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US neocons Bolton & PNAC lay down weapons of war for protest signs with their new ‘Turkish Democracy Project’

By Helen Buyniski | RT | July 5, 2021

The aging neocons who have been practicing regime change ops in the Middle East for decades are now launching a project targeting Turkey – perhaps in honor of the deceased Don Rumsfeld.

Erdogan’s Turkey has long been something of a thorn in Washington’s paw, given its ongoing refusal to buy inferior US military equipment (it was booted from the US’ F-35 program for insisting on buying Russian S-400 missiles, making the Americans who still store their nukes at Incirlik somewhat nervous), its refusal to place the good of Israel above its own benefit, and its rumblings of discontent regarding the US’ pleas for support (or at least safe passage) to its Syrian ‘moderate rebel’ militant groups, which Ankara considers to be little more than terrorists.

Under the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey has become quite recalcitrant indeed, far from the ideal domesticated state keen to babysit American nukes and stage American missiles in exchange for coveted membership in the deteriorating NATO structure (not long ago fetchingly described by French President Emmanuel Macron as “brain dead”). Clearly what it needs is a shot in the bottom from that great big needle marked ‘Democracy’ – and who better to deliver that than the good old boys from the Project for a New American Century, many of them the old same men who led and lied the US, blindfolded, into the chaos of Iraq.

Enter the Turkish Democracy Project, a non-profit organization which – it should be clear from the name – has nothing to do with democracy or, really, Turkishness. The group’s website is about as subtle as a nuclear bomb, blaming President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for “dramatically alter[ing] Turkey’s position in the international community and its status as a free and liberal democracy” and calling for “a nonprofit, non-partisan, international policy organization that opposes its destabilizing behavior, supports genuine democratic reform, and holds the forces of corruption and oppression within Turkey to account.” In other words: “We want a piece of your country. Resist and be annihilated.”

It’s not that the US thinks Turkey is stupid. But they believe, and are likely correct, that the US will never have as good a time as now to strike. With its military still feared by many parts of the world (even though its bark is at this point far worse than its bite, and its image still suitably ferocious to put much of the actual war-fighting business to fleeing instead of fighting), the main business must be – if the US expects to do something other than flee home with its tail between its legs – “shock and awe.”

But given that these shock and awe tactics will be taking place in the Middle East, an area which has seen the worst the US can throw at its enemies over the last 20 years of perpetual warfare and realizes all the money in the world can’t give even the largest military on Earth the stamina of the gods, it’s likely these dyed-in-the-wool bloodshed-artists will have to change with the times. To invade a militarily competent nation like Turkey – especially one which, inconveniently, happens to be backed by NATO – is unlikely to be a walk in the park, no matter how many phony war crimes the PNAC crew manage to cook up. Gas attacks have become cliche, and any talk of “weapons of mass destruction” will elicit a chortle at best.

So the TDS, if recent events are any indication, has instead gotten to work with the kind of color revolution-style events that have largely replaced shock and awe in other regime-change hotspots. They’re cheap, they’re easy, and in this case – a protest in Istanbul against Turkey’s withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention? – they require exactly zero imagination. It’s much easier to con the rest of NATO if you don’t have to make them think.

Thousands of activists took to the streets on Thursday, either on their own or hailing from various NGOs, denouncing Turkey’s withdrawal from the European human rights treaty known as the Istanbul Convention. Erdogan’s executive order removing Turkey from the treaty, first adopted back in March, argued the country’s women are protected by domestic laws rather than the international human rights treaty – which he argued had been “hijacked” by the LGBTQ+ community.

The hoary old PNAC boys behind the TDS likely couldn’t believe their luck when something like this fell into their lap. But will they be able to modernize?

The group’s CEO is Mark Wallace, who’s also the CEO of United Against Nuclear Iran – another unsubtly named regime-change operation (and a regime change that has failed repeatedly). An old hand at overthrowing Middle Eastern nations the old-fashioned way, Wallace held several positions with the George W. Bush administration while the nation was attempting to crush Iraq (apparently shocked the children had run forward with IEDs instead of handfuls of wildflowers to welcome their new rulers).

Indeed, numerous fellow veterans of the Iraq regime change effort and abortive attempts to overthrow Iran have bubbled up in the swamp gas to give regime change in Turkey a go. Wallace is joined by other bottom-feeders like former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman and UANI intel chief Norman Roule, as well as glorified mustache-carrier, would-be thug, and former Trump national security adviser John Bolton. Former Bush adviser Frances Townsend is there, as is former associate deputy director of operations for the CIA (and Blackwater vet) Robert Richer. At least a few members of the shadowy pro-Israel Foundation for the Defense of Democracies were listed and then memory-holed, and Bush’s brother Jeb is there, a speech bubble forever hovering above his head reading “please clap.”

Oddly enough, however, the only currently listed actual employee aside from CEO Wallace is a (presumably) former assistant English professor at Princeton University. No, that’s not suspicious at all. Carry on, I’m sure Turkey will welcome you (and your desired partitioning of the country) with open arms!

With Erdogan still trustingly paying his country’s NATO dues, Ankara is unlikely to expect any sort of real attack, though the leader is likely on guard, given former President Trump’s on-again, off-again announcement to clear out US soldiers from Syria. He is likely to be on the lookout for foreign meddlers among the protesters, however. And Erdogan’s allies with their ears to the ground both inside and outside Turkey have already pegged this absurd attempt at bringing back ‘democracy’ for what it really is. While some have linked it to the infamous Gulen movement, referring to the cleric who most recently was accused of trying to overthrow Erdogan in 2016, Gulen’s movement itself seems to have ties to the same ‘Greater Israel’ plan to redraw the lines on the map of the Middle East, a plan Israeli military strategist Oded Yinon devised decades ago (and which the neocons appear to have used as their foreign policy guide ever since). Former Turkish opposition lawmaker Aykan Erdemir, senior director for Turkey at the FDD, was accused of being connected to Gulen in 2017 and had his assets seized, strengthening the case for the connection between Gulen’s organization and the notoriously pro-Israel FDD.

