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By John Scales Avery

A new freely downloadable book

I would like to announce the publication of a book which presents evidence supporting the thesisthat elimination of excessive economic inequality makes societies happier and better. The book may be freely downloaded and circulated from the following link:

http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Benefits-of-Equality-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf

Ideals of the Enlightenment

The Age of Reason, or the Enlightenment was an intellectual and philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas during the 17th to 19th centuries. Sir Isaac Newton’s rational explanations for cosmic phenomena demonstrated that reason is better than superstition. Diderot’s Encyclopedia and the writings of Voltaire and Rousseau paved the way for the end of Feudalism, the end of the theory of the Divine Right of Kings, and the liberation of serfs and slaves throughout the world.

In England, John Locke was expressing the spirit of the times when he wrote: “Men living together according to reason, without a common superior on earth with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of nature… A state also of equality, wherein all the power and jurisdiction is reciprocal, no one having more than another; there being nothing more evident than that creatures of the same species, promiscuously born to all the same advantages of nature and the use of the same facilities, should also be equal amongst one another without subordination or subjection…”

“`But though this be a state of liberty, yet it is not a state of licence… The state of nature has a law to govern it, which obliges every one; and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.”

Locke’s ideas were reflected in the wording of the American Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalinable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. – That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

Sadly, these ideals do not hold in the United States today, and perhaps they never did. Although years of slavery were ended after the Civil War, and dispite the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement, racisim is widespread today, and in fact US President Donald Trump was elected on an openly racist platform. During his term of office he has been a racist in both word and deed.

Recently many American cities have erupted in protests over the senseless killing by police of yet another black man – George Floyd. The country is deeply divided.

Racism, colonialism and exceptionalism

It seems to be possible for nations, and the majority of their citizens, to commit the worst imaginable atrocities, including torture, murder and genocide, while feeling that what they are doing is both noble and good. Some understanding of how this is possible can be gained by watching the 3-part BBC documentary, “The History of Racism”:

http://www.africaspeaks.com/reasoning/index.php?topic=8708.0;prev_next=prev

The series was broadcast by BBC Four in March 2007, and videos of the broadcasts are available on the Internet. Watching this eye-opening documentary can give us much insight into the link between racism and colonialism. We can also begin to see how both racism and colonialism are linked to US exceptionalism and neocolonialism.

Looking at the BBC documentary we can see how often in human history economic greed and colonial exploitation have been justified by racist theories. The documentary describes almost unbelievable cruelties committed against the peoples of the Americas and Africa by Europeans. For example, in the Congo, a vast region which King Leopold II of Belgium claimed as his private property, the women of villages were held as hostages while the men were forced to gather rubber in the forests. Since neither the men nor the women could produce food under these circumstances, starvation was the result.

Leopold’s private army of 90,000 men were issued ammunition, and to make sure that they used it in the proper way, the army was ordered to cut off the hands of their victims and send them back as proof that the bullets had not been wasted. Human hands became a kind of currency, and hands were cut off from living men, women and children when rubber quotas were not fulfilled. Sometimes more than a thousand human hands were gathered in a single day. During the rule of Leopold, roughly 10,000,000 Congolese were killed, which was approximately half the population of the region.

Oligarchy and war

Today the world spends almost two trillion dollars ( $ 2,000,000,000,000) every year on armaments. This vast river of money, almost too large to be imagined, is the “devil’s dynamo” driving the institution of war. Politicians notoriously can be bought with a tiny fraction of this enormous amount; hence the decay of democracy. It is also plain that if the almost unbelievable sums now wasted on armaments were used constructively, most of the pressing problems now facing humanity could be solved.

Because the world spends almost two thousand billion dollars each year on armaments, it follows that very many people make their living from war. This is the reason why it is correct to speak of war as an institution, and why it persists, although we know that it is the cause of much of the suffering that inflicts humanity, and that we live under the constant threat of an all-destroying thermonuclear war.

Money from wealthy oligarchs in military-industrial complexes buys the propaganda of the mass media and the votes of politicians. Numbed by the propaganda, citizens allow politicians to vote for obscenely bloated military budgets, the oligarchs are further enriched, and thus the circular flow of money continues. Excessive economic inequality is at the root of the problem of war, as well as the loss of our democratic institutions.

The poor suffer most in the COVID-19 pandemic

The poor are suffering most from the COVID-19 pandemic. While the rich can isolate themselves in comfort, working people with no savings are faced with the choice between risking their lives in unsafe work-places or starvation because of lack of income. Here are quotetions from a recently-published article by Jake Johnson entitled “’Grotesque’: While 41 Million People Lost Jobs Due to Covid-19, US Billionaires Grew Nearly $500 Billion Richer”, Common Dreams, May 28, 2020:

“Billionaire wealth is surging at the same time that millions face suffering, hardship, and loss of life. This is a grotesque indicator of the deep inequalities in U.S. Society.

“Statistics released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Labor show that with 2.1 million new unemployment claims filed last week, a staggering 40.7 million Americans have lost their jobs over just the past 10 weeks as mass layoffs induced by the coronavirus pandemic continue.

“During that same 10-week period, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS), the combined net worth of America’s billionaires soared by nearly half a trillion dollars, bringing their total wealth to $3.4 trillion.”

Equality, happiness and renewable energy in Scandanavia

The Green New Deal can simultaneously address the climate crisis and the problem of excessive economic inequality. In this context, it is interesting to look at the social and economic systems of the Scandinavian countries, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Iceland.

In these countries the contrast between the rich and poor has been very much reduced. It is almost true to say that poverty has been eliminated in these countries. At the same time, the Scandinavians have strong policies to address the climate emergency. Thus Scandinavian successes are a counter-argument to those who say that the Green New Deal cannot be put into practice.

The Scandinavian countries also rank very highly on the Global Happiness Index and the Human Development Index, thus demonstrating the benefits of equality,

To achieve a happy and sustainable world, we urgently need to decrease excessive economic inequality, both within and between nations.

Other books and articles about global problems are on these links

http://eacpe.org/about-john-scales-avery/.

https://wsimag.com/authors/716-john-scales-avery

5 June 2020

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

“The media is the most powerful entity on earth. Because they control the minds of the masses, they have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power…If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” – Malcolm X

“For one bright moment back in the late 1960s, we actually believed that we could change our country. We had identified the enemy. We saw it up close, we had its measure, and we were very hopeful that we would prevail. The enemy was hollow where we had substance. All of that substance was destroyed by an assassin’s bullet.” – William Pepper (page 15, The Plot to Kill King)

***

Across America, as well as in Western Europe, there is an ongoing campaign against racism following the dramatic events in Minneapolis. Our thoughts are with George Floyd, his family and friends. We stand in solidarity with African-Americans who are the target of police killings and racial discrimination. Colonial and contemporary history has left its mark. Today, African-Americans are also the victims of neoliberalism which triggers poverty, social inequality and unemployment.

The campaign against racism including the protest movements cannot be divorced from the broader battle against neoliberalism and the carefully designed instruments of economic and social oppression.

At this juncture, there is an important question which must be addressed. The Covid-19 pandemic, which is based on manipulated data coupled with a fear campaign is destroying people’s lives. It is an act of economic and social warfare against humanity. It is carried out Worldwide.

The most recent evidence from a leaked report of Germany’s Ministry of the Interior confirms that the COVID-19 virus is a “Global False Alarm”. According to the team of experts contracted by the German Government, Covid-19 is of lesser significance than the 2017-2018 seasonal flu, which barely made the headlines. While the report acknowledges the dangers to public health, it nonetheless emphasizes that “The danger is obviously no greater than that of many other viruses. There is no evidence that this was more than a false alarm”. [in German in the report: globalen Fehlalarm]

Other reports come to similar conclusions not to mention the manipulation of death certificates.

Italy’s lockdown in early March was justified by quoting “fake data”. Vittorio Sgarbi, MP stated in Parliament that the closure of 60% of Italy’s economy was taken on the basis of an “estimated” 25,000 Coronavirus deaths.

