We will not be silenced by Braverman's Cries of ‘Terrorism’ as Sussex University Student Hanin Barghouthi is Arrested By Brighton Police Acting as The Tories' Political Messenger Boys
This is Haneen Barghouthi’s Speech to a Brighton Palestine Solidarity Demonstration
We
are seeing a determined and concerted attempt to conflate support for the
Palestinians and opposition to Israel’s Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza
with support for ‘terrorism’. Words have become meaningless to the war
criminals and liars who rule over us.
Suella
Braverman, the most racist Home Secretary Britain has ever had, issued an
extraordinary Open Letter
on Tuesday 10 October virtually instructing Britain’s Chief Constables to use
the Terrorism Act 2000
to attack supporters of the Palestinians. (see below for details of Braverman’s
racism)
Sussex
Police Attack on Free Speech – Arrest of Sussex University Student Haneen
Barghouti for Speaking at Palestine Demonstration
Right
on cue, Sussex Anti-Terrorism Police, in their desire to please Braverman, arrested
Sussex University student Hanin Barghouti for the crime of speaking at a
demonstration in Brighton last weekend in support of the Al Aqsa Flood Uprising.
Two
days previously Sussex University Administration, instead of defending the
right of their students to take part in political debate and activity,
preemptively suspended Hanin after a witchhunting article
in the Daily Mail.
When Kathleen Stock, the gender critical feminist, was targeted by students demanding her dismissal, Sussex University Administration went out of their way to defend her on the grounds of freedom of speech.
As with the Tories Higher Education (Freedom of Speech Act) 2023, freedom of speech for the Right only applies to ideas and things they agree with. Anti-racism and support for the Palestinians don't count, as we saw with their imposition of the IHRA fake definition of anti-Semitism on universities under threat of loss of funding
Haneen Barghouti didn't mention Hamas once in her speech. It is clear that her arrest is about preventing solidarity with the Palestinians not preventing terrorism
What
is the difference between Kathleen Stock and Haneen Barghouti other than the
fact that anti-trans ideas accord with Conservative ideology whereas support
for the Palestinians is anathema to the Right. Sussex University, instead of
defending freedom of speech did the Police’s bidding.
Now
that the Police have arrested Haneen, Sussex Vice Chancellor Sasha Roseneil should immediately reinstate Haneen and failing that Sussex University Student Union,
of which Haneeen is an officer, should defend her and demand her reinstatement.
After
Haneen’s arrest, Sussex Police immediately lied
by connecting the arrest with making people feel safe. It takes a particular
distortion of logic to connect a speech to a Palestine Solidarity demonstration
with people, Jews, feeling afraid.
The only form of racism that Braverman opposes is 'antisemitism' which suggests it's not a form of racism
What
Braverman fears, as she transforms Britain’s Police into a nakedly political police,
is the expression of support for Palestinian resistance to Israel and Zionism. The hidden lie is that
supporting Palestinians is somehow a threat to British Jews.
In
this insidious way a connection is made between Israel’s war crimes and British
Jews. It is the British state and its Zionist foreign policy which makes the
linkage between Jews in Britain and Israel’s actions. The purpose of the
Police’s actions is to sanitise Britain’s pro-Zionist Middle East policy by
pretending that opposition to Zionism and Israel is connected with anti-Semitism and support for terrorism. All this under the pretence of defending British
Jews when in fact they are the ones who are making them unsafe. And then they have the gall to call us anti-Semites!!
Injured girl in Khan Yunis carried away after Israeli bombing
Hamas published yesterday an 18-minute long pre-recorded press conference in English about their side of the story.
— روني الدنماركي (@Aldanmarki) October 13, 2023
This has received zero media attention anywhere in the western press.
So in the interest of full transparency, here is the entire press conference. pic.twitter.com/Cd5SyYjImJ
This is the rationale for proscribing Hamas as a 'terrorist' group - a child could see that if there is any terrorism it is by Israel which slaughtered 551 children in 2014 and another 700+ and rising this time around.
Hamas is NOT a Terrorist Organisations – it is Israel and Netanyahu who are the Terrorists
When proscribing Hamas in 2019, Home Secretary Sajid David relied on the thinnest of gruel to define Hamas as a terrorist organisation. There was no allegation that they had ever operated in Britain. Hamas was accused of killing 2 Israeli children in rocket strikes.
