. Is Jerusalem “The Whore Of Babylon” in The Bible? Why The World Will Eventually Turn Against Israel and It’s War-Crimes [Part 2/2]

This article originally appeared in Peace & Love, and was written by AntiWar Advocate A.M. McGee

As I pointed out in part one, I’m an AntiWar Activist; not a Biblical scholar or theologian, so you’ll have to forgive me if my interpretation of “End-Time Prophecy” sounds a bit child-like, or overly simplistic. I will try my best to find historic evidence to support my theories. I’m doing this not because I’m trying to assert that my interpretation of the Bible, The New Testament, or The Book of Revelations, is more significant than anyone else’s, but because I think even the Bible agrees that endless war is insustainable, and has lasting consequences for those nations and countries who promote war.

A Palestinian father holds up his dead child, who was murdered by Israeli bombs

While I’m at it, I might as well address another elephant in the the room; and that is my very distant cousin is Pastor Pat Robertson of the popular Televangelist show, The 700 Club. I’m asking the reader not to judge me, or my political or spiritual beliefs, based on the those of my distant cousin; as they are the opposite. He is a Protestant and I’m a Catholic, he is a war-monger, and I’m AntiWar. I mention it only because I’m not as far removed from the issue of how religion affects politics, policies, and political ideology as I would like to be; and because I think both Jewish Zionists and Christian Evangelists use a corrupted and perverted version of both the Old and New Testaments to justify war, ethnic-cleansing, and apartheid.

Jewish-Israeli children sign bombs to be sent into Lebanon

In my research for this article I came across the book “Mystery Babylon - When Jerusalem Embraces The Antichrist” by author and biblical scholar Chris White; in it he details how Israel will embrace the AntiChrist, because he will appear to them as a political savior, unlike Jesus Christ, who will bring peace and prosperity to Jerusalem, by destroying her enemies. No where is it more clear that Israel is firmly on the side of the AntiChrist, than it’s ethnic-cleansing of Palestinian Christians and Muslims.

Rachel Corrie was an American Peace activist, intentionally killed by Jewish-Israeli bulldozers, for standing up for the property rights of Palestinians

The AntiChrist is the “Jewish Messiah,” the political savior, that many Jewish Zionists and Christian Evangelicals are waiting for, and while I won’t speculate too much on that point; I think that historically the world has always come down hard on Jews who control too much wealth and power, and that the Biblical destruction of “The Great Whore, The Whore of Babylon,” very much mirrors the destruction of Jewish greed or prosperity (depending on your outlook) in Israel, Egypt, WWII Germany, and beyond.

Palestinian protestors oppose the racial apartheid of non-Jews in Palestine

Many Orthodox Jews, including the honorable Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss, a respected peace-activist, believe that God allows these things to happen to the Jews, because only God himself can bring about the New Israel and The Jerusalem on Earth. As a Christian and Catholic, (though we disagree on important matters like the spiritual nature of Jesus Christ) I very much agree with Rabbi Weiss that Israel and Jerusalem aren’t places that are won by war, genocide, and apartheid but exist in a very real way, on the Spiritual plane. And that only after Christ returns, will Israel and Jerusalem be returned to their former glory.

Palestinians hold up the charred remains of a child killed in Gaza by Israel’s White-Phosphorus bombs

While there are many Old Testament prophecies that support war; I think Christ made it clear in The New Testament that the wars that the Old Testament was referrencing were wars of the spirit. This isn’t to say that True Peace will never occur on Earth, only that God himself is the only one that can deliver it.

Israel rains White-Phosphorus bombs down on Palestine, white phosphorus acid is an illegal chemical weapon banned by the Geneva Convention

Although I’m a humanist and a humanitarian, if we look at the state of the world today, it’s quite obvious that we’re hardly living in “The Garden of Eden.” The war and apartheid that plagues Palestine-Israel and her neighbors aren’t signs of people who have finally found Christ and are following His teachings, quite the opposite in fact. And yet, the Bible says that even the AntiChrist will bring temporary peace to Israel. I imagine that the “peace” that the Bible is referring to... Is the economic stability of Israel overcoming the Palestinians who oppose it. The wicked peace of the AntiChrist.

Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression

This again brings me to the difficult realization of accepting that although I believe both God and Christ strongly oppose war and apartheid, especially against Palestinian Christians; does the Bible really say that peace-activism is on the wrong side of history? And that the AntiChrist (which is represented to me by war and hate) will win... Regardless of what we have to say about it...? I think the answer to this question is rather simple; and it’s as easy as deciding which side of history do you want to be on: The side that opposes the death and destruction of the Palestinians, as well as the hate and bloodshed of war... Or the side that is actively working to usher in the AntiChrist?

Protesters show solidarity with Palestinians who declare their freedom and sovereignty from the State of Israel

I truly believe in End-Time Prophecy, and that the world will end... Not as we expect it, but like “a thief in the night.” Christ himself said that “no man will know the day nor the hour,” and I think both the spiritual and real-world significance of that is that we’re supposed to live everyday like it’s our last. We’re supposed to walk everyday with Christ, following his teachings, and spreading His message of Peace and Love. Rather than fighting petty wars, or allowing ourselves to be dragged into other people’s petty squabbles.

Israel’s White-Phosphorus acid bombs, from a civilian’s perspective

You may have noticed that I never addressed my original question, “Is Jerusalem the whore of Babylon?” And that’s because I believe the question is best left to Biblical scholars, theologians, Priests, Rabbis, and historians... I will say only that “The Whore of Babylon” while being quite evil and corrupt, is also a somewhat tragic figure. Someone that we’re supposed to pity and feel sorry for... as The Book of Revelations says that in the end she will ultimately be brutally destroyed, devoured, and torn asunder. By the very kings and nations that bore her.

- Peace & Love

[dailykhaleej]

Coronavirus: The trials and triumphs of UAE residents

Trials and triumphs of the COVID-19 fight Picture Credit score: DailyKhaleej

Dubai: The first case of coronavirus within the UAE was introduced on January 29, 2020. That’s round three-and-a-half months in the past. Time flies, you’d ordinarily be inclined to assume. However these are extraordinary instances.

Ever for the reason that beastly virus unfold its ugly tentacles, every little thing we’ve been pondering, saying or doing has revolved round COVID-19. However past the final fatigue that we’re all starting to really feel, there isn’t a denying that life as we all know it – why, even dying – has modified eternally.

Prayers being carried out for Jeuel G. Jomay in Kerala. The ceremony was watched by his household right here within the UAE on Fb.

Gasping sufferers gone with no goodbye; relations watching funerals of family members on Fb; contaminated {couples} having to depart younger kids within the care of others; tables turning on docs and nurses … COVID’s attempting tales are heart-wrenching.

However the unimaginable trauma however, there are those that are counting their blessings too, whether or not it’s a brand new mum beating the virus together with her just-born; a affected person coming off the ventilator after 20 days; or the UAE’s well being care group clocking file testing charges and its researchers reaching a remedy breakthrough.

A have a look at the trials, tribulations and triumphs of UAE residents for the reason that COVID-19 fight started:

The final trial

It’s dangerous sufficient to lose a cherished one, however not with the ability to bid goodbye takes away even the sense of closure.

THE WAY IT IS

World protocols on heath security, hygiene and social distancing stipulate that coronavirus sufferers should get handled in isolation, and even depart alone.

World protocols on heath security, hygiene and social distancing stipulate that coronavirus sufferers should get handled in isolation, and even depart alone, so one has no selection however to let go.