“It’s not true,” he said. “According to the National Institute of Health, 96.3% did not die of coronavirus, but of other pathologies stated Sgarbi – which means that only 925 have died from the virus and 24,075 have died from other things claimed Sgarbi, “… the virus was little more than an influenza. Don’t lie! Tell the truth!”

The lies are numerous: Both in Britain and the US, “duplicate counting” has been used to inflate the reported positive cases.

Many prominent scientists and politicians have courageously spoken out:

Senator Dr. Scott Jensen of Minnesota “received a 7-page document that showed him how to fill out a death certificate as a “COVID-19 diagnosis” even when there isn’t a lab test confirming the diagnosis”. According to Jensen:

“Right now Medicare is determining that if you have a COVID-19 admission to the hospital you get $13,000. If that COVID-19 patient goes on a ventilator you get $39,000, three times as much. Nobody can tell me after 35 years in the world of medicine that sometimes those kinds of things impact on what we do.” (Dr. Sen. Scott Jensen, from Fox Interview, emphasis added)

Meanwhile, politicians have been lying through their teeth, the media has been entrusted to sustaining the fear campaign. People’s lives are threatened. Lies and Bribes are the driving force. Politicians and scientists are co-opted.

All of which is intent on justifying “social distancing” as well as enforcing the infamous lockdown which confines people to their homes, in many cases without income, food and medical attention. And people obey because they are scared.

But why have these issues not been raised by the anti-racism campaign?

Confinement is “racist”. It serves as a justification to deny peoples’ fundamental right to employment. It’s social engineering. The lockdown destroys our institutions, undermines family life and social relations, destroys culture (including music and the arts), closes down schools and universities, and of course it impoverishes large sectors of the World population.

And if the pandemic is “A Global False Alarm” (Official Germany Report), there is no justification for closing down the economy. But that report along many other independent reports is subject to media censorship.

The Anti-Racism Campaign and The Lockdown

The lockdown from the outset is being used as a means to destabilize the US economy and create massive unemployment. Why then is the campaign “against racism” firmly supportive of the lockdown?

This campaign against racism is not a protest movement against the financial elites who are pressuring governments to postpone the reopening of the national economy as long as possible.

Big Money controls the politicians. They control the media that wages the fear campaign. They are also the creditors of the State, who are now in the process of concocting a multi-trillion dollar loan package for indebted governments. Their intent is to deregulate the labor market, and pick up the pieces of bankrupt enterprises.

The protests and the riots serve their interests. The financial elites are not the target of the protest movement. Quite the opposite: their elite billionaire foundations are supporting many of the progressive NGOs which are waging the campaign against racism, while also paying lip service to the Democratic Party which is firmly against the reopening of the US economy as part of their 2020 election campaign.

BLM’s #WhatMatters2020 is a campaign aimed to maximize the impact of the BLM movement by galvanizing BLM supporters and allies to the polls in the 2020 U.S Presidential Election to build collective power and ensure candidates are held accountable for the issues that systematically and disproportionately impact Black and under-served communities across the nation.

BLM’s #WhatMatters2020 will focus on issues concerning racial injustice, police brutality, criminal justice reform, Black immigration, economic injustice, LGBTQIA+ and human rights, environmental injustice, access to healthcare, access to quality education, and voting rights and suppression.

This initiative will inspire and motivate people to ask themselves and their candidates are you really addressing What Matters in 2020?

“What Matters in 2020?” While rightly focussing on the police killings and the criminalization of justice, What Black Lives Matter fails to address is that African-Americans are the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic fear campaign, which in practice is contributing to social divisions, racism and the development beyond bounds of a police state apparatus.

It’s a scam: Confinement creates unemployment, affecting African-American communities across the United States. It is an instrument of “economic injustice”. It’s neoliberalism.

The economic and social “collateral damage” of COVID-19 is mass unemployment, poverty, death and despair. It emanates from the financial establishment.

Supporting the lockdown which creates poverty and disrupts economic activity Worldwide has de facto racist overtones. Why? Because it destroys peoples lives.

The damage incurred by a “global economic lockdown” far exceeds the health impacts of the corona virus.

The objective of the financial elites, the billionaire foundations and philanthropists is the concentration of wealth, bankruptcy of the real economy, mass unemployment, social inequality and racism.

If you are against racism, an end to confinement, the reopening of the national economy and the restoration of employment should be a number one priority.

To put it bluntly: There is no mass protest movement against the COVID-19 lockdown. The lies are accepted at face value.

The WHO is funded by the Gates Foundation and Big Pharma, politicians around the World are co-opted and bribed. But at the same time, the billionaire charities and foundations (including Soros, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller et al) are financing the “progressive” anti-racist NGOs, which are acting as a “controlled opposition”.

Manufactured dissent and the funding of dissent is also a multibillion dollar undertaking. “The mechanisms of “manufacturing dissent” require a manipulative environment, a process of arm-twisting and subtle cooptation of individuals within progressive organizations”.

And these NGOs have decided to overlook the fact that African-Americans are the victims of neoliberalism and the lockdown of the US economy.

And the lockdown is an integral part of the 2020 election platform of the Democratic Party, which is a neoliberal pro-war racist agenda imposed by Wall Street, Big Pharma, the Military Industrial Complex, et al.

You cannot wage a battle against the Empire and then ask the Empire to finance your protest movements.

“Everything the [Ford] Foundation did could be regarded as “making the World safe for capitalism”, reducing social tensions by helping to comfort the afflicted, provide safety valves for the angry, and improve the functioning of government (McGeorge Bundy, former National Security Advisor and president of the Ford Foundation, (1966-1979)

BLM does not in any way “endanger” global capitalism:

“… Black Lives Matter is increasingly awash in cash, raking in pledges of more than $100 million from liberal foundations [2016]… [including] The Ford Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy … That funding comes in addition to more than $33 million from top Democratic Party donor George Soros …, as well as grant-making from the Center for American Progress.” [headed by John Podesta Jr., Obama’s White House chief of staff]

This is not an issue of “choice” between Republicans and Democrats both of which are racist and corrupt. It is an issue of confronting the “Big Money” architects of this diabolical project to destabilize the economy, social relations and institutions of the entire planet. The police state and racism is an integral part of that “destabilization agenda”.

A Real Grassroots Movement

What we need is a real grassroots movement, across the land, nationally and internationally, independent of corporate funding. The Coronavirus crisis is an act of war against humanity. We must reach out to all those who are victims of the corona crisis. The legitimacy of the COVID-19 pandemic depends on fear, disinformation and submission to higher authority.

Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest for profit is the overriding force.

What is required is the development of a broad based independent grassroots network at all levels of society, urban areas, towns and villages, work places, parishes. Workers and farmers organizations, professional associations, business associations, schools, student unions, veterans associations, artists, musicians, church groups would be called upon to integrate this movement. The COVID-19 pandemic is based on a Lie. The consensus has to be broken.

Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal, Editor of Global Research.

6 June 2020

Source: www.globalresearch.ca

By Dr Gideon Polya

Some Palestinian friends in wonderful, peaceful but presently Covid-19 lockdown Melbourne, were considering celebrating International Falafel Day (12 June). The falafel is a delicious Palestinian and Middle Eastern delicacy that is a spicy, deep fried ball or patty made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans. Apartheid Israel having stolen the whole country of Palestine has also appropriated the falafel as its own. On this account I wrote the Palestine Genocide poem “And Then They Stole The Falafel”.

My poem was inspired at several levels by the famous poem by anti-Nazi German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller and known in various forms by the key phrases “First they came..” and “Then they came for me” [1]:

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

My Palestinian Genocide poem began its life as a huge List of things the racist Zionists had stolen but I was encouraged to trim it down, and make it scan as the Poem that is reproduced below.

And then they stole the falafel

The violent, lying Zionists stole

All of the ancient land of Palestine,

Three cities, hundreds of villages and towns,

An ancient land ethnically cleansed.

They stole the human rights of Palestinians,

Of Exiled Palestinians, Occupied Palestinians,

And of Israeli Palestinians living as oppressed

Third Class Citizens under race-based laws.

