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By Dr Gideon Polya

On 14 August 2020 the Australian ABC radio and TV news announced that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had agreed to recognize Israel and exchange ambassadors with what the ABC described as “the Jewish State”. Not only was this descriptive  false and anti-Arab anti-Semitic (Arabs are 50.3% of the Subjects of Apartheid Israel) it was also grossly anti-Jewish anti-Semitic (all anti-racist Jews totally condemn the crimes of a nuclear terrorist, racist Zionist-run, genocidally racist, serial war criminal, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel).

One can readily identify 4 particularly notorious and brutal Apartheid states in the world today, namely (1) Apartheid Israel (it prosecutes a century-long and ongoing  Palestinian Genocide,  and 72% of its now  50.3% majority of Indigenous Palestinian Subjects have been violently deprived of all human rights for 53 years and cannot vote for the government ruling them); (2) Apartheid Myanmar (through rape, murder and destruction it has killed thousands of Muslim Rohingyas and driven 1 million from their homes in Rakhine State in an ongoing Rohingyan Genocide); (3) Apartheid UAE (50% of its Arab population are women and girls who are subject to gross human rights abuse, as are its foreign worker underclass); and (4)  Apartheid Saudi Arabia (that grossly abuses the 50% of its population who are female and also grossly abuses foreign workers as does Apartheid UAE [1-4].

Apartheid is regarded as a vile and punishable  crime against Humanity by the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the crime of Apartheid [5]. Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) should be applied to all of these degenerate Apartheid rogue states and to all their supporters and collaborators as were successfully applied to Apartheid South Africa and its racist supporters [6].

(1). Apartheid Israel and the ongoing Palestinian Genocide.

Sari Nusseibeh (a professor of philosophy at Al-Quds University, Palestine) on why Israel can’t be a “Jewish State” (2011): “Third,  recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” implies that Israel is, or should be, either a theocracy (if we take the word “Jewish” to apply to the religion of Judaism) or an apartheid state (if we take the word “Jewish” to apply to the ethnicity of Jews), or both, and in all of these cases, Israel is then no longer a democracy – something which has rightly been the pride of most Israelis since the country’s founding in 1948. Fourth, at least one in five Israelis – 20 per cent of the population, according to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics – is ethnically Arab (and are mostly either Muslim, Christian, Druze or Bahai), and recognising Israel as a “Jewish State” as such makes one-fifth of the population of Israel automatically strangers in their own native land and opens the door to legally reducing them, most undemocratically, to second-class citizens (or perhaps even stripping them of their citizenship and other rights) – something that no-one, much less a Palestinian leader, has a right to do” [7].

Professor Sari Nusseibeh was prescient. The race-based Apartheid Israeli Knesset (parliament) passed the racist Jewish Nation-State Law on 18 July 2018, with a vote of 62 to 55 with two abstentions. This racist law offensively and intolerably ignores the Indigenous Palestinians who are 50% of Israeli subjects and enshrines a special, dominant, race-based position for the Jewish Israelis who constitute a 47% minority of the subjects of Apartheid Israel. The racist Israel law states that Hebrew is the official language but concedes that “The Arabic language has a special status in the state” – however Arabic is not an official language despite being presently spoken by over 50% of Israeli subjects, having been spoken by 95% of the Palestinian people before commencement of Zionist colonization a century ago , and having been the overwhelmingly dominant language in Palestine for about 1,400 years. It further states that “The regulation of the Arab language in state institutions or when facing them will be regulated by law” but the law has been passed by a bare majority in a racist Apartheid  state that excludes 72% of its now 50% Indigenous  Palestinian  population from voting for the government ruling it [8, 9].

The racist, Apartheid Israeli “Jewish Nation-State Law” makes it abundantly clear that the racist Zionists running Apartheid Israel are resolutely committed to a neo-Nazi Apartheid State and endless, deadly subjugation of the Indigenous Palestinians with the ever-present threat of 100% ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The world must act over Apartheid Israel as it did over Apartheid South Africa. A clear, humane solution  to the continuing human rights catastrophe in Palestine is a unitary state (a “one state solution”) as in post-Apartheid South Africa that would involve return of all refugees, zero tolerance for racism, equal rights for all, all human rights for all, one-person-one-vote, justice, goodwill, reconciliation, airport-level security, nuclear weapons removal, internationally-guaranteed national security initially based on the present armed forces, and untrammelled access for all citizens to all of Palestine. It can and should happen tomorrow [10, 11].

America, the UK, and US- and Zionist-subverted Mainstream Australia routinely and falsely  describe Apartheid Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” when (a) there are other democracies in the Middle East (Cyprus, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon) and (b) Apartheid Israel is only  a democracy-by-genocide – of 14 million Palestinians, 7 million are Exiled and cannot step foot in what has been the land of their forebears for millennia, 5 million Occupied Palestinians have zero human rights and cannot vote for the government governing them (Apartheid) [12], and about 2 million “lucky” Israeli Palestinians  can vote but exist as Third Class citizens under over 60 race-based, neo-Nazi,  discriminatory laws that invite them to leave  if they don’t like it [13, 14].

In the territory ruled by Apartheid Israel for 53 years (formerly Mandated Palestine plus ethnically cleansed and illegally annexed parts of Lebanon and Syria) the total population in 2020 is 8.7 million (100%) comprising 6.9 million Indigenous Palestinians (50.3%), 6.4 million Jews (46.7%), and 0.4 million non-Arab non-Jews (2.9%). The  sorely oppressed   Occupied Palestinians represent 72% of the  majority 6.9 million Palestinians, have zero human rights, and cannot vote for the government ruling them i.e. Apartheid that is regarded as a crime against Humanity [12].

In the sense of “democracy as satisfaction of fundamental popular wishes”, Apartheid Israel also fails because of the horrendous and deadly deprivation imposed on  millions of Exiled Palestinians in Middle East refugee camps, 5 million Occupied Palestinians and indeed many  of the 2  million “lucky” Palestinian Israelis. Thus the GDP per capita is $42,000 for Israelis as compared to a deadly $3,200 for Occupied Palestinians  [15, 16] whose life expectancy is 10 years less than for Israelis. In the 21st century on average each year about 5,000 Occupied Palestinians have died from Israeli violence (550) or from Israeli-imposed deprivation (4,200). In the century-long Palestinian Genocide since the British invasion of the Middle East in 2014 about 2.2 million Palestinians have died from  violence (0.1 million) or from imposed deprivation (2.1 million). Numbers of expelled Palestinians  totalled 800,000 in the 1948 Naqba (Catastrophe) and a further 400,000 Arabs were expelled in the 1967 Naksa (Setback)[17-20]. 120 mosques were destroyed by the Zionists after 1948 and over 500 Palestinian villages and towns  were demolished  [21, 22].

Pro-Apartheid Australia is second only to Trump America as a supporter of Apartheid Israel,  but for all that US lackey Australia slavishly supports Apartheid Israel, this genocidal rogue state does not repay the favour and variously violates, perverts and subverts Australians and Australian institutions in some 50 ways [23]. Apartheid Israel has not confined its genocidal criminality to the Palestinian Genocide – it has been complicit in genocidal atrocities around the world, notably in Myanmar, Guatemala, Sudan and Sri Lanka [24].  Apartheid Israeli forces have violently and murderously attacked  the territory and/or assets of 13 countries (Tunisia, Sudan, Uganda, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the US). Apartheid Israel war criminality has generated a huge tally of avoidable mortality (excess mortality) from deprivation in Israeli-occupied countries. The summary data provided here is of 1950-2005 excess mortality/ 2005 population (both in millions, m) and expressed as a percentage (%) for each country occupied and as a total for all the countries subject to Occupation by Apartheid Israel: Apartheid Israel [0.095m/6.685m =1.4%] – Egypt [19.818m/74.878m = 26.5%], Jordan [0.630m/5.750m = 11.0%], Lebanon [0.535m/3.761m = 14.2%], Occupied Palestinian Territories [0.677m/3.815m = 17.7%], Syria [2.198m/18.650m = 11.8%], total = 23.858m/106.854 = 22.3% [25].

One notes that war is the penultimate in racism and genocide the ultimate in racism. Article 2 of the post-WW2 UN Genocide Convention states: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” [26].  Eminent International Law expert Professor Francis Boyle (University of Illinois) re the Palestinian Genocide (2013): “The Palestinians have been the victims of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, under which a government can be guilty of genocide even if it intends to destroy a mere “part” of the group” [27].

(2). Apartheid Myanmar and the ongoing Rohingyan Genocide.