When Bangladeshi expat Tofail Alam, 51, handed away in Abu Dhabi final week, his spouse Nausheen advised DailyKhaleej her husband went to see a physician at a hospital in March as a result of he had a foul chilly.

Tofail Alam

“But he was admitted the same day and transferred to a public hospital for treatment. We lost the pillar of our family to the coronavirus pandemic. It is so devastating that I simply have no words.”

A pal who tried to contact Alam in hospital stated, “The calls never went through. So all I could do was ask the nurses about his condition.” Someplace alongside the road, he learnt that the daddy of two was no extra.

Funeral on Fb

Even in non-coronavirus instances, flight suspensions in latest instances have meant that some residents haven’t been in a position to attend funerals of family members in different nations.

Amongst them: A Keralite household within the UAE who watched the funeral of their cancer-stricken son Jeuel G. Jomay, a Grade 10 pupil at a Sharjah college, on Fb on April 16. They might not accompany his physique when it was flown to native Kerala beneath lockdown.

One from the album: A household image with Jeuel Picture Credit score: Provided

Jeuel’s funeral ceremony again dwelling started at 4am within the UAE. His cousin advised DailyKhaleej her household and Jeuel’s household watched the five-hour ceremony on Fb whereas the St Mary’s Church in Sharjah supplied a hyperlink to the YouTube livestreaming on its web site for members right here to look at the service.

“None of the flights was getting sanctioned soon. Jeuel’s father wanted to fly with him. But that was not possible,” the cousin advised DailyKhaleej on the time.

Equally, on April 17, Dubai-based Pakistani expat Ghulam Mustafa Awan watched the funeral of his father Malik Nazir Ahmad on video. Ahmad had died of a coronary heart and lung situation.

“I tried everything, but I couldn’t go and see the face of my father one last time,” stated Awan.

I attempted every little thing, however I couldn’t go and see the face of my father one final time.

– Ghulam Mustafa Awan

In each instances, COVID-19-related restrictions prevented their journey.

Double whammy

Telling a younger COVID-19 mom of three that her husband, additionally a coronavirus affected person, has handed on can on no account be simple.

However that’s exactly what Dr Samara Khatib, Marketing consultant Household Drugs and workforce lead on the COVID-19 ward at Mediclinic Parkview Hospital in Dubai, was tasked to do lately.

“We had to take the help of mental health professionals to break the tragic news to the patient, who is in her 30s,” stated the American physician of Syrian origin. “It shook us as healthcare workers.”

We needed to take the assistance of psychological well being professionals to interrupt the tragic information (that her husband had died) to the affected person, who’s in her 30s.

– Dr Samara Khatib

Coronavirus has struck different {couples} too within the UAE, which has meant they’ve needed to depart their kids within the care of others.

Dubai-based Suman Manning, who examined optimistic alongside together with her triathlete husband Shane Manning, stated her sister took care of her triplets throughout the ordeal. Though she confirmed no signs, she needed to isolate herself and inform her children and sister to avoid her, whereas her husband was recovering in hospital.

Suman and Shane Manning Picture Credit score: Provided

“It was a particularly trying time as the kids had just started the first week of remote learning and needed some kind of support,” she advised DailyKhaleej earlier.

‘We’re not invincible’

Engaged on the frontlines within the face of an invisible and yet-to-be-conquered virus, docs and nurses are in all probability on the highest danger of contracting COVID-19. Ask Reem Yousef, who works as an emergency nurse supervisor on the Emirates Specialty Hospital in Dubai.

It’s actually arduous. I’m actually carrying my coronary heart on my sleeve for my baby, Relle.

– Reem Yousef

 “The Lebanese mum, who is still breastfeeding her nine-month-old baby, told DailyKhaleej: “It is really hard. I am literally wearing my heart on my sleeve for my little one, Relle. Yes, there is fear of contracting COVID-19 as we work 12-15 hours a day for five days. We try our best to manage. When I go back home, I take utmost care to completely sterilise myself before I hold my baby in my arms again.”

Reem Yousef with nine-month-old Relle Picture Credit score: Provided

Dr Khatib stated she checks herself for the virus not less than as soon as a month. “I am also very particular about hygiene. It’s almost as if I suffer from obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). There is no respite on the front line and when we see our own colleagues falling prey to the virus, we feel emotionally distraught. It makes us realise we are not invincible. But we have a responsibility to stay safe and healthy as we can pass on the virus to other patients or our families back home.”

Regardless of the very best efforts although, the tables do get turned typically. And when that occurs, the resolve to fight coronavirus solely will get stronger.

As a physician duo at Zulekha Hospital Dubai, Dr Nishath Ahmed Liyakat and Dr Unni Nair, who’ve recovered from COVID-19 testify, there was no manner the virus would have held them again from doing their responsibility as soon as that they had obtained the remedy and accomplished their quarantine.

Dr Nishath Ahmed Liyakat, left, and Dr Unni Nair Picture Credit score: Provided

Victor and the virus

Sure, the dismal well being disaster surrounding us does have its share of excellent news. Because the official tracker posts new instances day-after-day, there are appreciable recoveries too, with every corona warrior, irrespective of whether or not they’re a light or essential case, rising as an emphatic victor in opposition to the virus.

Communicate to sufferers who’ve turned the blind nook, and their phrases encourage you. Whereas some will let you know coronavirus isn’t a “death sentence”, others will say they don’t want their “hellish experience” even on their worst enemies.

I prayed arduous to God and positioned my belief within the medical workforce. Now, I’m getting higher day-after-day and can solely bear in mind these weeks on the ventilator prefer it was yesterday.

– Wilfredo

Both manner, there isn’t a bitterness and no taking away from the large sense of aid and gratitude on the highway to restoration.

“I hardly had any symptoms and it never felt like a death sentence. But now that I have completed my quarantine, I thank God it’s over,” stated one younger Indian lady who didn’t need to be named.

Wilfredo Picture Credit score: Virendra Saklani/DailyKhaleej

Wilfredo, a Filipino expat, who got here out of the ventilator after 20 days at Al Zahra Hospital, Sharjah, stated, “I prayed hard to God and placed my trust in the medical team. Now, I’m getting better every day and can only remember those weeks on the ventilator like it was yesterday.”

In Abu Dhabi, Raneen Abu Zaher, a Palestinian homemaker, and her new child son, Jad, who additionally beat coronavirus, encourage hope.

Child Jad Picture Credit score: Provided

The duo had been identified with the an infection when Jad was only a day previous. However two weeks later, once they bought the all-clear, the mom of three advised DailyKhaleej, “I tried to hold on to my faith, and prayed for my entire family.”

‘UAE will not let you down’

If there’s one factor any affected person within the UAE will vouch for, it’s the truth that they may not have been in higher arms. Whether or not it’s Liu Yujia, a 73-year-old customer from Wuhan, China, who was the primary affected person to have totally recovered within the UAE or Aubrey Escano, 27, a Filipina from Abu Dhabi who’s at present beneath quarantine, there was solely reward and gratefulness for the UAE for the style wherein coronavirus instances are dealt with.

One of the primary coronavirus sufferers to get well within the UAE Picture Credit score: Provided

Escano in her message stated, “I would like to tell COVID-19 patients not to lose hope, not to worry and continue the fight because the UAE will not let them down.”

The exemplary affected person care aside, the UAE has additionally hit worldwide headlines for finishing up a file quantity of laboratory checks for coronavirus. Based on the Ministry of Well being and Prevention, the UAE leads international coronavirus testing with 1.5 million checks performed for the reason that starting of the outbreak. The UAE each day testing common equals a four-month common of COVID-19 testing in different nations.