They stole the lives of two million Palestinians,

A hundred thousand dying violently, and

Over two million dying from imposed deprivation

In a Palestinian Holocaust and Palestinian Genocide.

They stole the futures of millions of children

Abusively imprisoned without charge or trial

In refugee camps, West Bank ghettoes,

And the blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp.

They stole the future of all the World’s children

Under threat from Israeli and other nuclear terrorism,

And stole free speech in Zionist-subverted

America, Britain, Canada and Australia.

They stole an ancient religion, Judaism,

Subverting humanism for evil state terrorism,

And the actual history of the non-Semitic Ashkenazim

And of other Jewish peoples around the world.

They stole the very name of Israel,

The ancient name of Torah-observant Jews,

And the religious language of Hebrew,

In the interests of Anglo-American imperialism.

They stole the ancient city of Al Quds,

The third holiest city for Muslims,

And backed America in the US-imposed, post-9-11

Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide.

They stole the Jewish Israeli heritage

Of Berber, Arabic and Yiddish language,

And with evil America helped destroy

Aramaic-speaking societies from Palestine to Iraq.

They stole the flag of Apartheid Israel

From the innocent Greeks, with the Star of David

Stolen from anti-Zionist Orthodox Judaism;

Their national anthem they stole from Smetana.

They stole the reputations of anti-racist Jews,

And of all those opposed to genocide and Apartheid.

They stole the name of a hill facing the Mount of Olives,

Renaming it for genocidal psychopath Herzl.

And then they stole the falafel.

Gideon Polya, 31 May 2020

For those interested in the details and documentation of various aspects of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide the following “Stolen List” may be useful (key, wide-ranging references are [2-25]).

The mendacious, violent, thieving and genocidally racist Zionists stole

(1). the whole of the ancient land of Palestine,

(2). 3 cities (including Al Quds, or Jerusalem, the third holiest city for 1,600 million Muslims around the world),

(3). 400 villages and towns,

(4). the human rights of 14 million Indigenous Palestinians.

(5). all the human rights of 5 million Occupied Palestinians (removal of all human rights specified in the 30 Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) [26-28].

(6). the human rights of 7 million Exiled Palestinians,

(7). the human rights of 2 million ”lucky” Palestinian Israelis subject to over 60 Nazi-style, race-based laws [26, 27],

(8). the actual lives of 2.2 million Palestinians (0.1 million violent deaths, 2 million avoidable, premature deaths from imposed deprivation in the over 100 year, ongoing Palestinian Genocide),

(9). over 90% of the land of Palestine,

(10). the future of 1 million children highly abusively imprisoned without charge or trial in the Gaza Concentration Camp,

(11). the future of 1.5 million children imprisoned in West Bank ghettoes,

(12). the future of 3.5 million Palestinian refugee children,

(13). the future of all the World’s children (Apartheid Israel’s nuclear terrorism via its up to 400 nuclear weapons existentially threatens Humanity and the Biosphere) [29],

(14). effective free speech in Zionist-subverted countries (notably the US, UK , France, Canada and Australia [30-39),

(15). a religion (Judaism, subverted and thence appropriated by a genocidally racist ideology and a nuclear terrorist state) [40],

(16). the actual history of the non-Semitic, Khazar-derived, Eastern European Ashkenazim and indeed of all other Jews[ 40-45],

(17). the very name Israel (the collective originally describing Torah-observant Jews),

(18). the very language of Israel (stolen from use of Hebrew in religious observance in Judaism, with the variously Berber, Arabic and Yiddish of the colonists being “disappeared” in the interests of racist Zionism, oil, and Anglo-American imperialism),

(19). the flag of Apartheid Israel (the colour scheme and design concept from the Greek flag, and the Star of David from anti-Zionist Orthodox Judaism),

(20). the reputation and dignity of decent, anti-racist Jews and indeed of all people opposed to racism , genocide and Apartheid,

(21). the reputation and dignity of everyone in a silence-is-complicity Western World that supports nuclear terrorist, democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel and hence racism, genocide and Apartheid,

(22). the conscience of the West by promoting and participating in the US-imposed, post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide (32 million Muslims killed dead from violence (5 million) or from deprivation (27 million), in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance after the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity (3,000 killed) that many science, architecture, engineering, aviation, military and intelligence experts conclude involved the US Government with some asserting Israel and Saudi involvement [33, 35],

(23). the name of an ancient hill facing the Mount of Olives and re-named Mount Herzl after genocidally racist psychopath Theodor Herzl (founder of genocidal Zionism) [46].

(24). the Israeli national anthem, the Hatikva (the theme of the Vltava, the River Moldau, in Czech composer Bedrich Smetana’s beautiful symphonic poem, “My Country” (“Má vlast”) ) [47].

(25). and then they stole the falafel.

Final comments.

Decent anti-racist Jewish and non-Jewish people around the world must act (a) by informing everyone they can about the evil of Apartheid Israel and its ongoing Palestinian Genocide, and (b) by urging and applying Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, politicians, parties, collectives, companies and countries complicit in these atrocities, as indeed were successfully applied against Apartheid in Apartheid South Africa.

All this evil was utterly avoidable as evidenced by successful multi-racial societies across the world from the Canada and the UK to Fiji. A clear, humane solution to the continuing human rights catastrophe in Palestine is a unitary state (one-state solution, bi-national state) 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, economic decency for all, one-person-one-vote democracy, 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 [15].

And then they can all sit down and have falafels together.

References.

[1]. ”First they came…”, Wikipedia:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_…  .

[2]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s Palestinian Genocide & Australia’s Aboriginal  Genocide compared”, Countercurrents, 20 February 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/02/20/apartheid-israels-palestinian-genocide-australias-aboriginal-genocide-compared/  .

[3]. 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/ .

[4]. 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/ .

[5]. 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 .

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

[7]. Gideon Polya, “COVID-19: Occupiers US, Australia & Apartheid Israel grossly violate Geneva Convention re conquered Subjects”, Countercurrents, 7 May 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/05/covid-19-occupiers-us-australia-apartheid-israel-grossly-violate-geneva-convention-re-conquered-subjects/ .

[8]. “Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/home .

[9]. “Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .

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

[11]. “Gaza Concentration Camp”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration  .

[12].  “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban .

[13]. “Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .

[14]. Apartheid Israeli state terrorism: (A) individuals  exposing Apartheid Israeli state terrorism, and (B) countries subject to Apartheid Israeli state terrorism.”, Palestinian Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/apartheid-israeli-state-terrorism .

[15].  “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 .

[16]. “Stop state terrorism” : https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/  .

[17]. “State crime and non-state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/  .

[18]. 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 .

[19]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide.

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

[21]. United Nations, “Israel’s settlements have no legal validity, constitute flagrant violations of international law, Security Council reaffirms.   14 delegations in favour of Resolution 2334 as United States abstains”, 23 December 2016: https://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12657.doc.htm .

[22]. Gideon Polya, “Is UN Security Council Resolution 2334 the beginning of the end for Apartheid Israel?””, Countercurrents, 28 December 2016: https://countercurrents.org/2016/12/28/is-un-security-council-resolution-2334-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-apartheid-israel/ .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “Anti-racist Jewish humanitarians oppose Apartheid Israel & support UN Security Council Resolution 2334”, Countercurrents, 13 January 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/01/13/anti-racist-jewish-humanitarians-oppose-apartheid-israel-support-un-security-council-resolution-2334/ .

[24]. Gideon Polya, “Israelis kill 10 times more Israelis in Apartheid Israel than do terrorists”, Countercurrents, 1 March 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/03/01/israelis-kill-ten-times-more-israelis-in-apartheid-israel-than-do-terrorists/ .

[25]. Gideon Polya, “Gideon Polya: “Pro-Apartheid Israel Australian Labor Party scraps outstanding  anti-Apartheid candidate, Melissa Parke”, Countercurrents, 17 April 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/pro-apartheid-israel-australian-labor-party-scraps-outstanding-anti-apartheid-candidate-melissa-parke/ .

[26]. 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 .

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

[28]. “Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War”, 12 August 1949: https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.33_GC-IV-EN.pdf .

[29]. Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty & reverse  climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .

