Extreme rightwing Israelis march through Palestinians towns in Israel

Israeli riot police & Palestinian (AHMAD GHARABLI : AFP : GETTY IMAGES) Nov 1 2016

This is the third photo that appeared in the LA Times last week portraying some reality about the relationship between Israel & Palestinians. Once again, the whole story is not reported but the fact that it was published is quite surprising, if not remarkable.

These are Israeli riot & undercover police assaulting an “Arab-Israeli” (a Palestinian citizen of Israel) in the north Israel town of Umm al-Fahm. The caption says that extreme rightwing Israelis were marching under heavy police escort through the town & “were met by scores of stone-throwing residents.”

A little elaboration would have been useful. The “extreme rightwing Israelis” were members of Otzma Yehudit, a far right political party that regularly holds marches in predominantly Palestinian towns within Israel, including Nazareth, Rahat, Musmus, Ara, Arara, & Umm al-Fahm. The latter has a majority population of over 52,000 Palestinians. Despite the arrant provocations of such protests & even warnings of violence by the Israeli police, the Supreme Court ruled last January to allow these marches as freedom of expression. They are freedom of expression for racists but unfortunately the ones who get beaten are Palestinian counter-protesters.

This is the third time Otzma Yehudit marched in Umm al-Fahm. The first time was in 2009; the second in October 2010 where they marched to demand the Islamic Movement (IM) be outlawed & against the participation of Sheikh Raed Salah, an outspoken IM leader, in the May 2010 Gaza Freedom Flotilla that was attacked by Israeli commandoes. Nine activists were killed & dozens injured. The extreme rightwing & of course the Israeli government have an entire brief against Salah, not just for his involvement in the flotilla but for his opposition & activism.

The 2010 protest was quite violent against Palestinians with tear gas, & stun grenade attacks, mounted police assaults, assaults just like this one last week, & arrests.

Build BDS in solidarity with Palestinians who have a right to live without provocations, dispossession, occupation, apartheid, carpet bombing. Don’t buy a damn thing with barcode beginning 729 & check every product from cosmetics to shoes to foods.

(Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

Rare photo coverage in LA Times portrays reality of Israeli occupation of West Bank

Palestinian man pepper-sprayed in W.Bani (OLIVER WEIKEN : EPA)  Nove 1 2016

This photo which appeared in the LA Times last week is a Palestinian man receiving first-aid after being pepper-sprayed by Israeli occupying forces at a weekly protest “against the neighboring Jewish settlement of Halamish.”

The LA Times doesn’t tell the whole story of course but it’s extremely unusual for such photos to appear in media which more typically portray Palestinians as aggressive youth. The whole story is more than worth telling.

Halamish was taken in a land grab of Palestinian farmlands in 1977 & continues to expand in outposts. In 2009, when settlers fenced off a vital spring on land privately owned by Bashir Tamimi, residents of nearby Nabi Saleh began weekly protests against the annexation of their farmland. This man is one of the Nabi Saleh protesters.

Though residents were committed to peaceful protests, they were met met by Israeli soldiers using tear gas, rubber bullets, water cannons, & skunk bombs. Skunk bombs are a chemical weapon made of synthetic skunk liquid which smells like raw sewage & is impossible to wash off.

At the weekly protest in December 2011, 28-year-old Mustafa Tamimi (nephew of Bashir), died after an Israeli soldier shot him directly in the face with a tear gas canister. When other protestors reacted with horror, the Israeli soldiers laughed & taunted, “So?” In 2012, 31-year-old Rushdi Tamimi, was killed with live fire from Israeli soldiers.

Bassem Tamimi, a leader of the protests, has been arrested several times by Israeli soldiers & was once confined to administrative detention without trial. In 2012, he was found guilty in an Israeli military court of inciting youth to throw stones & holding a march without a permit. His entire family, particularly his teenage daughter, Ahed, are well-known protesters against the settlement expansion.

In August 2015, there was an incident where an Israeli soldier slammed 12-year-old Abu Yazan Tamimi (whose arm was in a cast) to the ground for throwing stones during the protest. The photo of that went viral when four Tamimi women–two mothers (Nariman & Nawal) & two teenagers (Ahed & her cousin Nour) rushed the soldier & tried to get him off the boy. Ahed is seen biting the soldier after he hit her in the face. Bassem is also seen in the photo rushing the soldier.

Boycott all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729) in solidarity with Palestinians opposing the expropriation of their ancestral lands.

(Photo by Oliver Weiken/EPA)

Palestinians in Gaza demand release of 7,500 political prisoners in Israeli gulag

Palestinians protesting political prisoners (IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA : REUTERS) Nov 1 2016

This photo is one of three recent photos in the LA Times that does not portray Palestinians as nihilistic, violent youth. It certainly doesn’t represent an editorial change but it is unusual to see Palestinian political concerns reflected in US media.