The hypocrisy is staggering. In 2014 in Operation Protective Edge Israel murdered 551 Palestinian children. By any neutral and impartial criteria Israel is a savage terrorist state. So too is Saudia Arabia which has killed thousands of Yemeni children. But here's the rub. Israel and Saudi Arabia are our friends so they can commit any amount of war crimes. Hamas on the other hand is fighting our friend Israel which is the real reason they are proscribed.
The decision to proscribe Hamas is a purely political decision. It is not based on any neutral assessment of the evidence. There is no panel to weigh up the evidence and decide. The decision is made on purely political grounds by one person, which is why, even if someone were to openly support Hamas that would NOT be support for terrorism.
In
her letter
to the Chief Constables Braverman wrote that
Sadly,
experience indicates that whenever Israel is attacked, Islamists and other
racists, seek to use legitimate Israeli defensive measures as a pretext to stir
up hatred against British Jews and increase fear within the Jewish community.
In the past, this has included vandalism of Jewish businesses, desecration of
memorials and religious sites, physical and verbal abuse of Jews on the
streets, convoys driving through Jewish neighbourhoods hurling antisemitic
abuse, and proliferation of antisemitism online. There is an obvious risk that
this pattern will be repeated during the current conflict.
This
statement was one long lie. There is no
evidence whatsoever that support for the Palestinians and opposition to
Israel’s murderous attacks on them have resulted in increased anti-Semitism of
the type that she describes. It is an evidence-free assertion.
What
does make British Jews susceptible to
increased anti-Semitism is the repeated assertions by their so-called
representatives in the Board of Deputies that British Jews support Israel’s war
crimes even to the extent of supporting the use of snipers in 2018 against peaceful Palestinian protesters at Gaza's fence. It is the association between being Jewish and Israeli war crimes that causes anti-Semitism and it is Braverman and her ilk who are guilty.
Despite establishing a reputation for extreme racism the CST, which allegedly fights antisemitism, invited Braverman to be their guest of honour at their AGM - this proves once again that the fight against the Zionist definition of antisemitism has nothing to do with anti-racism
Cruella Braverman is a
Despicable Racist
Isn’t
it strange? Cruella Braverman has made a name for herself as an out and out
racist calling refugees an invasion
and hurricane.
Braverman is a despicable racist who falsely claimed that child grooming gangs in the UK were “almost all British-Pakistani”. The claims was made in a Mail on Sunday article published in April, where she singled out British-Pakistani men as being involved in child sexual abuse gangs due to “cultural attitudes completely incompatible with British values” that “have been left mostly unchallenged both within their communities and by wider society”.
Zionist Violence in Oakland, USA against Palestinian demonstratorsWarning: graphic content. Video given to us shows clash between Israeli and Palestinian protesters in #Kirkland following Hamas attack on Israel pic.twitter.com/IxagI5k3A9
— Jackie Kent (@JackieKentNews) October 9, 2023
IPSOS, the press regulator said Braverman’s decision to link “the identified ethnic group and a
particular form of offending was significantly misleading” because the Home
Office’s own research had concluded offenders were mainly from white
backgrounds. Four days later the Mail on Sunday offered to amend the online
version. Braverman has neither retracted the claim or apologised yet Sunak
still keeps this racist liar on as Home Secretary.
Yet strangely enough Braverman is concerned
about ‘anti-Semitism’. Uniquely this is
the one form of racism that moves her. Anyone who falls for Braverman’s ‘concern’
for anti-Semitism literally needs their head examining. It is also no surprise
that the CST, a Mossad project which claims to
monitor anti-Semitism in Britain, invited this vile racist to their annual
dinner. By their own admission fighting racism and fighting ‘anti-Semitism’ are
two entirely different things.
Jewish MP Gerald Kaufman Comparing Israel's Attack on Gaza During Israel's Operation Cast Lead to the Nazi Murder of his Grandmother in a Polish Ghetto
Terrorism
Terrorism
means violence and terror against civilians. Hamas have never operated outside the
conflict zones of Palestine/Israel unlike ISIS or Al Qaeda. The designation of
them as ‘terrorist’ is a political decision. It is not factually based. It is
part of the British Establishment’s attack on free speech whilst at the same
time saying that the left opposes free speech.
Hamas
is an elected political party with a military wing. ISIS and Al Qaeda, both the
creations of the United States, are purely military, sectarian murderers who were
once the allies of the United States and Saudia Arabia.
