Not to be sour grapes, but how many schools & clinics do you think they closed to pay for that damn wedding? And how will the bride deal with the irrepressible racism in the family?

There are several ways to show solidarity with Palestinians. This is their most immediate need–donations to provide medical aid for the over 3,000 who are injured, some critically, in Gaza. Please consider giving as generously as you can since the Israeli embargo has significantly damaged the medical & health infrastructure of Gaza. If you give, when you get to heaven, all other infractions will be forgiven & you will whiz past the pearly gates.

https://www.facebook.com/donate/252021992035461/10214143802982135/

To further unravel the confusions, Ro Nay San Lwin tells me the plural of Rohingya is Rohingyas & that Rohingyans is a more formal, literary style. That’s three different answers from three different Rohingya. It should be noted that only the oppressed present this confusion around their proper name. In my lifetime, Blacks have had at least five names, not including most of the racist epithets. It’s the same for the oppressed castes & of course it’s true for women. Hopefully, this will clarify rather than confuse more.

Is Israel engaged in genocide against Palestinians or is it ethnic cleansing? Since the same question comes up with Rohingyas & Kashmiris, the real question is, how the hell can we tell the difference? And is it a difference worth defining? Some scholars call it incremental or slow genocide against Palestinians & also Kashmiris. Kashmiri activists & the Rohingya International Tribunal on Human Rights Crimes straightened me out on this question & demolished all the equivocations & classifications written into international law.

As Kashmiri Mohamad Junaid has written, it is the oppressed who define what is happening to them, not legal scholars with a vested interest in parsing & equivocations to justify the UN standing by & doing nothing. Does that demean the importance of genocide as compared to ethnic cleansing? Is the human suffering any less? Are the scale or violence of the crimes any less? Has designating something a genocide ever prompted the UN to action to prevent or stop the violence? Has designating something an ethnic cleansing prompted them to action? So what is the legal point of such distinctions when they have no bearing on action?

One stands aghast at the public TV interview of Hamas political bureau member Salah Al-Bardawil claiming that 50 of the 62 Palestinians shot in cold blood at the Trump embassy massacre were Hamas supporters. His comment in Arabic is being translated by media around the world as Hamas operatives, fighters, armed terrorists. He didn’t bother to clarify that even though he played directly into the hands of Israeli propagandists & the justification by governments & media around the world for shooting down unarmed Palestinian protesters. Israel, Zionist bloggers, & media are having a field day with this. Didn’t he see that coming?

Our man Al-Bardawil probably would have claimed all 62 for Hamas were one of them not an 8-month old infant & the other eleven teenagers. He sits on television shooting his fat mouth off when he was most likely sitting at home out of the line of danger. Otherwise, what can explain his absolute political bankruptcy or his inability to grasp the art of defensive formulation? Even if it were true that fifty of those young men killed were Hamas supporters, one would hope he had the political savvy to explain that they had every right to support the political parties of their choice, just like elsewhere in the world. In fact, he probably has no idea what their political sympathies are other than their demand for refugee rights, opposition to occupation, & their demand for self-determination for Palestinians. Mostly, he should have emphasized that whatever their political ideas, those young men shot down in cold blood were unarmed.

Hamas, whatever their politics & political failings, should throw him out on his ass. Or at least keep him from shooting his mouth off for all the world to hear. He has no right to jeopardize unarmed Palestinian protesters now & in the future. For the first time in 70 years, there was a turning of the tide for Palestinians because so many finally saw that Israeli snipers were shooting at Palestinians like fish in a barrel & targeting youth without mercy. The video & photo documentation was irrefutable & it was all over world media. Now Al Bardawil, talking out his ass, puts that new understanding in jeopardy, allowing some to retreat to blithering about Hamas terrorism rather than denouncing Israel for genocide–& they can claim they got it directly from Hamas. Palestinians deserve a better leadership than this & it is found in the trade unions, civil society groups, & activists who called & administer the Boycott, Divestment, & Sanctions (BDS) movement.

(Photo is screenshot of Al Bardawil shooting his mouth off)

When I say Mahmoud Abbas is to Palestinians as Omar Abdullah is to Kashmiris, I know that at least Kashmiris will know exactly what kind of rat Abbas is. Abdullah is the elected guy who authorized the use of pellet guns in Kashmir among other crimes.

#HowDoYouSleepAtNight?

There’s always someone who takes umbrage at my criticisms of Mahmoud Abbas by claiming erroneously that he is the elected leader of the Palestinians. Would you make the same case for Trump, Modi, Putin, Assad, Duterte, & other such rats who were “elected” in mostly fraudulent elections? But it wouldn’t matter if Abbas were elected because he is the enforcer of the Oslo Accords, a US-brokered peace plan which legalized the continued occupation & expropriation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, & Gaza. Do you want to argue the Accords were legitimate because Yasser Arafat signed them when the past 23 years of their existence show them to be a betrayal, whether Arafat understood that or not? Just take a look at the plan, as Edward Said & others did when it was brokered, & you will agree with them that it embodies the terms of Palestinian surrender to colonialism. The US would be unwilling to broker any other kind of arrangement.

Abbas also has to answer for his treachery in holding diplomatic tete-a-tetes with Modi while Kashmiris are suffering Indian military occupation. Any Palestinian stone pelter would stand steadfast with Kashmiris rather than betray their just struggle like Abbas the rat. But then the stone pelters represent a very different class than Mahmoud Abbas. Mahmoud Abbas is to Palestinians as Omar Abdullah is to Kashmiris.

(Photo is Abbas with Modi)

This is a hell of a time for millions of Muslims who enter Ramadan today while under war, occupation, the scourge of genocide, & the reign of Islamophobia. Ramadan Mubarak & blessed Ramadan from those of us who stand with you.

“Apartheid Israel is disgusting! Now dropping skunk water from the air {over Gaza} & jokingly referring to it as chocolate drinks.
#GreatMarchOfReturn #Gaza”

–Israeli Ofer Neiman on Twitter