[30]. Gideon Polya, “Australian xenophobia targets China but ignores huge Israeli subversion of Australia”, Countercurrents, 7 July 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/07/07/australian-xenophobia-targets-china-but-ignores-huge-israeli-subversion-of-australia/ .

[31].  “Subversion of Australia”: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/  .

[32]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel & pro-Apartheid US & Canada face word sanctions over  Occupied Jerusalem”, Countercurrents, 20 December 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/12/20/apartheid-israel-pro-apartheid-us-australia-canada-face-world-sanctions-over-occupied-east-jerusalem/ .

[33]. 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: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[34].  Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel & pro-Apartheid US & Canada face word sanctions over  Occupied Jerusalem”, Countercurrents, 20 December 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/12/20/apartheid-israel-pro-apartheid-us-australia-canada-face-world-sanctions-over-occupied-east-jerusalem/ .

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

[36]. Gideon Polya, “Refutation Of Mainstream-Accepted Racist Zionist Lies Behind  Israel ‘s Gaza Massacres And Palestinian Genocide”,  Countercurrents, 26 July, 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya260714.htm .

[37]. Gideon Polya, “Dual Israeli citizenship & Zionist perversion of America, Australia , India and Humanity”, Countercurrents, 30 July 2017 : https://countercurrents.org/2017/07/30/dual-israeli-citizenship-zionist-perversion-of-america-australia-india-humanity/ .

[38]. Gideon Polya, “Racist Zionism and Israeli State Terrorism threats to Australia and Humanity”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/racist-zionism-and-israeli

[39]. 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 .

[40]. Neturei Karta, “Israeli Independence Day”: http://www.nkusa.org/activities/Statements/20090429IID.cfm .

[41]. Shlomo Sand, “The Invention of the Jewish People”, Verso, London, 2009.

[42]. Arthur Koestler, “The Thirteenth Tribe”.

[43]. Eran Elhaik, “Uncovering Ashkenaz, birthplace of Yiddish speakers”, The Conversation, 6 May 2016:  https://theconversation.com/uncovering-ancient-ashkenaz-the-birthplace-of-yiddish-speakers-58355 .

[44]. Martin Richards et al, “A substantial prehistoric European ancestry amongst Ashkenazi maternal lineages”, Nature, 2013: http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2013/131008/ncomms3543/full/ncomms3543.html  .

[45]. Gideon Polya, “Professor Stuart Rees awarded inaugural Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace prize by supporters of Palestinian human rights”, Countercurrents, 6 December 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/12/professor-stuart-rees-awarded-inaugural-jerusalem-al-quds-peace-prize-by-supporters-of-palestinian-human-rights/ .

[46]. Gideon Polya, “Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide”, Palestinian Genocide : https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes .

[47]. “Má vlast”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A1_vlast .

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, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London , 2003).

31 May 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat

Two of the biggest democracies in the world now face the biggest challenges in their political history. Yes, I am speaking about United States and India. One has failed to accommodate the huge Black population victim of the racism in that country while the other has failed to include the Dalits in the decision making as caste hatred and caste related violence and discrimination is on the rise in India. In fact, Indians take their caste identities along with them when they travel to US as well as other countries such as UK, and Canada.

First let us speak about, United States, which claimed to be the ‘greatest’ democracies of the world actually getting exposed with the growing anxiety among its African American or Black people who remained excluded in the large part of the American life. The brutal murder of a black man George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25th, 2020 sparked an unprecedented outrage in the entire United States and it look as if the level of tolerance and patience shown by the huge black population was now over. Over the years, we have seen American police killing youth of the African American origins at will and the discrimination and exclusion was growing. With President Donald Trump openly siding with white supremacists, it was clear that unless the huge black population does not rise in revolt things wont change.

The way George Floyd was murdered shows the deep rooted prejudices against the African American. Today, a situation has arisen when black youth does not know whether he will return home safe or not. Just a few days ago, there was a video of a white woman calling police in a park where a black youth has just asked her to put her dog on a leash as was required when you bring a pet in the park. Just on this, the woman named Amy Cooper, who worked with Franklin Templeton, called the police that this man whose name is Christian Cooper and hailing from African American origin, is threatening her. Now, can you imagine what happens in the united states when a black man or woman face the police?

George Floyd begged the police officer that he has health issues, he cant breath.. if you watch the video, he is in pain, begging to the police officer Derek Chauvin kept his knee over his neck for nearly 8 minutes resulting in painful death. Other police officers too were holding him in such a way that there was no way. George Floyd was arrested for giving fake USD 20 currency in a Deli i.e. Grocery Store combined with a restaurant. Police accused him of not cooperating though the video which was shot by some one shows Floyd begging that he has problem in breathing, dont push your knee on his neck but then the American police has does it that way.

Anyone who saw the video was actually pained. Good thing is that people across community lines including media, the Hollywood as well as big corporations have now started speaking against racism which is a good sign but this is not going to get resolved without the fair representation and participation of the African American in the American power structure. A huge country like America can not have two white dominated corporate funded political parties. The American system has this problem and now the issue of race relations has put the biggest challenge before them. An incompetent leadership which is encouraging white supremacists in the name of ‘America First’ has created such a deep divide that it will need a lot of perseverance and nation building exercise again. You need statesman. Often, the political leadership quote Martin Luther King Jr whenever such crisis comes but African American at the moment seem to tilt more towards the assertive Malcolm X.

India and Indians are not in a good position to preach the United States about ‘democracy’ and ‘equality’. If the police stations, FIRs and killing in the custody is concern, the caste pattern of our forces come out in open. Prejudices are high and in the last one decade situation has worsened. Corona has created more fears among the marginalised while anti CAA protests and subsequent cases being framed against activists belonging to minorities as well as marginalised sections clearly reflect the pattern that powers here too are working on an agenda to strengthen the Savarna monopoly over our administration, judiciary, media and polity. Democracy is not merely voting in five years but in real sense democracy is accepting diversity and divergent views but in today’s India it is difficult to have a dissenting view because you fear the repercussion. You write anything and somebody feel ‘hurt’ in jhumaritalllaiyaa and file a case against you. You dont know the place and dont have the resources but the police can come knocking your door any time and behave the same way as the American do, perhaps worst than them as policing is a colonial system in this country.

But in terms of participation in political structure is concern, thank to Baba Saheb Ambedkar the spaces for the Dalits and other sections is far better than America as Congress there does not have enough Black representative. More over, it is difficult to have political parties in the US without corporate support and there are lobbies. The African American population is not fairly represented. There are no welfare programmes unlike India where we have not only political reservation but also job reservation. But what makes United States better and greater is that it provided opportunities to all. It learnt its lessons from every mistake. The African American people fought and got their dues though not enough but society is individuals and you dont find khap panchayats or a religious rights group threatening to kill you. You can eat what you like, whether Jhatka or Halal, pork or beef and go anywhere, meet any one and enjoy your life. We have so many moral guardians here that life has become more difficult.

So, in the US they have better system and a better social order and that is why even corporate houses like NIke condemn it and Frenklin Templton actually dismissed the woman who called police to falsely implicate the black man in the park. In India such things are rare. In fact, the companies are completely brahmanical dominated by Banias and Jains. All these companies lack diversity at their managerial level. They would not even like to have diversity in their offices. Our news offices are dominated by a few savarna communities and so is the social life where prejudices run deep.

Things were turning better but then we have the onslaught of the right wing supremacists who felt that it is time to deepen their hegemony. The two great democracies are now facing the biggest challenge but it will continue unless they become inclusive embrace dialogue and respect divergent views. If political protest are considered anti nationals and sought to be handled through ‘administrative’ methods where minorities, Dalits, Adivasis, Blacks, African American are considered as criminal or terrorists then situation will turn explosive. Political leadership has to speak up and put a healing touch as the scars are deep. Mature democracies believe in dialogues and resolution through discussions, debate and inclusion. It is time our political leadership show maturity and initiate a dialogue and protect our democracies.

Vidya Bhushan Rawat is a social activist.

