Netflix is showcasing the 2014 BBC espionage thriller series titled “The Honorable Woman” based in the conflict between Israel & the Palestinians. It stars Maggie Gyllenhaal who inherits the family business after her father, a Zionist arms dealer, is assassinated. It’s hard to appreciate the thriller part if you can’t get past the politics of the series which is boldly Zionist, uses the Jewish holocaust to justify Zionism & Israeli apartheid, & portrays the Palestinians as terrorists, albeit with a false sympathy for their conditions under occupation. To peddle the Zionism, they throw in a feminist dimension to Gyllenhaal’s character. It’s a pernicious, detestable piece of propaganda because of that false sympathy. Palestinians are not terrorists. Israel was founded on terrorist death squads & remains a terrorist, genocidal state.
Facebook has a new feature called “legacy contact” allowing you to designate an admin to do postmortem posts on your Facebook wall so you can be memorialized. They say it’s because 8,000 Facebook users die every day & for heaven’s sakes we know our Facebook friends will miss our opinions until they themselves kick the bucket. Tell me what is not hilarious about this whilst Facebook is on a censoring binge? Most of us don’t care about expressing our opinions from the grave & into eternity. We just want our damn free speech rights now when we’re alive.
One way to distinguish between propagandists & authentic journalists is that the former operate embedded with armies under the aegis of repressive regimes & the latter are subject to harassment, assaults, arrest & incarceration, & often assassination. It’s become one of the most dangerous professions in the world. We know that most recently from the number disappeared or murdered in Syria while propagandists tour with the Syrian army; the Rohingya citizen journalist network disappeared during the genocide in 2017; the incarceration of Burmese reporters Wa Lone & Kyaw Soe Oo for investigating the Rohingya genocide; the harassment of a Kashmiri journalist & his family for covering protests & the arrest & several month incarceration of a Kashmiri photojournalist. But there are many other current examples.
This is a report about our friend Kashmiri photojournalist Aasif Shafi who was assaulted by Indian occupying forces in October 2017 when he was covering an event & lodged a formal legal complaint holding them accountable. Our fullest solidarity with his legal action. Legal action is imperative; political action in defense of Kashmiri journalists will strengthen that legal initiative.
On September 10th, 2016, a Kashmiri man named Yawar Dar was sitting on the bank of a canal when Indian occupying forces showered him with pellet munitions. It was during the uprising that began in July 2016 with the assassination of Burhan Wani by Indian soldiers. Because funeral processions become political protests against occupation, Indian officials allowed only six adults to attend his funeral services–perhaps because an estimated 600,000 attended the funeral of Burhan. Indian occupying soldiers then showered the funeral procession of Yawar with pellet munitions & shells.
On this anniversary of his death, we remember Yawar, as we remember all innocent victims of occupation, with condolences to his family & friends. May he Rest In Peace.
Islamophobic paranoia has become a norm in American films. Dialogue from a detective in “Secret In Their Eyes” about a murder victim found in a dumpster next to a mosque:
“Her body was found next to a mosque in L.A. What makes you think I’m not fighting terrorism?”
A steady diet of that stuff subtly associates Muslims with terrorism. That’s its intention.
Kashmiris have been quick to point out that the undercover operatives assaulting & arresting Kashmiri protesters today in Srinagar were earlier seen marching with the ISIS flag. Why? Are Indian occupying forces associated with ISIS? It’s not a farfetched possibility given that ISIS receives arms from the US, Russia, & several other nations. But it’s more likely that Indian operatives are attempting to discredit the Kashmiri freedom struggle as ‘Islamist jihadi terrorists’ precisely as Assadists have done in Syria. The wise reject such Islamophobic rubbish with contempt.
Worth reposting this from last year:
Speaking to media one year ago today, Aung San Suu Kyi likened the crisis of Rohingya Muslims to India’s problem with Kashmir. She said there was a need to differentiate between terrorists & innocent civilians & that India was “very well versed” in that since they’ve been tackling it in Kashmir. She’s worth quoting since there’s no mistaking her association of Muslims with terrorism, commonly called Islamophobia:
“You in India will be very well versed in this. Because there is a large Muslim community in India & in places like Kashmir, you had this trouble of sorting out the terrorists from the innocent citizens & all those who are not involved in the terrorist movement at all. So we have the same problem.”
Thousands of civilians in Idlib, northern Syria, protest today against ground & aerial bombardment by Syrian, Russian, Iranian, & other paramilitary forces.
The antiwar movement, corrupted by Islamophobia, Stalinism, anti-Semitism, & support for the Assad dictatorship, has not called one single protest against Syrian & Russian bombing of these civilians. From such a monstrous betrayal, there is no possible regeneration.
(Photo tweeted by Asaad Hanna)
Today civilians in Idlib, northern Syria, are burning the Syrian & Russian flags to demonstrate their rejection of military solutions & the bombing of civilians.
Will the ‘antiwar’ movement still continue to claim Syria & Russia are targeting only the armed militias & not the estimated three-million civilians? Or is it too corrupt to rethink its support for the Assad dictatorship & Russian military intervention?
(Photo tweeted by Asaad Hanna)
The Great Return March today: Palestinians in Gaza continue to gather every Friday at the apartheid barrier with Israel to demand Israel end the blockade of the Gaza Strip & for the right of return for refugees & their descendants forcibly displaced by Zionist terrorists since 1948.
Fullest solidarity with the protesters as we fear for their safety against Israeli snipers.
(Photo from AbdelKarim Alkahlout in Gaza)