I wish to inform COVID-19 sufferers to not lose hope, to not fear and proceed the combat as a result of the UAE is not going to allow them to down.

– Aubrey Escano

Addressing a UAE Authorities distant assembly right now, Minister of Well being and Prevention Abdul Rahman Bin Mohammed Al Owais stated, “The UAE’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is unique and different from other countries. The UAE has shown exceptional management of the crisis, whilst leveraging other countries’ experiences. However, the level of response was different, given the demographic composition in the country, which is home to more than 200 nationalities, and its distinct resources, readiness and experiences in many sectors.”

On Might 1, docs and researchers on the Abu Dhabi Stem Cell Centre additionally achieved a significant breakthrough with a promising stem cell remedy for COVID-19 sufferers.

The analysis workforce on the Abu Dhabi Stem Cell Centre Picture Credit score: WAM

The Ministry of Economic system even granted a patent for the event of the revolutionary methodology, which was administered to 73 COVID-19 sufferers, all of whom had been cured of the virus utilizing stem cells.

Researchers, who’ve accomplished the preliminary section of scientific trials, at the moment are engaged on demonstrating the efficacy of the remedy.

Now that’s no imply achievement, by any measure.

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[newstfionline]

Eyeless in Gaza

By Uri Avnery, Antiwar.com, July 10, 2017

I have a unique confession to make: I like Gaza.

Yes, I like this faraway corner of Palestine, the narrow strip on the way to Egypt, in which two million human beings are crowded, and which is closer to hell than to heaven.

My heart goes out to them.

I have spent quite a lot of time in the Strip. Once or twice I stayed there with Rachel for a couple of days. I became friendly with some people whom I admired, people like Dr. Haidar Abd-al-Shafi, the leftist doctor who set up the Gazan health system, and Rashad al-Shawa, the former Mayor, an aristocrat from birth.

After the Oslo agreement, when Yasser Arafat came back to the country and set up his office in Gaza, I met him there many times. I brought to him groups of Israelis. On his first day there he sat me on the dais next to him. A photo of that occasion now looks like science fiction.

I even came to know the Hamas people. Before Oslo, when Yitzhak Rabin deported 415 Islamic activists from the country, I took part in setting up protest tents opposite his office. We lived there together, Jews, Christians and Muslims, and there Gush Shalom was born. After a year, when the deportees were allowed back, I was invited to a public reception for them in Gaza and found myself speaking to hundreds of bearded faces. Among them were some of today’s Hamas leaders.

Therefore I cannot treat the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip as a faceless gray mass of people. I couldn’t stop thinking about them during last week’s terrible heat wave, about the people languishing in awful conditions, without electricity and air conditioning, without clean water, without medicines for the sick. I thought about those living in the houses severely damaged in the last wars and not repaired since. About the men and women, the old, the children, the toddlers, the babies.

My heart was bleeding, and was asking who was to blame.

Yes, who is to blame for this ongoing atrocity?

According to the Israelis, “the Palestinians themselves are to blame”. Fact: the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah has decided to reduce the electricity supply to Gaza from three hours a day to two. (The electricity is supplied by Israel and paid for by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.)

This seems to be true. The conflict between the Palestinian Authority, ruled by Fatah, and the Palestinian leadership in Gaza, ruled by Hamas, has come to an ugly climax.

The uninvolved bystander wonders: how can that be? After all, the entire Palestinian people are in existential danger. The Israeli government tyrannizes all Palestinians, both in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. It keeps the Strip under a strangling blockade, on land, in the sea and in the air, and is setting up settlements all over the West Bank, to drive the population out.

In this desperate situation, how can the Palestinians fight each other, to the obvious delight of the occupation authorities?

That is terrible, but, sadly, not unique. On the contrary, in almost all liberation struggles, something similar has happened. During the Irish struggle for independence, the freedom fighters fought against each other and even shot each other. During our own struggle for statehood, the Haganah underground turned Irgun fighters over to the British police, who tortured them, and later shot up a ship bringing recruits and arms to the Irgun.

But these and many other examples do not justify what is happening now in Gaza. The struggle between Fatah and Hamas on the backs of two million people condemns these to inhuman living conditions.

As an old friend of the Palestinian people in their fight for liberation, I am deeply saddened.

But there are more partners to the atrocious blockade on Gaza.

Israel can blockade the Strip only on three sides. The fourth side is the Egyptian border. Egypt, which has in the past fought four major wars against Israel on behalf of the Palestinian brothers (in one of which I was wounded by an Egyptian machine-gunner) is now participating in the cruel blockade on the Strip.

What has happened? How did it happen?

Everyone who knows the Egyptian people knows that it is one of the most attractive peoples on earth. A very proud people. A people full of humor even in the most trying circumstances. Several times I have heard in Egypt phrases like: “We do not like the Palestinians very much, but they are our poor cousins, and we cannot abandon them under any circumstances!”

And here they are, not only abandoning, but cooperating with the cruel occupation.

All this why? Because the local rulers in Gaza are religious fanatics, just like the Muslim Brothers in Egypt who are the deadly enemies of today’s Pharaoh, General Abd-al-Fatah al-Sisi. Because of this enmity, millions in Gaza are punished.

Now rumor has it that Egypt would relent, if the Gazans accept an Egyptian stooge as their ruler.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza is completely dependent on the Egyptian blockade. Proud Egypt, which claims to be the leader of the entire Arab World, has become the handmaiden of the Israeli occupation.

Who would have believed it?.

But the main responsibility for the atrocity in Gaza falls, of course, on us, on Israel.

We are the occupiers--a novel type of occupation by blockade.

The justification is clear: They want to destroy us. That is the official doctrine of Hamas. The mouse hurls terrible threats against the elephant.

True. But…

In many hidden ways, Israel does cooperate with Hamas, especially against the even more extreme Islamists in the Strip. We could easily reach a modus vivendi all along the line.

So why must the people in Gaza suffer so grievously? No one really knows. Because of the mental laziness of the occupation. Because that’s what we are used to doing.

Here is a mental exercise: What if we did the very opposite?

What if we announced to the people in the Gaza Strip: the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah is now paying for only two hours of electricity a day. But seeing your suffering, Israel has decided to provide you with electricity for 24 hours for free.

What would be the effect? How would Hamas react? How would it affect the level of violence and security costs?

For the long run, there are many Israeli and international plans. An artificial island in the Mediterranean opposite Gaza. An airport on the island. A deep-sea port. Peace in fact, even without declarations.

I believe that this is the wisest way to proceed. But wisdom has little chance.

In the meantime, the atrocity goes on. Two million human beings suffer inhuman treatment.

And the world? Alas, the world is busy. It has no eyes for Gaza. Better not to think about that awful place.

Uri Avnery is a peace activist, journalist, writer, and former member of the Israeli Knesset.