But with all of NATO’s heads turned to this human rights drama, surely the other countries in the alliance also participating in the drawing-and-quartering of Syria won’t expect a military attack on Turkey as well – not without some warning. The map of Greater Israel shows Turkey losing a mere corner of their land compared to Syria, which takes quite a beating – one which Turkey clearly expects to be a part of, having already staked its claim effectively to certain border regions of Syria under the logic of keeping the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) away. But this is all temporary, and eventually the region must settle into its new form. An Israel-first arrangement will not go down well with any of the other combatants, and, unlike the US and its European partners, Turkey won’t just sit on its hands and sigh wistfully while its share of the Syrian pie is handed to the US by way of Tel Aviv.

Because that’s who the ultimate beneficiary of this mess is supposed to be. Named after the Israeli military strategist who devised it, the Yinon project hopes to balkanize the Middle East and assemble the shards into a single nation consisting of the choicest morsels of those countries in between the Euphrates and the Nile rivers. Iraq has already been cut in half, Syria has shrunk dramatically even as the war goes on, and Egypt is run by a pliant leader who will do what the US and Israel tell him – as General Wesley Clark said over a decade ago, the plan was to take out seven countries in five years. They’re running a bit behind, but never underestimate the abilities of a bunch of old war criminals with nothing to lose.

Helen Buyniski is an American journalist and political commentator at RT. Follow her on Telegram.

July 5, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Media finally covering immense crimes against indigenous peoples in Canada known of for decades. Why now?

By Eva Bartlett | RT | July 4, 2021

The reprehensible issue of what many deem “mass murder” of indigenous children in Canada’s Catholic school system has been in global headlines in recent weeks. But this should have been in the headlines decades ago.

The nearly 1,000 bodies of indigenous children in mass graves were recently found by ground-penetrating radar, said the Federation of Sovereign Indigenous First Nations (FSIN) and the Cowessess First Nation.

A reported 150,000 indigenous children were abducted and imprisoned in the Catholic schools, where they were tortured with the intent of erasing their culture and language, as were also sexually abused, had needles driven through their tongues for speaking their own language, were sterilized, among many other horrific practices.

After these findings made the news, people were rightly outraged. Catholic churches in British Columbia and Alberta have since been vandalized and set afire, including churches currently used by indigenous communities as meeting places, acts met with disgust by many indigenous, saying vandalism isn’t justice.

The vandalism continued on Canada Day, with another 10 churches in Calgary targeted.

The premier of Alberta, Jason Kenney, denounced the vandalization of an African Evangelical Church, noting that the congregation is “made up entirely of new Canadians, many of whom came here as refugees fleeing countries where Churches are often vandalized & burned down.”

While some have justified the vandalization of the churches as a push for justice, others questioned whether vandalized or burned mosques or synagogues would also receive the same approval.

After Prime Minister Trudeau spoke of “reconciliation” and how “our relationship with indigenous peoples” has evolved, people rightly called out the government of Canada for empty talk, noting indigenous communities around the country frequently lack clean drinking water. Then, there’s the issue that aside from an official apology, the government hasn’t charged or tried anyone for these crimes.

A report first published in March 2016 by the International Tribunal for the Disappeared of Canada (ITDC) has since apparently been heavily censored and removed from Google search results.

It addressed the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” carried out by the government and churches, calling it “a rapid in-house response by church and state designed to present their own self-serving narrative of their Indian residential schools crimes,” noting it “was created by the same institutions of church and state that were responsible for the residential school crimes being investigated.”

The synopsis notes that the crimes were “legally authorized, sanctioned and protected by every level of government, church and police in Canada,” and “amounted to deliberate genocide.”

It refers to horrifying facts that the average Canadian likely doesn’t know, including that “Native children began dying in droves the very first year the residential schools opened in 1889, at an average death rate of nearly 50%.” This, it emphasized, continued for the next five decades, “despite constant complaints and reports by doctors who inspected the schools.”

The deaths were caused by “a continual denial of regular food, clothing and proper sanitation to children interned in the schools, amidst a regime of routine and systemic rapes, beatings, tortures and killings: conditions that continued unabated for over a century, from 1889 to 1996.”

Why now?

While I fully stand with the push for justice for the manifold crimes committed against the indigenous peoples in what is now Canada, I do wonder, why is this making headlines now? It’s not like these are new revelations.

Ostensibly the reason these mass graves are in the news now is due to their recent discovery. But, others point out that indigenous have for decades said there were mass graves, but were met with silence.

Indeed, an article first published in May 2008 – and according to the author, rejected by Canadian media – spoke of a 1996 lawsuit launched by residential school survivors on the issue of the death and torture at residential schools. It noted that “residential school children were being buried ‘four or five to a grave’, and that the death rate in these schools stayed constant at fifty percent for over forty years.”

It rightly asked: “Why is the disappearance of tens of thousands of native children in these schools not the subject of a major criminal investigation?”

That was 13 years ago, the lawsuit over two decades ago.

This is just one of, I’m sure, countless examples over the years, decades even, of calls to investigate the missing children and the criminal practices of the schools they were forced into.

So, while it would seem a good thing that the media is highlighting the issue of the barbaric ‘residential schools’, the fact that the media – and not just Canadian, but global media – is covering this should make us take pause. These are the same outlets that sold us WMDs in Iraq, chemical weapons in Syria, and innumerable lies to justify wars and invasions against sovereign nations.

Again, for me, the question is, why now is Canada discussing this issue? I don’t know the answer to that, but before getting swept up in toppling statues for ‘justice’, it is worth considering this and whether justice is really served by vandalization and the PM’s empty words.

Eva Bartlett is a Canadian independent journalist and activist. She has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years).

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

The Nakba and the Polish Law

By Gilad Atzmon | Almayadeen | July 4, 2021

“Israel” seems upset by a new Polish law that sets a 30-year deadline for Jews to recover seized property. The legislation is yet to be approved by Poland’s senate, yet Israeli officials already refer to it as the “Holocaust law.” They insist that it is ‘immoral’ and ‘a disgrace.’

Last week Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Yair Lapid insisted that the bill “is a disgrace that will not erase the horrors or the memory of the Holocaust.”

I fail to see which part of the legislation interferes with the memory and the horrors of the holocaust. I actually think that the crude attempt to squeeze billions of dollars from Poland in the name of a human tragedy may have a detrimental impact on this historical chapter and the way it is memorized.

