George Orwell said “in a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” So let us all tell the truth:
-The Western governments have never really cared about human rights or democracy. They propped dictators, toppled democratically elected governments (like in Iran in 1953 and Chile in 1970), and engagedin policies that killed many millions of innocent people. They support murdering genocidal pyromaniacs like the rulers of the “UAE” and “Saudi Arabia” and ”Israel”. They label as terrorists any genuine resistance movements (in fact how vicious the attacks from racists are on a country or a people tells us precisely how honorable those being attacked are!).
-Palestine is just a physical base for Zionism to conquer the Arab world and much beyond. The Zionists actually speak openly of how we will be their servants and they our masters. All the data is there for people to study and investigate. And as time went by, they made it impossible to criticize Zionism or Israel and even increasingly “illegal” to do so. Again, it is an assault on free speech and democracy in countries such as Germany, France and the UK that claims the mantle of human rights.
-Colonial-Native struggles end in one of three scenarios: a) Algerian model (nearly 2 million killed, 1 million colonizers and their descendents left the country), b) genocide of natives (USA, Australia), c) coexistence in one country of descendents of colonizers and of native people (the rest of the world >140 countries). There is no fourth scenario. Palestine will not be an exception. It is the last struggle and prolonged only because of the resourcefulness and wealth of Zionists and the weakness of their adversaries with collusion of corrupt dictators. But Zionists and all those collusionists’ regimes need to decide on which of the three outcomes they want. Prolonging it is not helpful to them. The number of Palestinains today is 13 million (12 times what we were in 1917 when the Balfour and Cambon declarations were made in support of Zionism). Impoverished natives reproduce more than economically empowered minorities and the world will eventually democratize or die.
-Those who engaged in exploitation and destruction in the past century (Belgium in the Congo, British in Afriua and Asia, US in Cambodia and Vietnam etc.) largely got away with it because the world was fragmented. Now, the world is far too crowded and us far too connected such taht military might no longer can be used effectively to dictate things without repercussions. Hence the last attempts at this were failures (US in Iraq, Israel in Gaza and Lebanon, US client states attack on Syria and Yemen). This gives hope.
-Whether the PLO leadership of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas signed the Oslo accords out of ignorance or knowing its criminality, staying with it for three decades knowing how much of a charade it was and doing so to keep their positions is indeed criminal behavior. And for the remainder of Palestinain body politics, acquiescence is collusion. Why none of these so-called leaders is willing to admit that this horrific delusion of apartheid couched as “peace process” was a second catastrophe/nakba at par with 1948/1949 nakba.
-The so-called Arab league since Jamal AbdelNasser died in 1970 (perhaps assassinated) serves as a tool for US/Israeli of oppression and imperialism. The gulf monarchies in particular used to tremble at the speeches of AbdelNasser. Now they even get away with murdering and dismembering an opposition journalist in their own embassy in Turkey. They get away with committing genocide in Yemen and occupying it to give Israel bases in the Island of Socotra. They get away with funding Israeli apartheid and destruction of their own religious heritage. They impoverish their people, and are happy to give hundreds of billions of dollars to enrich coffers of imperialists and Zionists as long as those allow them to keep oppressing people.
-The fault is not merely in our “leaders” who put short term financial profit ahead of people and planetary survival. That would be easy to remedy if it was. The fault is in us for keeping these “leaders” in power. Clapping for them, facilitating their dominion over us, playing along with their games of divide and conquer (fear mongering) and overall abandoning our own dignity. We must believe in ourselves and our people (something elite politicians do not want us to do). That is how we get rid of colonialism (including Zionism), pandemics, the environmental nakba (catastrophe) and the risk of nuclear war.
-The so-called Arab league since Jamal AbdelNasser died in 1970 (perhaps assassinated) serves as a tool for US/Israeli of oppression and imperialism. The gulf monarchies in particular used to tremble at the speeches of AbdelNasser. Now they even get away with murdering and dismembering an opposition journalist in their own embassy in Turkey. They get away with committing genocide in Yemen and occupying it to give Israel bases in the Island of Socotra. They get away with funding Israeli apartheid and destruction of their own religious heritage. They impoverish their people, and are happy to give hundreds of billions of dollars to enrich coffers of imperialists and Zionists as long as those allow them to keep oppressing people.