It
is not Hamas which is guilty of terrorism but the Israeli state, aided and
abetted by Biden, Sunak and Europe’s leaders. Israel is openly proclaiming that
it is refusing to allow food, water and electricity into Gaza, at the very same
time as it is bombing everything that moves. Such a siege should be called by
its proper name – it is a Nazi strategy. Even the
Nazis never refused to allow food and water into a ghetto although, like Israel
previously, they restricted the amount of food to the bare minimum.
GIGANTIC Paris Pro-Palestine rally happening now in direct conflict with the French government‼️
— ʟᴇᴀɢᴜᴇ (@leaguedontmiss) October 12, 2023
This is now a considered an illegal protest, banned by the interior minister.
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!#FreePalestine#Gaza #IsraelAttack #IsraelPalestineConflict #Palestine… pic.twitter.com/wHmjXW8h2Y
The Lies of Our Politicians
Orwell
described the purpose of political speech in his essay Politics and the English Language.
It could almost have been written with Gaza today in mind:
political
language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy
vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants
driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on
fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of
peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no
more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification
of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in
the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is
called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed
if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.
#KayBurley: "Basic human rights are water, electricity and food, & [people] are being denied that in Gaza"
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) October 12, 2023
Steve Barclay: "Well, and we saw people in Israel denied their rights..."
A UK govt minister justifying war crimes #KayBurley pic.twitter.com/jtOrQ8Jw0F
Israel
Aims to Do in Gaza City What Hitler Intended for Moscow
Israel
is pursuing a combined policy of genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Palestinians have been told to evacuate northern Gaza or die and not one word of criticism has been uttered
by their imperialist backers. Those who claimed to be upset with Russian human
rights violations in Ukraine have no
problem with far worse crimes in Gaza.
Biden
and Sunak have even been boasting of the weaponry they are sending to Israel to
complete their genocidal task. They do this under the pretext of ‘supporting
Israel’s right to defend itself’ when it is clear that it is the Palestinians
who are in need of defence.
Israel is using internationally-prohibited white phosphorus in Gaza.
— Maha Hussaini (@MahaGaza) October 12, 2023
These munitions are an indiscriminate incendiary weapon that ignite on contact with oxygen.
In closed spaces, the toxic fumes can cause asphyxiation & permanent respiratory damagepic.twitter.com/IELyM08JYI
Israel
has bombed hospitals
and the HQ of UNRWA, the UN Relief and
Works Agency for Palestinian refugees which Israel has always hated, killing
9 of their workers. Israel has
also used White Phosphorous in Gaza against the population. This
substance burns people alive. This is terrorism, state terrorism but about that
Biden, Sunak, Starmer and the rest of Israel’s apologists have nothing to say.
Starmer was asked if cutting of the water supply to Gaza by Israel was “appropriate”.
— Tory Fibs (@ToryFibs) October 11, 2023
He replied “Israel does have that right”.
Cutting off water supply began last night hitting 1 mill children in Gaza.
This is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. pic.twitter.com/TPSKHoaSsX
The Starmeroid Labour party 'opposition', meanwhile, has sided unequivocally with the oppressors and their apartheid regime, backing Israel's 'right' to commit war crimes against Palestinians - and has banned MPs from participating in pro-Palestinian demos.
Constituency Labour Parties have been forbidden to even discuss resolutions on Palestine because it might make certain people (Zionists) feel unwelcome in the party. Of course any decent party would want to make Zionists and racists, of whatever religious persuasion or none, feel very unwelcome but in Starmer's Labour racists are being made to feel at home.
Ironically the only MP to speak out unequivocally against the massacre of the innocents in Gaza and to say openly that war crimes are being committed is the Tory MP Crispin Blunt. All the 'left' Labour MPs - John McDonnell, Zarah Sultana, Diane Abbot, Bell Ribaire Addy, Lloyd Russell-Moyle - have remained silent. They obeyed Starmer's dictat not to participate in the Palestine solidarity demonstration at the weekend. They are utter political cowards. McDonnell is happy to take part in demonstrations supporting NATO's proxy war in Ukraine but not willing to defy the nonentity Starmer.
