This photo from June 13th, 2017 FB archives is a little girl at a protest in the town of Maarat al-Nooman, Idlib province. The protesters who were participants in the Syrian Arab Spring uprising against the Assad dictatorship were protesting against al-Qaeda/Nusra terrorists operating in the region. Her placard reads: “O Jabhat al-Nusra. From Maarat al-Nooman your end has come. You cannot humiliate what Bashar al-Assad couldn’t.”

Can Assad propagandists or their guppies please explain to us what happened to those civilians & how it can be, as they claim, that Syrian & Russian bombers are only carpet bombing “al-Qaeda affiliated Salafi-jihadi terrorists,” not civilians?
Stop the bombing of Idlib, Hama, & Aleppo!

(Tweeted by Lina Shamy from Syria)

#Black4Rohingya by Rollie Mukherjee

We honor Scott Warren, the Arizona schoolteacher who defied US law by giving food, water, & shelter to immigrants & refugees from Mexico & Central America. We honor Pia Klemp, the German boat captain being prosecuted by Italy for rescuing African refugees in the Mediterranean. We honor Miguel Roldán & all the other Spanish firemen being prosecuted for rescuing African refugees. We honor Cedric Herrou, the French farmer convicted & fined in 2017 for helping immigrants & refugees cross the French-Italian border. They, along with immigration rights activists around the world, represent the very best of humanity for risking prosecution & jail to assist fellow human beings.

But the immigrant & refugee crises all over the world will not end until the rest of us follow the example of these remarkable humanitarians by organizing massive, public social movements to defend the human right of immigration & asylum. Humanitarian acts, even those requiring extreme courage, must be backed with political pressure & power or these inspiring activists will end up in jail along with refugees.

Had to bounce a longtime friend for posting an article titled “Satanic Zionism, the Scourge of our Planet” from a website that posted articles trying to prove that “Hitler & National Socialism have been misrepresented.” It does not serve justice for Palestinians or their supporters to associate with fascists & their guppies because they already claim the loyalties of the best of humanity & will never have use for the deranged dregs.

A whole army of David Icke guppies, led by Assadists Eva Bartlett (who edited one of his journals) & Vanessa Beeley, along with other fascists & white supremacists like KKK creep David Duke, have tapped into a current of anti-Semites drawn to the Palestinian movement as a way to get at Jews. These political lowlifes play into the hands of Zionism by conflating the struggle against it with hatred for Jews. In politics you have to learn to work with people you detest & disagree with but that will never ever include those who hate on others & associate with progressive causes only to advance their hatred.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely recently proposed that the UN stop using the term “occupation” to describe Israeli military deployment & control over the West Bank, Gaza, & East Jerusalem. Israeli anti-Zionist historian Ilan Pappé has often made a similar suggestion. But whereas Hotovely, whose parents are Zionist settlers from Georgia in the Caucasus, wants to call the occupation a “liberation,” Pappé prefers the term “colonialism” because Israel has no plans on leaving the occupied territories intact under Palestinian control. Pappé proposed that terminological shift last year before Netanyahu promised to annex what’s left of the West Bank. But it was spelled out in neon in the provisions of the Oslo Accords which in 1994 legitimized the occupation & expropriation of Palestinian lands. That is the harsh reality that makes a bantustate solution a fraudulent pipe dream.

Now if you were to judge this iconic photo–one of thousands showing Israeli soldiers manhandling, assaulting, & threatening small Palestinian children with rifles–would you consider the term “liberation” to be anywhere close to appropriate? Or do you agree that colonialism, apartheid, & genocide are the irrefutable & documented realities?

(Photo is iconic & photographer is unidentified)

These little kids in the Kutupalong refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar are what #Black4Rohingya day is all about: that their futures be filled with all the democratic, civil, & human rights they deserve.

(Photo from Midair Asia, one of many NGOs operating in refugee camps who raise money using photos of children. Each NGO, including Midair Asia, must be carefully vetted before donating since thousands of them are ripoff artists.)

Today, Rohingya activists & their supporters commemorate #Black4Rohingya, a special day of wearing black to stand with them in their struggle for democratic, civil, & human rights. There is a spate of articles coming out deploring the hopeless situation of Rohingya refugees & ruing that they will never be able to return to their homeland in Arakan state, Burma. That isn’t how Rohingya activists see it. Like Palestinian refugees, they are engaged in a political struggle, protracted if necessary, to stop the genocide in Burma & regain their homeland where they can live as free & equal human beings.

If you cannot wear black today, there are other ways to stand with Rohingya refugees, especially by educating others about their historic political struggle against genocide & for human freedom. Today, nous sommes tous Rohingya.

This is a Rohingya child still living in Arakan/Rakhine state, Burma in Eid 2018.

(Photo by Phyo Hein Kyaw/AFP)