#Gaza #Uri Avnery #Palestinians #Israel

[clubofinfo]

Expert: “He may be a son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our son-of-a-bitch” – this is what U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt is rumoured to have once said about Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. We examine how the western media, always so full of editorials and columns praising western values (whatever those may be), have covered the Syrian opposition during the Syrian war, focusing on three groups in particular. A closer look at the falsehoods that have been peddled, the inconvenient truths that were left unsaid, and the contradictions that emerged due to low journalistic standards, reveal the shameless and spineless support for western imperialism that has become the norm. ***** A war outsourced to al-Qaeda The coverage of the Syrian war reached deafening tones during the recent government recapture of East Aleppo. Who can forget hearing over and over that the “last hospital” in East Aleppo had been destroyed? This entire coverage, orchestrated with a multitude of hidden backers, had the goal of convincing western readers that this had been a collective failure of humanity, that the west had done nothing to prevent it and that it thus needed to do more. This myth of western non-intervention has been thoroughly debunked, even if far away from the mainstream press. But nobody put it better than Rania Khalek: […] the US government outsourced its war against the Syrian government to Al Qaeda, and Americans have no idea, because corporate media continue to promote lies about Obama’s so-called inaction. The way in which al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra, has been portrayed in the western press will one day be part of journalism courses. It is truly unbelievable that the Syrian branch of) al-Qaeda, a group that was declared public enemy #1, the main target of the open-ended “war on terror”, the existential threat to western civilisation, would end up spearheading the U.S. regime change operation in Syria. Throughout the Syrian conflict we have mainly seen three ways of incorporating al-Qaeda into the mainstream narrative. One is to simply not mention their presence. When the propaganda goes into overdrive we start reading only about “rebels”, with no mention whatsoever of their nature. And thus we heard of the plight of the “rebels” in East Aleppo over and over again. The contrast with the coverage of the operation to retake Mosul, or with previous operations against al-Qaeda in Iraqi cities, could not be starker. The second one is to mention that, even though a given operation is led by the Nusra front and their jihadi cousins of Ahrar al-Sham (more on them later), there are also plenty of moderate rebels around. The myth of the moderate rebels became ever-present in the western media, David Cameron claimed there were 70.000 of them! While the Russians and Syrians claimed they were bombing terrorists, western governments cried in outrage that moderate forces, standing side by side with extremists, were being attacked. At this point there is an obvious question to be asked: if they are standing and fighting next to al-Qaeda, how moderate can they really be?1 Additionally, the west has been supplying weapons to these groups via regional proxies. Does this not just simply amount to an indirect supply of weapons to the Nusra front, which is where they naturally ended up? Press conference announcing the Nusra front’s rebranding as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham And the final tactic is what is employed by low-cost airlines after a plane crash: changing the name. This has arguably more to do with the regional sponsors of extremism, Saudi Arabia first and foremost, but also Qatar, the UAE, and to some extent Jordan and Turkey2, in that they need to at least pretend that they are fighting extremism in the region. Therefore we have seen multiple rebrandings and regroupings of the Nusra front. There was the umbrella Jaish al Fatah (“Army of Conquest”), there was the official split from al-Qaeda with the blessing from al-Qaeda and the renaming as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. While any serious journalist would remind readers that this was the regrouped/rebranded al-Qaeda affiliate, it was not uncommon to find cases where we are just presented with the new names and no background. We also witnessed a situation where, under the cover of these rebrandings, a Saudi official pretty much admitted that the Saudis were supplying weapons to the Nusra front. His blushes were spared by the low journalistic standards of the BBC but not by the Intercept. All in all, it seems like Bin Laden only needed to survive a few more years, move to Syria and get a new logo, and he would be back working with the Americans just like in the good ol’ 80s. An islamic state through the ballot box Another group in Syria3 whose trajectory in the western media is worth analysing is Ahrar al-Sham. It is known that it began forming brigades well before the official start of the Syrian “Revolution” in 2011, and this seriously undercuts the theory that the Syrian uprising was entirely secular and progressive from the start, only to be hijacked by jihadists, or forced in that direction by the government response, later on. When the group first emerged as a serious player the coverage rule book had yet to crystallise, and western journalists sometimes fell into old habits of doing actual journalism. Reporting facts, verifying stories, that sort of thing. At the time it was plainly said that Ahrar al-Sham were a jihadist group full of foreign fighters which fought side-by-side with al-Qaeda. When it became clear that these groups were the big players in the Syrian opposition, the tune needed to change, at least in the newsrooms. Intelligence agencies had long known of this risk as weapons and money had been flowing from the west and regional allies. But while al-Qaeda had an unfixable PR problem, there was still hope for Ahrar al-Sham. So we witnessed a scramble to merge the “democratic, secular forces we said we supported” and the “bin-ladenites we actually support”. The BBC needs to be credited with a quite remarkable piece of journalism. When describing Ahrar al-Sham, they wrote that they were: * “An ultraconservative Islamist, or Salafist, rebel group that aims to topple Mr Assad and build an Islamic state; * Has vowed to achieve the latter through the ballot box and not force” Among the multiple journalists and editors, not to mention whoever told this to a reporter, surely someone must have thought this was a bit hard to believe. Here we have a group that wants to create an ultraconservative Islamic state, ban music, install religious courts, stone adulterers, kill non-believers and all that, and the BBC thinks they will just put this as an option in a ballot. Ahrar al Sham speaking to the press, assuring them that there were no terrorists in Aleppo The campaign to whitewash the group was a full-blown PR effort, with sponsors such as Qatar swearing on the moderation of the group. The face of this sanitisation for western consumption was Ahrar al-Sham’s foreign policy chief, Labib al-Nahhas. Soon enough he was given op-eds in mainstream outlets, claiming that contrary to all previous reports of his group fighting side-by-side with al-Qaeda and sharing its ideology, including in those same newspapers where the floor is now ceded to him, accusations of “organizational links to al-Qaeda and of espousing al-Qaeda’s ideology” could not be “further from the truth”. And the absorption into the mainstream was complete when, beyond giving a column to Ahrar al-Sham, western outlets started basing their editorial lines on the opinions of the group. The case in point is the Shia bogeyman, Iran’s alleged masterplan to re-engineer the demographics of the region, something regularly peddled by the most sectarian regimes in the region, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Monarchies, and by the always loyal DC think tanks. What is most remarkable is that a journalist in a supposedly serious newspaper would base his geopolitical analysis on the views of a group he himself not so long ago labelled as “jihadi“, “conservative salafist” and “sharing much of al-Qaida’s worldview“. If we cannot work with child beheaders, who are we left with? The episode that most gruesomely captured the contradictions of western foreign policy and media coverage took place in Aleppo in July 2016. A sickening video was released showing a group of men taunting and then beheading a young boy. The perpetrators were from Nour al-Din al-Zenki, and the boy was a 12 year old Palestinian whom they accused of belonging to a Palestinian militia that fights alongside the Syrian government. This was immediately followed by the damning revelation that this group had been vetted by the U.S. and received weapons. And while in reaction to previous episodes of this sort, though arguably none as reviling as this one, we witnessed widespread condemnation and defiant proclamations that evil would not triumph, this time what transpired was a damage control mission. From absurd claims that the boy was actually 19 and had stunted growth, to justifications that this was an individual act that would be punished by a “judicial process“, even attempts to deflect the blame onto the Assad “regime”. But for some even this episode was not enough to conclude that western powers should not be allied with this kind of groups. Sam Heller argued that the U.S. will only achieve its goals in Syria by backing groups such as Nour al-Din al-Zenki. If you can only achieve your goals by working with child-beheading jihadis, maybe the goals are not worth pursuing in the first place? This question never seems to pop up in western media. Sam Heller defends working with groups like Nour al-Din al-Zenki while Charles Lister spreads lies about the victim. Another fierce advocate of Nour al-Din al-Zenki has been Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute. He shamelessly tried to downplay the heinous crime by claiming the victim was a “child fighter“, while in truth he was nothing of the sort. In the past Lister had advertised the group as “moderate“, but he is also on record saying that 50% of the rebels in Syria are moderate and that ISIS was created by the Syrian secret services. Recently Lister declared that, even though the group was moderate, it had become disgusting and he no longer supported it. So either a long history of extremism, abuses and coordination with al-Qaeda was out-of-character behaviour from a moderate group or Lister was blatantly lying all this time. As for Nour al-Din al-Zenki, it has joined the latest rebranding/regrouping of al-Qaeda in Syria. Jihad made in USA If we contrast the official discourse of the U.S. and other western powers with regard to the Middle East, always full of uncompromising pledges to defend freedom, democracy and human rights, and the nature of the groups and countries in the region that are allied with western interests, there is a glaring contradiction. The media, instead of exposing this hypocrisy, have chosen to bridge the gap through omission, obfuscation and outright fabrications. In reality this contradiction is only apparent. There is a long history of western empires finding the most extremist islamist groups as their most useful allies. The Taliban in Afghanistan and Bin Laden are probably the most emblematic of recent examples. But this goes back decades, for instance, to the British manoeuvres to put the Saud clan in power. When there was a struggle for hegemony in the Middle East between Gamal Nasser and the Saud family, it was crystal clear on whose side the west was on. And even recently John Kerry admitted that the U.S. had hoped ISIS advances could be used as leverage against Assad. Any truly progressive regime in the Middle East, past or present, will invariably find itself at odds with western interests in the region, from natural resources to the occupation of Palestine. This history of contradictions and weaponisation of Islamic extremism by western powers, along with the way it has been presented to western audiences, is explored in the recent book Jihad made in USA by Gregoire Lalieu (available in French and Spanish). • First published at Investig’Action * On a related note, western journalists do not seem to find any inconsistency in (supposedly) democratic, secular, feminist groups being backed by Saudi Arabia! * There is also a lot to write about Israel’s involvement in all this, from their détente with extremist groups right on their doorstep (the occupied Golan Heights), sometimes even allowing fighters to receive hospital care in Israel, to their constant violations of international law when they bomb targets in Syria. * It would be lazy and inaccurate to call them “Syrian groups”, since there has been a tremendous influx of foreign fighters. http://clubof.info/