Half of Northern Gaza's 1.1 million Palestinians have fled south ending up in Khan Younis, a city normally of 400,000 now home to over a million. With a blockade of food and water we are seeing the imminent possibility of mass starvation and death but to Israel's war criminal prime minister Netanyahu and his accomplices in the West that is nothing to worry about.
Whereas the Labour 'Left' has Remained Silent Tory MP Crispin Blunt Has Spoken Out
Labour’s Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry on whether the Israeli government cutting off food, water and power to the Gaza Strip is against international law #Newsnight
— Victoria Derbyshire (@vicderbyshire) October 11, 2023
pic.twitter.com/EwT22REzCA
When
asked whether he supports the food and water blockade Starmer, the human rights
lawyer, gave it his full support, as did the pitiable Lady Nugent (Emily
Thornberry). Not one single major British politician, apart from the SNP
leader Humza Yousaf,
has said a word opposing Israel’s promise to commit genocide.
To talk of Israel’s right to self-defence
in a situation where over 724 children have been murdered according to Defence
of Children International – Palestine (declared a ‘terrorist organisation’) and thousands already killed is obscene. It is
like saying that when the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place that Nazi Germany’s burning
down of the ghetto was an exercise in self defence. These are Nazi ideas as Israel
embarks on its own final solution of the Palestinian question.
GAZA UPDATE: 447 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health. Nonstop Israeli airstrikes forced our field researcher to relocate his family four times yesterday & DCIP has been unable to confirm additional fatalities. pic.twitter.com/5iSbcG2bYp
— Defense for Children (@DCIPalestine) October 12, 2023
Gabor Mate speaks about Palestine and Israel
Did Hamas Commit
War Crimes Equivalent to Israel?
Whatever
criticisms there may be of the Palestinian resistance and the killing of
Israeli civilians, many of whom were reserve soldiers, in what Israel boasts is
its Citizens Army, they pale into insignificance compared to the thousands of Palestinians who have died
at the hands of Israel’s murder machine and its ongoing second Nakba.
The
handwringing by certain Jewish groups evidenced by Jewish Currents in an article We
Cannot Cross Until We Carry Each Other and many of the messages I have seen in
Jewish Voice for Peace discussion groups, smack of
nothing so much as Jewish Exceptionalism and Angst.
We campaign and work for justice and freedom for the Palestinian people.
— Brighton PSC (@BrightonPSC) October 8, 2023
We campaign for an end to Israel's brutal occupation and apartheid.
We have never advocated violence.
This weekend's tragic ongoing events will sadly only worsen things for Palestinians. pic.twitter.com/svFqKC6bJE
Sometimes
it isn’t easy to come from the oppressor, because Jews today are not victims
but oppressors. Most Jews, by virtue of the support that the Board of Deputies
and their representative organizations give to Israel, identify with the
oppression of the Palestinians. Most Jews have family ties and friends in Israel and even the most
committed Jewish anti-Zionists began to wobble under the pressure as they
experienced a conflict between the personal and the political.
The
Disinformation War & Atrocity Propaganda
Alongside Israel’s program of genocide and ethnic cleansing there is its Siamese twin, the Disinformation War. Britain’s newspapers and media are complicit in the lies and distortions that Israel relies on in order to perpetuate the fiction that it is the victim and the Palestinians are the aggressors.
For example
Israel planted the leak
reported by the Wall Street Journal, in which it falsely claimed that Iran
ordered the Hamas attack against Israel. There was no truth in this as Anthony
Blinken, US Secretary of State made clear.
The
truth about Operation Al Aqsa Flood, the Palestinian resistance operation that
swept through the Gaza Envelope is being distorted out of all recognition.
There is no doubt that there were atrocities and human rights crimes but they
pale in comparison with the massive, pre-planned war crimes that
Israel feels able to announce publicly.
It
is also the case that Hamas explicitly
instructed its operatives not to kill women, children and the elderly. This
press conference was held before the launch of Operation Al Aqsa Flood although
it appears to have been made in retrospect.
Even the Times
of Israel reporting the killing of two
Israelis wrote that:
At 8:20 a.m., terrorists entered Dvir’s home, he lunged at them
with an axe, tried to protect my two kids who were with him, and was murdered
in front of their eyes,” she posted. “His partner Stav
also tried to protect them, but was murdered as well. The terrorist calmed down
my Daria and Lavi, covered them in a blanket, took lipstick and wrote on the
wall: ‘The al-Qassam [Brigades] people don’t murder children.
