Someone challenged my post about Israeli soldiers using a blindfolded Palestinian youth as a human shield. How do we know Israel does that, she asked? We know it from several reliable sources: photojournalist documentation, Palestinian testimony, frequent reports by B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group. The use of Palestinians, including children, as human shields by the Israeli army is beyond dispute.

Just like it is beyond dispute that Israeli bombers targeted children in the 2014 seven-week carpet bombing siege of Gaza. Of the 2,220 Palestinians killed, 547 were children; an additional 3,374 children were injured, 1,000 of them with permanent disabilities. Many require medical care unavailable in Gaza because of the Israeli blockade & destruction of Israeli medical facilities in the siege & they are unable to get permission from Israel to seek medical care elsewhere.

Then our challenger said an Israeli once told her the “conflict goes mostly unnoticed by Israelis because it’s not anywhere near them & doesn’t touch their lives.” Wow, isn’t that a mouthful of foolishness! All non-Palestinian citizens of Israel over 18 are subject to conscription to serve in the occupation. Does that leave them unaffected? Israel, the colonial-settler state, borders 41 kilometers (25 mi) with Gaza & 708 kilometers (440 mi) with the West Bank. Is all that war-mongering about Hamas rockets a great big fat lie? Because we are told Israelis living within 50 miles of the Gaza border live in terror of those rockets even though the few documented are no bigger than potholes.

But let’s get one thing straight: Israelis are human beings living in a militarized, colonial state on permanent red alert because their military is engaged in ethnic cleansing which Palestinians resist with all their might. Even if complicit in that colonial project–& not all Israelis are–enforcing apartheid & racism does not leave most Israelis unaffected. Militarism affects every aspect of society, corrupting everything, leaving nothing untouched, creating violence within the society after glorifying it in occupation.

Photo is Palestinian boy being used as a human shield by Israeli army.

A Rohingya friend of mine has made a dramatic change to better understand the freedom struggle & how he can best serve it. He could really use all your prayers & blessings. It’s a very tough struggle against insuperable odds but not a hopeless one with activists like him & support from thousands of us. Please keep him in your prayers & hearts.

Sometimes it gets to me that so few progressive or socialist journals write about the freedom struggle in Kashmir. Educating & building a solidarity movement should be a political priority. But then I remember that most of them wrote almost nothing about Palestinians, BDS, or the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011-2013.

At one point, I told a fellow from the grouplet Socialist Action that their lack of reporting about Palestinians & failure to build BDS was the sign of significant political problems within the organization. It could even be called a betrayal. Jeff Mackler, the guru of the SA cult, emailed me a single, not particularly informed article he had written on Palestine to show me I was wrong.

It should come as no surprise that Mackler & SA are now leading figures in the Hands Off Syria Coalition, reducing themselves to apologetics for Assad against charges of using sarin gas to bomb civilians. That kind of political corruption has explanations that should be investigated because most other socialist groups share their stinking decline into alliance with fascists. Whither goest such a left? Eventually into oblivion. And not fast enough.

You know those sophisticated, secular feminists who think US bombers will liberate Muslim women from the veil & bring those patriarchal Muslim men to their knees? The worst of them should be told to shove it where the sun don’t shine; those who racism has not corrupted beyond redemption should be told to look to the women of Palestine, Kashmir, & the Arab uprisings to see what modern, revolutionary feminism looks like.

(Photo of Palestinian woman taking on Israeli soldiers from Twitter)

Remember how Elie Wiesel, the Zionist ideologue, published full page ads during the 2014 Israeli carpet bombing siege of Gaza claiming Palestinians used their children as human shields? Remember when Gal Gadot, the Israeli actress playing Wonder Woman & an ardent Zionist, supported that bombing siege claiming Palestinians used their women & children as human shields?

Wiesel has croaked but Gadot should be asked to explain this photo of Israeli soldiers using a blindfolded Palestinian as a human shield–& not for the first time but as a practice of the occupation.

Long live Palestinian Intifada. End the occupation. Self-determination for Palestine. Support BDS.

(Photo tweeted by Occupied Palestine)

Posted in respect to the toughness & intransigence of Palestinians after 69 years of struggle against colonialism, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, carpet bombing, occupation, & being vilified as terrorists, without surrendering to superior military force.

Long live Palestinian Intifada. Palestine will be free.

(Photo from Twitter)

Max Blumenthal who tried to build his career off the backs of Palestinians, is now chasing honoraria on Assadist circuits & fame on Fox News defending Putin. Give him a few years, he’ll be doing Infowars, Global Research, Consortium News, Counterpunch, & will be a regular on Fox News. Tucker Carlson talks the same game. His trajectory is not good but it is a well-trodden path shysters before him have taken.

Now pitiful Max has tweeted objections to The Syria Campaign raising funds for medical facilities in Idlib, Syria. Last August, an MSF/Doctors Without Borders hospital in Idlib was completely destroyed by Syrian or Russian bombers & in April of this year they destroyed two more hospitals in the region. A principle of international law is the neutrality of medical facilities, including hospitals, clinics, field hospitals, medical personnel, & ambulances–although that is flouted habitually by US forces in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, & elsewhere, by Israel in Gaza, & by Syria, Russia & the US in Syria.

If smug & smarmy Max has objections to providing medical care to the 165,000 civilians being bombed to smithereens within the Idlib district, he should take it up the Geneva Conventions & see if he can persuade them to legitimize barbarism. Otherwise he should stfu.

(Photo of the contemptible parvenu)

Mehbooba Mufti, the Chief Minister of Jammu & Kashmir & a flunky for India, called on Modi to “replace Azadi {freedom} with something better.” Not content to leave idiocy alone, she went on to groveling: “I feel Modiji is the man of the moment & he has the potential to rise & become the man of history. His leadership is an asset which needs to be harnessed…& take Kashmir out of this present mess.”

Imagine the depths of political corruption to call on a nationalist rightwing politician implicated in pogroms against Muslims, now orchestrating the rightwing shift in Indian politics, to replace the Kashmiri call for freedom with something better. He has replaced azadi with the occupation of 700,000 troops.

Fox News progressives (those who claim they’re revolutionaries but talk like Tucker Carlson) refuse to criticize Trump unless we go back to George Washington & itemize complaints against each of the other 44 presidents. That’s just a cagey way of supporting Trump.

Now he has come out publicly encouraging police brutality against those arrested for suspicion of a crime. And that in a climate when police violence against the Black community is a major issue. Police departments came out opposing his statement because it discredits them, encourages thuggish, illegal misconduct, & makes them no better than criminals. If you will not condemn this kind of politics from Trump, you side with racism, gestapo politics, injustice. Don’t call yourself a champion of democracy. Don’t make a bigger ass of yourself.

After being publicly humiliated, both Reince Priebus & Jeff Sessions groveled & sniveled their respect & loyalty to Trump. Despite a stinking elitism, they have no sense of dignity or worth in service to one of the most detestable & stupid figures in US political history. This is abnormal psychology.

Most minimum wage workers wouldn’t put up with that crap because they have a sense of self-respect, not just before power but especially before power.