Silence over genocide is complicity in genocide. Even worse is whitewashing of genocidal Myanmar military  action that has killed thousands of Rohingyas and generated 1 million Rohingyan refugees [13, 28-30]. Once lauded but now globally condemned, Myanmar politician Aung San Suu Kyi has repeatedly denied the Rohingyan Genocide, for example: “It is not the intention of the Myanmar government to apportion blame or to abnegate responsibility. We condemn all human rights violations and unlawful violence … Since 5 September, there have been no armed clashes and there have been no clearance operations” [31]. Half the Rohingyan refugees are children and three quarters are women and children. There is something utterly awful about women excusing atrocities against women and children. One is reminded of US Ambassador to the UN (and later US Secretary of State) , Madeleine Albright,  who on 12 May  1996  defended UN sanctions against Iraq on a “60 Minutes” segment in which anti-racist Jewish American journalist Lesley Stahl asked her “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” and to which Albright replied “We think the price is worth it.”  [32, 33]. Apartheid Israel is intimately involved in Aung San Suu Kyi-led Myanmar’s Rohingya Genocide through supply of advanced gunboats and armaments as well as military training to genocidal Burmese forces in Rakhine state [34-36].

(3). Apartheid UAE, gross suppression of females, maltreatment of  foreign workers,  Yemeni Genocide and Muslim Genocide.

The wealthy United Arab Emirates (UAE) grossly suppresses the rights of females who represent about 50% of the population, an egregious suppression that must  be described as Apartheid. Human Rights Watch: “Discrimination on the basis of sex and gender is not included in the definition of discrimination in the UAE’s 2015 anti-discrimination law. Federal Law No. 28 of 2005 regulates personal status matters. Some of its provisions discriminate against women. For a woman to marry, her male guardian must conclude her marriage contract; men have the right to unilaterally divorce their wives, whereas a woman must apply for a court order to obtain a divorce; a woman can lose her right to maintenance if, for example, she refuses to have sexual relations with her husband without a lawful excuse; and women are required to “obey” their husbands. A woman may be considered disobedient, with few exceptions, if she decides to work without her husband’s consent. UAE law permits domestic violence. Article 53 of the penal code allows the imposition of “chastisement by a husband to his wife and the chastisement of minor children” so long as the assault does not exceed the limits of Islamic law. Marital rape is not a crime. In 2010, the Federal Supreme Court issued a ruling, citing the penal code, that sanctions husbands’ beating and infliction of other forms of punishment or coercion on their wives, provided they do not leave physical marks” [37].

The UAE Islamo-fascoid dictatorship has an appalling record of human rights abuse in relation to dissenters and migrant workers as well as being involved in the ongoing Yemeni Genocide and continuing devastation of starving Yemen in gross  violation of the Natural Law, Islamic Law and International Law. Thus Human Rights Watch: “The government continues to arbitrarily detain and forcibly disappear individuals who criticize authorities. The UAE maintains their leading role in the Saudi-led military coalition, which has conducted scores of unlawful attacks in Yemen. The UAE was implicated in detainee abuse at home and abroad. Labor abuses persist. Migrant construction workers face serious exploitation. The UAE introduced a domestic workers law providing them labor rights for the first time in September 2017, but some provisions are weaker than those provided to other workers under the labor law” [37].

There is something utterly awful about a rich, Arab and Muslim  country like the UAE being involved in the Western-imposed mass murder of fellow Arabs  and fellow Muslims. Thus the US- and hence Apartheid Israel-aligned UAE has played a key role  in the  following atrocities in the Muslim world (deaths from violence or imposed deprivation in brackets): (1) the 2011 onwards Libyan Genocide (0.2 million deaths, 2 million refugees; the UAE backs the French- and Egyptian- supported,  Benghazi-based Libyan National Army under General Khalifa Haftar in the ongoing civil war) [38, 39]; (2) the 2011 onwards Syrian Genocide (1.0 million deaths, 11 million refugees; the UAE initially opposed the Assad Government during the US-backed Syrian Civil War and had Kurdish and US involvements but in 2019  resumed diplomatic relations with the Syrian Government that were broken in 2011;  it is now actively assisting the Assad Government, much to US displeasure [41, 42]; (3) the 1990 onwards Iraqi Genocide (4.6 million deaths and 6 million refugees; UAE hosts US military bases involved in the ongoing Iraqi Genocide [43, 44]; the 1978 onwards Iranian Genocide (3 million deaths from the Iraq-Iran War and US sanctions; the UAE aligns with the US and Saudi Arabia against Iran) [43, 45]; and the 2015 onwards Yemeni Genocide (0.1 million deaths; the rich UAE continues to make illegal and genocidal war on impoverished starving Yemen) [43, 46]. The rich and Machiavellian UAE makes a significant contribution to the ongoing Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide involving 32 million Muslim deaths from violence (5 million) or from imposed deprivation (27 million) in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people [47, 48].  UAE betrayal of the Palestinians is just a further  anti-Arab anti-Semitic crime of Apartheid UAE.

(4). Apartheid Saudi Arabia, gross suppression of females, maltreatment of  foreign workers,  Yemeni Genocide and Muslim Genocide.

Like the Apartheid UAE, the Apartheid Saudi Arabian Islamo-fascoid dictatorship grossly suppresses the rights of females who represent about 50% of the population, an egregious suppression that must be described as Apartheid. Human Rights Watch sets out the medieval conditions in Saudi Arabia in 2019: “Saudi Arabia faced unprecedented international criticism in 2019 for its human rights record, including the failure to provide full accountability for the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in October 2018, as well as the country’s dismal treatment of Saudi dissidents and human rights activists. Amid the criticism, Saudi authorities announced landmark reforms for Saudi women that, if fully implemented, represent a significant step forward including allowing Saudi women to obtain passports and travel abroad without the approval of a male relative for the first time. However, discrimination remains in other areas, and women’s rights activists remain detained, on trial, or silenced for their activism. Through 2019, the Saudi-led coalition continued a military campaign against the Houthi rebel group in Yemen that has included scores of unlawful airstrikes that have killed and wounded thousands of civilians… As the leader of the coalition that began military operations against Houthi forces in Yemen on March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia has committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law… Saudi authorities in 2019 continued to repress dissidents, human rights activists, and independent clerics… Saudi Arabia applies Sharia (Islamic law) as its national law… [despite some changes] Saudi women still must obtain a male guardian’s approval to get married, leave prison, or obtain certain healthcare. Women also continue to face discrimination in relation to marriage, family, divorce, and decisions relating to children (e.g. child custody). Men can still file cases against daughters, wives, or female relatives under their guardianship for “disobedience,” which can lead to forcible return to their male guardian’s home or imprisonment. Women’s rights activists who fought for these important changes remain in jail or on trial for their peaceful advocacy…. Some migrant workers suffer abuses and exploitation, sometimes amounting to conditions of forced labor. The kafala (visa sponsorship) system ties migrant workers’ residency permits to “sponsoring” employers, whose written consent is required for workers to change employers or leave the country under normal circumstances. Some employers confiscate passports, withhold wages, and force migrants to work against their will” [49].

Like the UAE, a paradoxically anti-Arab anti-Semitic Saudi Arabia makes a significant contribution to the ongoing, US-imposed, post-9/11  Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide (deaths from violence or imposed deprivation in brackets) : (1) the 2011 onwards Libyan Genocide (0.2 million deaths, 2 million refugees; Saudi Arabia backs the eastern-based  Libyan National Army (LNA) forces led by Khalifa Haftar and supported by Russia, Egypt and the UAE in the ongoing civil war) [39, 43, 50]; (2) the 2011 onwards Syrian Genocide (1.0 million deaths, 11 million refugees; the Saudis were part of a coalition of US-linked nations (US, UK, France, Qatar, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Apartheid Israel) variously backing jihadis and others seeking to overthrow the Syrian Government; arms used by ISIS were supplied by the US and Saudi Arabia to Syrian opposition fighters and exceed those captured in battle [51]); the 1990 onwards Iraqi Genocide (4.6 million deaths and 6 million refugees; Saudi Arabia  US military bases are involved in the ongoing Iraqi Genocide [43, 44]; the 1978 onwards Iranian Genocide (3 million deaths from the Iraq-Iran War and US sanctions; Saudi Arabia  aligns with the US against Iran) [43, 45]; and the  2015 onwards Yemeni Genocide (0.1 million deaths; the Saudi-led coalition  continues to make illegal and genocidal war on impoverished and starving Yemen) [43, 46]. Saudi Arabia makes a major contribution to the ongoing Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide involving 32 million Muslim deaths from violence (5 million) or from imposed deprivation (27 million) in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 people [47, 48].  Will Saudi Arabia  also betray the Palestinians by following the example of the  UAE in officially recognizing Apartheid Israel in addition to its covert alliance with the anti-Arab anti-Semitic and Islamophobic rogue state?

Saudi Arabia has been the primary source for spreading Islamic fundamentalism throughout the world and for supporting violent jihadism, most notably its support for US-backed jihadism in Afghanistan post-1978 and thence elsewhere. Such variously state-backed jihadi non-state terrorism  has been of major  benefit to US imperialism (US state terrorism)  because every jihadi atrocity (especially against  European targets) provides  an “excuse” for disproportionately huge US Alliance attacks on Muslim countries. Thus the atrocities by the barbarous ISIS provided  the excuse  for US destruction of Mosul (40,000 killed, 600,000 displaced) and Fallujah (up to 6,000 killed, 370,000 displaced) with scores of  thousands ultimately dying from imposed deprivation [52-55]. The US  removed secular governments in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and only Russian intervention prevented removal of the secular government in Syria [41].