Many
of the fighters came from other groups who did not have the same discipline but
nonetheless far greater care was taken by the Palestinian resistance than
Israel is doing yet some fair-weather liberals are taking fright at the fact
that the Palestinian response has not accorded with the demands of human rights
law. The expectation is that the Palestinians, the victims of repeated Israeli
atrocities, should respect the Geneva Conventions and International Law at the
same time as their heavily armed occupiers and the ‘international community’
i.e. western imperialism ignores international law.
Al
Jazeera also reported that Hamas issued orders that women, children and the
elderly were not to be harmed. Hamas’s instructions have been comprehensively
ignored by the West’s free press. See here
and here
كتائب القسام تنشر لقطات من تعامل مقاتليها
مع الأطفال خلال معارك غلاف غزة (فيديو and صالح العاروري يكشف تفاصيل جديدة عن عملية
“طوفان الأقصى” (فيديو
Contrast
this with Israel which doesn’t even try to pretend that its bombing of
residential areas is not indiscriminate.
CNN Spreading the Lie of Severed Babies Heads
The Beheaded Baby Hoax
‘40 beheaded babies’ : How
media amplified an unconfirmed story | The Big Picture S3E3
There
surfaced in the Western media a few days ago reports that Hamas fighters had
beheaded 40 babies. It was reminiscent of the time when, during Iraq’s invasion
of Kuwait, stories emerged that Iraqi troops had looted Kuwait City’s hospitals
of their incubators ripping out the oxygen tubs from tiny babies and leaving
them to die.
On
October 10, 1990, a fifteen-year-old Kuwaiti girl “Nayirah”testified before the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus. She told how Iraqi soldiers removed
scores of babies from incubators and left them to die. Her story was originally
corroborated by
Amnesty International.
It was credited for helping draw the U.S. into the Gulf War later that year.
According
to the New York Times in 1992, the girl’s testimony was
orchestrated by public relations firm Hill & Knowlton on behalf of the
Kuwaiti-sponsored Citizens for a Free Kuwait whose aim was to secure military
support from the U.S.
The girl
who gave the testimony was later revealed to be daughter of the Kuwaiti
Ambassador to the U.S. She had never even been in Kuwait at the time, still
less worked in a hospital. Hill & Knowlton is estimated to have been given $12 million by the Kuwaitis for their public relations campaign.
This time
we had the beheaded babies story and like that of the Iraqi babies it has
proved to be a total fake.
This was first reported
by an Israeli search and rescue officer, Yossi Landau, on CNN. It was repeated
by IDF spokesperson, Maj. Libby Weiss also on CNN. From there it was reported
by the Independent, the Los Angeles Times and other outlets.
3/5 Soldiers I spoke with in Kfar Aza yesterday didn't mention "beheaded babies”. The army's spokesperson stated: “We can not confirm at this point… we are aware of the heinous acts Hamas is capable of” pic.twitter.com/enXnHID66A
— Oren Ziv (@OrenZiv_) October 11, 2023
Joe Biden repeated the calumny, stating he’d seen “confirmed photographs” of what happened. Later his press officers “clarified” that he had not actually “seen” the photos, but was basing his statements on “Netanyahu and Israeli media.” Israeli journalist, Oren Ziv, visited the southern Israel communities attacked and repeatedly asked IDF officers if they could verify the story. They told him they had seen no evidence supporting these claims. Yet CNN and other stations ran, as if it were the unvarnished truth, pieces about Hamas brutality in cutting off babies heads.
See Richard Silverstein’s Beheaded
babies and see the following list of media that ran with this fake
story.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1822302/hamas-massacre-civilians-israel
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1822179/hamas-soldiers-beheaded-babies-during-massacre-israel-claims
https://metro.co.uk/2023/10/10/hamas-murdered-40-babies-dead-israel-war-19641362/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/24354049/hamas-slaughters-40-babies-kids-beheaded/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/10/babies-killed-hamas-attacks-kibbutz-israel/
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/10/12/biden-calls-reports-hamas-beheading-children-cruelty/
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/kibbutz-israel-kfar-aza-massacre-gaza-strip-z7nz56rn9
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/despite-refutations-from-israeli-military-headlines-that-hamas-beheaded-babies-persist/3016167
Maj. Libby Weiss, “bringing Israel’s realities alive for Americans.” In
other words, bringing Israeli lies alive for the world
If Human Rights and War Crimes had been the Litmus Test Then We Would Have Been Neutral in World War II
I
have no doubt that human rights crimes were committed by Palestinian fighters
in their attack. There isn’t a war when war crimes haven’t been committed. But
unlike Israel the Palestinians made an effort.