The Poles didn’t approve of the Jewish ‘State’ interfering with their internal affairs. On Friday, Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki hit back at Lapid, stressing, “I can only say that as long as I am the prime minister, Poland will not pay for German crimes: Neither zloty, nor euro, nor dollar.”

Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs echoed Morawiecki’s position, arguing that Lapid’s comments were misguided. “Poland is by no means responsible for the Holocaust, an atrocity committed by the German occupant also on Polish citizens of Jewish origin.”

During the weekend, the crisis seemed to escalate. On Sunday, Poland and “Israel” summoned the other’s ambassador for meetings as the rift between the two countries didn’t seem to subside.

I am not in a position to judge what is right and who is wrong on restitution matters. Suppose the Polish new legislation is “a horrific injustice and disgrace that harms the rights of Holocaust survivors and their heirs,” as Lapid says. In that case, we should also expect Lapid to vividly support the Palestinians, their right of return, and their right to be compensated for the colossal crimes committed against them in 1948 and thereafter.

In 1948, more than 700,000 Palestinians (the vast majority of indigenous Palestine) were ethnically cleansed by the newly born Jewish ‘State’. This catastrophic racially driven crime (that included a long list of massacres) is called the Nakba. It took place less than four years after the liberation of Auschwitz.

During the 1948 war and shortly after, young “Israel” wiped out Palestinian cities and villages. It then used legislation to prevent Palestinians from returning to their homes and applied any possible means to plunder their properties, dispossessing those few Palestinians who clung to their land. Yet, “Israel” never admitted its original sin of ethnic cleansing.

Applying to a moral cause, “Israel” claims to represent Jewish demands for restitution in Poland. I wonder, shouldn’t the same rule be applied to the Palestinians? Shouldn’t “Israel” put the same moral law into play and acknowledge the Palestinians’ right to their land, villages, cities, fields, and orchards?

While in Poland, it was Nazi Germany that brought a disaster on the county’s Jewry. In Palestine, young IDF and Jewish paramilitary groups committed colossal crimes against the indigenous population. While Nazi Germany ceased to exist in 1945, the IDF is still with us. The Labour party (which formed the first Israeli government directly) is still active and is even a member of the current governing coalition. The Likud Party, being the offspring of the Irgun and the Stern Gang (both complicit in some of the most brutal massacres in Palestine), is, by far, the biggest party in the Israeli Knesset. The Israeli and Zionist institutions that were responsible for the 1948 crime have never ceased to exist. They have never owned their crimes, let alone repented.

Holocaust survivors have been compensated by different means for the crime that was committed against them by Europeans. “Israel” benefitted from a large reparations deal with the German government. The Palestinians, however, are still living in open-air prisons and refugee camps, subject to blockades and constant abuse.

The time is ripe for “Israel” to own up to its horrendous past. By now, “Israel” should accept that the Palestinian cause is not fading away or evaporating into thin air. If “Israel” seeks to reconcile with the region, it must first apply to itself that moral code that it demands Poland to follow.

July 4, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Europe court refuses to reopen case into Yasser Arafat’s death

MEMO | July 2, 2021

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected a case brought by the widow and daughter of late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat requesting it reopen an investigation into his 2004 death.

After unsuccessful lawsuits in French courts, Suha and Zahwa Arafat filed a criminal complaint to the ECHR in 2017 claiming the former Palestinian Authority (PA), PLO and Fatah president had been the victim of premeditated murder.

However, in a ruling issued yesterday, the ECHR said there had been no infringement of the right to a fair hearing and the complaint was “manifestly ill-founded”.

The court unanimously declared the complaint inadmissible, according to the Guardian.

Three judges said that after reviewing the case, “at all stages of the proceedings, the applicants, assisted by their lawyers, had been able to exercise their rights effectively”.

“Judges did not appear to have reached arbitrary conclusions based on the facts before them and their interpretation of the evidence in the file or the applicable law had not been unreasonable,” they added.

In 2015, French judges closed an investigation into claims Arafat was murdered, without bringing any charges. The French court of appeal upheld the dismissal of the case, leading the former leader’s family to take their case to the ECHR.

The couple married secretly in Tunisia in 1990, when Suha was 27 and Arafat 61. Their daughter Zahwa was born five years later.

On 11 November 2004, Arafat died in France, under highly suspicious circumstances, at the age of 75. Until now, doctors have been unable to determine the exact cause of his death.

The Palestinian Authority has repeatedly insisted that Israel is behind his death, claims Tel Aviv denies.

July 2, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Knesset member calls for killing of people in mixed marriages

MEMO | July 1, 2021

 A member of the Israeli Knesset, Yitzhak Pindrus, is accused of inciting genocide after calling for the killing of people in mixed marriages. Pindrus belongs to the United Torah Judaism, an ultra-Orthodox party that believes in a homogenous Jewish state. The party won seven seats in Israel’s fourth general election in under two years which was held in March.

United Torah Judaism is part of the right-wing opposition camp headed by ousted Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s premier for the past 12 years.

Speaking about Jews that marry non-Jews, Pindrus called for the killing of what he called “people who contribute to miscegenatio ben de o siz merhaban.” He is said to have invoked a Biblical story about the murder of a Jewish man and non-Jewish woman while they were making love by lancing a spear through their engaged sexual organs.

Pindrus’ comments, which were made within the Israeli Knesset itself, was shared on social media by David Sheen, an Israeli journalist. A caption of his speech shows the 49-year-old calling for the murder of “people who cause assimilation” while looking directly at Mansour Abbas, head of the United Arab List party that joined the fragile coalition which ousted Netanyahu. It’s not clear if the call for the murder of Jews that intermarry non-Jews is a symbolic reference to the coalition led by far-right nationalist Naftali Bennett.

Leading advocates of Israel are often seen issuing stark warnings against intermarriage. While many religious groups and cultures look upon mixed marriages disapprovingly, elected officials rarely entertain the issue considering it to be a parochial matter. However, in Israel, where non-Jews are seen as a demographic threat, inter-marriage is a highly political issue.

Last year, prominent member of one of American Jewish Committee, one of the US’ most active pro-Israel advocacy group, said that marriage between Jews and non-Jews is a “tragedy” for the occupation state because it presents a “crisis” for the core of political support for the Zionist state.

