The military assault of Jenin wasn’t on the city of Jenin but on the refugee camp with about 13,000 residents. The Israeli military entered the camp with tear gas, 40 military vehicles, & anti-tank grenades fired from rifles. They claim the target of the raid was a “senior Islamic Jihad official.”

Israel has long claimed the refugee camp is a center for all sorts of radical political activity. Well of course it is & thank heavens for that. What are Palestinians driven off their lands who’ve had their homes torched & bulldozed supposed to do? Watch soap operas all day!?

During the Second Intifada in 2002, the Israeli army entered the Jenin camp in a violent assault. The UN consequently cleared Israel of charges of a massacre of unarmed civilians because only 52 people died. How many civilian deaths does it take to constitute a massacre? More than 52? More than 100? Over a thousand? Let’s cut the crap.

Last summer, Israel troops shot up Jenin looking for the three Israeli teenagers who were kidnapped & murdered. Israel, without a shred of evidence, blamed it on Hamas & used it as a pretext to carpet bomb Gaza for 51 days.

Jenin is in the West Bank but under Israeli military occupation Palestinians have no civil liberties. They’re not allowed to organize politically against the occupation, against the apartheid wall, against the expropriation of their lands or the destruction of their homes & villages, & against the denial of human rights.

That’s why international solidarity is so important & why we must build the hell out of the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel. Demand no military aid to Israel. Demand Israel end the occupation of the West Bank & the blockade of Gaza.

(Photo by Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)

Many people look at our political objections to Sanders & the GP & say we’re hairsplitters, pedants, looking foolishly for perfection that doesn’t exist. We don’t buy those accusations. We don’t think war, colonialism, apartheid, ethnic cleansing are hairsplitting issues. We consider them the fundamentals of principled politics, of the kind of political program required for social transformation. We’re sticking with solidarity because that’s where justice stands. If you compromise on Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Yemen, Somalia, & all the rest, what’s left but small-minded nationalism?

None of these shills are prize packages because electoral history shows it doesn’t take much to rope in the credulous. But Sanders is surely among the least inspiring. Oh let’s not beat around the bush. His politics are absolutely awful. But what his campaign has done is expose the fault line in US politics, that profound chasm between provincials who care only about paychecks & interest rates in the US & those who refuse to privilege Americans over people anywhere else on this planet.

It’s an iron law of politics that the first sign of a socialist going sour is they turn their backs on other peoples as of no consequence in comparison to US economic advantages. And in the long run, because those so-called progressives can’t think beyond their W-2 forms, the paychecks shrink & the wars grow more ubiquitous. There is a direct political nexus between militarism, racism, poverty, & the declining standard of living for US workers.

Bernie Sanders’ support for Israeli apartheid, his contemptuous dismissal of the war on the Black community, his xenophobic opposition to immigration rights that puts him right along side Donald Trump & all the other bozos, should have made clear he’s an establishment man, a supporter of war, colonialism, & social hatred. And that should be that for progressives. But even all that hasn’t broken the spell of provincialism & nationalism.

Now he came out publicly on TV & supported the ‘selective & effective’ use of drone bombing. He said “When you kill innocent people, what the end result is that people in the region become anti-American who otherwise would not have been.” Well isn’t that a mouthful of self-incrimination! A man whose concern is not that tens of thousands of people are being bombed to smithereens but that they might cop an attitude toward the Pentagon if they survive! That statement alone should shatter every single last illusion that Bernie Sanders has anything to offer people in the US.

It’s time we end the reign of expedience & demand politics rooted in political principles. The most fundamental principle of all is solidarity with people all over this planet as brothers & sisters. The US border does not define the limits of humanity “An injury to one is an injury to all.” If Sanders can’t deliver on that he’s just another worthless bum.

This is a rescue operation off the coast of Libya (last Friday) where two boats with up to 500 refugees sank. The death toll is now over 200.

Open the damn borders! Stop the mass murder of refugees!

(Photo by Ben Khalifa/AP)

Between 1989 & 2009, India’s military & paramilitary thugs in Kashmir have disappeared an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 people & caused 70,000 deaths through mass killings, extrajudicial or “fake encounter” executions, custodial brutality (including torture & rape), & other means. Political repression & surveillance are of course fundamental to the military occupation.

Conservative human rights groups like Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, & even the US State Department have all testified to these human rights crimes against Kashmiri civilians. But the Indian army claims 97 percent of the claims are “fake or motivated” based on investigations of themselves. They’re trying to put the Israeli army to shame. It’s quite likely India & Israel collaborate in devising methods of occupation since Israel also schools US police departments in the Black community. You wouldn’t think the US Pentagon needed outside assistance in militarizing police & repression since US & UK super-cops trained the Bahraini military & police in repressive policing against the democratic movement. But when it comes to violence & repression, these regimes are all of a piece.

Like in Palestine & as we saw in the Arab uprisings, particularly Bahrain, funerals & mourning are part of the expression & culture of political dissent against occupation. This photo is the mother of a disappeared Kashmiri youth. Contrary to the impression from the image, she is at a protest organized by the Association of Parents of Disappeared (APDP) in Srinagar on Sunday where they demanded setting up a commission to investigate the disappearances, including investigation of unmarked mass graves. The phony army investigations fooled no one.

Our fullest solidarity with the people of Kashmir. Ending the news blackout is part of solidarity along with exposing the nexus between Israel, India, the US & UK in political repression & barbarism around the world. Even ISIS has nothing on these savages.

(Photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP)

First of all, the picture is damning as hell of excessive military force against unarmed Palestinians & against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands. Secondly, those aren’t “border police”; they’re part of an occupying army. Thirdly, that “controversial barrier” is an apartheid wall that cuts through Palestinian farm land, mows down villages, & lops off families & communities from each other.

Lastly, they can just cut the crap on that “what organizers say is land confiscation.” The Exodus narrative is shot to hell by the repeated carpets bombings over Gaza & by denunciations even by the likes of Obama & the UN for aggressive settlement projects like Susiya where entire villages are evicted & demolished so Zionist settlers from all over Kingdom Come can move in & take over Palestinian land. Everybody knows that. The only difference is that right-wingers think Zionists have a Biblical claim to Palestine–because they sure as hell don’t have a historic claim.

No offense to the Bible, but when it’s the only historic document you can come up with for title, your claim is a shabby one. It’s as if Irish-Americans found a pottery shard in the Rhineland with the words to “Danny Boy” & started laying land claims to move back from whence they migrated 3,000 years ago. It’s arrant nonsense. The Bible is a religious book, not a historic account.

Build the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel. Demand no military aid to Israel. Demand US end its aid to the settlements in the West Bank.

(Photo by Mussa Qawasma/Reuters)

Don’t you almost wish for the good old days of Sarah Palin!? She could see Russia from her patio.