Mary Scully Reports

Many take great umbrage at identifying Chomsky or Finkelstein as Zionists or call themselves anti-Zionists when they advocate a bantustate solution for Palestinians. But fundamental to Zionism, a rightwing, supremacist, & colonialist ideology, is a Jewish-only state which Chomsky & Finkelstein both support. If you accept massively truncating Palestinian self-determination to accommodate Zionist colonialism & the existence of a supremacist, Jewish-only entity, you are a Zionist. There’s no two ways around it. If you don’t want to be called a Zionist, give up the reactionary undemocratic idea of a Jewish-only state.

That’s why many years ago Palestinian visionaries proposed a democratic, secular state where Jews & Palestinians can live as equals, as brothers & sisters. That would require a transformation in political consciousness among Israeli working people which can be accomplished by building Palestinian political power internationally. We should also consider that Israel suffers all the tensions & inequalities of any capitalist society. The social & political conflicts that entails can help to weaken the hold of Zionist ideology. Effective, uncompromising political leadership is required. An inclusive democratic state is the only workable solution, first because bantustates are nothing more than a capitulation to colonialism & would always be jeopardized by a militarist, supremacist state right next door; & second because it incorporates Palestinian self-determination along with a humanistic solution for Israelis who were born in Palestine & think of it as their home. Will the transition be difficult? Of course, but not as difficult as living on a permanent war footing & engaging in genocide against Palestinians. Not as difficult as life is for this little boy in Gaza traumatized by Israeli snipers & warplanes.

(Photo of boy in Gaza, May 5 2019 from Activestills.org)

Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US & the rate keeps rising. Illegal drug (cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine) use is also increasing with an estimated 28.6 million Americans aged 12 & older (almost 10% of the population) using. An estimated 54 million people over age 12 have used prescription drugs (pain killers, sedatives, tranquilizers, stimulants) for non-medical reasons. Illegal drug use combined with illegal prescription drug use is 25% of the US population. Alcoholism from age 12 claims over 16 million Americans (almost 5% of the population) & since so much drinking, especially among kids, the elderly, & women, is secret, this is likely an underestimate.

It’s an unhappy place here in capitalist America. Some can say it’s due to widespread mental illness but then the question must be asked, ‘why so much mental illness in one of the most privileged countries on the planet’? This is not to minimize or demean the wrenching psychic suffering of so many but to suggest that maybe, just maybe, capitalism, with its competitive ethos, militarist orientation, & massive inequalities, doesn’t really work that well for human beings, doesn’t & can’t create a world comfortable & suitable for human beings to live in.

Israeli snipers shot & killed four teenage boys (ages 13, 14, 15,17) at the Great Return March on April 10th this year. Palestinians & human rights groups have more than once pointed out that Israel targets children for execution at the marches & by bombing. Between March 30, 2018 when the marches began to March 22, 2019, at least 41 children were executed & more have been killed since, including a 16-year-old girl last Friday. Thousands of others have been seriously injured. A radio show host asked the Israeli Education Minister if “we had gone too far” in killing 14-year-old Mohammed Ayoub & he answered “If he had gone to school like every other kid there wouldn’t have been a problem.”

This would be a good time for American leftists to take a break from their sectarian disputes, apolitical party-building schemes, & campaigning for Sanders & Warren to talk about real-life politics like the genocidal siege of Gaza. Knock-knock, reality is calling.

Why should we care about Palestinians, Kashmiris, Rohingya, Uyghur, Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Somalians, Libyans as much as we do about the citizens of our own countries? Partly because most of our governments are involved in those wars, occupations, genocides up to their bloody eyeballs. But mostly because they are human beings & we recognize no national boundaries as a division between us. No human being is illegal or alien to us.

This would be a good time for Bernie Sanders to express his solidarity with Palestinians against what he called Israel’s racist government. Or will he equivocate by talking about Hamas rockets & how the US should have “an even-handed approach” to Israel & Palestinians? As if there were two sides in a genocide.

We should demand more of our politicians than mealy-mouthed, two-faced support for Palestinians. We should demand nothing less than fearless, unequivocal solidarity with Palestinians against Israeli colonialism, apartheid, genocide. That’s the least Palestinians deserve from us.

The Israeli military reported that 600 rockets fired from Gaza provoked Israel to bomb Gaza to smithereens & media reports that in banner headlines like it’s the gospel truth when they know it’s a pack of damn lies. Can they show us any credible forensics from where those rockets dropped? Can they explain why the Iron Dome antimissile system bankrolled by US taxpayers failed to intercept any of those 600 rockets from Gaza? That system costs $100 million for each battery (Israel currently has ten) & it costs about $80,000 to intercept each rocket. Is the US paying for a white elephant system that doesn’t work? When did it stop working since media routinely reports that the Iron Dome system efficiently protects Israel from massive damage & casualties? Does it only not work when Israel has to justify a genocidal bombing campaign over Gaza?

Why have there been no banner headlines over the past year as Israel has combined bombing sorties over Gaza with snipers using live ammunition against unarmed protesters at the weekly Great Return March? In the past year of protests, almost 300 Palestinians, including kids, medics, & journalists, have been shot at & killed & over 30,000 have sustained injuries often requiring amputation. Gaza is being made a land of one-legged men because of Israeli snipers. Any reputable news agency would be covering that story of genocide & shouting indignation from the rooftops in banner headlines. That they don’t even report it is how you know that concerning Israel media has become an agency of propaganda rather than news.

Israel claims four civilians were killed by rockets that the white elephant Iron Dome system did not manage to intercept. We’d like to see some credible documentation that they were killed by rockets from Gaza & not from some other cause. Palestinians are burying 25 people, including a 4-month-old girl, 14-month old girl, a 12-year-old boy, & two pregnant women in addition to the four young people that Israeli snipers killed on Friday at the Great Return March. Media is reporting that many of those killed were “Hamas militants” but there’s no way in hell they could know that since it’s unlikely Gaza health officials would identify those killed by their political status.

Media can lie through its ass but the truth is known even by ardent supporters of Israel. The question is “which side are you on”? That of justice or that of genocide?

The photo is baby Saba & her father. She was killed last night by an Israeli airstrike.

(Photo from Reuters)

If anyone wants to initiate a rally to demand Israel stop the bombing of Gaza but don’t know where to begin, the easiest way is to contact any mosques that may be in your area & ask the imams if they’d like to lead one. We have two mosques here that have many, many times organized & brought huge numbers to rallies for Syrians, Egyptians, Palestinians, the Rohingya. And to boot, they bring fabulous placards.

The images of death, especially those of small children, coming from Israel’s bombing siege in Gaza are just like those from Israel’s November 2012 & summer 2014 bombing sieges of Gaza. Most of us sustained PTSD just from witnessing the horrors so it must be beyond a living hell for Palestinians to endure. It’s been a long while since we hit the streets in massive numbers to stand with Palestinians but now is the time to change that. In 2014, over a million protested in every city & small village all over the world. We need to dwarf those protests in size demanding Israel stop the bombing.

“Palestinian father gives last kiss on the radiant face of his 14 months old daughter Seema abu Arar who was killed yesternight by Israeli war planes ,,,,,stay doomed oppression !
stay doomed Zionism !”

–Kashmiri Azhar Shabir