YouTube Collude with
Zionism's Genocidal Racism By Deleting Videos of Their Crimes Under Hate Speech
Policies
Pogrom against Palestinians by Jewish Settlers Jerusalem Day 29 May
Last Thursday 18 May the annual
ritual of thousands of settlers being herded and protected by the Israeli
Police through Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem took place. They chanted a
variety of racist slogans, such as the delightful ‘Death to the Arabs’ whilst attacking any Palestinian they could lay
their hands on.
It was an Israeli Labor government
that instituted Jerusalem Day in 1968 as an assertion of Jewish Supremacy over
Arab Jerusalem.
Last year it was Security Minister
Omar Bar Lev, a member of the Israeli Labor Party, who gave
authorisation to the Flag March and the inevitable pogrom through East
Jerusalem.
You will remember that the Israeli
Labor Party was part of the so-called Government of Change with Benny Gantz,
who outlawed 6 Palestinian Human Rights groups at the stroke of a pen,
including the highly dangerous Defence for Children International – Palestine.
Whatever else it was the Change Government represented no change for Palestinians.
This year the march was led by
Israel’s Police Minister, the neo-Nazi Police Minister Itamar Ben Gvir of Otzma
Yehudit, Jewish Power. In the West the very term ‘Jewish Power’ is considered
an anti-Semitic phrase but not in Israel where it is a reality.
Even Moshe Yalon, the right-wing
former Likud Defence Minister has characterised Ben Gvir
as ‘Mein Kampf in reverse’ but the
yellow press and the craven BBC cannot bring themselves to describe in simple
words the record of Gvir, who had on his living room wall until
recently the picture of Baruch Goldstein, the man who massacred 29
Palestinian worshippers in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in 1994. This is what
Zionism has evolved into.
Bogi Yaalon, "Mein
Kampf," reversed and Jewish Supremacy ideology infiltrated the government
Western Hypocrisy
Just imagine what the
BBC and the British press would say if in Iran, which has the second
largest Jewish community in the Middle East after Israel, some 25,000,
thousands of Muslims were to march through the Jewish parts of Tehran
chanting ‘Death to the Jews’.
You would have every talking head
in the media condemning this in no uncertain words and talking of a second
holocaust yet when it comes to the equivalent behaviour by Israeli Jewish
settlers and their government supporters, there is absolute silence –
not just by the British media but the New York Times, Washington Post and the
rest of the prostitute press in the West.
Indeed last year we had the
spectacle of the BBC’s disgusting racist, their correspondent in Israel,
Yolande Knell, reporting that the
pogrom through East Jerusalem was a ‘festive’
event. ‘It feels like a party’ this
creature twittered into a microphone.
there are
just thousands upon thousands of young Israelis like this that I’ve seen around
the city the mood of them is really jubilant, it’s festive, it feels like
a party.
As I wrote at the time:
‘One wonders what Yolande would have made of the Nazi pogrom
Kristallnacht in November 1938. Perhaps she would have been caught up in the
enthusiasm of the Nazis’ Sturmabteilung (SA) as they burnt Jewish synagogues
and smashed Jewish shop windows, declaring that
there are just thousands upon thousands of young Germans. The mood of
them is really jubilant, it’s festive, it feels like a party.
BBC
Reporter Yolande Knell reporting on the Zionist pogrom on Jerusalem Day May
2022
But it’s not just the BBC and the British press who ignore Israel’s pogromists.
The social media companies do their bit to help keep people in ignorance.
At 1.02 in the morning of 13 May I received notice from Youtube that they were taking down the video below
However I was informed that ‘If you think we've made a mistake, you can
appeal and we’ll take another look.’
Now I have had experience of this kind of
thing before. Not so long they took down a similar video. On that occasion it
was a group of Israeli right-wingers shouting at Jewish demonstrators against
house demolitions in Sheikh Jarrar in Jerusalem that ‘Hitler was right’ and telling them that they should have died in
Auschwitz.
Despite me telling them that far from advocating what was in the video I was exposing the Zionists as the racists and fascists that they were Youtube turned down my appeal. I could have saved my breath because Youtube aren’t interested in exposing Zionist and Israeli racism. Their sole interest was in preventing the exposure of racism –all under the rubric of ‘hate speech’!