Final comments.

Apartheid implies excluding a large section of a population from basic human rights on the basis of attributes such as race, religion or gender, and is exampled by the horrendous persecution of the Indigenous Palestinians who are over 50% of the Subjects of Apartheid Israel, the violent persecution of the Rohingyas in Apartheid Myanmar, and the outrageous, medieval and barbaric  treatment of women and girls in Apartheid UAE and Apartheid Saudi Arabia. When that exclusion means that a large part of  a persecuted population  are forced out of a country (as in Libya, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan) then the Apartheid transmutes to genocide.   Such barbarities are utterly  unacceptable in the 21st century. What can decent people do? Decent people around the world must urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel, Apartheid Myanmar, Apartheid  UAE and Apartheid Saudi Arabia, and against all people, politicians, parties, collectives, corporations and countries supporting these utterly detestable Apartheid states that are a foul blot on Humanity.

References.

[1]. Gideon Polya , “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” , Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 4 June 2020: https://www.amazon.com/US-Imposed-Post-9-Muslim-Holocaust-Genocide/dp/8793987056 .

 

[2]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Mainstream ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide””, Countercurrents, 17 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/racist-mainstream-ignores-us-imposed-post-9-11-muslim-holocaust-muslim-genocide/ .

 

[3].  Gideon Polya, “Scores Of Huge Realities Resolutely Ignored By Mendacious, US Lackey Mainstream Australia”, Countercurrents, 11 August 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/08/scores-of-huge-realities-resolutely-ignored-by-mendacious-us-lackey-mainstream-australia/  .

 

[4]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

 

[5]. John Dugard, “International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the crime of Apartheid”, Audiovisual Library of International Law: http://untreaty.un.org/cod/avl/ha/cspca/cspca.html .

[6]. “Boycott Apartheid  Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/.

[7]. Sari Nusseibeh, “Why Israel can’t be a “Jewish State””, Al Jazeera, 1 October 2011: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/09/201192614417586774.html .

[8]. “Read the full Jewish Nation-State Law”, The Jerusalem Post, 19 July 2018: https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Read-the-full-Jewish-Nation-State-Law-562923 .

[9]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli Jewish Nation-State Law Enshrines Apartheid And Genocidal Racism”, Countercurrents, 24 July 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/israeli-jewish-nation-state-law-enshrines-apartheid-and-genocidal-racism/ .

[10]. Gideon Polya, “Democratic One-State Solution (Unitary State, Bi-National State) For Post-Apartheid Palestine”, Countercurrents, 22 December 2018: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/one-state-solution .

[11]. “One-state solution, unitary state, bi-national state for a democratic, equal rights, post-apartheid Palestine”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/one-state-solution .

[12]. Gideon Polya, “Universal Declaration of Human Rights & Palestinians. Apartheid Israel violates ALL Palestinian Human Rights”, Palestine Genocide Essays, 24 January 2009: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/universal-declaration-of-human-rights-palestinians .

[13]. Susan Abulhawa, “Israel’s “nation-state law” parallels the Nazi Nuremburg Laws”, Al Jazeera, 27 July 2018: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/israel-nation-state-law-parallels-nazi-nuremberg-laws-180725084739536.html .

[14]. “Discriminatory laws in Israel”, Adalah, https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index?page=4 .

[15]. “List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita .

 

[16]. World Bank, “GDP per capita (current US$) – West Bank and Gaza”: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=PS .

[17]. Gideon Polya, “70th anniversary of Apartheid Israel & commencement of large-scale Palestinian Genocide”, Countercurrents, 11 May 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/05/11/70th-anniversary-of-apartheid-israel-commencement-of-large-scale-palestinian-genocide/ .

[18]. Gideon Polya, “Democratic One-State Solution (Unitary State, Bi-National State) for post-Apartheid Palestine”, Countercurrents, 22 December 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/12/22/democratic-one-state-solution-unitary-state-bi-national-state-for-post-apartheid-palestine/ .

[19]. Gideon Polya, “Israeli-Palestinian & Middle East conflict – from oil to climate genocide”, Countercurrents, 21 August 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/08/21/israeli-palestinian-middle-east-conflict-from-oil-to-climate-genocide/ .

[20]. Gideon Polya, “End 50 Years Of Genocidal Occupation & Human Rights Abuse By US-Backed Apartheid Israel”, Countercurrents,  9 June  2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/06/09/end-50-years-of-genocidal-occupation-human-rights-abuse-by-us-backed-apartheid-israel/ .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “Notre Dame, Christchurch & Sri Lanka Tragedies Spotlight Historical Destructions & Violations Of Places Of Worship”, Countercurrents, 22 April 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/notre-dame-christchurch-sri-lanka-tragedies-spotlight-historical-destructions-violations-of-places-of-worship/ .

[22]. Ramzy Baroud, “Nakba forever internalised among exiled Palestinians”, Al Jazeera, 16 May 2017: https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2017/05/nakba-internalised-exiled-palestinians-170514104942696.html .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “50 Ways Australian Intelligence Spies On Australia And The World For UK , Israeli And US State Terrorism”,  Countercurrents, 11 December, 2013: https://countercurrents.org/polya111213.htm .

[24]. “Apartheid Israeli state terrorism: (A) Individuals  exposing Apartheid Israeli state terrorism & (B) Countries subject to Apartheid Israeli state terrorism”, Palestinian Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/apartheid-israeli-state-terrorism .

 

[25].  Gideon Polya,  “Body Count. Global Avoidable Mortality  Since 1950” that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since  Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/chapter-3-correlates-and-causes-of-post.html .  

 

[26]. UN Genocide Convention : http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .

 

[27]. Francis Boyle, “The Palestinian Genocide by Israel”, 21 August 2013:  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2339254 .

[28]. Gideon Polya , “Hitler, Churchill, Trump, Aung San Suu Kyi & Genocidal Intent To Destroy”, Countercurrents, 29 September 2017:  https://countercurrents.org/2017/09/hitler-churchill-trump-aung-san-suu-kyi-genocidal-intent-to-destroy/ .

[29]. “Rohingya persecution in Myanmar (2016-present)”,Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_persecution_in_Myanmar_(2016%E2%80%93present) .

[30]. “Rohingya people”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_people .

[31]. Oliver Holmes, “Fact check: Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech on the Ronhingya crisis”, Guardian, 30 September 2017: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/20/fact-check-aung-san-suu-kyi-rohingya-crisis-speech-myanmar .

 

[32]. “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”:  https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

 

[33]. Lesley Stahl and Madeleine Albright quoted in “Madeleine Albright”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright .

[34]. Gideon Polya, “Palestinian Genocide–imposing Apartheid Israel Complicit In Rohingya Genocide, Other Genocides & US, UK & Australian State Terrorism”, Countercurrents, 30 November 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/11/palestinian-genocide-imposing-apartheid-israel-complicit-in-rohingya-genocide-other-genocides-us-uk-australian-state-terrorism/ .

[35]. Gili Cohen, “Israel sold advanced weapons to Myanmar during anti-Rohingya ethnic cleansing campaign”, Haaretz, 24 October 2017: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.818550 .

[36]. Areeb Ullah, “Israel sold military gear to Myanmar at height of Rohingya crackdown”, Middle East Eye, 23 October 2017: http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/more-proof-israel-had-sold-weapons-myanmar-during-rohingya-crackdown-613292003 .

[37]. Human Right Watch, “United Arab Emirates”, 2019: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/united-arab-emirates .

[38]. Giorgio Caferio, “The UAE “runs” France’s Libya policy”, TRT World,  21 July 2020: https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/the-uae-runs-france-s-libya-policy-38285 .43 .

[39]. Gideon Polya , “Review: “The Return” By Hisham Matar – Libyan Genocide & Seeking The Disappeared”, Countercurrents, 5 October 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/review-the-return-by-hisham-matar-libyan-genocide-seeking-the-disappeared/ .

[40]. “UAE training Syria regime intelligence agents, providing aid to Damascus”, Middle East Monitor,  24 June 2020: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200624-uae-training-syria-regime-intelligence-agents-providing-aid-to-damascus/ .

[41]. Gideon Polya, “Syrian Holocaust and Syrian Genocide by US Alliance state terrorism”, Countercurrents,  23 January 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/01/syrian-holocaust-and-syrian-genocide-by-us-alliance-state-terrorism/ .

[42]. “Syria- United Arab Emirates relations”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria%E2%80%93United_Arab_Emirates_relations .

[43]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

 

[44]. “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

 

[45]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel bombing Syria & Iraq –hotting up deadly 4-decade US war on Iran”, Countercurrents, 14 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/apartheid-israel-bombing-syria-iraq-hotting-up-deadly-4-decade-us-war-on-iran/ .

 

[46]. Gideon Polya, “Saudi crimes: Khashhoggi murder, Yemeni Genocide & complicity in US-imposed Muslim Holocaust & Muslin Genocide”, Countercurrents, 14 August 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/08/apartheid-israel-bombing-syria-iraq-hotting-up-deadly-4-decade-us-war-on-iran/ .

