How come so many people are dumping me? Couldn’t be my halitosis since none of them are close enough to know. Is it my politics? Those won’t change. Or is it my smart mouth? That’s beyond redemption. No hard feelings because I have nearly 500 friend requests from people I would love to collaborate with. Thank you to my Facebook friends who continue to bear with me.

There’s no question that the term “Islamophobia” is an awkward one. In a recent discussion, Javed Hassan pointed out its inadequacy, saying: “It is translated into killing Muslim children from Kashmir through Burma, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, to Palestine.” We might also add from Bosnia, Chechnya, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Cambodia, India, China, to the Central African Republic & elsewhere. Unfortunately, awkward or not, that is the term now used for the new Cold War against Muslims–although the persecution is not new at all, not by a long shot. It’s important for us to study why Muslims are targeted. In some places it’s ethnic, some places it’s religious, in other places (like Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Palestine, Kashmir, Burma) it’s because those Muslim-majority places have shown the most powerful resistance to tyranny & foreign control. Sometimes it is the legacy of colonialism.

Standing with Muslims against persecution of any & every kind is the imperative in modern day politics. No concessions of any kind can be made to Islamophobia–or more aptly, as Javed pointed out, the hatred of Muslims.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who can drop a bucket of crocodile tears on cue, has reaffirmed his opposition to & condemnation of the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid & genocide. According to him, “delegitimizing” & “demonizing” Israel violates “Canadian values.” Genocide against Palestinians must be right up his alley since Canada is so practiced at it in its treatment & dispossession of Native Americans.

For those looking for the lesser evil Democrat in the 2020 elections, every single politician who has declared their candidacy is ardent, even strident, in their support for Israel–including support for making advocacy of BDS a felony & requiring a loyalty oath to Israel for employment & social services. This is no longer just a question of where you stand on Israeli apartheid & Palestinian justice. They’re messing with the Bill of Rights which is the only salvageable part of the US Constitution which is a slave owner’s document. By not standing up against these initiatives which violate free speech, we aren’t looking at a slippery slope but an avalanche that will bury the Bill of Rights. An essential part of protecting our rights is now yoked by over-zealous Zionists to Palestinian rights. In desperation, Zionists might have just made a fatal mistake by undermining the foundations of American democracy.

In 2016, a Supreme Court decision made inroads against the 4th Amendment regarding illegal search & seizure. But of course these violations were already in practice in the Black community under the guise of the war on drugs. When Black teens were vilified as narco-terrorists, these violations were accepted as necessary for law enforcement. As far back as 1992, in an article on the fallacy of Black drug gangs & the demonization of Black teens, I pointed out that by not defending Black kids or opposing violations of the Bill of Rights in the Black community, we were headed for big trouble. That’s one of the reasons many Black activists in the US identify with the Palestinians who are also vilified as terrorists.

We need to begin immediately to organize local, state, & national coalitions to oppose these Zionist initiatives against BDS & the legal threats to the Bill of Rights, the Black community, & Palestinians. We should keep in mind the words of Martin Niemöller:

“First they came for the socialists, & I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, & I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, & I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—& there was no one left to speak for me.”
Anyone interested in collaborating with me to begin that process can message me or contact me at: mscully9@msn.com.

(Photo by Mahmoud Hams is 29-year-old Palestinian Saber Al-Ashkar at the Great Return March on May 11, 2018. Our commitment to defending BDS can only dream of approximating his commitment to freedom.)

The Committee to Protect Journalists has sent an appeal to Jammu & Kashmir officials demanding the release of Kashmiri journalist Aasif Sultan who was arrested in August 2018. According to the appeal, police not only accused Sultan of sedition but objected to his FB posts.

Letter of appeal: https://cpj.org/…/cpj-calls-on-jammu-and-kashmir-governor-t…?

(Photo is Sultan when he was being arrested)

Just days after a US Senate committee issued a scathing 500-page report describing the disturbing & criminal CIA torture techniques, Tulsi Gabbard appeared on India’s NDTV talking all aloha & new age yogi love stuff. When asked about the use of torture, she said she was “conflicted.” Aloha in one breathe & waterboarding in the next? No objections to the CIA using rectal feeding, anal rape, forced hypothermia, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation of naked prisoners, chaining prisoners in a standing position, often with broken limbs, for days on end? Aloha, my ass!