July 1, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

US Judge tosses frivolous lawsuit by Sulome Anderson seeking to destroy The Grayzone

Press TV – June 30, 2021

The District of Columbia Superior Court has rejected a lawsuit filed by writer Sulome Anderson seeking to destroy The Grayzone, a news website, over one of its articles which showed Anderson published blatant misinformation falsely alleging Iranian attacks on Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

On May 9, 2018, Anderson tweeted two videos that she claimed showed Iran allegedly firing missiles at the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Many Twitter users immediately pointed out that the videos contained no such footage.

Anderson then deleted these tweets. However, an archived Google search shows the cached versions of the tweets.

In the first of the two deleted tweets, Anderson wrote, “Video of Iranians firing missiles into Israel just minutes ago.”

In the second deleted tweet, she added, “Another video of Iranian missile fire at the Israeli Golan, sent to me by a source in Hezbollah.”

Both videos were found to be bogus, as Anderson herself soon acknowledged. She issued a correction, tweeting, “Correction: earlier today I posted a video a source sent me who was under the impression that it was of an Israeli airstrike in Syria this morning; it was actually of a mine clearing in Damascus. Miscommunication down the line. Tweet has been deleted.”

Later in May, Ben Norton of The Grayzone wrote an article for the website, entitled “Sulome Anderson Admits Her Supposed Hezbollah Source Is ‘Incredibly Unreliable.’” The article consisted primarily of Anderson’s own admission that her sources were not credible.

In December of the same year, Sulome filed a frivolous, million-dollar suit claiming libel, defamation, and tortious conspiracy against The Grayzone’s editor Max Blumenthal and Norton.

She also taunted and threatened William Moran, Blumenthal’s friend and long-time personal attorney, with the coming lawsuit.

However, on June 16, Judge William M. Jackson rejected the lawsuit, putting an end to the entitled heiress’ three-year-long campaign to smear and bankrupt The Grayzone with the help of a powerful DC lawyer closely linked to the Israel lobby, the website reported.

The daughter of the AP reporter Terry Anderson, Sulome, who speaks Arabic, has reported from the Middle East for outlets such as the Atlantic, NBC News, the Daily Beast, and Newsweek.

Her lawsuit against The Grayzone was boosted by some powerful friends in the corporate media. CNN host Jake Tapper and New York Magazine’s in-house neoliberal enforcer, Jonathan Chait, were among those who prompted the suit.

Commenting on Twitter about her lawsuit, Sulome claimed that “this has very little to do with defaming me,” conceding her ulterior motive to muzzle and destroy The Grayzone.

The malicious quality of the complaint, however, prompted an exasperated statement by Judge Jackson at the start of the July 2019 hearing.

“I don’t think anyone expected to see a journalist using libel law to try to sue another journalist in a local court,” the judge commented.

Jackson also rejected the main allegation in Sulome’s legal assault that The Grayzone “had engaged in a nefarious conspiracy to defame her with a collection of anonymous Twitter accounts with which we had no connection.”

“If a judge had validated such an absurd claim, Sulome’s legal assault could have made social media users liable for tweets by anonymous users simply because they shared similar opinions or ideology,” the website said in its report.

In a statement to The Grayzone, the website’s legal defenders at Hawgood & Moran Law called Sulome’s complaint as “a Trojan Horse that would have ended the free and open exchange of ideas on social media.”

“Sulome Anderson reported a false casus belli based on an admittedly ‘incredibly unreliable source,’” the counsel explained, adding she “then unleashed a venerable, or at least very expensive, DC law firm in an attempt to effectively banish not only social media use but also having (alleged) thoughts that her attorney would deem controversial.”

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

http://www.presstv.ir

http://www.presstv.co.uk

http://www.presstv.tv

June 30, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

UN chief sounds alarm over abuses against Kashmiri children by India

Press TV – June 30, 2021

United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has voiced grave concerns about human rights violations against children in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

“I call upon the [Indian] government to take preventive measures to protect children, including by ending the use of pellets against children, ensuring that children are not associated in any way to security forces, and endorsing the Safe Schools Declaration and the Vancouver Principles,” Guterres said in the UN Report on Children 2021 released on Tuesday.

The UN report cited numerous violations involving Indian forces attacking Kashmiri children in the Indian-administered Kashmir.

“A total of 39 children (33 boys, 6 girls) were killed (9) and maimed (30) by pellet guns (11) and torture (2) by unidentified perpetrators (13) (including resulting from explosive remnants of war (7), crossfire between unidentified armed groups and Indian security forces (3), crossfire between unidentified armed groups, and grenade attacks (3)), Indian security forces (13), and crossfire and shelling across the line of control (13),” it said.

The UN secretary-general also condemned the military occupation of several schools in the Indian-administered Kashmir by the New Delhi forces.

“The United Nations verified the use of seven schools by Indian security forces for four months. Schools were vacated by the end of 2020,” it said.

Guterres expressed “alarm” over “detention and torture” by the Indian troops and their overall use of force against Kashmiri children in the Muslim-majority region.

“I am alarmed at the detention and torture of children and concerned by the military use of schools,” he said.

The UN chief called on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government to ensure that children were kept out of way of “all forms of ill-treatment” when taken into detention in prisons in the Indian-administrated Kashmir.

The disputed Muslim-majority Kashmir, located in the Himalaya region, is mainly divided between India and Pakistan, while a third strip of land in northern Kashmir is held by China.

The people in Kashmir have been fighting New Delhi for independence or unification with neighboring Pakistan since the two countries were partitioned in 1947.

June 30, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

The assassination of Nizar Banat means there’s only one solution for the Palestinians

By Feras Abu-Helal – Arabi21 – June 28, 2021

The assassination of political activist Nizar Banat during his arrest by Palestinian Authority security services is a turning point in occupied Palestine. It is no less important and dangerous than the shift represented by the recent Jerusalem uprising, which covered Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza and the territory occupied since 1948.

The occupied West Bank has not witnessed events like this before, and the PA has never appeared as strategically and morally stripped as it is now, because its failure in terms of managing internal affairs and human rights has also been exposed alongside its flawed approach to national affairs and resistance against the occupation. The only people who can’t see this are those who benefit from the status quo.