 

[47]. Gideon Polya, “Paris atrocity context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

 

[48]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[49]. Human Rights Watch, “Saudi Arabia”, 2019: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2020/country-chapters/saudi-arabia .

[50]. Mohamed Al-Shamaa, “Saudi Arabia, UAE support El-Sisi’s “right to self-defense” in Libya war”, Arab News, 21 June 2020: https://www.arabnews.com/node/1693381/middle-east .

[51]. “ISIL weapons traced to US and Saudi Arabia”, Al Jazeera, 15 December 2017: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/12/isil-weapons-traced-saudi-arabia-171214164431586.html .

[52]. Gideon Polya, “Mosul Massacre Latest In Iraqi Genocide –  US Alliance War Crimes Demand ICC & BDS”, Countercurrents,  24 July 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/07/mosul-massacre-latest-in-iraqi-genocide-us-alliance-war-crimes-demand-icc-bds/ .

[53]. Gideon Polya, “” Review: “The Sacking Of Fallujah. A People’s History” – Ongoing Iraqi Genocide”, Countercurrents, 30 January 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/review-the-sacking-of-fallujah-a-peoples-history-ongoing-iraqi-genocide/ .

[54]. Ross Caputi, Richard Hil, and Donna Mulhearn, “The Sacking Of Fallujah. A People’s History”, University of Massachusetts Press, 2019.

[55]. “Fallujah”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, including  a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003).

15 August 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold

“HUGE breakthrough today,” crowed Donald Trump on twitter as he announced the new peace deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The deal makes the UAE the first Gulf Arab state and the third Arab nation, after Egypt and Jordan, to have diplomatic ties with Israel. But the new Israel-UAE partnership should fool no one. Though it will supposedly stave off Israeli annexation of the West Bank and encourage tourism and trade between both countries, in reality, it is nothing more than a scheme to give an Arab stamp of approval to Israel’s status quo of land theft, home demolitions, arbitrary extrajudicial killings, apartheid laws, and other abuses of Palestinian rights.

The deal should be seen in the context of over three years of Trump administration policies that have tightened Israel’s grip on the Palestinians: moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing the Golan Heights as Israeli territory, and creating a so-called peace plan with no Palestinian participation or input. While no U.S. administration has successfully brokered a resolution to Israel’s now 53-year-long occupation, the Trump years have been especially detrimental to the Palestinian cause. Palestinian leader Hanan Ashrawi wrote on Twitter that with this deal, “Israel got rewarded for not declaring openly what it’s been doing to Palestine illegally & persistently since the beginning of the occupation.” Indeed, with Donald Trump at the helm and son-in-law Jared Kushner as the primary strategist, even concessions for Palestinians have been done away with. To add insult to injury, while the deal had been couched in terms of a commitment by Israel to suspend annexation of Palestinian territories, in his Israeli press conference announcing the deal, Netanyahu said annexation was “still on the table” and that it was something he is “committed to.”

Among the most brutal aspects of this period for Palestinians have been the loss of support for their cause in neighboring Arab states. The Arab political party in Israel, Balad, said that by signing this pact, “the UAE has officially joined Israel against Palestine, and placed itself in the camp of the enemies of the Palestinian people.”

The UAE has previously held a position consistent with public opinion in Gulf and Middle East countries that the acceptance of formal diplomatic relations with Israel should only take place in exchange for a just peace and in accordance with international law. Back in June, Emirati ambassador to the U.S. Yousef al-Otaiba penned an an op-ed in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper, the Israeli equivalent to U.S.A Today, appealing directly in Hebrew for Israel not to annex the West Bank. However, by working out an agreement with Trump and Netanyahu to normalize relations, the country has now made itself Israel’s partner in cementing de facto annexation and ongoing apartheid.

The UAE’s change from supporting Palestinian dignity and freedom to supporting Israel’s never-ending occupation is a calculated move by UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, a shrewd Middle East dictator who uses his country’s military and financial resources to thwart moves towards democracy and respect for human rights under the guise of fighting Islamic terrorism. His support for Israel cements his relationship with the Trump administration. Trump has already gone out of his way to push billions of dollars in arms sales to the UAE, despite opposition from Congress because of high number of civilian casualties associated with the use of those weapons in Yemen.

Secretary Pompeo has also defended the UAE from credible reports that U.S. weapons sold to the UAE have been transferred in Yemen to groups linked to Al Qaeda, hardline Salafi militias and Yemeni separatists. The UAE was also stung by revelations of secret prisons it had been operating in Yemen where prisoners were subjected to horrific forms of torture, including “the grill,” where victims were “tied to a spit like a roast and spun in a circle of fire.” In Libya, the UAE has been criticized for violating a 2011 UN Security Council arms embargo by supplying combat equipment to the LAAF, the armed group commanded by General Khalifa Haftar with a well-established record of human right abuses. So this deal with Israel gives the UAE a much-needed veneer of respectability.

But it is impossible to understand the impetus for this deal without putting it in the context of the ongoing hostilities between all three countries and Iran. Following the old adage that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” in recent years Israel has been negotiating with various Gulf states, including the UAE, to push back against Iran’s growing influence in the region. As the communique announcing the Israeli-UAE deal asserted, the U.S., Israel and the UAE “share a similar outlook regarding threats in the region.” This dovetails with Trump’s anti-Iran obsession, which includes withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and his “maximum pressure” campaign designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table to make a “better deal.” In announcing the UAE-Israeli pact, Trump declared with ridiculous bravado that if he wins the elections, he’ll have a new deal with Iran within 30 days. Anyone who believes this must be almost as delusional as Trump.

The fact that this agreement between two Middle East countries was first announced thousands of miles away in Washington DC shows how it is more about shoring up Trump’s slumping electoral campaign and improving Netanyahu’s battered image in Israel than bringing peace to the Middle East. It also shows that Netanyahu and bin Zayed have a stake in seeing Trump win a second term in the White House. Instead of pointing out the hollowness of the pact, Joe Biden’s response was unfortunately to congratulate Israel and the UAE and try to take credit for the deal. “I personally spent time with leaders of both Israel and the U.A.E. during our administration, building the case for cooperation and broader engagement,” he said. “I am gratified by today’s announcement.”

The normalization of relations between the UAE and Israel, facilitated by the U.S., serves to prop up three repressive leaders — Trump, Netanyahu, and bin Zayed — and will cause further harm to Palestinians. It is both a shame and a sham.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Ariel Gold is the national co-director and Senior Middle East Policy Analyst with CODEPINK for Peace.

14 August 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Oliver Wainwright

As Notre-Dame cathedral was engulfed by flames last year, thousands bewailed the loss of this great beacon of western civilisation. The ultimate symbol of French cultural identity, the very heart of the nation, was going up in smoke. But Middle East expert Diana Darke was having different thoughts. She knew that the origins of this majestic gothic pile lay not in the pure annals of European Christian history, as many have always assumed, but in the mountainous deserts of Syria, in a village just west of Aleppo to be precise.

“Notre-Dame’s architectural design, like all gothic cathedrals in Europe, comes directly from Syria’s Qalb Lozeh fifth-century church,” Darke tweeted on the morning of 16 April, as the dust was still settling in Paris. “Crusaders brought the ‘twin tower flanking the rose window’ concept back to Europe in the 12th century.”

It is not only the twin towers and rose window that have their origins in the Middle East, she pointed out, but also the ribbed vaults, pointed arches and even the recipe for stained glass windows. Gothic architecture as we know it owes much more to Arab and Islamic heritage than it does to the rampaging Goths. “I was astonished at the reaction,” says Darke. “I thought more people knew, but there seems to be this great gulf of ignorance about the history of cultural appropriation. Against a backdrop of rising Islamophobia, I thought it was about time someone straightened out the narrative.”

And so she has, with Stealing from the Saracens, an exhilarating, meticulously researched book that sheds light on centuries of borrowing, tracing the roots of Europe’s major buildings – from the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey to Chartres cathedral and St Mark’s basilica in Venice – back to their Middle Eastern precedents. It is as much a story of political power, wealth and fashion as it is of religious belief, with tales of looting Crusaders, fashion-conscious bishops and globe-trotting merchants discovering new styles and techniques and bringing them home.

“Now we have this notion of east and west,” says Darke. “But back then, it wasn’t like that. There were huge cultural exchanges – and most came from the east to the west. Very little went the other way.”

Given their prevalence in the great cathedrals of Europe, it is easy to imagine that pointed stone arches and soaring ribbed vaults are Christian in origin. But the former dates back to a seventh-century Islamic shrine in Jerusalem, while the latter began in a 10th-century mosque in Andalucia, Spain. In fact, that first known example of ribbed vaulting is still standing. Visitors to the Cordoba Mezquita can marvel at its multiple arches intersecting in a masterpiece of practical geometry and decorative structure, never needing a repair in its thousand-year existence. The vaulted maqsura – the part of the mosque reserved for the ruling caliph – was designed to cast a sacred glow across the leader. However, the official leaflet will tell you little of the building’s Islamic origin, perhaps because it has been a Catholic church since 1236.