These Palestinians–masked probably to protect themselves from identification by Israeli security forces–are standing on an Israeli flag holding up photos of some of the 7,500 Palestinian political prisoners, including children, in the Israeli gulag. Protesters were demanding their release.

The caption couldn’t leave well enough alone & noted that the protest was organized by “the Islamist movement Hamas.” If they’re doing the right thing, why care who the hell organized it!?

(Photo by Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)

African refugees at Ceuta enclave: a photographic damnation of EU immigration policy

Arican refugee at Ceuta. REUTERS:M. Martin) Nov 1 2016

Ceuta, Spain Nov 1 2016 (Reuters)

For the past year, there has been scant reporting on the refugee crises on all the Mediterranean routes–from North Africa to Spain & Italy & from Turkey to Greece.

When Spain introduced a new security law in late 2014, it not only gagged free speech & public protests in Spain, but it criminalized undocumented immigration from its two outposts on the North African coast–Ceuta & Melilla, which both border on Morocco & were a key transit point to Spain.

If refugees were able to cross the high razor-wire fences between the enclaves & Morocco, they stood a chance of claiming refugee status in Spain. The security law changed that & there has been no reporting on what Spain has been doing to prevent refugees from crossing.

Refugees from several countries in Africa encamped on the Morocco side waiting for opportune times to rush the fence & scale over. But in Morocco, their encampments were often attacked by Moroccan security forces & even as they scaled the fence they were assaulted from the rear as Spanish troops assaulted them as they crossed. The mostly young men were often injured severely by falling or being shredded by the razor-wire. Many drowned attempting to get around the barrier fence.

The refugees are being driven by inexorable forces like war & neoliberal economic plunder & of course continue to attempt the crossing.

These are the first photos in over a year from either of the two enclaves. They are from Ceuta. The young men are lying on the ground after crossing the fence. It’s likely they will be deported under the provisions of the 2014 security law but would not have attempted such an arduous climb if they didn’t think there was a chance to get to Europe.

Very little commentary is necessary about the photos.They show so dramatically the barbaric character of European Union immigration & refugee policy.

Immigration is a human right. Open the borders. Tear down the walls.

(Photo by RM. Martin/Reuters)

Emancipation US-style in Libya

Libya Oct 2016 (REUTERS:Hani Amara) Nov 1 2016

Emancipation US-style: these are Libyan fighters allied with the US in defending one of the two regimes in Libya–the one backed by the UN. No doubt for humanitarian reasons?

They are reportedly taking cover during a battle with ISIS militants in Sirte, Libya. Is that the battle gear the US supplies to its allies? Would they send special forces into battle with ISIS in baseball caps, sneakers, & no apparent arms?

Beware those who support a US-imposed No Fly Zone in Syria: that is how the monstrous US-NATO war in Libya began & has not ended. Those who hold up Libya as a model for how a NFZ works need their heads examined.

US out of Libya.

(Photo by Hani Amara/Reuters)

Went to a birthday party tonight for a little boy. His older brother is Miquel who I’ve known since he was two. When he was five, we went to pick him up in Mexico where he had spent the summer. He was delighted then to show me what he had learned over the summer: how to do fake farts.

Tonight, at the mature age of ten, he showed me a big sloppy blue blob which he said was his booger. At what age, does a boy grow out of gross?

I asked him & his 12-year-old cousin what they thought about the elections. Miquel said Trump was a pig for grabbing a girl “in her middle parts” & his cousin said she was moving to Canada. Out of the mouthes of babes.

The western left is a sorry-assed shadow of its former self

People should stop excoriating the western left or at least define who it is you mean. Go ahead; name names.

Do you mean the left who’ve been sitting on their asses for the past nearly 30 years chiding others that there is no antiwar movement? The left who refuse unity on life & death questions like war because of doctrinal disputes over the Russian Revolution? The left who claim Russia is still a communist country? The left who can’t believe Stalin ever murdered dissidents or operated gulags? The left who are outraged Russia was removed from the UN Human Rights Council but not Saudi Arabia? The left who don’t object to capitalist inequality if the guy running the show talks a good game? The left who can no longer tell the difference between revolution against dictatorship & counterrevolution?

Maybe you mean the ones who come to antiwar protests to break windows of local banks like they were taking down the Bastille. Or the ones whose political understanding is higher than Trump supporters but lower than the Occupy movement.

Perhaps you mean the tiny little feudal fiefdoms that call themselves socialist parties & are run by a guy with a trust fund who bosses everybody else around, dictates what they’re allowed to think, & speaks for hours to rapt disciples like it was a Tony Robbins Seminar.

