https://www.facebook.com/TheIrishPost/videos/10157427558398452/UzpfSTE2MjUyMjkwNjE6MTAyMTQxMzU1NjUyOTYxOTg/

Jeff Neff’s comment on these Irish kids singing “Africa” in Gaelic was “Hope Cromwell & Churchill are spinning in their graves. :)”

This is the infinite creativity of youth, especially in conditions of political repression. This is part of reclaiming their own language which was repressed under English colonialism. When I traveled in Ireland with my brother & sister, we would hit the disco clubs at night & would see disco & rock & roll dancing combined with the Irish jig. It was marvelous to see that cultural creativity.

The Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp south of Damascus has been under extreme Syrian & Russian aerial bombardment for a few weeks. Assad propagandists Bartlett & Beeley are busy vilifying the White Helmets & defending themselves against charges as hired propagandists but they took time out to claim Yarmouk is being bombed because it is a hotbed of Al Qaeda & ISIS. Yes, it’s true those forces are holed up in Yarmouk but there are also thousands of Palestinian refugees living there. It is a war crime to bomb civilians even if Al Qaeda & ISIS are hiding among them. One shouldn’t have to explain why that is a war crime. But Assad’s little Beavis & Butthead duo just lie to justify bombing Yarmouk to smithereens. They both suck off Palestinian solidarity to give them political cachet but when it comes to defending Palestinian refugees in Syria, they are all vilification & deceit.

Stand with Palestinian refugees in Syria & with the Syrian people & demand the immediate cessation of bombing & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo of Yarmouk as it is now from several media sources)

This is a deeply sad story. Many will remember this infant from several months ago in December 2017 when her mother Misra Bano was killed by Indian occupying forces in one of their hunt to kill operations. You can see the distress of the little girl in this photo taken at the time of her mother’s death with her father Ishfaq Ahmad Wani who also looks completely bereft. Now it’s reported that Ishfaq has been arrested for stone pelting. Police claim they have video documentation & well they may. One can only imagine the sorrow of this young man at losing his wife & having the care of an infant inconsolable at the loss of her mother. It’s unimaginable. He must be filled with grief & rage at the occupation army for the carnage they have created for him personally. While the father is in jail–God knows for how long–the baby girl is staying with her elderly grandparents.

There must be hundreds of tragedies just like this in Kashmir. We stand completely with the father & don’t give a damn if he burned down the army barracks. In taking his beloved wife & the mother of his infant child, the Indian army has taken what he cherishes most.

Stand with Kashmiris in demanding the end of the occupation & self-determination for Kashmir.

(Photo from many Kashmiri media sources)

Kashmiris usually lead in solidarity protests for Palestinians, Rohingyans, Syrians, & others. So I’m wondering where the hell are they. Now it’s reported that the Joint Resistance Leadership has called protests against the Trump embassy massacre after Friday prayers. We look forward to the photos.

Reposting this as a tribute to photojournalists who play an essential political role in making war, occupation, & genocide up close & personal experiences so that we may understand & stand with the oppressed:
*****
This should be the purpose of photojournalism in war & occupation: to show the experience of civilians. To show what war is really all about. If they do their job right, they will make us hate war.

This photo from January 1966 is Vietnamese civilians being “escorted” by US paratroopers & reportedly taking cover from Viet Cong fire in an area outside Saigon,

How many photojournalist accounts of civilians do you recall from Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan? There is very little from over a year of bombing in Yemen, more from Assad’s bombing in Syria, & nothing from Israel’s recent incursion into Gaza.

The historic imperative remains: rebuild the international antiwar movement.

(Photo by Horst Faas/AP)

These Palestinian kids (who have to interrupt their childhoods to fight the genocide against them) must be one of those Hamas terrorist cells that politicians & Zionists internationally are blasting for provoking the Israeli military to massacre. You can see terrorist written all over their faces. Otherwise, why would they be smiling? Those Arabs are so sly. That’s only to disguise their nefarious intent to cross the apartheid fence into Israel & annihilate Israelis by tearing out their hearts. Or at least that’s what Zionist bloggers are saying.

Actually, these young boys have come to the Great Return March to demand refugee rights for Palestinians & the end of the brutal military occupation. And in that regard, they are freedom fighters. Not the new generation of freedom fighters because in conditions of genocide, the young don’t have the luxury of childhood.

The best way to stand with Palestinians is to find a rally but even if you cannot, everyone can build & honor the economic boycott of Israel by buying nothing which originates in Israel.

(Photo by AbdelKarim Alkahlout)

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/gaza-names-palestinians-killed-israel-us-embassy-1239370023

This article has the photos & names of those killed in the Trump embassy massacre. It’s very powerful in the same way as monuments showing the names of war dead because it personalizes the loss & in this case makes us more aware of Israel’s criminality. You can see, save for baby Laila, that they are all very handsome young men who could be your brother, son, father. Someday, there will be monuments to the contributions they’ve made to Palestinian & human freedom. May they Rest In Peace.

With regrettable clumsiness, I have been using Rohingya as the plural of their name. I once enquired about it & thought I was doing the right thing but was always uneasy about it. Especially the Rohingya should be called by their proper name since it is an issue in the genocide against them. I can be slow on the uptake so it’s taken me six years of writing about them to finally clarify through Anayet Ullah Arman that the plural of their name is Rohingyans.

Maung Zarni, the Burmese dissident in exile, is a brilliant & acerbic polemicist. This is his post on the land grabs of Rohingya property in Arakan state after they fled from genocide:

“For-Profit-Genocide: Myanmar committed “ethnic cleansing” or more genocidal deportation of 700,000 Rohingyas & is going to let cronies & companies work 70,000 acres of fertile agricultural land for profit! Aung San Suu Kyi’s Team calls this “sustainable development”.”

It seems to me useful to post photos from protests around the world to show the scope & breadth of support for Palestinians & to hearten others to call protests–but also to let Palestinians know they don’t stand alone anymore. It’s too hard for those on the front lines of these brutal but historic freedom struggles to feel that no one in the world gives a damn that they’re suffering & dying. So if nobody raises hell, or even if you do, I’ll keep posting them.