In reality Youtube’s ‘hate speech’ policy is a policy to protect hate speech. This is Youtube's commitment to anti-racism. We should not be surprised since Google is developing artificial intelligence software for use by Israel’s military for the purposes of surveillance. So I had no illusions in their ‘appeal procedure’ which is in reality a rubber stamping procedure.
In my appeal I said:
Are you stupid? Do you
deliberately conflate EXPOSING racism with ADVOCATING racism?
The video 'Jerusalem Day Demonstration by Settlers-Shireen is a Whore'
doesn't support pogroms against the Palestinians by Jewish settlers but OPPOSES
their racism.
Are you really that stupid?
Can you not tell the difference between exposing racism and supporting it?
Let us assume you are not that
stupid, which is possible. Then there is only one conclusion to be drawn from
your removing this video and that is that you want to protect the very racists
that I am exposing. In which case it is YOU not me who is guilty of breaching
your 'hate speech guidelines'
In which case the disgusting hate
mongers and racists are the morons who removed this video who do not even have
the honesty to admit to their racism
Suffice to
say this appeal did not succeed, thus proving that the Youtube Moderators are
indeed racist scum.
Below is an
excellent article on Mondoweiss by Mariam Barghouti about the political
implications of Jerusalem’s annual flag march.
The Flag March is part of the Zionist war on Jerusalem
The Flag March represents the Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine and the imposition of Israeli colonial dominance over Jerusalem. It is part of the Zionist forever war on Jerusalem.
ByMariam Barghouti
May
22, 2023
On
Thursday, May 18, Israeli settler groups held the annual “Flag March” in
Jerusalem. The march, or the “dance of flags,” was first inaugurated in 1968, a
year after Israeli forces occupied East Jerusalem and took over Palestinian,
Syrian, and Egyptian lands in the West Bank, the Golan Heights, and the Sinai.
Israeli officials such as the National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich joined this year’s march, both members of the
new far-right Israeli coalition.
In what
the Israeli state calls “Jerusalem Day,” the Flag March signals a settler
emphasis on the “reunification of Jerusalem.” However, as Palestinians insistent
on remaining in their homes, from Sheikh Jarrah, to the Old City, and to
neighboring towns in East Jerusalem, the Flag March has become an attempt to
drive out the last remaining Palestinians from Jerusalem.
In a
statement, the spokesperson for the Palestinian presidential office, Nabil Abu
Rudeineh, warned that the Flag March could lead to an “explosion,” with
tensions already high amidst Israel’s increased violence in Jerusalem. In a
statement to the press, the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh,
condemned the march as an attempt to consolidate the Judaization and conquest
of Jerusalem further, emphasizing that “the
Palestinians will continue to confront the policies of the occupation, no
matter how heavy the price.”
However, for
Palestinians in Jerusalem, the Flag March is not only a political and military
move meant to solidify Israel’s stranglehold over Jerusalem but is a day of
guaranteed violence and settler abuse.
The backdrop
The
ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem began in 1948 with the massacres committed in Deir Yassin, Ein Karem, Abu Ghosh, and other
towns surrounding Jerusalem. The military annexation of East Jerusalem began in
1967, and the judicial solidification of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel
took effect on July 30, 1980. That summer, the Jerusalem Law was added to the Israeli Basic Law (a set of Israeli laws
adopted in lieu of a constitution). The law declared Jerusalem, including East
Jerusalem, as the capital of Israel. This further allowed the Israeli
government to expand its jurisdiction over Palestinian lives in the city. This
also violated international law and the internationally recognized status of East Jerusalem as occupied Palestinian territory.
It is what laid the foundation for sparking the First Intifada of 1987. In
December 2000, less than a year after the eruption of the Second Intifada, the
Israeli Knesset made another amendment to the Jerusalem Law affirming sole Israeli power and
jurisdiction over the city.
“Since the reunification of Jerusalem in
1967,” the website of Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reads,
“the city has become a haven for coexistence
and revitalized religious and cultural expression for all faiths. Freedom of
worship at all holy sites is guaranteed for the faithful of all three
monotheistic religions, the first time in modern history that this has been the
case.”
For
Palestinians, this so-called “coexistence” has meant surviving the draconian
policies of Israeli authorities known for persecuting Palestinians, enforcing apartheid, and committing crimes against
humanity.