More
importantly those fighting their occupiers, who by definition are in breach of
international law, are not under the same obligations as the occupiers. It is
perfectly understandable that the Palestinian fighters considered Israeli civilians
to be complicit in Gaza's occupation and therefore legitimate targets. Who the hell elected this
far-Right Israeli government if not Israel's civilians? The Israeli far-right has
the support of 2/3 Israelis so let us have less of this liberal
handwringing.
There
is an obligation on occupiers to take prisoners and not kill or torture
them. An obligation Israel honours in
the breach. Torture of prisoners is not only standard practice but legal in Israel. Israel
even tortures
and sexually abuses children.
There is no such obligation on a
guerilla force which doesn’t have gaols to put prisoners in. Did
the Partisans fighting the Nazis take them as prisoners? Of course not. They shot them and quite
rightly. When the Muslim SS Division in France rose up against their SS overseers, they spared some of them. This resulted in their being tortured and murdered.
wounded Palestinians arrive at Al Shifa hospital
But
just suppose that the Palestinian fighters did kill every Israeli they
encountered. Would that have been a reason to have remained neutral? In WW2
Russian soldiers engaged in mass
rape of German women.
Britain starved
3 million Bengalis to death in 1942 and firebombed Dresden
and Nuremburg.
America later used the nuclear bomb against Japan at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Would that have been a reason to be neutral between the Nazis and the Allies?
The
first slave revolt was in Santo Domingo/Haiti. In 1804 the Black slaves
perpetrated a massacre
of almost all the White population bar some Polish legionnaires and Germans. Is that a reason to condemn the revolt
and maintain our neutrality between the slavers and the enslaved?
In the
early hours of August 22, 1831, a slave named Nat Turner led more than fifty followers in a bloody revolt in
Southampton, Virginia, killing nearly 60 white people, mostly women and
children.
Even
though Turner and his followers were soon stopped, panic spreads. In the days
following the attack, 3000 soldiers, militia men, and vigilantes killed more
than one hundred suspected rebels.
In a
letter written a month later from North Carolina, Nelson Allyn described the retaliation against African
Americans. Nineteen of the 30 who had been arrested were convicted and
executed. The rest, along with 300 free blacks from Southampton County, agreed
to be exiled to Liberia in Africa. Turner was hanged on November 11, 1831.
Presumably if we had lived then there would have been liberal anti-slavers who would have said we cannot
support the slave rebellions because our friends were among the White slavers.
It is incumbent upon all of us, and I address this to Jewish anti-Zionists in particular,
to recognise these dilemmas between our own political positions and where we
come from. That Israel not only claims us, whether we like it or not, but many
of us have families in Israel which after all is the ‘Jewish State’. Sometimes
it isn’t easy to come from the oppressor, because Jews today are not victims,
and yet support the oppressed. I highly
recommend Norman Finkelstein’s THE SLAVE REVOLT IN GAZA, and Bernie
Sanders
An Israeli Border Police officer on a highway between Netivot and Sderot, where Israelis were killed by Hamas militants, October 7, 2023. (Oren Ziv)
THE SLAVE REVOLT IN GAZA, and Bernie Sanders
Norman Finkelstein
The largest slave revolt in U.S. history against “White
supremacy” was led by Nat Turner. Turner was a religious fanatic; he believed
that the revolt was divinely inspired and sanctioned. Here’s how Wikipedia
describes what ensued:
The rebels traveled from house to house, freeing
enslaved people and killing many of the White people whom they encountered....
Historian Stephen B. Oates states that Turner called on his group to “kill all
the white people”.... Turner thought that revolutionary violence would awaken
the attitudes of Whites to the reality of the inherent brutality in
slave-holding. Turner said he wanted to spread “terror and alarm” among Whites.
Scores of White innocents were deliberately killed.
Nonetheless, the Nat Turner Rebellion now occupies an honored place in American
history.