[krystynasierbien]

ISIS IS A PLACE… ISIS IS A STATE OF MIND…

There’s been a massacre on the streets of Paris for the second time this year and again it looks like those responsible for the bloodshed were European conduits of the much reviled Islamic State. The British government is on the precipice of embarking on military action in co-ordination with its allies, in Syria; which can only mean more bombs, more carnage and more deaths. This isn’t about oil, its effervescent cousin gas; nor is it about securing pipeline through-routes as had been the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, oh no. This is about good versus evil, dark versus light; progress versus barbarism, and the emancipation of Arab women from a fate of servitude and oppression. Or is it? If there is no ultimate evil to fight; if there is no recourse to the liberation of one thing from another; then governments are unable to justify military operations to their respective electorates. Often, they’ll go ahead and do it anyway though of course. Islamic State is confused, but then so is our response to its militants. ISIS is weak, but it’s also powerful. It is isolated; but it’s also allied. It cries faith and tradition and yet it bleeds criminal syndicalism, murder, and oppression. And of course the questions remain — who’s buying their oil, who’s sending them weapons, who’s bankrolling their militants? We know that there are middlemen, but who do those shadowy figures answer to? Because we know — we know that all is far from what it seems in the Middle East in 2015 and yet it’s seemingly impossible to distinguish truth from myth, thanks to the chaos and disinformation that’s abounding from all sides. Islamic State is at the epicentre of a formless war being fought by formless sides, manipulated by formless actors with equally formless goals. In fact it looks like the ‘goal’ is to maintain, as opposed to remedy, the formlessness of the immediate region and the fractured societies struggling to survive therein. ISIS/ISIL/IS/Daesh — or Islamist Scumbags as Andrew Neil recently described them in his opening monologue on This Week: a spiel in which he praises the country’s nuclear capabilities in the same breath as crème brûlée, Voltaire and Camus — is the caricature of 21st century evil that the whole world seems to agree on. Perhaps it was naive to assume that what happened in January at Charlie Hebdo would be the last of the extremist violence which Parisians would have to endure this year, but assuming otherwise is hardly conducive with a society that bases its decisions, not on fear of an indeterminate enemy, but on a love for humanity. On the hope that things will get better and that enlightened justice for all will eventually prevail. You may have visited Paris before. Perhaps you even lived there for a while. You may have family, friends or colleagues who call some small corner of the city’s narrow streets home. You may know and love the city for what it is; in all its contradictory beauty. You’re confused as to why the land of liberté, fraternité et égalité inspires fundamentalist extremists to despise it so vehemently. Is this really about a hatred for the French way of life? Why didn’t this happen in London or Berlin? Why Paris, why again, and why now?

Last week, the UN Security Council (of which the UK is one of 15 member states) unanimously declared ISIS “a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security” whose continuing existence demands that ‘able states’ like Britain engage militarily against its insurgents and their strongholds in Syria, like it is doing in Iraq. Drafted in haste by French representatives in the wake of the attacks in Paris, the resolution had not been ratified in accordance with Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Had it been, the Security Council itself could have then authorised military action on behalf of the international community. Because it was not, it has been left to David Cameron to hold a parliamentary vote on British military involvement in Syria in accordance with the UN’s recommendations instead in the familiar old one-two diplomatic death step. During a speech at Versailles in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, President Hollande told the international Body Politic that France and its allies were now unequivocally ‘at war’ with the amorphous extremist group, as if that weren’t already the case. French borders are now closed. A state of emergency has been declared, and the usual loud minority of opportunists are absolutely certain the bloodshed could have been avoided had the borders only been closed off sooner. “Some people have tried to draw a connection between the movement of refugees from the Middle East and the terrorist threat. This link exists because people from Iraq and Syria live in areas controlled by Islamic State and are killed by those who attack us” Hollande explained on their behalf in a public address last week, before closing those very borders. The reality is this collective ‘some’ Hollande refers to may well be the empowered majority in France come election time. Front Nationale have averaged 40% approval ratings in opinion polls this year and their political ambitions have only gained traction following the attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in January. In between sobs for the victims and corresponding snarls of revulsion for the killers in the aftermath of these despicable murders, a few powerful Le Pen supporters no doubt rubbed their hands in strategic glee. Because in tragedies like these, invariably there is also political opportunity. And while refugees have been most affected by the immediate security measures — with the closure of the French borders refugees now also face severely limited access to the UK’s — this ‘blowback’ is also steadying its focus inwards. President Hollande has called upon EU leaders to suspend the Schengen Agreement and adopt the Passenger Name Records (PNR) system, which if enacted would hand European intelligence agencies extended powers — not to mention further centralise their resources — to track the movements of European citizens for counter-terrorism purposes, so that ‘enemies within’ can be effectively targeted and neutralised.