The pointed arch, meanwhile, was a pragmatic solution to a problem encountered by masons working on the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. One of the holiest sites in the Muslim world, it was built in 691 by the ruler of Islam’s first empire. The challenge was how to line up an outer arcade of rounded arches with a smaller inner arcade, while maintaining a horizontal ceiling between them. For the openings to align, the masons had to give the inner arcade tighter arches, forcing them to become pointed. Another world first can be spotted higher up in the shrine, where encircling the dome is an arcade of trefoil arches, the three-lobed style of arch that went on to encrust practically every European cathedral, voraciously adopted as a symbol of the Holy Trinity.

“Again and again,” says Darke, “I am so struck by how much of this stuff that we think of as essentially Christian and European was based on ignorance and misinterpretation of much earlier Islamic forms.” She points out that the enormous influence of the Dome of the Rock was down to the Crusaders of the Middle Ages mistakenly thinking the building was the Temple of Solomon.

They used the domed, circular layout of this supposedly Christian shrine as the model for their Templar churches (like the City of London’s round Temple church), even copying the decorative Arabic inscription, which openly chastises Christians for believing in the Trinity rather than in the oneness of God. Their pseudo-Kufic calligraphic patterns went on to adorn French cathedral stonework and the borders of richly woven textiles, with no one aware of what they actually meant.

The confusion was spread further by the first printed map of Jerusalem, published in Mainz, Germany, in 1486. It not only mislabels the Dome of the Rock as the Temple of Solomon, but depicts the building with a fine onion dome – a pure orientalist fantasy from the mind of a Dutch woodcut artist named Erhard Reeuwich. The book containing the map became a bestseller, reprinted 13 times and translated into multiple languages, influencing the spread of onion-domed churches across Europe in the 16th century. It is a tale of mistaken identity and unintended consequence worthy of a Monty Python sketch.

The transfer of Islamic motifs to the west wasn’t always so simple, though. The pointed arch took a more circuitous route. Darke traces how the arches first spread to Cairo, becoming sharper and more pointed under the Abbasid empire, and were in turn admired by visiting merchants from the wealthy Italian port of Amalfi, who channelled discoveries from their travels into their eclectic 10th-century basilica. This exotic building caught the eye of Abbot Desiderius, who visited Amalfi in 1065 on a shopping trip for rare luxury merchandise, and decided to take the pointed window design for his monastery at Monte Cassino.

Those windows were then copied for the Benedictine abbey at Cluny in France, the largest church in the world at the time. Abbot Suger, an adviser to kings Louis VI and VII, liked how the windows let in more light, and immediately applied the same design to his Saint-Denis basilica in Paris. Regarded as the earliest fully gothic structure, the basilica was completed in 1144 and its architect went on to work at Notre-Dame. “They all just copied it,” says Darke. “These were the most powerful churches in Europe, so the style completely took off, as all fashions do. When powerful people adopt something, everyone wants one.”
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The list goes on. There are the early square minarets, found on such buildings as the Great Mosque of Damascus, that taper thinner and are crowned with a bulbous finial dome. These inspired such great Italian towers as those of Florence’s town hall and St Mark’s Campanile in Venice, prefiguring centuries of church bell-towers.

Drawing on architectural historian Deborah Howard’s research, Darke shows Venice to be more Arab than European, from its narrow winding passageways and courtyard homes with rooftop terraces, to the Islamic ornamentation of the Doge’s Palace (modelled on Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem) and the onion domes of St Mark’s. All are the fruit of trips made by Venetian merchants to Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Persia, fostering a level of influence that extended even to fashion: women in Venice were veiled in public and dressed in black from head to toe. “One cannot see their faces for all the world,” a 15th-century source commented. “They go about so completely covered up, that I do not know how they can see to go along the street.”

The book comes at a charged time, when supposedly western architecture is being mobilised by right-wing nationalist groups to bolster their idealised vision of a “pure” European identity. There are now countless social media accounts promoting messages of white supremacy disguised as heritage appreciation, while recent government edicts about tradition and beauty carry similar overtones. Darke’s work takes an eloquent sledgehammer to such ignorant, dog-whistle propaganda, revealing how the monuments idealised by the alt-right have their roots in the very culture of which they are so suspicious.

The ignorance is widespread, and perhaps the most surprising thing in Stealing from the Saracens is how much of this should not come as a surprise to the modern reader. After all, throughout the book, Darke summons the words of Christopher Wren, who was well aware of the Middle Eastern origins of gothic architecture, and of the structural techniques he was using for St Paul’s Cathedral.

“Modern gothic,” he wrote in the 1700s, “is distinguished by the lightness of its work, by the excessive boldness of its elevations … by the delicacy, profusion and extravagant fancy of its ornaments … Such productions, so airy, cannot admit the heavy Goths for their author.” Instead, he concluded, “from all the marks of the new architecture, it can only be attributed to the Moors; or what is the same thing, to the Arabians or Saracens”.

The irony is in the name itself: in Wren’s day, Saracen was a pejorative term for the Arab Muslims, against whom the Crusaders had fought their “holy war”. It originated from the Arabic word “saraqa”, meaning “to steal”, as Saracens were seen as looters and thieves. Never mind the fact that the Crusaders plundered their way across Europe, Jerusalem and Constantinople – pilfering the wonders of Islamic architecture as they went, and airbrushing the origins of their booty in the process.

Oliver Wainwright is the Guardian’s architecture and design critic.

13 August 2020

Source: theguardian.com

By Michael Welch, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, and Greg Mitchell

“Not a particular country, not a particular city, and not a particular people.

The crux of the matter is whether total war in its present form is justifiable, even when it serves a just purpose. Does it not have material and spiritual evil as its consequences which far exceed whatever good might result? When will our moralists give us an answer to this question?”

John Hersey, Hiroshima [1]

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The two state of the art weapons released over the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki constituted the most devastating blasts of all time.

According to the best estimates of anti-nuclear weapons scientists, anywhere from 110,000 to 210,000 people died in the twin holocausts. Two thirds of the city of Hiroshima were wiped out in a single attack, the equivalent of 15,000 tons of TNT. [2]

These massive mushroom clouds would go on to become a symbol of the fate of humanity encapsulated in the threat of atomic horror. For all my life, I have contemplated the prospects of nuclear incineration and the aftermath that would follow if our leaders get caught up in a tragic misstep.

What has been the careful course of a wizened populace after 75 years of careful planning?

On January 23 of this year, the doomsday clock, created by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientist, announced the clock had revved up to 100 seconds before midnight. That is an all time record in the history of the time piece! Do the memories of the devastating attacks of Aug 6 and Aug 9, 1945 have some process of ever re-igniting the imaginations of a new generation of civilians and reversing the tide of Nuclear Armageddon? This is a subject we will explore on this special anniversary episode of the Global Research News Hour.

Our first guest is renowned academic and writer Professor Michel Chossudovsky. In the first half hour, he brings us up to date on how the U.S. has re-ignited interest in once again turning bombs like the ones dropped over Hiroshima and Nagasaki into “ready for use” weapons in the arsenal of conventional warfare.

Our second guest, Greg Mitchell, comes along in our second half hour. He elaborates on how early information about the nuclear warfare in Japan was concealed, and how a new blockbuster release from Hollywood served to falsify the news from the battlefields.

Professor Michel Chossudovsky is a professor of economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, and the Founder and Editor of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Greg Mitchell is an author and journalist. He was editor of the magazine Nuclear Times and has become an outspoken expert and the role and build up of nuclear arms in Japan.

7 August 2020

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Bhabani Shankar Nayak

The pandemic driven lockdowns have triggered worldwide growth of unemployment, hunger, homelessness and poverty. The speed of economic descent in world economy is extraordinary. The world is sleep walking into greater economic depression of the century and its impacts will reverberate for decades. The COVID-19 pandemic led economic crisis has been used by ruling and non-ruling classes to reconfigured the world economy to consolidate their wealth and punish the masses by spreading economic risks, insecurities and crises. The credit and consumerism led economic booms are no longer relevant strategies even for the short-term economic recovery due to inherent decline of trust of the masses on the existing economic and political institutions within capitalist system. The economic and political institutions within capitalism have lost their legitimacy in public eyes during this pandemic. The foundation of production, distribution, exchange and consumption are four pillars of any economic system irrespective of their ideological orientations. These four economic pillars survive on the foundation of trust. All economic activities run on the basis of trust. The level of trustworthiness determines economic revival and sustainability in all economic systems.

The deepening of capitalism and its deceptive culture of propaganda for last three centuries has eroded trust in the society, politics and economy. Trust in society is a product of interdependence whereas trust in an economic system is a production of free and open interaction between consumers and producers. The growth of capitalism led to the separation of producers from consumers, which led to the declining of the culture of trust in economy. The fourth industrial revolution led by digital capitalism has further eroded trust in economy by structurally delinking producers from the consumers. The consumerism as a project of capitalism has completely transformed economic trust into brand trust. The trust in system is transformed into trust in commodities (brands) based on its advertisement, brand value, peer acceptance and social visibility and respect. The culture of consumerism and advertisement has personalised trust. But leverage of trust in businesses and economic systems has declined over time due to the fact that trust is mutual and collective. It cannot be personalised. The corporatisation, individualisation and personalisation of trust is diminished trust.

