Putting aside the apologetics of sycophants like Ben Norton & Max Blumenthal who deny the Uyghur genocide & suck up to dictators everywhere, why does anyone disbelieve that China would incarcerate one million Muslims in concentration camps? It’s a bastion of sweatshops including child labor. It’s engaged in massive neoliberal plunder in Africa & elsewhere making it indistinguishable from colonialism. Why would the regime have any more respect for Muslims than it does for children, workers, Africans? Because it calls itself socialist?
Protest for Idlib in Little Rock, Arkansas.
When former J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti pretended to morph into a champion of azadi by tweeting an objection to India’s deployment of 10,000 more troops, Ahmed Bin Qasim, a Kashmiri whose parents are both political prisoners, responded on Twitter:
“What are you made of? If it is a political problem for you, then why did you send my mother to jail for dissent? Why did you provide impunity to bloodthirsty occupational forces? They provide security to quislings like you. Not us. For God’s sake, stop this drama.”
Ahmed Bin Qasim, a Kashmiri whose parents are both political prisoners, responded to former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah pretending to morph into a champion of azadi by tweeting distress about the wrongful imprisonment of the Kashmiri men recently acquitted after 23 years in prison:
“You, abetted by your father, illegally detained my father. He has been behind bars for TWENTY-SIX years now. Will your family apologize for tearing apart my family? You won’t. But at least don’t stoop so low and use the ordeal of our prisoners for your pitiful politics.”
This testimony to the UN by Susannah Sirkin from Physicians for Human Rights about the bombing campaigns against civilians in Syria blows all of Assad’s propagandists & apologists out of the water. The glaring distinctions between propaganda & forensic investigation of what is actually going on are laid bare in her powerful exposé & emotional condemnation.
http://webtv.un.org/watch/susannah-sirkin-phr-on-the-situation-in-the-middle-east/6065662854001/?
Please take the time to listen & then compare her testimony to the shabby lies of Assad propagandist Vanessa Beeley in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=242&v=_LTR2SUvt3c. It is of note that Beeley attributes her inspiration to her father Harold Beeley, a British diplomat directly involved in the partition of Palestine.
This is a heartbreaking account by Bilal Ahmad that gives insight into the emotional devastation caused by the forcible disappearance of loved ones. Kashmiris have lost between 8,000 & 10,000 of their young to forcible disappearances by occupying forces & Kashmiri human rights activists like Khurram Parvez play a leading role in the international fight against its use by nearly 50 countries.
No one in the political arena is above criticism. That’s the character of debate when understanding complex social & political problems is involved. Nevertheless, it’s hard to criticize someone like Ali Abunimah when he plays such a central role in Palestinian solidarity. His political judgements however, outside of Palestine & Israel, are often quite conservative. On the issue of the Assad dictatorship & the Syrian Arab Spring, including the role of Palestinian refugees, his politics are hopelessly mired in Assadism.
Not to insult his intelligence, but it seemed he was too influenced by such people as Ben Norton & Max Blumenthal. In fact, his father Hasan Abu Nimah lost his home in the West Bank after the 1967 War, became a Palestinian resident of Jordan, & served as a
career diplomat for the Jordanian monarchy for many years until his retirement. He has written several articles about Syria, all of which take a strong Assadist position. It’s likely that as a diplomat he had exchanges with the Assad dynasty & may even know them on a personal basis. What’s unfortunate is that neither Abunimah has grasped the problems faced by Palestinian refugees in Syria who sided with the Syrian Arab Spring. Many have been disappeared, arrested, tortured, & murdered in Assad’s gulag. Thousands have been displaced by regime & Russian bombing. Jordan long ago sealed off its borders to them as Turkey later did. The issue involved in their political blindness most likely has to do with class since Palestinian refugees in Syria could not go from being refugees into a diplomatic post.
Tulsi Gabbard did herself in with hard-core Assad propagandists several months ago when she characterized Assad as a ‘brutal dictator’ who used chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. Bartlett & Beeley & their disciples treat Assad like a demigod, not least of all because he signs their paychecks. Now Gabbard has blown it with the Medea Benjamin/Code Pink & Ali Abunimah type of Assadists by voting for H. Res. 246, the US House resolution which denounces BDS & swears fealty to Israel.
Not even a month ago, Abunimah was tweeting favorable comments about Gabbard like “I’m open minded about Tulsi Gabbard & skeptical about a lot of what’s being said about her. Some criticisms are fair & some are smears.” Days later he tweeted, “Tulsi Gabbard: end the wars & give everyone free, quality healthcare. What’s not to like?” Since Gabbard has been a Hindutva nationalist, General Sisi supporter, Zionist, & anti-Semite for a long time, there’s a lot not to like & it’s hard to understand what took Abunimah so long to catch on though it’s good he finally has. Now maybe we can catch him up to speed about Assad.
This photo of Gabbard with leading Zionists Miriam Adelson & Rabbi Shmuley from May 2019 was posted on Twitter & published in Haaretz & other media venues. What’s not to get about her politics on Palestinians?
(Photo from Rabbi Shmuley’s Twitter wall on May 5th, 2019)
“This Is My 21th Account I Created Today On 28/7/19. Dear Authorities Please Stop Censoring Me.”
–message to Facebook from Kashmiri photojournalist Aasif Shafi
Rand Paul, a Republican dirt ball much publicly admired & honored by Assadist Vanessa Beeley, has offered to buy a ticket for Ilhan Omar to return to Somalia so she will be grateful to now be an American. We leave it to American Assadists who look to Beeley as an authority on Syria & the White Helmets to worm their way out of that dilemma. They weren’t careful in their judgements so they are judged by the fascist company they keep.