What made Banat’s killing different from all of the PA’s previous crimes, both on the national and internal level, is that all of its flaws were condensed into one operation. The first was the silencing of the anti-occupation voice, as the difference between the latter and the PA is not based on personal interest, or even to the management of domestic affairs, but is essentially a dispute over the PA’s performance and the way it deals with Israel and its occupation. His killing followed Banat’s criticism of the shameful vaccine deal, according to which the PA would hand over new vaccines to the Israelis in exchange for vaccines that expire soon. This showed clearly that the PA favours Israelis over its own people.

Another national paradox for the Palestinian people is that the same PA security forces that melt into the background when their Israeli counterparts are on the scene — not least during the recent events in Jerusalem — and never, ever, confront soldiers or armed settlers when they attack Palestinians and their land, are the same “security forces” which beat Nizar Banat to death after entering his home like thieves in the night and dragging him from his bed. This paradox confirmed to every Palestinian that the PA security forces exist solely to protect the occupation state and oppress the people of Palestine under occupation.

Banat’s assassination also revealed the PA’s indifference to human rights, and its intolerance of criticism. It behaved like every other repressive Arab regime that kills its opponents because of their opinions. Although repression and human rights violations must always be condemned, they are even more shocking and criminal when they come from a self-rule organisation against its own people struggling under a military occupation. The people face a double cycle of repression, at the hands of the Israeli occupation — which is inherently repressive — and the PA, which is supposed to represent their interests. The Palestinians can resist the occupation but are helpless in front of the PA’s repressive security forces, because they know that the occupation is the main issue. Hence, the PA not only adds to the repression of the people, but also distorts the national compass.

After the killing of Banat, the PA behaved like a typical Arab regime. The theory proposed by the late Yasser Arafat and applied to a large extent was dropped; the so-called democracy of the forest of guns, which had little to do with democracy, but was a slogan that allowed criticism and internal conflicts without resorting to weapons, within the framework of the Palestinian national movement. Arafat bore all criticism, accusations and even splits, even though he had national legitimacy to represent all groups of the Palestinian people at the time. The PA today not only coordinates its security repression with Israel, but also lacks any national or electoral legitimacy, and is incapable of accepting criticism. So it simply kills its political opponents.

The PA resorted to its base instincts which are a disgrace for a national liberation movement. It was in denial when it claimed initially that Banat’s was a natural death due to a pre-existing condition. Then it issued contemptable statements about the investigation after the uproar at the murder. It then sent in its security thugs in plain clothes to attack protesters, and issued tribal statements in support of the president, especially from Hebron, where Nizar Banat was from. All of this exposed the PA like never before, as nothing but a primitive authority that identifies with other repressive Arab regimes, with a leadership that is supposed to represent a “national liberation movement”.

Under normal circumstances, there is no “single” solution to any political crisis, as politics is the result of the interaction of several complex factors and profit and loss calculations. However, the killing of Nizar Banat and the events that preceded and followed it have made matters clear to every Palestinian. The national impasse has only one solution: delegitimise and close down this authority.

The Palestinian factions, especially Hamas, must bear their responsibility for this delegitimisation; they should refuse any dialogue with Fatah under the Oslo umbrella. Dialogue must be established on a national basis to agree on the way to resist the occupation, not on how to relieve Israel of its responsibility and grant it an occupation that carries no political, economic and security cost.

Ever since 2006, the Palestinian dialogue has been based on the wrong foundations, and was thus unable to break away from Oslo. If Hamas and the other factions are trying to end the division in this way, then they are making a big mistake. Fatah, meanwhile, must choose between being part of the people and their resistance, or standing with the occupier in an authority that has failed nationally, legally and in managing internal affairs.

This choice was clear in 2006, and many Palestinian writers and elites demanded that it be made. Now, though, it has become clearer after the Jerusalem Intifada and the victory of the resistance, as well as the assassination of Nizar Banat.

June 30, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Over 180 unmarked graves found at former Catholic school in Canada, indigenous group says, in third such find

RT | June 30, 2021

A Canadian indigenous group has said 182 unmarked graves have been discovered in the South Interior of the province of British Columbia, the third such discovery in the past two months near former Catholic schools.

The burial site is located at the former Catholic-run St. Eugene’s Mission School, the Lower Kootenay Band announced on Wednesday.

The community of ʔaq’am – or St. Mary’s Indian Band – based near the city of Cranbrook made the gruesome find after using radar detection equipment, which apparently pointed to there being graves around a meter below the surface.

Last week, 751 unmarked graves were uncovered at a Catholic school in Saskatchewan province, another indigenous community announced.

That discovery came after the remains of 215 children, some as young as three years old, were found at another Catholic school in British Columbia in May.

St. Eugene’s, now a casino and resort, was run by the Catholic Church from 1890 until the 1970s, according to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a body set up to document the history of indigenous students in Canadian schools.

The Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre said the school was hit by frequent outbreaks of influenza, mumps, measles, chickenpox, and tuberculosis.

As many as 100 people from the Lower Kootenay Band had been forced to attend the institution, the group said.

“It is believed that the remains of these 182 souls are from the member Bands of the Ktunaxa Nation, neighbouring First Nations communities and the community of ʔaq’am,” the community said in a statement.

More than 150,000 indigenous children were required to attend Catholic-run state schools in Canada from the 1870s until 1997.

In 2015, a report by the commission said the government’s forced assimilation of indigenous students and the system itself could “best be described as ‘cultural genocide.’”

June 30, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Palestanian Protesters Recount Harrowing Details of Torture at the Hands of Israeli Police

By Jessica Buxbaum | MintPress News | June 25, 2021

NAZARETH, ISRAEL — In May, the world watched Israel’s brutal occupation on full display: The forcible displacement of Sheikh Jarrah residents was underway; Israeli security forces attacked Muslim worshippers at Al-Aqsa Mosque during Ramadan; Israeli rocket fire rained down on Gaza; and Jewish extremists chanted “Death to Arabs!” in the streets.

According to multiple testimonies, Israeli police in Nazareth ran a “torture room” where they ruthlessly attacked Palestinian detainees during the wave of demonstrations against Israel in May.

Now, as international headlines fade on Palestine, Israeli violence continues.