The culture of forgery is rampant with the growth of digital business, which further accelerated the decline of trust even on the bands (personalised trust based on class). The banks used to be the only economic institution within capitalist economic system, which was trusted by public. But the scandals of the Wall Streets and continuous failure to protect the consumer interests in different economic crises led to fall of trust on banking systems within capitalism. The devaluation and demise of trust led to the declining of abilities of various public and private institutions dealing with economic crises. The consumers and producers feel vulnerable due to lack of trustworthiness and transparency with the growth of digital revolution in economy. So, the short term and long-term economic recovery depends on revival of trust in economic and political institutions. It demands total systemic change and disengagement with capitalism as a system and its distrustful culture of plunder in which every producer and consumer experienced deception.

Is there any way to revive public trust in economic and political institutions? Can trust be rejuvenated and re-established? Is trust building possible in the post pandemic world? The answer to these questions is emphatically positive. There is no other answer. Trust each other to survive in peace and prosperity or perish together with the culture of distrust spread by capitalism.

The digitalisation of world economy for last three decades has entered into every aspect of economic systems. The reversal or dismantling of digital economy is neither possible nor a progressive alternative. It is important to democratise and develop cooperative models of digital economy, where the producers and consumers can participate with egalitarian openness. The direct interaction between producers and consumers can create a socially embedded market and economic system based on trust, which can ensure a sharing and caring economy free from institutional exploitation. The experience of the Mondragon Corporation as an alliance of worker cooperatives based in the Basque region of Spain offers an alternative. The core of the Mondragon success story is based on trust; the trust between producers and consumers. The sustainable trust within the Mondragon corporation is established by its workers, who are the shareholders. The corporation is owned by the workers and managed by the workers. Therefore, trust was an organic development based on direct interaction of workers both as producers and consumers.

Such alternative experiments are completely ignored and concealed by the mainstream media; the voice of capitalism. The data driven digital economy within contemporary capitalism promotes devaluation of trust by controlling individual data on every aspects of individual lives. There is no dignity and privacy when individual data is controlled by corporations without any form of inhibition. The capitalist systems have also formed alliance with reactionary religious and politically authoritarian forces to further control individual freedom. It intends to use reactionary aspects of religions, cultures, nationalisms and communities to enforce trust in economic and political system. Such attempts create superficial and short-term trust. It is the material conditions of people that determines the level of trust in long term. The development and enforcement of trust cannot be outsourced to reactionary religious and political forces. Trust grows organically, it cannot be reproduced by propaganda and enforced for a long time by these forces. The growth of fake news and false propaganda about products in the market and policies of the government has further eroded the culture of trust in economy and politics.

The centralisation of data driven and data dependent digital capitalism is accelerating treacherous world economy free from trust. The loss of citizen’s trust on state and governments, loss of consumer’s trust on products, and loss of producer’s trust on markets create a state of anarchy, which helps for the growth and consolidation of security state and authoritarian governments concomitant with the requirements of the capitalism. Such an economic and political project has failed in history. Its failure is immanent but its social and humanitarian cost is incalculable. Therefore, it is imperative for all thinking beings to work collaboratively towards trustworthy social and economic transformations based on mutual and collective trust. It is collective trust that helps in the mobility of both labour and capital without creating barrier for each other. It is mutual trust which can aid the economy to revive its global momentum without capitalism. Trust is the non-transactional new currency with both use and exchange value. The revival of trust in economy and politics is the answer to the multiple forms of capitalism crises. Trust is important for long term peace and prosperity.

Bhabani Shankar Nayak, Coventry University, UK

10 August 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

Protests against Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have raged on for weeks, turning violent sometimes. Israelis are furious at their government’s mediocre response to the coronavirus pandemic, especially as COVID-19 disease is experiencing a massive surge throughout the country.

Netanyahu warned protesters, thousands of whom have been rallying outside his residence in Jerusalem, against “anarchy (and) violence”. Scenes of utter chaos and violent arrests have been a daily occurrence in a country that is already in the throes of a political crisis, largely, if not exclusively, linked to the Prime Minister himself.

Desperate to create any distractions from his many woes at home, Netanyahu has been pushing for a confrontation with the Lebanese resistance group, Hezbollah. But that, too, has failed, as Israeli media has denied earlier claims that a violent confrontation was reported at the Israel/Lebanon border.

Hezbollah insists that it would be the group, not Netanyahu, that will determine the time and place for its response to Israel’s recent killing of Hezbollah’s influential member, Ali Kamel Mohsen.

Mohsen was killed in an Israeli aerial raid targeting the vicinity of the Damascus International Airport, likely another desperate attempt by Netanyahu to deflect attention from his troubled coalition government and his corruption trial to an issue that often unifies most Israelis.

The turmoil in Israel is not just about an obstinate, divisive leader who is manipulating public opinion, the media and the various political groups to remain in power and to avoid legal accountability for his corruption.

The Disunited Coalition

Israel is suffering a crisis of political legitimacy, one that goes beyond the embattled Netanyahu, and his coalition with the head of the Kahol Lavan (Blue and White) centrist party, Benny Gantz.

The political marriage between Netanyahu’s Likud and Gantz’s Kahol Lavan last April was fundamentally odd and unexpected. The announcement that Gantz – who endured three general elections in less than a year to finally oust Netanyahu – was uniting with his archenemy has devastated the anti-Netanyahu political camp, forcing Gantz’s partners, Yair Lapid and Moshe Ya’alon, to abandon him.

But the new coalition government between the right and center became dysfunctional immediately after it was formed. Israel’s political marriage of convenience is likely to end in an ugly divorce.

The war between Netanyahu and his main coalition partner is now manifest in every aspect of Israel’s political life: in the Knesset (parliament), in media headlines and on the streets.

When the new government assumed its duties after one of the most tumultuous years in Israel’s political history, the mood, at least immediately, was somewhat calm; both Netanyahu and Gantz seemed united in their desire to illegally annex nearly a third of the occupied Palestinian West Bank. Israel’s rightwing camp was delighted; the center tagged along.

However, the international response to the annexation scheme forced Netanyahu to rethink his July 1 deadline. Now that annexation has been postponed indefinitely, Netanyahu is being denied a major political card that could have helped him replenish his fading popularity among Israelis, at a time when he desperately needs it.

On July 19, Netanyahu’s corruption trial resumed. Although the Prime Minister did not attend the opening session personally, his image – that of a strong commanding figure – was tarnished, nonetheless.

Gantz, who already agreed to the annexation plan, was too clever to fully associate himself with the risky political endeavor. That task was left to Netanyahu who knew the risks affiliated with a failed political scheme, but with no option except to follow through with it.

Awaiting the right opportunity to pounce on his beleaguered ‘partner’, Gantz found his chance in a report published by the Israeli daily newspaper, Haaretz.

The Budget Conspiracy

On July 22, Haaretz reported that, “Netanyahu decided to not pass the budget for 2020 and to call a general election to take place on November 18,” to avoid the possibility of being forced to “handing over the keys to Defense Minister and Kahol Lavan Chairman, Benny Gantz” so that he, Netanyahu, may “attend legal proceedings” related to his corruption trial.

According to this claim, Netanyahu only agreed to swap the Prime Minister seat with Gantz come November 2021 just to buy time and to avoid a fourth election that would leave him vulnerable to an electoral defeat and to a corruption trial without a political safety net.

Despite the risk of yet another election, Netanyahu is keen to wrestle the Justice Ministry from Kahol Lavan’s hands, because whoever controls the Justice Ministry controls Netanyahu’s fate in Israeli courts. Leaving Gantz with such a powerful card is neither an option for the Likud nor for Netanyahu.

Hence, the Likud is insisting that the budget agreement can only last for one year, while Kahol Lavan is adamant that it must cover a period of two years. The Likud conspiracy, as revealed in Israeli media, suggests that the Likud Finance Minister, Israel Katz, plans to use the next budget negotiations as the reason to dismantle the right-center coalition and demand another election, thus denying Gantz his chance to serve his term as a prime minister, per the unity government agreement.

Crisis of a Fake Democracy

However, the crisis is larger than the dispute between Netanyahu and Gantz. While Israel has long prided itself on being “the only democracy in the Middle East”, the truth is that Israeli ‘democracy’ was, from the start, fraudulent, in that it catered to Israeli Jews and discriminated against everyone else.

In recent years, however, institutionalized racism and apartheid in Israel were no longer masked by clever political discourses. Netanyahu, in particular, has led the charge of making Israel the right-wing, chauvinistic, racist haven that it is today.

The fact that Netanyahu recently became Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister, elected repeatedly by Israel’s Jewish citizens, indicates that the Israeli leader is but a reflection of the larger ailments that have afflicted Israeli society as a whole.

Reducing the discussion to Netanyahu’s many failures might be convenient, but the demonstrable truth is that corrupt leaders can only exist in corrupt and unhealthy political systems. Israel is now the perfect example of that truism.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle.

