An enlightening article about the growing political & ideological relationship between India & Israel, now yoked by militarism & occupation in Palestine & Kashmir. A victory for the Palestinian & Kashmiri struggles would be a massive defeat for racist, supremacist ideology & strengthen the struggle against it everywhere. Racism is a scourge that humanity can & must overcome.

“What is ironic about this growing bonhomie between Israel and India is the fact that the RSS, the parent organization of the governing BJP, and its Hindutva was inspired by the Nazis and Fascists. The extermination of Jews at the hands of Hitler has long been idealized by the Sangh as the “final solution” to deal with India’s own minorities.

This hasn’t however in any way dampened the passion of Hindutva-Zionist love affair. Indeed, Hindutva ideologues have long admired Israel, hoping to replicate its apartheid model of one religion, one culture supremacy. As Anilesh S. Mahajan argues, Israel is everything that the RSS has long wanted India to be and Modi is making it happen.”

–Aijaz Zaka Syed

http://saudigazette.com.sa/article/512503

Those pumping out the jeremiads with the desolate vision for the human race think those who don’t share their political dyspepsia are romantics who need a hefty dose of realpolitik. It’s observable that the farther removed one is from those engaged in struggle, the more desolate the vision about humanity’s ability to address its problems & end violence & inequality.

We don’t need downers to elaborate all the complexities & all we’re doing wrong. Those engaged in struggle know all that damn well. We need those who remain intransigent in struggle against all odds, those who never lose commitment or belief in the justice of their cause, their ability to win, & the potential of the human race. And in this day & age, we need those who know without equivocation on which side justice stands.

Mosul Apocalypse, emancipation US-style:

Mission accomplished in Mosul. The city is a pile of rubble & as one reporter said, stinking of corpses, but ISIS is declared defeated. One cannot tell the difference between Aleppo declared liberated by the Assad coalition & Mosul declared liberated by the US coalition. No matter which army does the “liberating,” it is what it is: a hellhole where human beings can no longer live.

If this is your vision of how to end terrorism & dictatorship, if you cannot tell the difference between revolution & counter-revolution, perhaps liberation politics are beyond you & there is another field of human endeavor your naiveté would better serve. But please don’t call yourself antiwar.

(Photo tweeted by Julian Ropcke)

Our friend Imran, an elected refugee representative at Kutupalong camp, doing an interview with Reuters about the Rohingya refugee crisis.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi met with Aung San Suu Kyi & also met with “communities” in the towns of Sittwe & Maungdaw, in Arakan (Rakhine) state last Friday. Must have been a whirlwind trip to get all that done in one day since Suu Kyi in Yangon is 890 kilometers (553 miles) away from Sittwe & Maungdaw is 114 km (71 mi) beyond Sittwe.

He waited until he got safely out of Myanmar to Thailand to urge the Suu Kyi regime to grant citizenship to Rohingya. He also said “there’s an urgent need for development investments that must be inclusive of the two communities” which sounds ecumenical but the violence in Arakan is not primarily communal violence between Buddhists & Muslims; rather it is ethnic cleansing by the Mynamar military & Suu Kyi regime which incite Buddhist nationalist violence against Rohingya.

Today Grandi visited Kutupalong refugee camp at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. There are 30,000 registered Rohingya refugees living there which means they receive some UN assistance though Bangladesh denies them many human rights, including education & job training & also obstructs other refugees from registering for assistance. There were an estimated 200,000 to 250,000 unregistered Rohingya refugees living in Bangladesh before the ethnic cleansing siege that began last October & since 75,000 more fled for their lives.

If the UN refugee agency is to mean anything more than rhetoric, it must address the needs & rights of all refugees, including the 275,000 to 325,000 living in unregistered squalor in Bangladesh.

This is the welcoming banner Rohingya activists in Kutupalong camp met Grandi with when he arrived. Our fullest solidarity with their struggle for full democratic, human, citizen, & refugee rights.

(Photo tweeted by Shafiur Rahman

At a U2 performance in London, Bono thanked Britain for “looking after the Irish.” If you want lessons in bootlicking, there’s no better teacher than Bono–even in comparison to Mahmoud Abbas.

Just learned on TV that Harry Connick, Sr., father of the ever so charming singer, actor, talk show host Harry Connick, Jr., was the completely corrupt district attorney of New Orleans for 30 years. They showed that in one out of four cases, Connick, Sr.’s office intentionally withheld & destroyed evidence favorable to defendants. Many of the defendants were Black, many were death sentence cases.

One Black man named John Thompson on death row for 18 years came within weeks of execution for a murder he did not commit but was cleared of all charges on appeal with evidence that was beyond dispute & lawyers committed to his innocence. His claims for reparations from the district attorney’s office went all the way to the Supreme Court which ruled against him.

In Connick v. Thompson, the court ruled for Connick, Sr. & overturned a $14 million award by a lower court. The chilling ruling has made it near impossible for those wrongfully convicted to seek financial reparations from district attorneys who suppress evidence in egregious violation of defendant’s rights. That gives prosecutors license to continue the practice of framing up innocent defendants. How many, especially Black, Latino, Native American defendants have been executed for crimes they did not commit?