‘The floor of the room was covered in blood’

Faiz Zbedeiat was talking on the phone about 20 feet away from a protest in Nazareth. The moment the 21-year-old student hung up the phone, Israeli police threw a stun grenade into the street. An officer then charged at him and punched him in the nose. Zbedeiat was soon encircled by police who grabbed him, hit him, and pushed him toward a Border Police officer who tried to slam his head against a wall.

“I asked why they were hitting me when I’m not resisting,” Zbedeiat said. “I put my hands behind my back even though they didn’t handcuff me. Nevertheless, the same Border Police officer hit me in the nose with the walkie-talkie that he was holding.”

The officers dragged Zbedeiat by his head to the police station, beating him along the way.

“On the way, we met a policeman who appeared to be an officer, and he started laughing and said to them: ‘Did you only arrest him? That’s not enough. We need more,’” Zbedeiat said.

The beating continued inside the police station. Cops kicked, slapped, and hit detainees with batons, laughing as they struck them.

Zbedeiat detailed how one officer smacked detainees with an M-16 rifle. He watched as one man with a broken nose — face covered in blood — was continuously hit by officers. Then Zbedeiat described his own treatment:

A police officer approached me and whispered in my ear, threatening me. He cursed my mother, my sister, and my wife. He then asked, ‘Did you understand?’ I didn’t answer, and he immediately slapped me in the face. He asked me again: ‘Do you understand?’ I still didn’t answer and he slapped me again in the face. Finally, he said ‘Go explain to your friends.’ He pushed me back down to the floor and hit me again.”

Zbedeiat’s violent detention in May is one of many such, according to Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. The advocacy group collected multiple sworn affidavits attesting to the abuse of Palestinian protesters by Israeli officers, attorneys, bystanders, and children inside Nazareth’s police station from May 9 to May 14. The majority of the violent arrests and most of the abuse were conducted by Israeli special forces, including undercover Mista’aravim (counter-terror units within the Israeli Army, Border Police, and Israel Police) officers pretending to be Palestinians.

Adalah submitted a complaint to Israel’s Attorney General and the chairman of the Police Investigation Department on June 7. In their letter, Adalah wrote:

Police officers led the detainees to a room located on the left side of the entrance corridor to the station, forcing them to sit on the floor handcuffed, to lower their heads towards the floor, and began to beat them on all parts of their bodies, using kicks and clubs, slamming their heads against walls or doors, and more. Officers wounded the detainees, terrorized them, and whomever dared to lift his head upwards risked more beatings by officers. According to affidavits, the floor of the room was covered in blood from the beatings.

Police violence amounting to torture

Under Israeli law, authorities must respond to the letter within 45 days. But Adalah attorney and co-author of the complaint, Wesam Sharaf, told MintPress that Adalah has not received a response from the Attorney General or Police Investigation Department. Adalah did receive a response from Nazareth’s Chief of Police, stating that he will cooperate if there’s an investigation and will take the appropriate disciplinary actions.

“What happened inside the police station in Nazareth amounts to torture and ill-treatment, and requires the immediate opening of a criminal investigation to examine the circumstances and conditions of the protesters’ detention at the station – including the investigation and prosecution of police officers involved in the violence,” Adalah attorneys wrote in their complaint.

Sharaf explained that the witness and victim accounts of police brutality inside the Israeli police station describe activity deemed torturous under international law:

What we have seen in the police station is that instead of investigating the people, the police would beat them up. [The police] deny [the detainees] in need of medical attention that medical attention and make them sign [false] affidavits as a condition to get medical attention… When this treatment is [directed at] detainees, it may amount to torture according to international law.”

Torture is defined under international law as intentionally inflicting severe pain or suffering in order to obtain a confession or information, intimidate or coerce the individual, or as punishment for alleged offenses. Torture is illegal and considered a war crime.

In a statement to MintPress News, Israeli Police said:

We emphasize that an investigation branch officer contacted the director of detention on behalf of the Public Defender’s Office and requested the presence of defense attorneys at the station, and accordingly, when the detainees arrived at the station, two defense attorneys were present to advise them. Unfortunately some of the lawyers complaining about the appeal were at the entrance to the station, tried to create provocations on the spot. Notwithstanding the foregoing, they were periodically allowed to enter the station and tour the facility in order to prove that the detainees were being treated properly.”

The police spokesperson also noted that medical staff was present at the station and detainees in need of medical care were promptly treated.

Israel’s mass-arrest campaign targeting Palestinians

In a move largely seen as squelching Palestinian dissent, Israel Police launched a mass-arrest campaign in May, targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel who participated in protests against ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah, attacks at Al-Aqsa Mosque, and Israel’s assault on Gaza.

Israeli police arrested 2,142 individuals and filed 184 indictments during “Operation Guardian of the Walls” and “Operation Law and Order.” According to Sharaf, more than 150 Palestinians were arrested in Nazareth in May, and about one in ten were indicted.

Ashraf Mahroum, an attorney representing nine people detained by police in Nazareth, said his clients and others were charged for protesting illegally, creating illegal organizations, and assaulting police officers. Maroum’s clients allege police fired rubber bullets at the upper parts of their bodies during the protests — a direct violation of the law governing use of rubber bullets. During their detention, officers struck them with batons and smacked them over the head with guns. Most of his clients’ injuries were on the head and face. Some were forced to sign affidavits stating they won’t disclose what happened to them in order to receive medical treatment.

Evidence of similar police violence against Palestinians appeared in other cities across 1948-occupied Palestine (modern-day Israel) including in Lydd, Akka, Yaffa and Haifa, Sharaf said, adding detainees in these localities arrived in court with visible signs of abuse. Sharaf concluded:

[Adalah] “has other testimonies about police brutality in different areas; some of this brutality was against protesters and some of it has been inside police stations against detainees. With the systematic ill treatment that we have witnessed from the 9th of May to the 14th of May, we can assume that more people have been subject to such kind of treatment.”

Israel’s expanding history of torture

The Israel Security Agency (ISA) has long used torture as a standard tactic during interrogations of Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories. Until the late 1990s, the ISA was allowed to use “psychological pressure” and a “moderate degree of physical pressure” in order to “prevent terrorism,” according to 1987 recommendations from a state commission. The commission’s opinion permitted the ISA to use methods of torture in their interrogations under the “necessity defense” clause found in Israeli penal law.