8 August 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

Citing the Israeli military media reports from Jerusalem said:

Israeli fighter jets and attack helicopters struck military targets in southern Syria belonging to the Syrian army Monday night, hours after thwarting an infiltration attempt from Syria by suspected militants trying to plant explosives.

In a rare statement acknowledging strikes in neighboring Syria, the Israeli army said the targets included “observation posts and intelligence collection systems, anti-aircraft artillery facilities and command and control systems” in Syrian army bases.

Syria acknowledged the strikes, saying that Israeli helicopters fired missiles at Syrian army outposts and reported unspecified “material damage.”

Syrian state media said Israeli helicopters fired at Syrian checkpoints in al-Qunaitra, on the Golan Heights. There was no immediate word of any casualties.

The incident comes amid heightened tension on Israel’s northern frontier following a recent Israeli airstrike that killed a Hezbollah fighter in Syria and amid anticipation that the militant Lebanese group would retaliate.

Earlier Monday, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesperson, said Israeli troops spotted “irregular” activity in the Golan Heights. Israeli troops opened fire on the suspected militants, some of whom were armed, after observing them placing the explosives on the ground, Conricus said.

There was no official confirmation that the four suspected attackers were killed but a grainy video released by the army shows four figures walking away from barbed wire marking the frontier. The four then disappear in a large explosion that engulfed the area.

The Israeli military has not said if the four are suspected of ties to Iran or Hezbollah, two Syrian allies. However, Conricus said Israel held the Syrian government responsible for the incident.

Hezbollah denied being part of the operation.

Addressing Likud party lawmakers, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel “thwarted an attempted sabotage on the Syrian front” and would continue to “harm all those who try to harm us and all those who harm us.”

Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and later annexed the territory. The U.S. is the only country to have recognized Israel’s annexation.

Tensions have been high on Israel’s northern frontier following the Israeli airstrike that killed the Hezbollah fighter in Syria last month. Following the airstrike, the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights was hit by explosives fired from Syria and Israel responded by attacking Syrian military positions and beefing up its forces in the area.

Israel has been bracing for further retaliation and last week it said it thwarted an infiltration attempt from Lebanon by Hezbollah militants, setting off one of the heaviest exchanges of fire along the volatile Israel-Lebanon frontier since a 2006 war between the bitter enemies.

Israel considers Hezbollah to be its toughest and most immediate threat. Since battling Israel to a stalemate during a month long war in 2006, Hezbollah has gained more battlefield experience fighting alongside the Syrian government in that country’s bloody civil war.

After 40 years of calm, the Israel-Syrian frontier has heated up in recent years as Iran has tried to establish a military foothold on Israel’s doorstep while helping Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s years long war. Hezbollah also has aided Assad.

The military targets Israeli jets struck included intelligence-collection systems, observation posts, antiaircraft artillery facilities, and command and control centers, the Israeli army announced in a statement.

There was no comment from Syria on the fence incident.

The overnight encounter occurred at the same spot where until two years ago, Israel had operated a field hospital to treat Syrians who had been wounded in the Syrian civil war, Conricus told reporters.

4 August 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Jonathan Cook

Demonstrations have yet to draw a connection between Netanyahu’s personal abuses of office and the systemic corruption of Israeli politics, with the occupation its beating heart

Nazareth: Israel is roiling with angry street protests that local observers have warned could erupt into open civil strife – a development Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be encouraging.

For weeks, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv have been the scene of large, noisy demonstrations outside the official residences of Mr Netanyahu and his public security minister, Amir Ohana.

On Saturday night around 13,000 marched through Jerusalem shouting “Anyone but Bibi”, Netanyahu’s nickname. Their calls were echoed by tens of thousands more at locations across the country.

Turnout has been steadily growing, despite attacks on demonstrators from both the police and Netanyahu’s loyalists. The first protests abroad by Israeli expats have also been reported.

The protests, in defiance of physical distancing rules, are unprecedented by Israeli standards. They have bridged the gaping political divide between a small constituency of anti-occupation activists – disparagingly called “leftists” in Israel – and the much larger Israeli Jewish public that identifies politically as on the centre and the right.

For the first time, a section of Netanyahu’s natural supporters is out on the streets against him.

In contrast to earlier protests, such as a large social justice movement that occupied the streets in 2011 to oppose rising living costs, these demonstrations have not entirely eschewed political issues.

The target of the anger and frustration is decidedly personal at this stage – focused on the figure of Netanyahu, who is now Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. Protesters have renamed him Israel’s “crime minister”.

But also fuelling the protests is a larger mood of disenchantment as doubts grow about the state’s competence to deal with multiple crises unfolding in Israel. The virus has caused untold social and economic misery for many, with as much as one fifth of the labour force out of work. Netanyahu’s supporters in the lower middle-classes have been hit hardest.

Now well into a second wave, Israel has a per capita rate of infection that outstrips even the US. The shadow of a renewed lockdown amid government mishandling of the virus has undermined Netanyahu’s claim to be “Mr Security”.

There are concerns too about police brutality – starkly highlighted by the killing in May of an autistic Palestinian, Eyad Hallaq, in Jerusalem.

Police crackdowns on the protests, using riot squads, undercover agents, mounted police and water cannon, have underlined not just Netanyahu’s growing authoritarianism. There is a sense too that the police may be ready to use violence on dissenting Israelis that was once reserved for Palestinians.

After manipulating his right-wing rival, the former military general Benny Gantz, into joining him in a unity government in April, Netanyahu has effectively crushed any meaningful political opposition.

The agreement shattered Gantz’s Blue and White party, with many of his legislators refusing to enter the government, and has widely discredited the ex-general.

Netanyahu is reportedly preparing for a winter election – the fourth in two years – both to cash in on his opponents’ disarray and to avoid honouring a rotation agreement in which Gantz is due to replace him late next year.

According to the Israeli media, Netanyahu may find a pretext for forcing new elections by further delaying approval of the national budget, despite Israel facing its worst financial crisis in decades.

And, of course, overshadowing all this is the matter of the corruption charges against Netanyahu. Not only is he the first sitting prime minister in Israel to stand trial, but he has been using his role and the pandemic to his advantage, including by delaying court hearings.

In a time of profound crisis and uncertainty, many Israelis are wondering which policies are being pursued for the national good and which for Netanyahu’s personal benefit.

The government’s months-long focus on the annexation of swaths of Palestinian territory in the West Bank has looked like pandering to his settler constituency, creating a dangerous distraction from dealing with the pandemic.

Similarly, a one-off handout this week to every Israeli – over the strenuous objections of finance officials – looks suspiciously like an electoral bribe. As a result, Netanyahu is facing a rapid decline in support. A recent survey shows trust in him has fallen by half – from 57 per cent in March and April, when the Covid-19 pandemic began, to 29 per cent today.

Many Israelis increasingly see Netanyahu less as a father figure and more as a parasite draining resources from the body politic. Capturing the popular mood is a new art work called the “Last Supper” that was covertly installed in central Tel Aviv. It shows Netanyahu alone, gorging on a vast banquet by stuffing his hand into an enormous cake decorated with the Israeli flag.

In another move designed to highlight Netanyahu’s corrupt politics, better-off Israelis have been publicly organising to donate this week’s state handout to those in need.

Netanyahu’s repeated incitement against the protesters – disparaging them as “leftists” and “anarchists”, and suggesting they are spreading disease – appears to have backfired. It has only rallied more people to the street.

But the incitement and Netanyahu’s claims that he is the true victim – and that in the current climate he faces assassination – have been interpreted as a call to arms by some on the right. Last week five protesters were injured when his loyalists used clubs and broken bottles on them, with police appearing to turn a blind eye. Further attacks were reported at the weekend. Protest organisers said they had begun arranging defence units to protect demonstrators.

Ohana, the public security minister, has called for a ban on the protests and urged a heavy hand from the police. He has delayed appointing a new police chief – a move seen as incentivising local commanders to crack down on the protests to win favour. Large numbers of protesters have been forcefully arrested, with reports that police have questioned some on their political views.

Observers have wondered whether the protests can transcend party political tribalism and develop into a grassroots movement demanding real change. That might widen their appeal to even more disadvantaged groups, not least the one fifth of Israel’s citizens who belong to its Palestinian minority.

But it would also require more of the protesters to start drawing a direct connection between Netanyahu’s personal abuses of office and the wider, systemic corruption of Israeli politics, with the occupation its beating heart.

That may yet prove a tall order, especially when Israel faces no significant external pressure for change, either from the US or from Europe.

A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism.

3 August 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

Co-Written by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J S Davies

Tensions between the United States and China are rising as the U.S. election nears, with tit-for-tat consulate closures, new U.S. sanctions and no less than three U.S. aircraft carrier strike groups prowling the seas around China. But it is the United States that has initiated each new escalation in U.S.-China relations. China’s responses have been careful and proportionate, with Chinese officials such as Foreign Minister Wang Yi publicly asking the U.S. to step back from its brinkmanship to find common ground for diplomacy.

Most of the U.S. complaints about China are long-standing, from the treatment of the Uighur minority and disputes over islands and maritime borders in the South China Sea to accusations of unfair trade practices and support for protests in Hong Kong. But the answer to the “Why now?” question seems obvious: the approaching U.S. election.