31 May 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Sally Dugman

I remember on MA tv news watching a white man getting arrested in my state by police for verbally harassing a black couple on a motorcycle in his neighborhood. It was considered a hate crime.

I recall my black friend leading a peaceful protest outside of an MA library against NH white supremacists together in a meeting there. Library administration there started blocking the group from being there in a meeting.

One of our MA sports Icons drove 15 hours to GA to join a protest there where he grew up as a child. How not?

I started stopping racism when I was five years old — the same year that I also tried to help Hiroshima Maidens. It is simply intolerable. Enough!

I have tried throughout my entire life to live peacefully. Yet I can understand the riots in the USA about George Floyd. We are all fed up!

Floyd’s final words are below. They read like some sick sort of poem — a poem from Hell.

“It’s my face man
I didn’t do nothing serious man
please
please
please I can’t breathe
please man
please somebody
please man
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
please
(inaudible)
man can’t breathe, my face
just get up
I can’t breathe
please (inaudible)
I can’t breathe sh*t
I will
I can’t move
mama
mama
I can’t
my knee
my nuts
I’m through
I’m through
I’m claustrophobic
my stomach hurt
my neck hurts
everything hurts
some water or something
please
please
I can’t breathe officer
don’t kill me
they gon’ kill me man
come on man
I cannot breathe
I cannot breathe
they gon’ kill me
they gon’ kill me
I can’t breathe
I can’t breathe
please sir
please
please
please I can’t breathe”

I’m sorry for you if you are a racist. The rest of us just can’t take your stance anymore.

Sally Dugman writes from MA, USA.

31 May 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Collective

(This is Part-2 of a two-part Report; this one deals with various dimensions of the issue. Part-1 was published on May24, with the title, India-Nepal Border Issue Raked Up, Relations Strained Once Again.)

Even as Covid-19 health crisis, and its cascading effect on the economic crisis — both are aggravating in India — are upsetting Modi Government’s claims and calculations on both fronts, there is now an added diplomatic crisis and a new thorn along India’s borders, resulting from new maps issued by both sides.

India had blamed some foreigners for its Covid-19 aggravation. Now it is at the receiving end : Nepal’s PM, KP Sharma Oli, on May 25 said that “those coming from India are entering Nepal without proper check, which is leading to further spread of the virus, ” News 18.com reported.

Only a few weeks ago, Nepal had thanked India for its support to counter Covid-19. And now this remark by Oli hurts India’s image; it rather shows the level of bitterness, worsening every day, in the bilateral relations, though not far-fetched:

Tens of thousands of Nepalis are among the lakhs of India’s migrant labor going back home. Nepal is a unique neighbour sharing an open border with India. Nepali citizens – yes, citizens – serve in India’s Gorkha regiments, a historical legacy of colonial rule. Up to 1.5 million Nepali migrants work as an underclass in India’s informal economy, just as millions of Indians work in Gulf.

Nepal provides employment to hundreds of thousands of Indian labour migrants and is the seventh-largest remittance source to India’s economy – that too, to the poorest parts stretching from eastern Uttar Pradesh through Bihar to Orissa, says Nepali expert Kanak Mani Dixit.

This situation, resulting from a historical linkage of both sides, underlines the urgency with which the relations need to be saved from further worsening.

*** ***

“ Nepal and India enter a state of cartographic war”

Nepal on May 20 Wednesday released its new political and administrative map, approved by Cabinet on May 18, the first since the signing of the Treaty of Sugauli in 1816, including territories that have long been claimed by both Nepal and India. With release of a new map (see below), Nepal and India enter a state of ‘cartographic war’, experts say.

The move announced by Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali came weeks after he said that efforts were on to resolve the border issue with India through diplomatic initiatives (PTI).

India’s new political map (left) includes the disputed territory of Kalapani. Nepal’s official map (right) also shows Kalapani inside its border. Map images via India’s Home Ministry & Nepal’s Survey Department. India had issued a new map in 2019 November, after Kashmir re-organization last year. Nepal protested, talks promised by India never came, resulting in a new map issued by Nepal. (kathmandupost.com)

The Indo-Tibetan Border Police are already there establishing India’s claim. In fact, since the 1962 war with China, the Indians have been having an armed contingent in this area.

Nepal now deployed Armed Police Force (APF) at Lipulekh, and established camps. The APF border outpost was inaugurated by APF Additional Inspector General Narayan Babu Thapa.

This has thus become yet another thorny issue in South Asia, embarrassing India. This round started on May 8 when a border road was inaugurated by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Covid times.

After week-long protests, despite Covid-19, in Nepal, now comes the new map from Nepal.

Activists affiliated with ‘Human Rights and Peace Society Nepal’ holding placards protest against the alleged encroachment of Nepal border by India in far west of Nepal, near the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal May 12, 2020. | Photo Credit: REUTERS

kathmandupost.com reported , May 21, 2020

“We are now in a cartographic war because both countries have claimed the same territory,” Toyanath Baral, former director general of the Survey Department, told the Post. “This will put pressure on both sides to break the status quo and sit for negotiations.”

“India has been occupying the land but it is reluctant to sit for talks. The situation will likely become more complicated in the days to come but with the release of the new map, there will be pressure on both sides to sit for talks and resolve the issue,” said Baral.

With this map, “ the entire gamut of Nepal-India relations could change. The time has come to revisit the status quo prevailing since the 1960s in our ties since the Sugauli Treaty,” said Kamal Thapa, a former foreign minister who has a long history of negotiating with India on various issues.

“India has placed its troops in Kalapani due to strategic reasons, so negotiations will be difficult but Nepal should not let the issue go.”

“We could revisit the relevancy of the 1950 peace and friendship treaty and the open border, which will ultimately pave the way for more robust Nepal-India relations,” he said.

“We expect that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will circulate a notice to the United Nations, foreign countries and other multilateral organisations about Nepal’s adoption of the new map,” he said, apart from use in text books.

*** ***

Modi-led India too antagonized Nepal quite soon

From 1997 to 2014, no Indian prime minister visited Nepal, but almost all Nepali PMs began foreign state visits with India. In 2014 alone, Modi broke that, visited Nepal four times in his five-year tenure. After a gap of 22 years, the Nepal-India Joint Commission (NIJC), a mechanism responsible for overseeing bilateral issues, had a meeting. All these had raised hopes in Nepal.

PM AB Vajpayee had talks with Nepal’s PM Grija Prasad Koirala in July 2000. Both sides had agreed to conduct a field survey to demarcate Kalapani, now in limelight. A Joint Boundary Committee (JBC) was given the task of providing reports using new strip maps, but Delhi refused to withdraw troops from Kalapani. So with Modi-led BJP in power, there were some hopes of good days.

The Joint Statement of August 04, 2014, issued after PM Modi paid an official visit to Nepal from August 3-4, 2014, revived those hopes :

The two Prime Ministers also underlined the need to resolve pending Nepal-India boundary issues once and for all. They welcomed the formation of the Boundary Working Group (BWG) to undertake the construction, restoration and repair of boundary pillars including clearance of ‘Noman’s land’ and other technical tasks. They also welcomed the Joint Commission’s decision to direct the Foreign Secretaries to work on the outstanding boundary issues, including Kalapani and Susta receiving required technical inputs from the BWG as necessary. The Indian side stressed on early signing of the agreed and initialed strip maps of about 98% of the boundary. The Nepalese side expressed its desire to resolve all outstanding boundary issues. (Point No. 12 of the Joint Statement)

While that agreement was not pursued, the relations were soured once again when Modi-led India tried to impose its views while framing a new Constitution for Nepal, leading to endless delays. Secularism and ethnic federalism were sought to be interpreted the way India wanted them, and unacceptable to Nepali polity.

On this new constitution, India interfered, imposed a border blockade to press Nepali leaders to address the demands of pro-India Madhesi-based parties (active in the southern belt bordering India). These tensions continued for four months, and the hopes of a new Nepal policy were belied.

K.P. Sharma Oli-led government had stood up, survived the blockade, adopted an independent foreign policy friendly towards China, and the big brother India was angry. His regime was toppled in 2016 July, CPN-UML leader Oli charged openly, with India playing a “primary role” in orchestrating the Opposition Nepali Congress(NC) and Prachanda-led CPN- Maoist against his regime.