Recent Jerusalem
escalations
The
settler Flag March should be viewed within the context of an escalatory dynamic
particular to Jerusalem, in which rightwing settler groups and the Israeli
state have attempted to progressively shrink Palestinian rights to the city
while expanding Israeli colonial encroachment into Palestinian spaces. This
process of encirclement has not only included the takeover of homes in
neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah or restrictions in areas like Silwan but has
also extended to restricting religious and worshiping rights. This has led to
chronic and repeated flare-ups in the Old City and local and regional tensions
intensifying.
In the
first three months of this year, more than a dozen settler attacks were
recorded against churches in Jerusalem, while police violations against Muslim
worshippers and the systemic targeting of youth in the Old City intensified
compared to previous years
On April 15, Israeli forces denied Palestinian
Christians from participating in Easter worship by banning them from entry into
the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and beating them. “The occupation, through such policies, claims that Jerusalem is
theirs,” Archbishop Atallah Hanna told Mondoweiss following the
police attack on the Church of Holy Sepulchre during Easter.
Just ten days before that, Israeli forces invaded the third
holiest site in Islam, the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the heart of the Old
City, attacking and assaulting peaceful worshippers while they prayed. Hundreds
of worshippers were arrested during the month of Ramadan, as almost 47 worshippers from the
West Bank were arrested and held in detention for days and exposed to
mistreatment and abuse by Israeli police, according to eyewitnesses who spoke
to Mondoweiss. Meanwhile, in the West Bank, settlers have carried out arson
attacks against Palestinian towns and villages, described even by the Israeli
military as pogroms.
The
“reunification of Jerusalem” celebrated by the Flag March therefore represents
the Zionist promise for the ethnic cleansing to which the Palestinians of
Jerusalem have been subjected since 1967, what the Mondoweiss Palestine
Bureau has called the “Zionist forever war on Jerusalem.”
This war
has taken on many forms and has passed through several iterations. In 2017, Israeli policymakers attempted to
mute the call to prayer for Muslim worshippers in Jerusalem and to set up metal
detectors outside the entrance to the Aqsa compound, which resulted in the Bab al-Asbat uprising; in 2020, Israeli police and
authorities began targeting bread bakeries in Jerusalem, noting that Jerusalem’s ka’ak bread
is an emblem of Palestinian presence and identification in Jerusalem; in May
2021, settlers invaded the Aqsa compound, and again in April 2022, resulting in the beating and
arrests of hundreds in both years.
Every
year since May 1968, Palestinians in Jerusalem have had to fight for their
homes and the right to assembly and freedom of worship. For Palestinians, the
Flag March means surviving the violence of the Israeli state and its settlers
yearly and refusing to be ethnically cleansed.
Israeli Police prepare for the
closure of Old City of Jerusalem for the Flag March near the Chain Gate
entrance, May 18, 2023. (Photo: Alaa Dayeh/Mondoweiss)
Holding a city
captive
“[The first time I remember the Flag
March] was around ten years ago,” Israa Abu Ahmad, a 29-year-old mother of two, told Mondoweiss
on the day of this year’s march on May 18. “My sister was young, maybe 12 or 13, and was filming during the Flag
March,” Abu Ahmad continued. “The
[Israeli armed forces] then began to beat her, beat her a lot. She was a
child.”
Incidents
of the kind suffered by Israa are the norm for Palestinians in the Old City
during the annual march. While Israelis prepare for ease of movement through
the alleyways of the Old City and the streets of larger Jerusalem, Palestinians
are herded through metal pathways erected around the city to ensure every
Palestinian step is controlled and directed. Like most Palestinian residents of
the Old City and its surrounding areas, Israa had to remain home with her
children, fearing the likely violence from settlers.
“It’s as though we keep the children
in a prison.”
Israa Abu Ahmad
In
anticipation of settler and police violence, medical personnel and journalists
were present around the city throughout the day to respond to and document
developments. At approximately 3:00 p.m., before the march began, Israeli
border police began manhandling, assaulting, and impeding medical staff in the
area, according to on-the-ground documentation by Mondoweiss.
According to reporters on the ground, several journalists were also attacked throughout the day.