Danny Russel, who was Obama’s top East Asia expert in the National Security Council and then at the State Department, told the BBC that the new tensions with China are partly an effort to divert attention from Trump’s bungled response to the Covid-19 pandemic and his tanking poll numbers, and that this “has a wag the dog feel to it.”

Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden has been going toe-to-toe with Trump and Secretary Pompeo in a potentially dangerous “tough on China” contest, which could prove difficult for the winner to walk back after the election.

Elections aside, there are two underlying forces at play in the current escalation of tensions, one economic and the other military. China’s economic miracle has lifted hundreds of millions of its people out of poverty, and, until recently, Western corporations were glad to make the most of its huge pool of cheap labor, weak workplace and environmental protections, and growing consumer market. Western leaders welcomed China into their club of wealthy, powerful countries with little fuss about human and civil rights or China’s domestic politics.

So what has changed? U.S.high-tech companies like Apple, which were once only too glad to outsource American jobs and train Chinese contractors and engineers to manufacture their products, are finally confronting the reality that they have not just outsourced jobs, but also skills and technology. Chinese companies and highly skilled workers are now leading some of the world’s latest technological advances.

The global rollout of 5G cellular technology has become a flashpoint, not because the increase and higher frequency of EMF radiation it involves may be dangerous to human health, which is a real concern, but because Chinese firms like Huawei and ZTE have developed and patented much of the critical infrastructure involved, leaving Silicon Valley in the unfamiliar position of having to play catch-up.

Also, if the U.S.’s 5G infrastructure is built by Huawei and ZTE instead of AT&T and Verizon, the U.S. government will no longer be able to require “back doors” that the NSA can use to spy on us all, so it is instead stoking fears that China could insert its own back doors in Chinese equipment to spy on us instead. Left out of the discussion is the real solution: repeal the Patriot Act and make sure that all the technology we use in our daily lives is secure from the prying eyes of both the U.S. and foreign governments.

China is investing in infrastructure all over the world. As of March 2020, a staggering 138 countries have joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a massive plan to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and maritime networks. China’s international influence will only be enhanced by its success, and the U.S.’s failure, in tackling the Covid-19 pandemic.

On the military front, the Obama and Trump administrations have both tried to “pivot to Asia” to confront China, even as the U.S. military remains bogged down in the Middle East. With a war-weary public demanding an end to the endless wars that have served to justify record military spending for nearly 20 years, the U.S. military-industrial complex has to find more substantial enemies to justify its continued existence and budget-busting costs. Lockheed Martin is not ready to switch from building billion-dollar warplanes on cost-plus contracts to making wind turbines and solar panels.

The only targets the U.S. can find to justify a $740-billion military budget and 800 overseas military bases are its familiar old Cold War enemies: Russia and China. They both expanded their modest military budgets after 2011, when the U.S. and its allies hi-jacked the Arab Spring to launch covert and proxy wars in Libya, where China had substantial oil interests, and Syria, a long-term Russian ally. But their increases in military spending were only relative. In 2019, China’s military budget was only $261 billion compared to the U.S.’s $732 billion, according to SIPRI. The U.S. still spends more on its military than the ten next largest military powers combined, including Russia and China.

Russian and Chinese military forces are almost entirely defensive, with an emphasis on advanced and effective anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems. Neither Russia nor China has invested in carrier strike groups to sail the seven seas or U.S.-style expeditionary forces to attack or invade countries on the other side of the planet. But they do have the forces and weapons they need to defend themselves and their people from any U.S. attack and both are nuclear powers, making a major war against either of them a more serious prospect than the U.S. military has faced anywhere since the Second World War.

China and Russia are both deadly serious about defending themselves, but we should not misinterpret that as enthusiasm for a new arms race or a sign of aggressive intentions on their part. It is U.S. imperialism and militarism that are driving the escalating tensions. The sad truth is that 30 years after the supposed end of the Cold War, the U.S. military-industrial complex has failed to reimagine itself in anything but Cold War terms, and its “New” Cold War is just a revival of the old Cold War that it spent the last three decades telling us it already won.

“China Is Not an Enemy”

The U.S. and China do not have to be enemies. Just a year ago, a hundred U.S. business, political and military leaders signed a public letter to President Trump in the Washington Post entitled “China Is Not an Enemy.” They wrote that China is not “an economic enemy or an existential national security threat,” and U.S opposition “will not prevent the continued expansion of the Chinese economy, a greater global market share for Chinese companies and an increase in China’s role in world affairs.”

They concluded that, “U.S. efforts to treat China as an enemy and decouple it from the global economy will damage the United States’ international role and reputation and undermine the economic interests of all nations,” and that the U.S. “could end up isolating itself rather than Beijing.”

That is precisely what is happening. Governments all over the world are collaborating with China to stop the spread of coronavirus and share the solutions with all who need them. The U.S. must stop pursuing its counterproductive effort to undermine China, and instead work with all our neighbors on this small planet. Only by cooperating with other nations and international organizations can we stop the pandemic—and address the coronavirus-sparked economic meltdown gripping the world economy and the many challenges we must all face together if we are to survive and thrive in the 21st century.

Medea Benjamin is cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher with CODEPINK and the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

3 August 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Richard Falk

1 Aug 2020 – Moved by the iconic recognition of John Lewis’ exceptional courage and perseverance on behalf of human rights, nonviolence, and opposition to American militarism, I recall a weekend spent together in Stockholm. We were the two invited American speakers at a conference opposing the American War in Vietnam. Although I spoke at many events devoted to these themes this may have been my most memorable occasion because Lewis made such an indelible impression. We shared meals together, and were hosted at the same hotel.

It was the very late 1960s not long after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, a time when these bloody events, including the Selma march and many others, brought success to the Civil Rights Movement, but far from a decisive victory that finally banished systemic racism from the American political and societal landscape. Lewis was the most radical figure in the movement against racial injustice I had encountered. At the time he was the activist leader of the Southern Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, better known as SNCC, which was seen as both dedicated to nonviolent struggle but more confrontational than the sort of national leadership provided by King.

I found Lewis engaging, brash, funny, charming, and above all, projecting a kind of radical aura that in the course of his life caused him, despite his lifelong adherence to principled nonviolence, to be the victim of repeated violent assaults by white supremacists, KKK members, and law enforcement as well as enduring 45 arrests and frequent jail time. I only learned later to appreciate his unswerving dedication to challenging racist moves to sustain the cruelties of white privilege throughout the South in every sphere of human existence, flagrantly trampling on both the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.

In my experience of Lewis, he was as passionate about opposing American war making in Vietnam as he had been previously celebratory of African liberation struggles. He famously often asked the rhetorical question as to why Lyndon Johnson was willing to send American troops to kill Vietnamese peasants thousands of miles away but unwilling to order Federal troops to protect African Americans seeking to uphold their most basic human rights within their own country. He gave such a talk along this general theme in Stockholm, exhibiting anger about the long-embedded injustices he was devoting his life to struggle against in America, and declaring this commitment as inseparable from his opposition to the unlawful devastation and suffering being visited upon the Vietnamese, a distant people of color.

As much as I enjoyed and learned from John Lewis as he came across in Sweden on that weekend it never occurred to me that he would become a member of Congress, and even less, that he was destined to emerge as the most widely revered African American leader and inspirational figure since MLK. Of course, his death in the midst of the pandemic and in the wake of the eruption of the most sustained protests against systemic racism added a special poignancy to his death, making it a symbolic complement to the police murder of George Floyd weeks earlier. The funeral for John Lewis featured emotional eulogies by Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Nancy Pelosi, whose collective eloquence lived up to this historic occasion, recognizing Lewis’ extraordinary dignity, persistence, and leadership. It could said that of his generation no single person better personified ‘the better angels’ of the American spirit that Lincoln summoned all of us to nurture than did John Lewis.

Thinking back to that weekend in Stockholm I marvel at how John Lewis reinvented himself, and rose to a position of moral preeminence and unsurpassed political wisdom and maturity, a progressive beacon for people like myself yet becoming mindful enough of the mainstream to win respect and exert influence almost across the entire political spectrum. The firebrand I had the precious experience of meeting over 50 years ago kept the fires within him burning brightly throughout his long life, while transforming his style so that all would listen and many would heed.

Unlike the other fallen heroes of the past century John Lewis realized the imminence of his death, and seized the opportunity to write a will and testament of faith and commitment to the American people as a whole, without a shred of bitterness or a trace of ethnic exclusiveness.

The text of his deathbed essay provide the guidance we so desperately need as a people, and an endangered species, to move toward the light despite the darkness of the hour.

I end with quotations from his essay that are so translucent as to make words of commentary or interpretation superfluous:

“Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.”

“Continue to build a broad union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.”

“So I say to you walk, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”

Richard Falk is a member of the TRANSCEND Network, an international relations scholar, professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, Distinguished Research Fellow, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB, author, co-author or editor of 60 books, and a speaker and activist on world affairs.

3 August 2020

Source: www.transcend.org