Some consider the toothy-grinned Obama as cool, hip, a regular fellow who’ll morph into a humanitarian when his term is up. But his association with & honoring of Kissinger (not to mention his several wars) identifies him as a lying-assed scoundrel who merits the condemnation of all men & women of good will.

(Photo is the two war criminals in 2010 by Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)

And an army of commentators can’t stop warning us about the moral boundaries we’re fixing to cross.

Just shut up already. The hypocrisy is bad enough. But the sanctimony is out of control, even for a bunch of hypocrites.”

The petition cited in the post is still operative so please take a moment to sign it to protest this outrageous flouting of justice.

Israeli police shot him after they saw Israeli settlers from an illegal settlement in East Jerusalem chasing him for allegedly stabbing a settler (Oct. 12th). His case became famous because videos of his shooting by police circulated on social media. The videos showed him with legs splayed, profusely bleeding, reaching out for help, while Israeli settlers stood around shouting obscenities at him & urging police to do him in. An Israeli police officer actually kicked him back down when he tried to raise his body. When the ambulance arrived, Israeli medics reportedly dawdled & prolonged the process of getting him to a hospital.

He was treated in a Jerusalem hospital for a broken skull & moved from there to a detention center. A Jerusalem court indicted him on October 30th on two counts of attempted murder because the two settlers he & his cousin attacked survived their wounds. His 15-year-old cousin Hassan Manasra was shot dead by police at the scene before a car ran over his body.

The police interrogation of young Ahmed in November was videotaped & also circulated on social media. Israeli police are seen screaming at him, verbally abusing him, pressuring him to confess. He is seen crying, hitting his head, & repeating “I do not remember.” Did the interrogators inform him of his rights? Did he know that under international & Israeli law he had the right to an attorney? Or do those rights not apply to Palestinian kids in occupied East Jerusalem?

But Israeli authorities weren’t through with him yet. They repeatedly delayed his trial so that it would take place after he turned fourteen in late January & could be tried as an adult where he could receive the maximum sentence of 20 years.

Ahmed’s defense attorney is Lea Tsemel, a remarkable Israeli woman who has defended Palestinian youth for decades & is a supporter of Palestinian rights. She told Al Jazeera, “The allegation against him is not that he stabbed anybody, but that he had the intention to kill. We will have to prove he did not have that intention, but rather to cause pain & frighten.”

Khaled Manasra, Ahmed’s uncle & the father of Hassan who was shot dead, told Al Jazeera, “Young people see what happens at the al-Aqsa Mosque, how [Israeli forces] beat Palestinians, ladies; they see Palestinians being killed, like what happened to the Dawabsheh family. In their minds, they think they can stop it.”

Palestinian Intifada in concert with massive international solidarity is the only thing that can stop it & that is exactly why Israel targets Palestinian youth for intimidation, incarceration without due process, torture in the gulag, summary execution.

The most powerful way to stand with Ahmed Manasra is to honor the economic, cultural, & academic boycott of Israel (BDS). Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729. And consider attending the solidarity march in Washington DC on March 20th.

Please sign this petition to free Ahmed Manasra: https://secure.avaaz.org/…/amnesty_international_freedom_…/…

It was a new day rising when those with disabilities began to organize themselves politically in the 1970s to demand equal rights & the end of flagrant discrimination, marginalization & social isolation in every aspect of life.

There were frequent photos of protesters in wheelchairs during the Arab uprisings, during the Greek austerity protests, in the Occupy movement protests–all fighting as peers. There are frequent photos of refugees disembarking from dinghies in Greece on wheelchairs & joining other refugees in rushing the border fence between Greece & Macedonia. They also are engaged in battles with their own governments to provide social services & social security still denied them–not to mention destroying the popular & institutional prejudices against them as inferior human beings.

Several times, most recently two weeks ago, disability activists on crutches & in wheelchairs in Bolivia marched on the capital to demand an increase in their paltry social security benefits. This photo is an activist of the Jammu & Kashmir Handicapped Association being arrested by Indian police at a protest for disability rights in Srinagar. Media reports that over a dozen activists were arrested, some of them on crutches or in wheelchairs.

The activists, marching behind a banner reading “We want justice, we want rights,” were demanding the reservation of government & private jobs, concessions on electricity & water bills, subsidies on loans, & social security of 6,000 Indian rupees (around $90) each month. India does not have social security so that demand is extremely avant-garde & strengthens the political struggles within India proper for social security.

Because of so many barbarous wars, disability rights has become a central issue in politics–& not just for the veterans who fight them: hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, & elsewhere have been disabled.

There is an ideology behind denying those with disabilities full stature in social & political life. It’s the same genre as racism, misogyny, & supremacist views of all kinds. The historic mission of humanity is to overcome such rancid impediments & make this world suitable for all human beings to live in.

(Photo by Mukhtar Khan/AP)