Islamic State is a place with amorphous borders and power structures, whose agents have been known to take responsibility for events which have nothing to do with them; but it’s also something immaterial. It is ideology or at least the illusion of it. The realisation that no matter how overarching Western hegemony might first appear, it’s still possible to blow up a small part of it and strike fear in the hearts of millions. They want us to hate them, because they seem to hate us just as much — and in that perceived mutual hatred, the rest of the world has found a semblance of unity. And that unity, that solidarity in the face of a most contemporary evil with the most medieval of aims has so far translated into turbo-pummelling the city of Raqqah and its 250,000 residents on an unprecedented scale in the name of justice. The majority of people who live in the ISIS city stronghold in Syria are captives. They are akin to Palestinian human shields, at the mercy of IDF soldiers and occupying Israeli forces. If it turns out that fewer than 129 of the estimated 1500 deaths in Raqqah this past fortnight were civilians does that mean their deaths were somehow justifiable, and that the response thus far on the part of French, Russian and US forces has therefore been proportionate? That the UK is righteous in joining their fellow red, white and blue allies? In recent years some of the most consequential decisions about civilian lives in the Middle East have been made within the city limits of major Western urban hubs. But for some reason we don’t think about the concentration of opportunity in these cities as anything more than a migrational and economic phenomenon. We don’t think of its coercive pull on people as a subtle appropriation of human shields on the part of Western governments themselves. Even though in a roundabout sense, that’s precisely what they’re doing. Ask yourself why you know little about how many civilians have been killed in Raqqah over the past fortnight, and why that seems ‘normal’. Ask yourself why most of the ‘on-the-ground’ coverage of the operation is being provided by the likes of CNN and its pearl toothed goons. They do a lot of talking, but how useful is the information they actually convey? What’s the point in knowing the type of missile, and how many of them have been dropped when there’s no-one around willing to quantify the casualties, or even ascertain how many of these strikes actually hit the intended targets? Ask yourself why 41 people were killed some 3000 kilometres away from Paris less than 48 hours earlier in Beirut, the capital of a country which has long-serving historical, economic, cultural and military ties with France. Then ask yourself why comparatively speaking no-one BATted an eyelash when those people were killed. Yes, “it happens there a lot” but is that an adequate excuse?

Seven suicide bombers have been identified as culprits for the murders. All of them either Belgian or French nationals. All of them millennials. According to unnamed Belgian security officials two of the men had trained and fought alongside the much reviled Islamic State a few months prior to carrying out the attacks before returning home to Belgium from the battleground of the 21st century’s most confusing proxy war along the stretch of land formerly known as Syria to execute their murderous plan. As many as 10 more suspects are thought to have been involved in the attack following a series of co-ordinated police raids in Parisian and Belgian suburbs last week, during which one 26 year old woman and former ‘boy-mad party animal’ blew herself up. One of the assailants — a 31 year old Belgian man named Ibrahim Abdeslam who has since been described as “chilled” by those who knew him — had never been a particularly devout Muslim according to his former spouse. His friends and family had no idea that he was capable of doing what he did up until the point he actually did it.  He rarely attended mosque nor did he have a reputation for being a violent man. He did smoke a ton of weed and would sleep a lot during the day though. He drank alcohol from time to time, which he paid for with proceeds from welfare payments he’d been claiming for years despite being a qualified electrician. His usual poison was Russian vodka, but as yet no such concrete link has been established between this particular ISIS sleeper cell and Putin’s Kremlin.

Osama bin Laden’s bookshelf was the first thing that sprung to my mind when news about Paris surfaced. Friday 13th. I thought to myself. THEM. The Knights Templar. The “old money” and the secret power. Turns out  the compound hide-out in Abbottabad where in 2011 the bookshelf and world’s most wanted man were eventually found was nothing like the Tracy Island structure Colin Powell had envisioned in the Afghan mountains in 2003. There was in fact no Extremist Industrial Complex with retractable helicopter landing pads and thermo-nuclear capabilities built into the side of exposed rockface in Pakistan.  Osama bin Laden’s hide-out was a cordoned-off room in a reinforced shack with a lumpy old mattress upon the floor: more bedsit than Dr Evil-esque lair. In retrospect, it’s almost unbelievable Powell’s now infamous blueprints were received as anything other than a hilarious troll at the most inappropriate of times. What struck me was the former al Qaeda leader’s choice of reading material — material released in suspiciously close proximity to Seymour Hersh’s 10,000 word essay about Bin Laden’s 2011 assassination — which grants candid insight into his pathology, living out his final days in near solitude and most likely also soul-destroying boredom within the confines of the de-facto prison cell he’d *allegedly* called home for the previous five years. I thought about the Islam for Dummies book the Director of National Intelligence team had recovered during the raid. About whether or not that had all been an elaborate troll too. I thought about distractions, markers and symbolism. I thought about Bin Laden’s copy of Fritz Springmeier’s “Bloodlines of the Illuminati.” More than anything else though, I thought about bin Laden’s fascination with France. About the nineteen essays and reports pertaining to French economic, nuclear & defense policy that were recovered at the scene, including titles like “Did France Cause the Great Depression?”, “France on Radioactive Waste Management 2008” and “Lessons in Restructuring the Defense Industry, the French Experience.” I thought about the perpetrators of the latest carnage. Did they have a copy of Islam for Dummies on their bookshelves at home too, I wondered, or a PDF download of Bloodlines of the Illuminati on their laptops? I thought about the fact they’d likely seen all the YouTube videos I have. Former normal people armed with explosives and AK47s going buck wild on the streets of Paris, and taking so many lives along with their own. It’s frightening because it’s also banal these days. It’s not about Allah or paradise as much as it is boredom and mental illness. It is the yearning for a transcendent experience, which perhaps civilised society cannot provide, that is central to this 21st century death-cult worldview. It’s about the draw of esoteric knowledge and the thrill of the unknowable. I thought about the charred but intact Saudi passport that was miraculously found at Ground Zero in the aftermath of 9/11. I thought about distractions, misnomers, hidden messages and symbolism; and about the rescue of Jessica Lynch. I thought about those Hussein loyalists who in 1990 ransacked a neonatal ward at a Baghdad hospital. Who removed premature Iraqi babies from the incubators they rested in, took those incubators, and then left them to die on the cold, cold floor.

The Sandra Bland Blues…

After spotting a minor traffic violation while on patrol on July 13th Trooper Brian Encinia of Waller County Sheriff’s Department, Texas, decided to pull over the offending driver; allegedly just to issue a warning. Only that warning became a ticket, which then morphed into an arrest within a matter of seconds. About as long as it took for Encinia to absorb the driver’s refusal to be coy with him. 28-year-old Black Lives Matter activist Sandra “Sandy” Bland was that driver and the particulars, well, actually, ‘particular’ – one thing – of the crime was that she had forgotten to indicate when switching lanes on a deserted Texan highway. Less than a fortnight later on July 25th Sandra was laid to rest by loved ones as the rest of the world gawped. As mourners gathered to say goodbye news crews from across the country flocked to the Chicago suburb where the ceremony took place for comment, because turning a funeral into a media circus is simply the done thing now. “That woman deserved dignity, respect!” a man (or woman) in a nearby bush (probably) exclaimed whilst idly zooming in and out of the mourner’s grief-stricken faces. During a press conference that day, at a fucking funeral, the family’s attorney confirmed they were dubious about Waller County Police Department’s version of events, which ruled Sandra’s death a suicide. Why? Because Sandra’s mother Geneva Veal-Read told Al Sharpton (who’s a newsreader now apparently) that “she just wouldn’t have killed herself” in an interview on MSNBC.