The Israeli Supreme Court banned the use of physical methods during interrogations in 1999 after a series of petitions were filed by human rights organizations and Palestinians who experienced ISA interrogations. However, the court ruled the practice of physical pressure could remain in urgent cases as part of the “ticking bomb” exception under the necessity defense. This legal loophole has allowed torture and ill treatment to persist in ISA interrogations, despite the Israeli Justice Ministry having drafted a law to criminalize torture.

Israel torture

An illustration from a 1991 B’Teslem report detailing torture methods used by Israeli forces

According to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), 1,300 complaints regarding the use of torture against Palestinian citizens in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) by the ISA have been submitted to the Ministry of Justice since 2001. These complaints resulted in only one criminal investigation and no indictments.

PCATI receives dozens of complaints each year attesting to brutality occurring during arrest, detention, interrogation and imprisonment of Palestinians from the OPT. The nonprofit organization estimates 5% to 10% of these cases amount to instances of severe torture.

Severe interrogations increased sharply in 2020. “In the passing year, more people were tortured in Israel than in any other year in the past decade,” PCATI said in their 2020 situation report on torture of Palestinians by Israeli security forces. While cases of torture are prevalent within the OPT, Tal Steiner, Director General of PCATI, said 1948-occupied Palestine is now experiencing an escalation of torture incidents. Steiner told MintPress:

[PCATI] “has seen attributes that are usually found in the West Bank trickling into Israel. There’s administrative arrest, prevention of rights to seek counsel, to receive medical attention — those are things that are quite unfortunately common in the West Bank and the Occupied Territories that have now become more evident within Israel proper… This is not something that’s usual or routine within Israel for Israeli citizens — Palestinian or not. So it’s a turn for the worse.”

Israel torture

An illustration from a 1991 B’Teslem report detailing torture methods used by Israeli forces

Steiner attributed this surge within Historic Palestine to a culture of impunity spurred by Israeli politicians like former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, explaining:

“When the police and military forces entered the mixed cities within Israel to so-call restore the peace, then-Prime Minister Netanyahu was quoted saying, ‘Go ahead and do your job and don’t worry about any commission of inquiry.’ These types of announcements by the prime minister and other Israeli leaders can also be a reason why police officers thought they could get away with it. They can use extreme force toward citizens, demonstrators, and especially toward people from minority groups, and go unpunished.”

“I thought I was going to die”

On May 13, the eve of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, Nazareth resident Omaiyer Lawabne was out with friends to celebrate. As he approached an ATM to withdraw money, he saw an officer decked in full riot gear running toward him. Instinctively, he began running away.

“The cops started throwing grenades at me, and I kept running because I knew that if I stood still I could be badly wounded by the grenades,” Lawabne said. “While I was still running, one of the policemen raised his hand and hit me in the left eye, and I fell to the ground.”

Police surrounded Lawabne on the pavement, kicking him in the face and head. One officer pressed his boot into Lawabne’s head and shoulder. “I felt intense pain all over my body, from my head to my legs. One of them started kicking me in the artery behind the ear,” Lawabne said. “At that moment, I thought I was going to die.”

At the police station, Lawabne saw detainees stuffed into a room, resembling “prisoners of war.” They sat on the floor with their legs folded under them and heads bent. A masked officer paced around the room with a club-like object in his hand. Any detainee who lifted his head met the full swing of the officer’s bat on their head.

“They pushed me down into a corner and I lowered my head and curled up. Nevertheless, the same police officer hit me hard on the head with that object,” Lawabne said.

Days after his detention, Lawabne still felt excruciating pain throughout his body. He couldn’t sleep from the dizziness. He couldn’t eat without vomiting. He couldn’t speak coherently. He still doesn’t understand why he was arrested when he wasn’t participating in any nearby protests.

“It was the first time I had been arrested, an arrest that I believe was illegal, pointless, and very violent,” Lawabne said.

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.

June 29, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

How to Handle a Zionist Defamation Campaign

By Steve Salaita | June 28, 2021

I often work with people who have been targeted for punishment by the Israel lobby (or the Zionist establishment, if you prefer). It’s a gratifying but difficult task because victims of Zionist smear campaigns are usually scared and confused. That reaction is logical.  Zionists aim to render their targets unemployable (and thus destitute). Such viciousness reflects the behavior of the state they want to indemnify from criticism.

Mainstream journalists, administrators, and politicians are receptive to Zionist pressure because their primary obligation is to serve centers of power. In many cases, individuals with the authority to decide a target’s fate share ideological and class interests with the people who are complaining. A distinct political economy informs snitching, defamation, employment termination, and other mendacious practices. That economy is calibrated to satisfy the ruling class and uses an insidious system of rewards to ensure conformity. The flipside is a sophisticated complex of discipline and coercion assembled to ensnare people who disrupt the operation. It’s crucial to understand that you’re not simply up against devotees of Israel, but more broadly an imperialist geopolitical structure in which pro-Israel sentiment is embedded. You needn’t identify as a radical in order to recognize the breadth and depth of the problem.

Before some general pointers, though, a few qualifications:

If the lobby wants you expunged from some kind of position, there might not be anything you can do to stop it. The ruling class, which includes the lobby, views you with contempt. Its beneficiaries don’t care if you go hungry.  In fact, they might well enjoy it if you do. Fighting back, then, is an existential proposition.

Once targeted, you’ll be subject to a barrage of triteness and stupidity, along with gutter talk, unfounded speculation, and spectacular racism. Don’t waste time wondering how management can listen to such obvious dingbats; doing so will only make you angrier. Yes, the people complaining about you are dopey, despicable, and dishonest. They also have power, or at least the means to communicate a language amenable to power, which in the end is all that matters. Think of them first and foremost as class enemies.  Contempt for the lesser specimens of humanity is the basis on which they interact with management.

Marshalling a response is intensive and time-consuming. You may not feel motivated, which is normal, and in which case a support network becomes especially helpful. From the lobby’s point of view, bogging people down in the tedium of self-defense is an added benefit; it precludes those people from doing the work that caught the lobby’s attention in the first place. They’ve summoned you to a different type of work, one that’s no less important.

Finally, each situation is different, so the suggestions that follow may not always apply. I try to provide a sketch of issues to take into account, but your distinctive personal and professional concerns should guide your response. The list below is meant to be roughly sequential.