Modi-led India continued the earlier policy to arm twist Nepal to give up its equi-distance policy so as to adopt a policy of subservience to India, as per the unequal Trade and Transit Treaty as also the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, 1950 that perpetuates the British colonial policy of according a protectorate status to Nepal whereby its foreign and defence policies were controlled by India. Nepal has been, for decades, pressing for its revision, preferably annulment.

Despite all this, Nepal, was forced to live amicably with its Southern neighbor, India. The land-locked country could get some freedom with help from China in trade and transit, and it became a land-linked country as Xi Jinping described.

Unequal trade, trade bottlenecks, trade deficit, inundation of Nepali land due to Indian construction along the border, apart from the border dispute that is plaguing India-Nepal relations.

Apart from NIJC, an Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) was formed to sort out bilateral issues and unequal relations. There was little progress, however.

And now came this latest dispute, with a potential to become yet another hot spot along the border, which must be resolved.

“India is treating Nepal as though it is Pakistan with regards to the border issue”, said NC leader Sher Bahadur Deuba, ex-PM with several stints, who was close to India. That sums up the latest round of bitterness.

*** ***

Original copies of both Sugauli Treaty and Nepal-India Friendship Treaty are missing
That was the title of intriguing report by Anil Giri, in kathmandupost.com on August 13, 2019 . Anil Giri is its reporter covering diplomacy, international relations and national politics. Giri also contributed to numerous national and international media outlets. His report :

In 2016, as the Eminent Persons’ Group on Nepal-India Relations sat for talks to review or replace the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship, the Nepal team had attempted to locate the original document, signed by then prime minister Mohan Shumsher and Indian ambassador to Nepal Chandeshwar Prasad Narayan Singh. It failed to do so.

The issue was then raised in Parliament,by Nepali Congress MP and shadow Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka. A parliamentary inquiry had been launched into the location of these documents. On July 22, the Delegated Legislation and Governance Committee of the National Assembly concluded that the original copies of the Sugauli Treaty and Nepal-India Peace and Friendship Treaty were not to be found within the country.

The committee had conducted a thorough search, in vain, in all possible locations including Law and Foreign Ministry, libraries, archives, Department of Archaeology, the Narayanhiti Museum.

“We have both treaties but we have to forensically verify whether these copies are originals or not,” said Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali “We are also trying to find historical documents and maps in India and the United Kingdom.”

Some historians and parliamentarians believe that Nepal’s copies of these originals have made their way abroad.

Pavitra Niraula, the chairperson of the International Committee of the Legislative Parliament, told the Post that the original copy of 1950 Peace and Friendship Treaty is in India while the Treaty of Sugauli is archived in London. Historian and boundary expert Buddhi Narayan Shrestha also echoed Niraula.

But Thapa, who is a former Nepali ambassador to India, recalls being handed a dossier of documents on Nepal-India relations that contained originals.

https://kathmandupost.com/national/2019/08/13/original-copies-of-sugauli-treaty-and-nepal-india-friendship-treaty-are-both-missing.

“I am certain that the palace had all these original copies,” said Thapa, who had close relations with Nepal’s former monarchs. “After the royal massacre, when the Foreign Ministry moved from Sheetal Niwas to Narayanhiti to Singha Durbar, several historical documents either went missing or were misplaced.”

Soon after the maps issue was raised before the Supreme Court of Nepal in a PIL.

Nepal SC asked the govt to furnish country’s historical map relating to Kalapani border issue, reported PTI Kathmandu, January 02, 2020.

Nepal’s Supreme Court has sought within 15 days the country’s original map exchanged with India during the signing of the Sugauli Treaty in 1816 after a petition sought the apex court’s intervention to secure the Nepali territory.

The PIL appealed the Supreme Court to order the government to start political and diplomatic efforts to protect Nepali territories.

Nepal claimed that Limpiyadhura, Lipulek and Kalapani areas were shown under India’s territory even though they lie within the Nepalese territory.

Nepalese territories including Darjeeling were handed to the British East India Company as concessions under the Sugauli treaty which was signed in 1816 on the conclusion of the Anglo-Nepalese War.

Under the treaty, the Nepalese-controlled territory that was ceded included all areas that the king of Nepal had won in earlier wars such as the kingdom of Sikkim in the east and Kumaon and Garhwal in the west.

103 border pillars missing in Banke and Bardiya districts, said a Report datelined Banke, November 20, 2019 in a Nepali magazine.

Among them are the main, subsidiary and small ones. However, the situation is that these border markers are not at their proper location. It is said 94 such border pillars are missing in Bardiya. Noone really knows where these border pillars have gone.

Among the 103 missing pillars on this stretch of the Nepal-India border, seven are said to be main pillars, five subsidiary ones and 78 are smaller pillars. Similarly, nine border pillars, including four main and five subsidiary ones are missing in Banke district. India’s Baharaich district borders the Banke and Bardiya districts of Nepal.

Banke shares about 65 kilometres and Bardiya about 80 kilometres border with India. The local Mankhola stream separates Banke and Bardiya districts. There are 307 border pillars in Banke sector of the Nepal-India border. These include 32 main pillars and 275 subsidiary ones.

It may be recalled that maps were missing and manipulated by India, before India-China border dispute led to India’s China war, as renowned AG Noorani authoritatively established several times.

The Armed Police Force (APF) squad has been deputed to guard the border towards Nepali territory. The APF border outposts have been set up in a gap of 13 to 20 kilometers. However, the Indian side has deputed the Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) force in a distance of around five kilometers to guard the border.

“There is a way towards Indian side which is being used for the border encroachment by the Indian side,” locals complained. There is a massive presence of SSB force along the border area. The SSB force is seen conducting a patrol in a distance of each one to two kilometers along the no man’s land.

Nepal’s media had reported in November, 2019 some efforts in resolving the dispute, but they did not move ahead.

During the third meeting of Nepal-India Joint Commission (NIJC) in Kathmandu in 2014, both sides had agreed to assign the task of resolving the boundary dispute in Kalapani and Susta to the Foreign Secretaries of Nepal and India, but there has been no major development so far.

However, Nepal and India have prepared 182 sheets of boundary maps, besides Kalapani and Susta, and as per the agreed boundary maps, Nepal and India have begun the demarcation of the border, which is likely to be completed in 2022.

During the Fifth Meeting of the Nepal-India Joint Commission in Kathmandu on August 21 and 22, the foreign ministers of both countries had directed a foreign secretary-level mechanism to prioritise work on the outstanding boundary issues with technical input from the Boundary Working Group. Nepal and India had formed the working group at the Surveyor General level to settle all boundary issues.

Instead of culminating those efforts, India opened a Pandora’s Box, with the inauguration of the border road, when both sides and the whole world was engaged in tackling Covid-19.

India and its media blame China and Pakistan for all its problems, but this fact needs to be reminded, again and again.

“ China has borders with14 nations, and except for india, it has resolved its disputes with all, including Russia. India has borders with six countries, and excluding Bhutan, it has disputes with all five.”

– Subramanian Swamy, Sinologist, Ex-Union Minister, and BJP MP (Frontline 2000 Sep 2: Sino-Indian Relations Through the Tibet Prism)

Doklam subsequently showed that even Bhutan has problems with India.

What why and who provoked this untimely incident, that led to a new hot spot, wondered observers. But that needs further and deeper analysis, in Part-3 of this article.

26 May 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Dr Ramzy Baroud

Israeli media and Zionist apologists everywhere are busy whitewashing Israel’s globally-tattered image using the rare indictment of an Israeli terrorist, Amiram Ben Uliel, who was recently convicted for murdering the Palestinian Dawabsheh family, including an 18-month-old toddler in the town of Duma, south of Nablus.

The conviction of Ben Uliel by an Israeli three-judge court on May 18, is expectedly celebrated by some as proof that the Israeli judicial system is fair and transparent, and that Israel does not need to be investigated by outside parties.