-The fault is not merely in our “leaders” who put short term financial profit ahead of people and planetary survival. That would be easy to remedy if it was. The fault is in us for keeping these “leaders” in power. Clapping for them, facilitating their dominion over us, playing along with their games of divide and conquer (fear mongering) and overall abandoning our own dignity. We must believe in ourselves and our people (something elite politicians do not want us to do). That is how we get rid of colonialism (including Zionism), pandemics, the environmental nakba (catastrophe) and the risk of nuclear war.
-Yet, the growth of the BDS movement and of people’s support for Palestinian human rights miraculously continues to grow. If I look at the number of attendees to webinars I am invited to speak to (2-3/week) and growth of networks and actions, the conclusion is inevitable: Palestine cannot and will not be liquidated. The question is where each of us stands: the side of Biden, Trump, Netanyahu and ilk, or the side of native people. If we were to tackle climate change, threats of nuclear war, global pandemics, and much more, we should reconnect to native people and empower them. Being on the wrong side here is existential.
The ultimate bit of truth is as Martin Luther King said: we either live together as fellow human beings or die together as fools. A “win” of business deals to control the world’s wealth will ultimately mean we either wake up and reverse this or we ALL die as a species. We are afterall 7.5 billion people and they are a tiny minority who hope to run the world to their short term advantage but will cause long-term catastrophe (extinction as a species). Their children can have billions or they can have a livable world but not both.
As for us common people, it is time to "revolt against the machine" as the old song used to say OR we will all not survive (even our oppressors will die with us).
Very powerful exposition of the fundamental importance of Truth and Human Rights as a basis of true Democracy
ReplyDeleteProf. Qumsiyeh has succinctly exposed the crucial truth that in western nations ( and I add the UN as a body), democracy is has no relation justice, morality or human rights. Until we grasp that we enable the fantasy i.e. Lie
ReplyDeleteAs for Palestine, BDS and international solidarity goes around in circles until Palestinians themselves put Palestine above party and tribal factions and remove the enemy within- the Palestinian zionist PA/PLO/PLC that has collaborated with Israel for 27 years.
Then, only then the status quo is utterly dissolved and Palestine reclaimed.
Palestines are not the only one who suffer out the hand of Israel. Mayans were assassinated by Kaibiles soldiers who were trained by Israel.
ReplyDeleteAn investigative report issued by the Electronic Intifada recalls the well-documented but completely overlooked role of Israel in the Guatemalan dirty war of the 1980s.
INTERVIEW:
Peace Hasn't Dismantled Patriarchy and Femicide in Guatemala
Israel reportedly provided military training to dictator Rios Montt's troops, which the general confessed to an ABC News reporter, saying that his regime takeover went so smoothly “because many of our soldiers were trained by Israelis.”
Other accounts evoke the economic benefits for Israel, who had an estimated 300 Israeli advisers in Guatemala at the time. According to the book titled, “Dangerous Liaison, ”by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn, Lieutenant Colonel Amatzia Shuali said, “I don’t care what the Gentiles do with the arms. The main thing is that the Jews profit,”
Israel saw an opportunity to make money out of the war when the Jimmy Carter administration in the U.S. restricted the country's military aid after there was an outcry of criticism about human rights abuses.
The report by Gabriel Schivone quotes Yaakov Meridor, then Israeli minister of economy, “We will say to the Americans: Don’t compete with us in Taiwan; don’t compete with us in South Africa; don’t compete with us in the Caribbean or in other places where you cannot sell arms directly. Let us do it … Israel will be your intermediary.”
“Military cooperation between Israel and Guatemala has been traced back to the 1960s,” added the investigation. “By the time Rios Montt’s came to power, Israel had become Guatemala’s main provider of weapons, military training, surveillance technology and other vital assistance in the state’s war on urban leftists and rural indigenous Mayans,”
Truth for many is painful and you tell it so well with such honesty. I only hope these words will somehow be seen and heard and thoroughly digested by the many fighting factions engaged in "winning" against history and reason.
ReplyDelete