Reposting this from 2014 about the betrayal of the Oslo Accords & the conflicts at al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem:

Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas threatened last week to dismantle the PA & dump the Oslo Accords if the phony peace talks with Israel fail. Abbas is, of course, just blowing hot air but it’s impossible to think of a single down side to his threat. The Oslo Accords formalize the terms of Palestinian surrender to Israeli apartheid & employ the PA as enforcers against intifada without meaningful jurisdiction over occupied territory: they establish a bantustate solution; legitimize Israeli occupation & terrorism of Gaza & the West Bank; facilitate Zionist settlements.

This past week an estimated 125,000 tourists poured into Jerusalem to celebrate Easter & Passover. Many of these “tourists” are Zionists (including Christian Zionists) & come as provocateurs. The al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem (per the Oslo Accords) is a focus of Israeli aggression against Palestinians. Worshippers from the West Bank & Gaza are restricted access & no males under 50-years-old are allowed to pray there but must instead kneel on the public pavement in adjacent areas. It is frequently under attack by Israeli soldiers. So that’s the first place the pious pilgrims head for to stir up more violence against Palestinians.

Zionists have fabricated quite a mythology about the religious history of the al-Aqsa site & Judaism to get around the mosque that’s been there over 1,300 years. There are even knuckle-headed Christian evangelists who claim the site has a history for Christianity. Soon enough Scientology will be laying claim to the site.

On Monday, April 14th, five Zionist “worshippers” smuggled a goat through strict bag inspections at al-Aqsa, intending to re-enact an ancient Passover sacrifice ritual. Does anyone seriously believe you can smuggle a live goat past military checkpoints or that their intentions were religious!? It was an attempt at the political level of a frat house prank to disrespect & make a mockery of the mosque. Strict inspections administered by Israeli authorities apparently only apply to Palestinians.

This past Wednesday, 1,000 Israeli special forces & a sniper squad escorted buses of these pious tourists to al-Aqsa. To believe they were going there to worship would tax credulity beyond redemption. The military story is that “fierce clashes erupted” when they responded to “stones & firecrackers” lobbed by Palestinians with stun grenade canisters & rubber-coated bullets. At least 20 Palestinians were injured & dozens were arrested. The pious tourists were apparently hustled back on to their buses safely & we can only wish some of them caught some buckshot up their butts while boarding.

This travesty is apartheid; it is the legacy legitimized by the Oslo Accords & enforced by the PA. Support the right of Palestinians to worship at al-Aqsa; support Palestinian justice by honoring the boycott of all Israeli products (barcode beginning 729); supporting the cultural boycott of Israel; & demanding “No military aid to Israel!”

(Photo of Abbas blowing hot air from Israel National News)

Some may think I overstate the reactionary political character of libertarianism which is the theoretics of fascism & ideology of Assadism. The confusion is that many of the adherents support immigration rights or oppose US military intervention or think good thoughts on other issues. That’s the nature of libertarianism & why it’s raked in so many activists. As I usually so indelicately but aptly describe it, they learn to talk out of both sides of their ass. David Icke & Ron Paul are the paragons of that style.

A few months back, there was a lowbrow discussion among Assadists who were having a conniption fit session about my politics & opposition to Assad, associating me with “jihadi head-choppers” in Syria & ridiculing my support for Kashmiris & Rohingya who they claimed were trained by & associated with the “jihadi head-choppers in the Middle East.”

When, under the reactionary banner of anti-Islamism, your politics justify ethnic cleansing, military occupation, denial of human, democratic, civil rights, crimes of unspeakable magnitude against millions of human beings, you can talk justice till the cows come home but in the vulgar parlance of the street, you’re blowing smoke out your ass.

So much of the corruption of political theory began to emerge around Hugo Chavez & Venezuela. His Bolivarian-style socialism became cause célèbre for old-school Stalinists & the emerging forces of libertarianism. Criticizing him or his policies became regarded as heresy & all political opposition to his regime in Venezuela was excoriated as orchestrated by US operatives. Political sycophancy replaced political analysis, precisely as Stalinists related to the Soviet Union, to the Dilma Rousseff regime in Brazil, & as they now do to the Assad regime.

That political method–because Stalinism did not die with the collapse of the USSR & is not primarily a cult of personality so much as a political method involving obsequiousness to power–was simply transposed to the uprisings of the Arab Spring which were all indicted as street theater orchestrated by US undercover operatives.

Political analysis, which necessarily involves criticism, is not a form of one-up-man-ship or a way to display intellectual detachment & superiority. It is an essential process & part of understanding how to wrest power from the exploiters & change the world to the advantage of the oppressed, how to rid the world of inequality & the massive human suffering generated by it. Hero worship gets in the way of analysis just as uncritical adulation of Castro has blunted an understanding of Cuba.

When most of the left went gaga over Chavez & his Bolivarian revolution, when all political dissent within Venezuela was denounced as right-wing, it signaled the transition to libertarian theoretical methods & thuggish Stalinist political bullying against those who took exception to Chavez.

Now that we know such theoretics led to the full-blown capitulation before Assad’s dictatorship in Syria, we can take the rubbish about Venezuela on within a context it previously lacked. We now know the matrix of the degeneration into Stalinism-cum-libertarianism began with kissing the ass of Chavez rather than trying to understand the complexities & process unfolding in Venezuelan politics which so profoundly affected all of Latin American politics.