The timing of the Israeli court’s decision to convict Ben Uliel of three counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder was particularly important, as it followed a decision by the the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to move forward with its investigation of war crimes committed in Occupied Palestine.

Considering how Israel’s extremists, especially those living illegally in the Occupied West Bank, are governed through a separate, and far more lenient system than the military regime that governs Palestinians, the seemingly-clear indictment of the Israeli terrorist deserves further scrutiny.

Israel’s apologists were quick to celebrate the verdict by the court, to the extent that Israel’s own internal intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, known for its notorious torture methods of Palestinian prisoners, described the decision as “an important milestone in the battle against Jewish terror”.

Others labored to separate Ben Uliel’s grizzly attack from the rest of Israeli society, implying that the man was a lone wolf and not the direct outcome of Israel’s unhinged racism and violent discourse directed at innocent Palestinians.

Despite the clear indictment of Ben Uliel, the Israeli court was keen on accentuating the point that the Israeli terrorist acted alone and that he was not a member of a terrorist organization. Based on that logic, the court argued that the judges “could not rule out that the attack was motivated by a desire for revenge or racism without Ben-Uliel actually being a member of an organized group.”

The verdict was a best case scenario for Israel’s image under the circumstances, as it deliberately absolved the massive terrorist network that spawned the likes of Ben Uliel and the Israeli army that protects those very extremists on a daily basis, while whitewashing Israel’s deservingly bad reputation as a violent society with an unjust judicial system.

But Ben Uliel is, by no measure, a lone wolf.

When the Israeli terrorist, along with other masked assailants, broke into the house of Sa’ad and Reham Dawabsheh at 4 am on July 31, 2015, he was clearly on a mission to elevate his name within the ardently racist, extremist society which has made the murder and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians a sort of a divine mission.

Ben Uliel achieved his objectives completely. Not only did he kill Sa’ad and Reham, but their 18-month-old son, Ali, as well. The only surviving member of the family was 4-year-old Ahmed, who was severely burnt.

The murder of the Palestinian family, little Ali in particular, quickly became the source of joy and celebration among Jewish extremists. In December 2015, six months after the murder of the Dawabsheh family, a 25-second video clip that went viral on social media showed a crowd of Israelis celebrating the death of Ali.

The video showed a “room of jumping, dancing men wearing white skullcaps, many with the long sidelocks of Orthodox Jews. Some of them are brandishing guns and knives,” The New York Times reported.

“Two (of the celebrating Israelis) appear to be stabbing pieces of paper they hold in their hands, which the television station identified as pictures of an 18-month-old child, Ali Dawabsheh.”

Despite Israeli police claims that they were ‘investigating’ the hate fest, there is little evidence to suggest that anyone was held accountable for the unmitigated celebration of violence against an innocent family and a toddler. In fact, Israeli State prosecutors later claimed that they had lost the original video of the dancing extremists.

The celebration of Israeli terrorism carried on unabated for years, to the extent that on June 19, 2018, Israeli extremists chanted openly, taunting Ali’s grandfather as he was leaving an Israeli court, with such obscene slogans, as “Where is Ali? Ali’s dead,” “Ali’s on the grill”.

The heinous murder of Ali and his family, and the subsequent trial were added to an array of other events that starkly challenged Israel’s carefully concocted image of being a liberal democracy.

On March 24, 2016, Elor Azaria killed a Palestinian man, Fattah al-Sharif, in cold blood. Al-Sharif was left bleeding on the ground while unconscious after, per Israeli army claim, trying to stab an Israeli soldier.

Azaria received a light sentence of eighteen months, soon to be freed in a massive celebration, like a conquering hero. Israel’s top government officials, including Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, supported the cold-blooded murderer throughout the trial. It will not come as a complete surprise if Azaria claims a top position in the Israeli government at some point in the future.

The celebration of murderers and terrorists like Ben Uliel and Azaria, is not a new phenomenon in Israeli society. Baruch Goldstein, the Israeli terrorist who killed scores of Palestinian worshippers while kneeling for prayer at Al-Ibrahimi Mosque in Al-Khalil (Hebron) in 1994, is now perceived as a modern martyr, a saint of biblical proportions.

In such cases, when the nature of the crime is so overwhelmingly violent, the extent of which forces itself on global news media, Israel is left with only one option – to use the indictment of ‘Jewish terrorism’ as an opportunity to reinvent itself, its ‘democratic’ system, its ‘transparent’ judicial proceedings, and so on. Meanwhile, Israeli media and its affiliates worldwide labor to describe the collective ‘shock’ and ‘outrage’ felt by ‘law-abiding’, ‘peace-loving’ Israelis.

The murder of the Dawabsheh family, although one of the numerous acts of violence perpetrated by Jewish extremists and the Israeli military against innocent Palestinians, is the perfect case in point.

Indeed, a quick look at the numbers and reports produced by the United Nations indicates that the Jewish settlers’ murder of the Palestinian family was not the exception but the norm.

In a report by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in June 2018, UN investigators spoke of an exponential rise of Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.

“Between January and April 2018, OCHA documented 84 incidents attributed to Israeli settlers resulting in Palestinian casualties (27 incidents) or in damage to Palestinian property (57 incidents),” the report read. That trend continued, at times markedly increasing, with very little accountability.

The Israeli rights group, Yesh Din, has been following up on the small percentage of settler violence cases that were opened by the Israeli military and police. The group concluded that, “of 185 investigations opened between 2014 and 2017 that reached a final stage, only 21, or 11.4%, led to the prosecution of offenders, while the other 164 files were closed without indictment.”

The reason for this is simple: the hundreds of thousands of Jewish extremists who have been transferred to permanently settle in the occupied territories, an act that starkly violates international law, do not operate outside the colonial paradigm designed by the Israeli government. In some way, they too, are ‘soldiers’, not only because they are armed and coordinate their movement with the Israeli army, but because their ever-expanding settlements lie at the heart of the Israeli occupation and its continued project of ethnic cleansing.

Therefore, Jewish settler violence, like that committed by Ben Uliel, should not be analyzed separately from the violence meted out by the Israeli army, but seen within the larger context of the violent Zionist ideology that governs Israeli society as a whole. It follows that settler violence can only end with the end of the military occupation in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, and with the demise of the racist Zionist ideology that spews hatred, embraces racism and rationalizes murder.

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

25 May 2020

Source: countercurrents.org

By Ramzy Baroud

72 years after the destruction of historic Palestine at the hands of Zionist militias lies an opportunity to reassert the centrality of the right of return for 5 million Palestinian refugees.

Just 48 hours before thousands of Palestinians rallied on the streets, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid an eight-hour visit to Israel to discuss the seemingly imminent Israeli annexation (theft) of nearly 30 percent of the West Bank. “The Israeli government will decide on the matter, on exactly when and how to do it,” Pompeo said. Clearly, the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has America’s blessing to further its colonization of occupied Palestine, to entrench its apartheid regime, and to act as if the Palestinians simply do not exist.

Considering the US’ massive political sway, why do Palestinians insist on making demands which, according to the pervading realpolitik of the so-called Palestinian-Israeli conflict, seem unattainable? Since the start of the peace process in Oslo in the early 1990s, the Palestinian leadership has engaged Israel and its Western benefactors in a useless political exercise that has, ultimately, worsened an already terrible situation. After more than 25 years of haggling over bits and pieces of what remains of historic Palestine, Israel and the US are now plotting the endgame, while demonizing the very Palestinian leaders that participated in their futile political charade.

Strangely, the rise and demise of the so-called peace process did not seem to affect the collective narrative of the Palestinian people, who still see the Nakba — not the Israeli occupation of 1967 and certainly not the Oslo Accords — as the core point in their struggle against Israeli colonialism. This is because the collective Palestinian memory remains completely independent from Oslo. For Palestinians, memory is an active process; it is not a docile, passive mechanism of grief and self-pity that can easily be manipulated, but a generator of new meanings. Despite the numerous unilateral measures taken by Israel to determine the fate of the Palestinian people, the blind and unconditional US support of Israel, and the unmitigated failure of the Palestinian Authority to mount any meaningful resistance, Palestinians continue to remember their history and understand their reality based on their own priorities.

