If you buy the #FakeNews against the White Helmets in #Syria, you stand with the fascists who support Israel’s #Gaza massacre.
#FreeSyria
#FreePalestine

“Killer Modi has arrived & is hiding from civilians in Kashmir.
Those suffering from his tyranny are now caged in homes so he can show the world his fake welcome.” #ModiIsNotWelcome

(Caricature & comment from IRidaRubabSayed on Twitter)

Navajo members of the Red Nation stand with Palestinians: they held up the flag of Palestine at Window Rock, in the state of Arizona–because if anyone understands the brutal extermination & expropriation of indigenous Palestinians, it is the indigenous peoples of the Americas. It is a genocide that has not ended in the Americas though it has been excised from history as if the thousands of wars of extermination never happened. The model of genocide in the Americas is that consciously used by Hitler & now by Israel.

Stand with Palestinians. Stand with the struggle of Native Americans.

(Photo is screenshot from video circulated by Palestine Observer)

This is Aleppo after Syria & Russia ‘liberated’ it by barrel bombs & carpet bombing in late 2016. This photo was released by the Russian Defense Ministry after it entered Aleppo with tanks & ground troops. Now of course Assad propagandists claim all this destruction was done by armed militias. But with satellite imagery these days, the powers that be know exactly whose bombers wreaked this carnage. The obfuscation is intentional.

There is no liberation through carpet bombing. Not when the lives of thousands of civilians are at stake. If we learn nothing else from the apocalypse that is Syria, it is to oppose militarism, not for pacifist reasons but to protect the lives of unarmed civilians. If this be the price of protecting the national sovereignty of Assad’s dictatorship, that is indictment enough. If this be the price of defending the Syrian Arab spring uprising from Assad, he has already won the counterrevolution.

The only principled demands are for the immediate cessation of Syrian, Russian, & US coalition bombing of Syria & the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Syria.

(Photo is from Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Behind the extraordinary resistance of Palestinians is the grief & loss they have endured for 70 years. It’s overwhelming just to witness but there is a concrete way to stand with them & that is to commit to honoring & building the economic & cultural boycott of Israel. Check the label on every product to make sure its country of origin is not Israel. That initiative is from Palestinians as a peaceful & powerful way to bring apartheid & genocide to its knees.

Pope Francis will be traveling to Ireland, most likely to intrude into the abortion debate. The Irish should make sure he knows their proper name & doesn’t call them “Mick” or “Paddy” since he had trouble with that when he visited Burma at the height of the Rohingya genocide. He really ought to consider visiting Chile before Ireland since 34 Chilean bishops have tendered their resignations over the church’s cover-up of the pedophilia scandal which has devastated its credibility in Chile.

You heard right. It wasn’t lost in translation: when an Irish reporter asked an Israeli spokesperson why they were killing Palestinians, she answered, “Well we can’t put all these people in jail.”

Video of Israeli spokesperson:

https://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2018/05/16/israeli-govt-justifies-killings-of-palestinians-saying-we-cant-put-all-of-these-people-in-jail

The UN Human Rights Council voted today to send a team of international war crimes investigators to examine the sniper shooting of thousands of unarmed protesters in Gaza. Of course this is a good thing. But it’s part of a vicious dead-end cycle of genocide, UN & other human rights investigations, & ritual condemnations that go nowhere. It’s been 70 years of this charade. It isn’t that the UN & its member states don’t know exactly what is going on in occupied Palestine. In this day & age, if they don’t trust photojournalism, Palestinian accounts, or the number of dead & injured Palestinians, there’s satellite imagery for documentation. In the age of satellites, no one can claim stupid.

It’s true that there have been a few Democrats in the US who’ve expressed squeamishness over the level of Israeli violence against unarmed Palestinians. There’ve been a few governments like South Africa, Turkey, Canada, & Belgium who expressed “concern.” But their squeamishness & concern will go nowhere without a massive popular & coordinated international movement forcing them to sanction Israel in the harshest ways, but mostly by cutting all military & other aid.

It may be time for activists around the world to take initiatives to organize & formalize structures of international collaboration. The freedom struggles of Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingyas, & others are so important & politically epic for the future of all humanity that they cannot be left to chance or to hopes that activists will organize support rallies & activities. Such a collaboration is organizationally & politically daunting but imperative so as not to fritter away the massive phalanxes of solidarity already assembled. Such collaboration would be a way for Palestinian, Kashmiri, Rohingya, & others to collaborate, to strengthen each other & for efforts of supporters to be maximized. One thing we know after watching the UN in action (more aptly, inaction) is that it cannot be trusted to do the work of solidarity. That is entirely our mission.

(Photo of grieving children in Gaza from Al Jazeera)

“Helmets, leg guards, arm guards, chest guards. Slingshot & marbles in pockets. Armed with AK 47s, pellet guns, chilli grenades & teargas guns. These are Indian soldiers on the streets of old Srinagar, yet piss in pants when confronted by a teenager with stone in hand.”

—Muhammad Uzair on Twitter

(Photo of protests today for Gaza in Srinagar by Basit Zargar)