There is no western left. Get over it. There is no western left because most veterans haven’t moved off their asses in 30 years (maybe 40); because too many got drained by pointless, internecine, sectarian disputes; because they don’t know how to talk or think like normal people & do that hammer & sickle routine; because they no longer debate politics but rely on celebrity leftists & academics to tell them what to think; because they’ve gotten so damn lazy & ingratiating & prefer to blame theory for all the problems rather than face up to their expiration date.

This is my 50th year as a committed activist. I’ve put up with a lot of crap in that time but I’ve also worked with untold numbers of young & old in several social movements inspired by the ideas of social transformation & who worked tirelessly to be a part of that historic mission. I refuse to give up on the emergence of a new movement. For the record, when it does emerge it will be democratic to the marrow; take my advice & run like hell to get away if it isn’t. I also refuse to identify emaciated corpses as “leftists” when they’re walking around with placards defending Syrian & Russian bombing of civilians as a freedom struggle.

Are you smarter than a Schnauzer?

Sophie-Amalia Oct 31 2016

The caption to this photo is “Are you smarter than a Schnauzer?” This is Sophie-Amalia who was rescued by a friend off the street & brought to me. She’s three times the size of my other rescues & several times smarter than me.

I’ve given up on keeping her in the yard after months of barricading every inch of the fence & with the neighbor reinforcing his side. He doesn’t like dogs & has taken a particular antipathy to Sophie who trespasses through his yard to get to the street. If he had a slingshot, she’d be toast.

When I go looking for her, she takes that as a signal to run like hell the other direction. This morning, it took me an hour & a-half to chase her through the allies & streets as she barked at dogs, chased cats & chickens, hid from me in crawl spaces under houses.
I try to be foxy with her & twiddle my thumbs looking in the other direction to see if she’ll try to escape & I can plug up the weak spot in the fence. (She can’t stay long in the house because she menaces & scares my birds.) But she’s smart enough to go to college & waits me out. As soon as I go in the house, she’s off & running. She usually hangs around outside the yard but I can never trust she won’t go too far.

No one knows better than me that I’m being played for a fool by my Schnauzer. She needs an energetic caretaker who will understand she’s a free spirit–by which I mean, she won’t tolerate a leash. (I can rescue them; I can’t train them.) She’s up for adoption but her high energy scared the hell out of the family that recently came to check her out. She makes me so damn mad but she is also the sweetest, most affectionate little barker you’ll ever meet & loves to be held like a baby.

She’s spayed, up-to-date on her shots, & has a clean bill of health from the vet.

Just so we’re clear about who Syria & Russia are bombing in Syria: civilians

Abu Omar's shelter in Douma (SAMEER AL-DOUMY : AFP - Getty Images) Oct 31 2016

Just so we’re clear who are being bombed when Syrian & Russian war planes drop bunker buster bombs to destroy underground shelters:

A Syrian man named Abu Omar who lives in the rebel-held town of Douma (on the outskirts of Damascus) dug an underground shelter with the help of his neighbor to protect his family from Syrian & Russian bombing. It took them two weeks to build to build a single room with an air vent.

It’s not reported whether this little boy climbing out of the shelter is Abu Omar’s son or a neighbor child.

(Photo by Sameer al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images)

Analysis of Syrian revolutionist, Yassin al-Haj Saleh

Yassen al-Haj Saleh (3)

http://www.yassinhs.com/2015/05/29/syria-iran-isis-and-the-future-of-social-justice-in-dialogue-with-yassin-al-haj-saleh/

In contrast to the shabby theoretics & apologetics of Assad supporters–many of whom are westerners–there are the voices of experienced Syrian political activists, of those who know the autocratic character of the Assad regime, understand the complexities of Syrian society & politics, have experienced its gulag, & fight to transform Syrian society.

The depth & character of their analyses make short shrift of the rubbish pumped out by Global Research & other conspiracy asylums. This essay titled “Syria, Iran, ISIS & the Future of Social Justice” by Yassin al-Haj Saleh, now in exile in Turkey, was written in May 2015, before Russia entered the war in September to rescue the weakening Assad counterrevolution against the popular movement.

He does not present the simple-minded view of Assad supporters that Assad, Russia, & Iran are fighting US-backed “jihadists” in a regime-change operation–or what he calls “the reductionist image of modernist Assad versus terrorist fundamentalists”–& he certainly doesn’t use the language of Muslim-hating US war propaganda. But he is able to elaborate (without the caricatures of Assad supporters) the emergence of fundamentalism & its role in Syrian politics.

It we want to understand the war in Syria we are advised to study Syrian revolutionists & not use Russian or Iranian media or, heaven forbid, Global Research as political scripture.

(Photo is Yassin al-Haj Saleh)