Turner’s rebellion provoked mass genocidal hysteria among
Whites. To gain one’s moral bearings at this fraught moment, it repays to
peruse the statement issued by the great Abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison
right after the revolt:
What we have so long predicted,—at the peril of being stigmatized as an alarmist and declaimer,—has commenced its fulfilment. The first step of the earthquake, which is ultimately to shake down the fabric of oppression, leaving not one stone upon another, has been made. The first drops of blood, which are but the prelude to a deluge from the gathering clouds, have fallen. The first flash of lightning, which is to smite and consume, has been felt. The first wailings of bereavement, which is to clothe the earth in sackcloth, have broken up our ears.
All law, even International Humanitarian Law, is an instrument of class rule which sooner or later is turned against those seeking their liberation. This is something that even Marxists and revolutionary socialists find hard to understand at times.
As ever, a useful reminder of the context of the Hamas breakout and the never ending complicity of our politicians in the West. Thanks Tony. And well done Crispin Blunt.
ReplyDeleteThe best summation of the breakout I've heard, including the background, and with much detail I've heard nowhere else, was from Muhammad Shehada on Useful Idiots. I highly recommend this, not least for the tragic interview with Refaat Alareer direct from his home in Gaza, with noises off from some of the 15 children currently in his home, and bombs dropping in the background. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBslqJWXVGs
In France demonstrators in Lyon defying the ban by the Dictator or the Republic, M Emmanuel Macron were chased off by police in full riot gear. In the demonstration you have shown here in Paris, police who had stood around in riot gear with c/w shields moved in with tear gas and hoses in the evening. There were some arrests. One young woman said she was fined 135€ for wearing a keffiyeh. In Grenoble where 100 or so pro-Palestinians carried out rhythmic clapping and chanting there were more people fined. A demonstration was proscribed in Marseilles yesterday. I haven't found out whether anything happened, but I think unlikely that the whole of Marseilles was cowed by this anti-democratic ban. Near me a local twinning committee with Palestine had for some weeks been organising a Palestinian film festival of two films and four shorts, scheduled for yesterday. On Thursday the Dictator of the Republic announced in a radio broadcast that all pro-Palestinian demonstrations were banned, and on Friday the Prefecture banned the film festival. Thus again violating our basic human rights. This is not democracy. This is not Liberté, nor is it Egalité nor Fraternité.
I understand similar repression is in force in Germany.
It’s fascism unfolding before our eyes. It’s terrifying.
DeleteSorry, I forgot to put my name to the response I just made to this post. I just cannot manage to put my name to my posts so they go out as anonymous which I don’t like.
DeleteYes, it’s fascism and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if that scum home secretary bans pro Palestinian marches in the UK as well.
Vassa Nicolaou
Macron's just salty that the French have been kicked out of Niger.
DeleteMacron is nearly as bad as Starmer: arrogant and dictatorial; breaks every promise, particularly on the environment; in the pocket of the lobbies; beholden to the US and Zionism. Except that he doesn't lead a party that has pretentions to being socialist.
DeleteIn today's media, heavily biased in favour of apartheid racist Israel, anyone who attempts to explain the background to the situation in the Holy Land is either immediately shut down or accused of support for terrorists. The BBC and the rest are desperate to prevent anyone with expert knowledge of the occupation appearing on our screens for any amount of time to give the public the full facts about why Palestinians have reacted in the way they did after being brutalised and abused by Zionists who came to occupy them and steal their land and homes, starting more than seventy five years ago.
ReplyDeleteIt’s so obvious that what is going on is genocide. The continued military support of the US, EU, UK is so sickening, it’s difficult to hear them talk because all they do is twist the truth, the facts and weave a web of deceit. A lot of people buy it, but I wonder for how much longer can their hypocrisy uphold. I don’t know. If Iran do come into this conflict I think it will change things in a way which is difficult to imagine.
ReplyDeleteThey’ve already caused a surge in racist actions and I believe this will become significantly worse. The level of their hate and stupidity is beyond any normal comprehension. They are truly hateful. This is fascism.
And yes, where are the bloody spineless ‘Labour’ MPs? Where the hell are they? Shame on all of them. Useless bastards. When I read about Crispin Blunt speaking out against the injustices, I was amazed that the only voice to speak out was a Tory!
Thank you again Tony for an excellent article.
Labour are just being Labour - they have a long history of being pro-imperialism and anti working class. It's time we build a new movement in this country.
DeleteSorry again, previous message: Vassa Nicolaou
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