On the Bland family’s request a second, independent autopsy was conducted to compare, contrast and potentially challenge the conclusions drawn by the Waller County Police Department. The results are yet to be released but in the meantime theories and observations – from the astute to the ridiculous, the plausible to the deliberately misleading – continue to reverberate online. The focus on unveiling a cover-up is why the Black Lives Matters movement took up Sandra’s case in the first place. Because as a black woman, it’s assumed her arrest and mistreatment at the hands of the police hinged on the colour of her skin: that Sandra died because she was black, or at the very least had Sandra not been black she would not have been arrested in the first place and would therefore still be alive. In Texas, given the disproportionate number of traffic stops African Americans are subject to it’s certainly more likely that being black was a contributing factor to her being pulled over. But there’s been no significant mention from any major media outlet about how revenue generated from traffic tickets and the bail system funds many small town police departments in the US and that these mechanisms are being exploited because police departments are reliant on the income generated by both. Was Sandra pulled over because she was black or was she simply fulfilling some bullshit traffic stop quota Encinia was keeping, to begin with at least? Just recently a long serving Texan municipal court judge quit his job over what he described as a 'ticketing quota system’ in Falls and Robertson counties, claiming that the local municipal court is essentially the police department’s cash cow. It’s an exploitative system, always has been, and because African Americans are condemned to its sanctions disproportionately it hits them hardest economically. African Americans are thus forced into subsidising a law enforcement which vilifies all, but targets their ethnic group most. 

The court set Sandra a $5,000 bond – which, from my cursory research is excessive in relation to her ‘crime’– that would have been returned to her upon attending the official proceedings had she been able to pay in full. At the time she couldn’t so alternatively, had she been able to pay a bail bondsman $500 to post the $5,000 on her behalf she could also have left the jailhouse. She was clearly distressed by the situation she was in and she had (apparently) been self-harming in the weeks leading up to her arrest according to the contested autopsy report, which said she had three week old cut wounds on her wrists. If she couldn’t raise the deposit to leave; and if the people she called couldn’t pool the money together either then surely Black Lives Matter could have stepped in to raise the cash had their help been requested? BLM activists – what’s the phone number people in Sandy’s situation should call from whatever jail they’re confined to to state their case for assistance with police bail when neither themselves nor their families/friends are able to raise the bond money? Why was that not the first thing you clarified after Sandra’s death? Police dash-cam footage of the arrest had to be re-released following accusations of editing and 'suspiciously timed’ technical glitches by thousands of internet sleuths. Sandra is hostile but poised towards the officer in the video when he asks her to put out the cigarette, and she commits absolutely no crime in doing so. No law compels Sandra to put out her cigarette in her own car and she is aware of this. Clearly to the annoyance of the police officers. Encinia doesn’t just fail to de-escalate the tension, he openly exacerbates it. He tries to drag Sandy from the car before threatening her with his taser. “Get out of the car, or I will light you up!” he bellows at one point as she exits the vehicle. Shortly afterwards, out of shot although clearly audible, Sandra, who is restrained on the ground at this point explains she has epilepsy, and that she had lost hearing in one ear after hitting her head on the ground during the scuffle. “Good!” Encinia responds. “And you don’t even care!” she screams back, clearly exasperated and in pain.

Sandra was, eventually, after a Kafkaesque sideshow performed by Encinia formally arrested for 'Assault on a Public Servant’. In the video, Encinia stalls in telling her exactly what she is being arrested for on multiple occasions. He implies  she’s under arrest before she even exits her car, before anything that could be reasonably construed as an assault on her part takes place. He baits her until she reacts to his aggression with her own. His manner is bizarre and infantilising throughout, like a drill sergeant hungry for respect laying into an unruly new recruit. And it’s clear he’s aware of the dash-cam’s gaze. Sandra – whose actual 'crime’, remember, was forgetting to indicate – was then taken to Waller County Jail where she died under contested circumstances in a grey cell, having received no visitors and having had no luck raising the bail money that was set seventy two hours later. As the footage of the arrest clearly demonstrates Encinia was combative and unprofessional in the way he handled the situation leading up to Sandy’s arrest, to the point of goading. Sandra Bland should not have been arrested in the first place. She was on her way back home after a successful job interview for a position at her alma-meter, Prairie View A&M when Encinia’s path crossed with hers. She was planning for the future. She was a Black Lives Matter activist. She was fairly prolific on social media and would often post candid videos about the movement, along with musings about dealing with the depression, anxiety and loss life burdens us all with at one time or another. She was open. She has been described as 'complicated’ – but who isn’t? She was eloquent, fierce and a demonstrably skilful orator: the kind of activist law enforcements and security services would potentially keep tabs on. For this reason, Black Lives Matters activists are wary that Sandra’s open support for the movement may have affected the treatment she received at the hands of Waller County Police. BLM honcho @Deray revealed via his Twitter account recently that the FBI monitored his and a few of his comrade’s on and offline activities during the Ferguson protests, so it’s understandable why suspicions have been roused.

It’s certainly possible the police officers were privy to details about Sandra’s life either before or soon after she was pulled over, or later at the jailhouse. By cross-referencing the car’s license plate her name would have been found soon enough, and a Google search would have revealed the rest. But this is also a condition of the 21st Century. Everybody – by which of course I don’t mean everybody – has internet access nowadays and thanks to new encryption technologies you can mask your browsing habits anyway, if you really want to. Technology exacerbates the paradigm of doubt, its true. It’s also becoming increasingly easy to construct 'real-life’ images and scenes so as to appear authentic thanks to advances in imaging technologies: and if the saboteur is skilled enough then proving outright that the image is a forgery can be all but impossible. Luckily, most of them aren’t. However, it was on this basis of doubt and visual dissonance that Twitter sleuths made the case for Sandra being dead when her mugshot was taken. Her features were sunken. There were 'tape marks’ around her eyes. It looked like the photograph had been taken from above and her dreadlocks weren’t in the 'right’ position for her to be stood up. That kind of thing. Then a photograph purporting to be the 'real’ unedited mugshot, where Sandra’s eyes are rolled back into her skull as if already dead made its perverse rounds on social media a few days ago. People were horrified – and *morbidly fascinated* – by the idea it was true: and of course it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility given the current situation in the States and how high-profile Sandra’s death had become. For all those reasons, the rumour stuck. Then Anonymous waded in, with a video confirming the authenticity of the 'real’ mugshot and accusing Waller County Police Department of also forging both police reports. Anony-bot ends the transmission with calls for a nationwide “day of rage” in cities across the country, to demand justice for Sandra and all those who have died in the custody of the world’s most militarised police force. In a matter of days the call to arms had clocked around 2,000,000 views.

Only new footage of Sandra released by Waller County after apparent 'death threats’ made the rounds online to confirm that she was alive and wearing prison overalls at the jailhouse when her mugshot was taken; to dispel the rumour once and for all. Only it hasn’t been (completely) dispelled. People will continue to believe the macabre image is the real thing and not a forgery, believe that Sandy took her own life and that the police reports are genuine, until the second can clarify once and for all what happened. People believe either Sandra died from injuries she sustained on the highway or subsequent injuries in her cell, only for it to be covered up by Waller County Police Department. Fellow inmate Alexandria Pyle recalled that Sandra “seemed really distraught” at the jailhouse in an interview, before adding that she was “positive” Sandra had taken her own life because she believes that the guards would not have killed her. Because Sandra was an activist who advised others about their rights and defending their dignity: as in, a person who placed great value in the sanctity of the human, its difficult – unfathomable even – to accept the explanation that she killed herself. But such is the nature of depression for many, and suicide can often be sparked by whim. I didn’t know Sandra, nor her family, nor anyone from Waller County Sheriff’s Department. I don’t know what happened to her, and, for now at least, I don’t understand why *combined* her friends and family couldn’t raise the $500 to post the bail bond in the first place. Not that it’s any of my business. If Sandra was murdered or if she died as a result of injuries she sustained at Waller County Poice Department’s hands then yes, this crowd-sourced forensic investigation shit-show has ultimately led to a just outcome and is therefore legitimate, for all the falsities and crackpot theories that came with it. However, if Sandra did take her own life – which of course itself raises questions about police neglect, about not monitoring her regularly – then internet sleuths, please ask yourselves: you couldn’t defend Sandra’s dignity while she was still alive, sure, but in what way have your actions defended this woman’s dignity in death? You accused her of looking like a corpse while she was still alive for goodness sake.