Contact Your Union: If you’re a non-unionized worker, keep reading.

Document Everything: Save all emails, text messages, and voicemails. As accurately as possible, transcribe any verbal conversations (and the accompanying dates and times).  Annotate the employee handbook and HR documents. Find cases in which management reacted differently in a similar scenario. It’s unlikely, but proceed on the assumption that you’ll end up in court.

Do Not Admit Wrongdoing: Even if you feel that you may have done something wrong—and there’s nothing wrong with condemning Israel—keep the feeling to yourself.

Research Legal Help: Palestine Legal is a terrific resource. Otherwise, look around for specialists in employment law (or whichever relevant subfield) in your area. It’s not always easy to hire an attorney, but try your best to arrange some consultations. If anything, you’ll get a sense of whether a lawsuit is viable. Lawyering up will also make management more hesitant to dispose of you.

Go Quiet (Maybe): In general, it’s a wise long-term proposition to say nothing at all, and that’s also the case at the onset of a Zionist smear campaign. This isn’t a firm rule, just something to consider. Sometimes talking further excites your adversaries.  Sometimes it makes you sound sillier or more defensive than you would prefer. Sometimes you will say things that later become a source of regret. On the other hand, speaking up can be invigorating and cathartic.  It depends on the situation.  Interjecting yourself into the debate can extend the news cycle, so it isn’t advisable if your goal is to wait for the controversy to blow over (never a guarantee). If your goal is to vigorously defend yourself in your own words, whatever the news cycle decides to do or however upset it makes your adversaries, then it’s probably unhealthy to silence yourself. (When I was in the news cycle some years ago, I remained silent for nearly two months on order of my lawyers. That period was extraordinarily frustrating, but it later served me well during legal proceedings.) Calm down and think through what you most want to express before taking to a keyboard.

Communicate Your Version of the Story: Once you’ve confirmed that Zionists are snitching you out, talk to your employment supervisor (start with the one you least distrust).  This isn’t to say that anyone in management can be viewed as an ally—consider yourself lucky if that’s the case—but you’ll want to register your version of the story, nevertheless.  Don’t get into a political debate. Emphasize that you are being subject to an organized defamation campaign with no basis in reality.

Do Not Apologize or Try to Appease: For reasons of politics and principle, appeasement is a poor strategy. But it’s a poor strategy first of all for reasons of pragmatism: a Zionist mob intent on punishing an enemy has never been appeased short of destroying its target. Keep in mind, as well:  those who do concede and appease aren’t just saving their own skin; they’re making life tougher for every future target of the mob.

Remain Circumspect: Or, put more plainly, don’t believe a goddamn word that management, HR, or anyone else paid by the institution says to you. For students, the same advice applies to deans and other administrators on your campus.

Write an Article Explaining Your Situation: An op-ed is probably best. Even if you don’t publish it, you’ll have the opportunity to sort your thoughts. You can share the article with people interested in learning more about your situation.

Decide Whether to Go Public: If so, enlist trusted people to help:  coworkers, friends, professional colleagues. Streamline your talking points. Communicate to allies what you want emphasized and what is best kept private. The message needs to be firm and concise. Defending yourself against scurrilous accusations is important, and probably inevitable, but put a spotlight on the dishonesty and mendaciousness of your accusers. Let them answer for the racism inherent to their enterprise.

Be Clear: Assuming you go public, be clear about the situation and the stakes of a favorable (or negative) outcome. People need to understand exactly what they’re being asked to support or oppose. Over the years, hundreds of petitions and appeals have come into my inbox or social media feeds. The most compelling identify a specific injustice and demand a legible form of redress. Interpersonal drama with online frenemies is not a cause.

Give People Something to Do: Or at least let them know that more information is forthcoming. People want to feel as if they’re doing something useful to mitigate injustice, even if it’s only signing a petition. While making an audience aware of a problem is a worthy cause in itself, the audience will certainly ask, “What can we do to help?” It’s good to provide an answer. (This suggestion functions at an individual level, too. Don’t hesitate to privately approach friends to deploy their expertise on your behalf.) Possibilities include writing letters to your higher-ups (a template can be helpful, but if your supervisors get a bunch of messages with identical text, they’ll be less likely to take the complaints seriously); posting links to social media; organizing boycotts and strikes; and reaching out to relevant contacts.

Beware of Unsolicited Advice: If you do end up in the news cycle, prepare for tons of unsolicited advice. Some people will get angry with you for not behaving as they think they would, or as they think you should. Ignore them. Even if their hearts are in the right place, the demands on you to follow a program of their choosing do nothing to help. There will be dozens of factors they don’t know or care about. Listen to your family and your lawyers.

Beware the Social Climbers, As Well: Any kind of attention, even negative, will bring out opportunists looking to extract social capital from your unfortunate situation. As soon as the spotlight dims, these new friends will disappear. Follow your instinct. You’ll quickly realize who is trustworthy, and you’ll come to know those people as a beloved minority in the world.

Remember the Larger Context:  Consider the implications of your choices on the Palestine solidarity movement. Your struggle is personal, but it isn’t individual. (For God’s sake, never start your own hashtag.) Make sure the conversation keeps returning to the Palestinian people (and to the world’s downtrodden in general). The repression and punishment of anti-Zionists in North America is coterminous with Zionist brutality in Palestine. Your actions should be aligned with the greater cause of Palestinian liberation.

Seek out Loved Ones for Support: There’s no shame in confiding to loved ones. Defamation campaigns can be brutally stressful and while you want to maintain a defiant stance in public, it’s important to process fear and vulnerability in private. You are human, after all, and empathy is the root of your outrage.

No matter what happens, you will have won simply by emerging from the fracas with your integrity intact. You have been targeted for punishment not at random, but because centers of Zionist power view you as somehow threatening. Zionists don’t achieve victory from the punishment itself, but from stifling or diminishing your voice and thus removing the threat. Forbearance is the only aspect of the situation you can control.

Zionist smear campaigns aim to make you destitute and so they tap into some primal anxieties. The best way to alleviate that anxiety is through resistance. A serious, thoughtful response may not save your job, but it will salvage your sense of place and purpose—and, if done well, it will galvanize others to take up the fight. Future generations—starting, optimally, with the next one—will enjoy the benefits of your fortitude.

June 28, 2021 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

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