John Thompson has become a leading advocate for defendant’s rights in New Orleans. This fight for justice in the courts has only just begun.

(Photo is John Thompson)

All that groveling to Modi by Mahmoud Abbas when he visited India last May & this is the thanks he gets. Modi said India’s support for a Palestinian bantustate was unwavering, that “The relationship between India & Palestine is built on the foundation of longstanding solidarity & friendship since the days of our own freedom struggle” but then when he comes to visit Israel to buy weapons he gives Abbas the bum’s rush.

Modi’s not willing to drive past all those military checkpoints to exchange worthless felicitations with Abbas in the Palestinian Authority (PA) offices in Ramallah, West Bank when even Trump did that. It probably would have reminded him too much of those checkpoints in Kashmir. He didn’t even invite Abbas to romp barefoot in the ocean with him & Netanyahu when Abbas not only groveled so shamelessly before Modi but renders indispensable assistance to Israeli ethnic cleansing by administering the Oslo Accords to dispossess Palestinians of their lands.

Majdi ElKhaldi, the diplomatic adviser to Abbas & spokesperson for the PA, said India’s relations with Israel should not come at the expense of ties with Palestine. They took Modi’s snub to heart but they’ll take it a lot harder when Palestinians unceremoniously dump the PA & all of its corrupt leaders who administer ethnic cleansing in league with the Israeli occupation.

To support Palestinian self-determination & end the occupation, build & honor the economic & cultural boycott of Israel. Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729 & check the label on every product.

There’s a lot of jubilation over on Twitter about what they’re calling the “liberation of Mosul” from ISIS by US-coalition bombers using white phosphorous & Iraqi special forces using rockets & mortars. Louisa Loveluck, the Washington Post reporter, tweeted that Iraqi special forces lost 40% of their men in the siege; Daniel Wickham, who writes about human rights & opposition movements, tweeted in return that Iraqi forces deserve gratitude for clearing out ISIS.

The jubilation is indistinguishable from & just as grotesque as Assadist ecstasy about the fall of Aleppo to the Syrian army. They must have forgotten to thank US-coalition bombers & praise the use of white phosphorous for being so effective in clearing out ISIS. Or would that have seemed over the top? The jubilant reporters didn’t say where the families of the 10,000 Mosul civilians killed & the nearly one-million civilians forced to flee should send their messages of gratitude for liberation by Iraqi mortars & US bombers.

What’s most repugnant is that Loveluck also tweeted from Mosul: “Mosul’s Old City is devastated. Stench of bodies fills air in bursts as you walk, arm of what must have been a child hangs from the ruins.” Is that what liberation looks & smells like to her? Mosul is an apocalypse, not a liberation. You don’t fight ISIS by bombing a city where they’re holed up with a million civilians who are elderly, disabled, infirm, pregnant, or with children like the one whose arm was hanging in the ruins. You fight ISIS by cutting the weapons supply routes, by stopping the US Pentagon & other countries from supplying them with weapons. How did ISIS last for nine months in Mosul when it was besieged by land & air by over 60 armies?

ISIS has not been defeated in Iraq or Syria. Nor have all the other terrorist groups. They will not be decisively defeated until the countries supplying them with weapons & those bombing civilians under the guise of fighting ISIS & Al-Qaeda are forced to withdraw unconditionally. What is going on in Iraq & Syria is counter-revolution, not liberation. There is no militarism on earth capable of emancipation from terrorism or dictatorship. Those who believe US militarism is part of the freedom struggle against terrorism share the contemptible vision of Assadists who see Syrian & Russian bombers as freedom fighters.

The jubilation of western reporters is not shared by these civilians from Mosul who were forced to flee the city into refugee camps without sufficient tents, food, medical care, sanitation.

The only principled demands are for the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US, Russian, Iranian, Hezbollah, & other military forces from Iraq & Syria.

(Photo from AP)

Today is the 12th anniversary of the Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions  (BDS) movement–a call issued on July 9th 2005 by Palestinian student, community, trade union, political, civic groups. It is a brilliant strategy & a powerful one which has educated millions about the character of Israeli apartheid & ethnic cleansing, countered the image of Palestinians as terrorists, & gives people around the world a concrete way to render solidarity in deed, not just in sentiment.

The BDS call does not address the issue of self-determination & does not call for a democratic, secular state where Palestinians & Jews can live as brothers & sisters. It isn’t a comprehensive program for justice but it is an extremely effective political tool to mobilize international pressure on Israel to end the occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, end the blockade of Gaza, & end the settlement program.

Our deepest respect to the Palestinian organizers of BDS. Buy nothing with barcode beginning 729 & check the label on every product from canned goods to cosmetics, clothing & shoes.

This is a protester in Gaza–known as the largest open air prison because of the Israeli blockade–waving the Palestinian flag during confrontations with the Israeli army. It was after a protest against the blockade near the Jabaliya refugee camp on June 7th.

(Photo by Mohammed Dahman/APA)