Palestinians have been accused of being unrealistic, of “never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity,” and even of extremism for simply insisting on their historical rights in Palestine, as enshrined in international law. These critical voices are either supporters of Israel or are simply unable to understand how Palestinian memory factors in shaping the politics of ordinary people, independent of the quisling Palestinian leadership or the seemingly impossible-to-overturn status quo. True, the two trajectories — the stifling political reality and the people’s priorities — seem to be in a constant state of divergence. The more belligerent Israel becomes, the more stubbornly Palestinians hold on to their past. There is a reason for this.

Occupied, oppressed and confined to refugee camps, Palestinians have little control over many of the realities that directly impact their lives. There is little that a refugee from Gaza can do to dissuade Pompeo from assigning the West Bank to Israel, or that a Palestinian refugee from Ain Al-Hilweh in Lebanon can do to compel the international community to enforce the long-delayed right of return. But there is a single element that Palestinians, regardless of where they are, can control: Their collective memory, which remains the main motivator of their legendary steadfastness.

Israel is afraid of Palestinian memory, since it is the only facet of its war against the Palestinian people that it cannot fully control. The more Israel labors to erase the collective memory of the Palestinian people, the more Palestinians hold on tighter to the keys of their homes and to the title deeds of their land in their lost homeland. There can never be a just peace in Palestine until the priorities of the Palestinian people — their memories and their aspirations — become the foundation of any political process with the Israelis.

Ramzy Baroud is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com.

20 May 2020

Source: palestineupdates.com

By Rana Shubair

WHEN I chose to participate in the Great Return March protests two years ago, people thought I was a refugee from occupied Palestine. I never shied to clearly state that I was originally from Gaza, but that I belonged to all of Palestine. Growing up, people in our society would boggle me with the question of: Are you a citizen or a refugee? In my childhood years, I didn’t even know how to answer that because my parents didn’t tell me that our community was divided into two categories: refugees and citizens.

When my family and I came back from our five-year stay in the US, I was in the 10th grade. I was disappointed to find that my Palestinian classmates asked me that same question I was asked in elementary school. Deep down it felt insulting to be asked this question wherever I went because I never believed that there was any difference between the two. At this time and age, I found that the refugee/citizen gap has more or less closed. All residents of the Gaza Strip are living under the same circumstances when it comes to occupation and blockade. During the three major aggressions launched against Gaza in 2008-2009, 2012 and 2014 refugees and citizens were targeted and killed by the Israeli war machine. This refugee/citizen conundrum opened my eyes to the plight of our people at an early age.

I was surprised to find that many of the refugees viewed the Gazans with envy because they were the ones who owned land and houses back then, whereas the refugees lived in camps built by the UN agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) in destitute conditions. I recall to this day visiting a friend at Khan Younis refugee camp when I was six or seven and, as I went to wash my hands, the whole ceramic sink suddenly fell, shattering into pieces on the floor. The homes at refugee camps were built in a way that gave an impression of their temporary existence. Roofs were of corrugated metal and the houses were built literally glued next to one another with very narrow and filthy alleys. Neighbours could hear each other talking, arguing and even flushing the toilets. Growing up in the mid ’90s, I would occasionally hear my refugee friends and acquaintances living in those camps talk of how temporary their houses were and that going back to their homes in their original lands was only a matter of time. Every generation would pass this legacy to the next: we will return one day. The first generation of refugees (the surviving ones) who were displaced in 1948 still hold the keys to their homes and the land deeds. On March 30 2018, the people of Gaza decided that it was time for the day of return. The 1948 Nakba was already 70 years ago and nothing seemed to be changing on the ground.

The Israeli occupation was annexing more land, demolishing more homes, killing more Palestinians, and imprisoning thousands. The blockade on Gaza was entering its 12th year Gaza and had become a concentration camp with two million people locked inside in deplorable conditions. The UN had predicted that Gaza would be unlivable by 2020. But it was already unfit for human habitation long before that. When I participated in the protests, my children were astonished and appalled at the same time to see a glimpse of our occupied land.

On the first day of protest, I pointed from afar to the separation fence and what lay behind it. We could see large expanses of green areas behind the snipers stationed on small hills. “This is our country,” I said suppressing my sobs. My children, like all other children here, have only visited cities of Palestine in their school textbooks. It was baffling to them when I tried to explain why we Palestinians couldn’t go to Jerusalem or Hebron. Now that they’ve grown up, they’ve stopped asking questions. It has become one of the many hard realities they cope with as Palestinians. With the outbreak of the global Covid-19 pandemic, countries around the world may have started to get a grasp of what a lockdown really means. To us Gazans, we’ve been like this for 14 years now.

People in other countries would be planning for their summer vacation destination. However, for us, travel by and large takes place only out of necessity. On the 72nd commemoration of the Nakba, I can adamantly say that we are all unified in our call for the right to return, the right to visit our own country and the right to live in dignity and freedom. No generation of my people ever wavered those rights and no generation ever will. Our existence on this land is as entrenched into the soil as the timeless olive trees.

Rana Shubair is an author of In Gaza I Dare to Dream and My Lover is a Freedom Fighter.

20 May 2020

Source: palestineupdates.com

By Reuters | The Guardian

Iran’s president had earlier warned the US not to try to stop the flotilla of five tankers sent to ease Venezuela’s fuel shortage.

24 May 2020 – The first of five tankers loaded with gasoline sent from Iran has reached Venezuelan waters, expected to temporarily ease the South American nation’s fuel crunch while defying Trump administration sanctions targeting the two US foes.

The oil tanker Fortune encountered no signs of US interference as it eased through Caribbean waters toward the Venezuelan coast late on Saturday. Venezuelan officials celebrated the arrival.

“Iran and Venezuela have always supported each other in times of difficulty,” Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza tweeted. “Today, the first ship with gasoline arrives for our people.”

The tanker and four behind it were finishing a high seas journey amid a burgeoning relationship between Iran and Venezuela, both of which Washington says are ruled by repressive regimes.

The Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, had earlier warned of retaliatory measures against the US if Washington causes problems for tankers carrying Iranian fuel to Venezuela.

“If our tankers in the Caribbean or anywhere in the world face trouble caused by the Americans, they [the US] will also be in trouble,” Rouhani said in a telephone conversation with the emir of Qatar, the semi-official news agency Mehr reported.

A flotilla of five tankers carrying Iranian fuel for gasoline-starved Venezuela is approaching the Caribbean.

“Iran will never initiate a conflict,” Rouhani said. “We have always the legitimate right to defend our sovereignty and territorial integrity and to serve our national interests, and we hope that the Americans will not commit an error.“

Iran is supplying about 1.53m barrels of gasoline and alkylate to Venezuela, according to both governments, sources and calculations made by TankerTrackers.com based on the vessels’ draft levels.

Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest oil reserves, but it must import gasoline because production has crashed in the last two decades. Critics blame corruption and mismanagement by the socialist administration amid an economic crisis that has led to huge migration by Venezuelans seeking to escape poverty, shortages of basic goods and crime.

The Iranian tankers hold what analysts estimate to be enough gasoline to supply Venezuela for two to three weeks.

The shipments have caused a diplomatic standoff between Iran and Venezuela and the US, as both nations are under US sanctions. Washington is considering measures in response, according to a senior US official who did not elaborate on any options being weighed.

The US recently beefed up its naval presence in the Caribbean for what it said was an expanded anti-drug operation. A Pentagon spokesman, Jonathan Hoffman, said on Thursday he was not aware of any operations related to the Iranian cargoes.

Venezuela’s defence minister has said its military will escort the Iranian tankers once they reach the nation’s exclusive economic zone.

Iran seized a British-flagged tanker in the Gulf last year after British forces detained an Iranian tanker off the territory of Gibraltar. Both vessels were released after a months-long standoff.

Venezuela recently arrested mercenaries, including US citizens, who botched an operation to kidnap the president, Nicolás Maduro.

The failed raid provided a propaganda boon for Maduro, who has long claimed to be the subject of a US-sponsored assassination plot.

25 May 2020

Source: www.transcend.org