#sandra bland #anti-racists are secretly racist

[drmaqazi]

January 2014-May 2014, Israelis killed 23 adult Palestinians and 4 children, abduct 2,300 Palestinians; Palestinians killed 1 Israeli soldier, 0 children, 0 abductions

February 2014, “Trigger-Happy: Israel’s Use of Excessive Force in the West Bank.”

Amnesty International Report

February 2014, Zionists instigate insurrection in the Ukraine

Ukraine Protests: Israeli Ex-Officer ‘Leads Militant Group’

Bullying the Ukraine

American and Israeli Zionists Behind Civil Unrest in the Ukraine

US Zionist admits subversion of Ukraine

Israeli militia commander fights to protect Kiev

April 1, 2014, A Catholic monastery near Beit Shemesh was vandalized with “Jesus is a monkey” and “Mary is a cow,” spray painted on the walls of the monastery. The tires of four vehicles also were slashed.

April 23, 2014, Israeli settlers release wild pigs on Palestinian farms

IMEMC 21 Apr by Chris Carlson — Palestinian farmers in the Salfit district appealed all to Palestinian and international bodies to stop the continued destruction of their crops caused by the Israeli pigs [wild boars] in the district. Farmers said, “We have encountered heavy losses in our wheat and barley crops, where the pigs destroyed them completely.” They added, “We tried to get rid of the pigs with all available ways but we have failed,” pointing out that the only way is to shoot them; which is difficult due to the miltary’s monitoring towers and checkpoints in the area. Furthermore, according to Al Ray, Palestinian researcher Khaled Maali explained that the settlers found launching wild pigs toward the Palestinian farmlands was the best effective way to fight the Palestinian farmers without significant cost. Maali pointed out that the occupation prevents the Palestinians from shooting the pigs, whereas it permits settlers to kill the pigs when they reach their colonial settlements.

May 21, 2014, Calls For Justice After Video Reveals IDF Shooting Of Innocent Palestinian Teens

June 12, 2014, On the pretext of three alleged abductions of Israelis and ignoring the recent murders of 23 adult Palestinians and 4 children, and the abduction of 2,300 Palestinians, Israel launches another genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza strip.

July 3, 2014, Rabbi Noam Perel, Head of the largest Orthodox Judaic youth movement, B’nei Akiva, calls for indiscriminate murder:

July 4, 2014, Israeli Interior Minister Eli Yishai, Minsiter for Strategic Threats Moshe Ya’alon, and Chief of Israeli Central Command Major General Avi Mizrahi honor the racist Rabbi Dov Lior who endorsed the manual on killing gentiles, Torat Hamalech.

July 7, 2014, Israelis abducted and burned alive a teenager, Mohammed Abu Khedair, then ferociously beat his American cousin, Tariq Khdeir, visiting on holiday.

Warning: The videos are graphic.

After his cousin was abducted and burned alive by Israelis, Tariq Khdeir, an American, was ferociously beaten.

July 1, 2014, Jewish “Defense” League provokes French opponents of Israeli genocide in Gaza:

July 14, 2014, Israeli Member of the Knesset for the “Jewish Home” party (and Justice  Minister since 2015) Ayelet Shaked stated that all Palestinian mothers should be killed so they do not raise any more “little snakes.”

“On Monday [June 30, 2014] Shaked quoted this on her Facebook page: ‘Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.’

‘They have to die and their houses should be demolished so that they cannot bear any more terrorists,’ said Shaked. Standing behind the operations on Gaza, ‘they are all our enemies and their blood should be on our hands. This also applies to the mothers of the dead terrorists,’ Shaked added.

A day before Palestinian teenager Muhammad Abu Khudair was kidnapped and burned alive [above] allegedly by six Israeli Jewish youths, Shaked published on Facebook a call for genocide of the Palestinians.”

‘Mothers of all Palestinians should also be killed,’ says Israeli politician. Daily Sabah. 14 July 2014.

July 19, 2014, Multiple videos document Israelis cheering and applauding the genocide of women and children, but complain about a cartoon.

July 20, 2014, Israelis watch and cheer as innocent Palestinian civilians, including children, are killed:

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July 22, 2014, Israeli Professor Mordechai Kedar of Bar Ilan University advocates raping Palestinian mothers and sisters as a deterrent to “terrorism.”

Former Pentagon Comptroller and Undersecretary of Defense in the Bush administration, Rabbi Dov S. Zakheim cites the Torah precepts that allow Judaic soldiers to rape Gentile women:

“It is the consensus of many halachic decisors (judges of rabbinic law) that the yefat to’ar (female goy captive) can be subject to involuntary intercourse, though only once, after which she must undergo a specific regimen described in the Torah (Torah sheBeal peh i.e. the Mishnah and Gemara), conversion and marriage, before her captor is permitted further sexual relations with her...”

Rabbi Dov S. Zakheim, Meorot vol. 6: no. 1 (2006), p. 5.

July 23, 2014, Israelis blockade medical care of children

July 28, 2014, Israelis celebrate the slaughter of children:

July 30, 2014, Israelis bomb school in Gaza, 20 dead

July 30, 2014, Israelis celebrate the death of Gazan children

“There is no school tomorrow; there are no children left in Gaza”

“I hate all the Arabs” and “Gaza is a cemetery”

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August 1, 2014, Times of Israel Article: “When Genocide is Permissible” – Just a Little Too Honest

Archived here: https://archive.today/RPf3M#selection-633.0-639.11

August 1, 2014, Israeli soldier’s Twitter post: “I killed 13 childrens today and ur next fucking muslims go to hell bitches [sic].” “However, some people argued they are fake.”

August 3, 2014, Israeli air strike on Gaza hits third UN school in 10 days:

August 4, 2014, The Israeli “Defense” Force caught in forgery of fake evidence to prop up their Gaza narrative

August 5, 2014, Rabbi Henry Siegman, retired executive director of the American Jewish Congress, admits that the targeting of civilians was started by Jewish terrorist groups and “that Israeli generals received direct instructions from Ben-Gurion during the War of Independence to kill civilians, or line them up against the wall and shoot them, in order to help to encourage the exodus…”

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/prominent-jewish-leader-israel-intentionally-killed-civillians-1948-engaged-ethnic-cleansing-ever-since.html archived: https://archive.is/Rop8v

August 6, 2014, Reality-based cartoon about Gaza denounced as “anti-Semitic” and retracted by newspaper:

November 11, 2014, Israeli David Sheen testifies before the German Bundestag about Israeli top officials inciting racism and genocidal violence. https://youtu.be/9GbKsAvuBDM

August 9, 2014, Israeli sniper shoot children playing on their own rooftop, then other Israeli snipers congratulate the shooter for his hit.

August 6, 2014, Jews object to political cartoon:

November 10, 2014, David Sheen testifies at the Bundestag, the German Parliament in Berlin, on 10 November 2014, about Israeli top officials inciting racism and racial violence.

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November 29, 2014, Jews burn school that allowed Arabs.The three set fire on November 29 to the Max Rayne Hand in Hand School in Jerusalem and spray-painting on the school’s walls racist messages such as ‘There is no coexistence with cancer’; ‘Death to the Arabs’; and ‘Kahane was right,’ a reference to the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, a mentor of the Jewish ultra-nationalist movement.”