Israeli Police obstruct medical
personnel from moving around the Old City, Damascus Gate entrance, May 18,
2023. (Photo: Alaa Dayeh/Mondoweiss)
For the
majority of the day, Palestinians were forced to remain inside their homes.
Even children were denied the space to play. “I have my children here inside. It’s so hard to keep children locked in
the house for 24 hours,” Israa told Mondoweiss. “It’s as though we keep [the children] in a
prison.”
“I can’t play outside today, because
they will hit me,”
Rafeef Abu Ahmad, Israa’s 6-year-old daughter, told Mondoweiss.
At that
moment, banging was heard outside the house. “Do you see how [settlers] are beating?” Rafeef said, referring to
the Jewish-Israeli youth rampaging outside her home near the Aqba Khaldiyeh
area of the Old City.
Just
moments earlier, the 6-year-old had witnessed a mob of at least 15 Jewish
settlers gathered around a man in her neighborhood, kicking him in the abdomen
and continuing to beat him in a circle in what can only be described as an
attempted lynching. Three Israeli police officers were on the scene, refusing
to arrest the Jewish youth that assaulted the man and instead allowing them to
continue on their rampage through the city.
“In a previous Flag March, my
shoulder was broken and, at the time my son was asleep by the window near my
aunt’s house,” Israa
continued, narrating the different years and forms of violence she and her
family witnessed.
“Settlers
started to come out with liquor bottles across the windows and I was afraid for
my son, so I went to him and carried him,” she told Mondoweiss. “By
carrying my son, the bones in my shoulder broke to pieces. I had to do surgery
and get platinum implants.” Israa’s son was nearly two years old at the
time.
The
impact this has on Palestinian Jerusalemites is also economic. These
restrictions, especially during the Flag March, have forced Palestinians to
close their shops early to make way for the rampaging settlers. Israa is one of
them. “We closed all our shops today. I
sew, and I have work. Today I closed the shop because I’m afraid they’ll
attack,” she told Mondoweiss.
The day
before the march on Wednesday, May 17, the Israeli police sent text messages to
Palestinian residents of the Old City and shop owners, signed by the captain of
the Israeli public police in the Jerusalem area, Shadi Basis.
“Tomorrow will be the Flag March for the
reunification of Jerusalem, from Damascus Gate on Waad St. to the Wailing Wall.
Please take out all your cars and vehicles until 3 p.m., and shop and grocery
owners must close at 3:00 p.m. Please adhere in order to obstruct collision and
harm,”
Fear to document
The
impact of this constant assault on Palestinian existence goes beyond the
economic. It becomes an instrument of silencing Palestinians and punishing
those who resist.
“We are not as strong as them, so
we’re afraid,” a
shop-owner in the Old City, who requested to remain anonymous, told Mondoweiss.
“If the police ask us for something and
we don’t do it, we become targets,” he said. “We’re afraid to have our voices recorded because of the threat that
[Israeli police] will carry out revenge acts in different ways.”
“We are living in terror inside the
city.”
Um Abed, shop owner
The fear
witnessed in individuals and families approached by Mondoweiss for
recorded interviews highlights the ways in which Israel punishes exposure. At
least a dozen shop owners and residents in the city explicitly informed Mondoweiss
they were afraid of repercussions from the Police if they spoke out.
“We are living in terror inside the
city,” Umm Abed, a
resident of the Old City and small shop owner, explained to Mondoweiss on
Thursday morning, as preparations for the march ensued. “But the residents of the city cannot take this on. The youth are being
banned from Aqsa, and they are either arrested or denied entry.”
“All the years that have passed are a
series of assaults,”
Umm Abed continued. “People come
and document but all we have to protect us is God.”
Umm
Abed, a shop owner in the Old City of Jerusalem .(Photo: Alaa Dayeh/Mondoweiss)
“All these marches are provocations,” Nada Khader, 53, told Mondoweiss
on Thursday morning as police moved to ensure the alleyways were empty of
the visible presence of its Palestinian inhabitants. Khader has been living in
the Old City ever since Israeli authorities demolished her home in Beit Hanina
twice — the first time in December last year, and the second in January. A
widow and a mother of seven, Khader continues to face slow expulsion from
Jerusalem.
“They are provoking us Jerusalemites
in order to create problems and for them to try and prove their presence to say
that Jerusalem is theirs,” she said.
Alaa Dayeh contributed to this article.