This is the April 19th protest in Caracas called by opponents of President Nicolás Maduro which they named “the mother of all protests.” Will these hundreds of thousands be denounced as liberals & fascists for protesting the Maduro regime even though it donated $500,000 to Trump’s inauguration committee (through Citgo Petroleum, a US affiliate of Venezuela’s state oil company), making it one of the largest corporate donors to that event? Or will political dissent in Venezuela be respected & championed as a democratic right? Unfortunately the Stalinist-cum-libertarian left is already calling for Maduro to crack down on protesters with the full weight of repression, just as they endorse carpet bombing of civilians in Syria.

We stand with the democracy activists in Venezuela.
Venceremos!

(Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQX7Q1glbco

Those who love Rollie Mukherjee’s art & honor her commitment to Kashmiri self-determination will love this video which features her art.

Many probably object to the harshness of my polemics against Assadists & would prefer a more pedagogical tone, less ridicule. But in my now 51 years of political activism, I’ve never encountered such political debasement, such theoretical corruption where wing-nut conspiracies, hating on Muslims & Jews, vilifying freedom fighters, & lionizing dictators & armies has been the norm.

In those five decades, I’ve seen the antiwar, socialist, & Palestinian solidarity movements grow & decline & have seen plenty of crazy-pants nonsense since dissent attracts the deranged like a home away from the asylum. But I have never seen anything like what libertarianism & Assadism are doing to those movements. They’re a wrecking ball that have laid those movements waste.

My polemics aren’t going to soften up. What is at stake to my mind is the future of dissent, of democracy, not just in Syria but in all of the Middle East, & quite frankly the future of humanity against the predations of neoliberal capitalism, the barbaric phase of capitalism.

This Syrian child is a clarion call to either stand with equality & democracy or take your place with the armies terrorizing the globe & making children the majority of victims.

This year I’ll be 73 years old & I’ll be damned if I’ll grow old without fighting this all the way to the grave whether anyone likes it or not.

(Photo from Free Syria Media Hub)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8YOcdvCYis

Vanessa Beeley, Assad’s version of Leni Riefenstahl, flew to Aleppo to get the line straight on what happened with the suicide bomber. She really has to be heard to grasp her corruption & viciousness for which she is well-remunerated.

Nobody plays distraught & outrage quite so melodramatically. No one lies for Assad with quite the same aplomb. Probably diplomatic arts she learned from her father, the British diplomat who helped broker the partition of Palestine.

In her litany of accusations against the White Helmets for the suicide bombing, Beeley neglected to answer two questions:

–Why did Assad negotiate the forced relocation of thousands of civilians if he could not guarantee their safe passage with cordons of Syrian soldiers?

–How did the suicide bomber get within ten miles of the bus convoy with a cracker delivery van without arousing some suspicion from Assad’s military or without being stopped & searched?

The video is posted here because no one discredits Beeley quite like Beeley herself:

Got a problem with Pope Francis calling the suicide bombing near Aleppo “ignoble.” I’ve heard stronger condemnations of nose-picking in public.

As I’ve pointed out before, Pope Francis is a case study in the politics of ambiguity. About Syria, he speaks in passionate abstractions, takes no sides, makes no condemnations.

But perhaps Pope Francis isn’t so equivocal after all. In October 2016 he made Mario Zenari, an archbishop & the papal envoy to Syria, a new cardinal which makes him eligible to be pope. Zenari is an unapologetic supporter of Assad & the counter-revolution.

This is one of the bombed out busses near Aleppo which was filled with children & women. Would you call this act “ignoble” or would your range of epithets go beyond the wimpy?

The English journalist Robert Fisk speaks English & Arabic but it’s no use since he has marbles in his head. He’s always been patronizing & orientalist about Arabs & Muslims but ever since he was embedded up the ass of the Syrian army he’s become a pathetic figure in journalism & apologist for Assad. Not unlike Tariq Ali on FB posting hateful Islamophobic bloggers, US generals, Eva Bartlett the David Icke apostle, Mint Press, & Global Research for his resources on Syria.

Fisk’s new piece of Assad apologetics is titled “If Trump cares so much about Syrian babies, why is he not condemning the rebels who slaughtered children?” He nailed Trump. Skewered him politically. Took him down & Ivanka too. But what did he expect from the orange pumpkin? Isn’t Fisk concerned that all the Assad libertarians will be offended by this article since most of them are strong supporters of Trump? What about Assad gassing civilians?

Fisk portrays the conflict in Syria as a civil war between Assad & “jihadi head-choppers” so we would like him to explain this iconic photo of 23-year-old Abd Alkader Habak, a Syrian revolutionist who was taking photos of Syrians being evacuated near Aleppo when the suicide bomb exploded. He was thrown to the ground by the blast but got up to rescue injured & dying children. The politics of their parents were of no interest to him. Their humanity was.

(Photo by Muhammad Alrageb)

A revolution not a civil war
Is the message of the Syrian revolution to the world
رسالة الثّوار السّوريّين إلى العالم :
By Khaled Salama

https://twitter.com/Linashamy/status/854213952355672064