(Photo is screenshot from NDTV interview)

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/tulsi-gabbards-2020-president-778512/?

“The Punishment of Gaza,” published in 2010, is a collection of articles from Haaretz by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy. The articles cover the period between 2006 & 2009, although Levy began reporting from Gaza many years earlier. In August 2005, just a few months after the Second Intifada ended, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dismantled all 21 Zionist settlements in Gaza, forcing 8,000 settlers to relocate within Israel. Israel continued to maintain direct control over Gaza’s borders, coastline & airspace but did not formally impose the full embargo until 2007. Gaza was still in every way an occupied territory & hardly the land of the free. There’s a long & complicated history to Israel’s so-called ‘disengagement’ from Gaza but it ended up making Gaza a prison & a military situation very much like shooting fish in a barrel. This book was published after the 2008-2009 Israeli bombing campaign & invasion of Gaza which Levy castigates mercilessly.

Levy is an impassioned journalist who evokes a very visceral response to his descriptions of the brutalities of the Israeli occupation. Already in 2009 he was pointing out that Israeli bombers particularly targeted Palestinian children–a fact that the UN & other human rights groups did not thoroughly investigate until after the 2012 & 2014 Israeli bombing campaigns over Gaza. Levy also cogently defends the boycott of Israel, launched by Palestinians in 2005, by showing how Israel effectively & violently uses the boycott tactic against Palestinians–most pervasively & monstrously through the embargo of Gaza.

The book is less than 150 pages & because of Levy’s journalistic style & political commitment reads very quickly. It is an excellent book for anyone wanting to understand Israeli apartheid policies & the affects of apartheid & genocide on Palestinians in Gaza. It’s a partisan book, fully committed to Palestinian justice.

(Photo is cover of “The Punishment of Gaza”)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?

A painful documentary about Palestinians in Gaza under embargo & military assault:

I have nine friends in common with a guy named Jayant Bhandari who said:

“My experience based on having run three companies in India is that there is not much, if at all anything, you can do about the under-class. Fear of ghosts, and superstitions–and over-whelming irrationality–is hardwired in them. They simply have no passion to do well in life, accumulate and build a civilization. They want to make money quickly, and use it for decadence. They have no gratitude, and you can do nothing about it. They have no capability to be respectful. The only thing that makes them toe the line is the fear of the higher-ups. If you remove this fear, they go wild. Carrots and sticks do not work, for they cannot calculate. You can give them all you can, and they will merely expect more, as a right. “Domestication” of the low-IQ population did happen in Europe, but fails in the Third World, for the ecology is wild and uncivilized. The Third World can ONLY be managed, the way the British did when they ruled India. Am I too off the reality?”

He also said: “In my view, the West was historically patriarchy. It is under patriarchy that women get the most freedom and respect. The Middle East and the Indian sub-continent are fundamentally matriarchies. Matriarchy results into misogyny. It is women-against-women misogyny. Matriarchy results into competition among women for the attention and affection of men, resulting into misogyny. In societies where men do not respect women, it is primarily women’s responsibility to bring up kids. Most females I have known would rather have male bosses. The real culprit behind misogyny are women, not men. So, contrary to conventional wisdom promoted by “feminists”, if women want liberty, respect and civilization, they should be striving for patriarchy.”
Lastly, he defended DNA scientist James Watson for racist claims that Blacks have genetically lower IQs than whites.

It’s not really my business who my friends associate with on social media but when three of them “liked” & approved these hateful comments, they made it my business. I see no point at all in further collaborations & have unfriended them.

This is 14-year-old Palestinian Abdul-Ra’ouf Salha who died yesterday after being struck by an Israeli sniper at the Great Return March in Gaza last Friday. May he Rest In Peace.

Build the economic & cultural boycott of Israel so Palestinians can defend themselves against apartheid, genocide, colonialism.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just visited Saudi Arabia—the country that beheads & dismembers dissidents—because the regime is a “strategic partner in keeping the American people safe from terrorism.” See why cognitive dissonance is such a problem in US politics?