There’s apparently a growing movement to cancel your FB account & try to find an alternative social media venue where they won’t allow spying on us, won’t censor political movements, & won’t peddle our private data. The reasons are compelling. But the problem is that FB & Twitter are the venues where Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya, Uyghur & others are reaching out to educate others about who they are & what they’re struggling for. Where else could they go & get such a hearing? It’s a damn conundrum because FB snooping & alliances with repressive governments also bring activists undesirable attention. Until they find political forums as powerful as FB & Twitter, the options don’t seem optimal.

“Of the hundreds of reasons one can be arrested simply for being a Kashmiri, add one more: anyone publicly opposing ISIS in Kashmir. Yes you heard it right, it just happened, a senior Jamaat activist was arrested today for this “crime”. We were always aware who will benefit if this deadly cult takes root in Kashmir. With this action today the Indian state delivered a manifest proof of how desperately they want the war imposed on Kashmir to become more deadly and catastrophic. Like every counter-revolutionary ploy and tactic this too will fail, and hopefully without any devastating cost for us.”

–Mir Laieeq

Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism is an honorific for Assad apologists

There’s something wrong with the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism. It’s one of those Nobel Peace Prize kind of things: not flattering if you’re one of the recipients after Kissinger & Suu Kyi. Judging from the quality of the website, it’s a post office box & email operation without any staff or real credibility. It was started in 1999 by Gellhorn, a prominent war correspondent who’s dead now but among the administrators of the award is John Pilger who went south as a journalist after he went all Islamophobic & began speaking ex cathedra on things he knew nothing about. Like feminism & Syria. Among the recipients are Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, Julian Assange, Gareth Porter, Robert Parry, & Jonathan Cook–a regular who’s who of Assad apologists. Now we find out from Pilger that fascist propagandist Vanessa Beeley was a finalist for the 2017 Gellhorn Prize. Recognizing a kindred political degenerate, Pilger probably nominated her himself. It’s too bad Beeley didn’t win the damn thing because the Gellhorn would leave this earth before it barely acquired any respect.

A thoroughgoing analysis must be made of why the left so disastrously crashed & burned on the issue of Syria. But in a formal enquiry, it would not be appropriate to say it’s because so many on the left were doofuses & goofballs who navigated to the left solely from a misunderstanding of politics. Syria gave them a chance to become their true selves again. I could names but why shame them more than they already have themselves. Interestingly, there was a similar navigation earlier from those who supported Palestinians to those who became ardent Zionists of the low level kind. You can’t cheat politics & get away with it. People try but they end up in the camp of apologetics.

Prevail on Shakira to honor cultural boycott of Israel

https://www.facebook.com/boycott.divest.sanctions.israel/
Shakira has never performed in Israel but in 2011 attended the Presidential Conference founded in 2008 & under the auspices of now deceased Shimon Peres who was a terrorist engaged in forcibly removing Palestinians from their lands in 1948, the president of Israel between 2007 & 2014, & one of the chief architects of a Zionist state. Past participants in the conference include George W. Bush, Elie Wiesel, Robert De Niro, Rupert Murdoch, & Bernard-Henri Lévy. Stephen Hawking gave it more prominence than Shakira when he refused to attend in 2013, citing the academic & cultural boycott (BDS) of Israel.

Now Shakira, again rebuffing appeals from BDS supporters. has booked a gig in Tel Aviv on July 9th, 2018. She is a goodwill ambassador for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) & weasels around her support for Israeli apartheid by visiting the only two showpiece bilingual Israeli-Palestinian schools in Israel which feign coexistence. BDS supporters need to relaunch a campaign for the political education of Shakira in the real nature of that coexistence so evident at the Great Return March where Israeli snipers shoot to kill unarmed, peaceful Palestinian protesters.

Please like & share this FB wall to begin the education of Miss Shakira in Israeli apartheid & genocide & to appeal to her to honor the cultural boycott.

Israeli anti-Zionist activists protest at apartheid fence with Gaza in solidarity with Palestinians & Great Return March

Jewish anti-Zionist activists from Neturei Karta community (Twitter) May 12 2018
There have been protest rallies in solidarity with the Great Return March in Turkey, Jordan, Israel, London, & Jakarta. In Israel, when tough-minded pro-Palestinian activist Adi Shosberger made a video calling Israeli snipers “terrorists” participating in the “massacre of innocent civilians,” she was trashed by two Israeli radio hosts. One called her “filth,” “stupid,” “retarded,” a “little bitch” & suggested she be sent to Gaza to be raped & murdered. She has since been harassed, her children intimidated, her tires slashed, garbage dumped on her lawn, been subject to death threats & condemned by Netanyahu in a cabinet meeting. Israeli police have not taken the threats against Shosberger seriously. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (born in the former Soviet Union) called for new legislation that would imprison those who “harm the security of the state.”

The photo is Jewish anti-Zionist activists from the Neturei Karta community in Israel near the apartheid barrier with Gaza protesting the Israeli attacks on unarmed civilians. The Neturei Karta community are descendants of Hungarian & Lithuanian Jews who settled in Jerusalem in the 19th century. They are outspokenly opposed to Zionism, the state of Israel, & support BDS & Palestinian rights.

Great respect to Israeli activists who stand their ground in such a repressive political atmosphere. In alliance with Palestinians, they are the hope & the vanguard of a democratic, secular state where Palestinians & Jews will live as brothers & sisters.

(Photo from Israeli activist Ronnie Barkan on Twitter)

Kashmiri friends, is it true that the young guy who videoed the armored truck running down Adil Ahmed has been arrested by police? I read it on Twitter but couldn’t find confirmation of it.

Does the name Ashish Kaul ring a bell with anyone? I have a distinct recollection that he came to my wall & did the “what about the Pandits” thing but I can’t find the discussion. Now I read in Kashmiri media that he is a Pandit & that charges have been filed against him for advocating on Twitter for the rape & murder of Kashmiri women.

Amputee at GRM May 11 2018 (GRM on Twitter) May 12 2018
This Palestinian lost his leg after an Israeli terrorist sniper shot him at the Great Return March. He must still be adjusting psychologically, physically, & socially to his new condition but came to protest again yesterday. The Arabic word on his T-shirt means ” Returning,” referring to the refugees he’s protesting for. Israel targets the young precisely to disable political resistance but conditions of apartheid & genocide have made the participation of those with disability necessary. In the new society they will build, those with disability will not be seen as lesser than but as equals.

(Photo from Great Return March on Twitter)