The collapse of empire

I spent over a quarter century, or some 40% of my life, living in the “Western world”. I have the privilege of US Citizenship and the luck of having a great deal of travel around US (traveled in 48 states), Canada, Europe (most countries), Australia, and New Zealand. As I embarked on a tour of dozens of invited talks, it is good to be brutally honest with people of these Western lands. What we most loved about these countries despite their bloody colonial history is a character that is now being destroyed: freedom of thought and action that allowed for expansion of human knowledge, logic, and development unencumbered by dogma and narrow interests.  The checks and balances of “democracy” have been damaged for decades. Trump takeover of the United States just simply crowned the end.  This was so easy to foresee as the rigged system ensures money and extortions determine elections. Fr example in the US, the Democratic party received more than half its funding from Zionists whose allegiance was to a foreign entity. The same for the labour party iin the UK. So it was that principled leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn asre demonized successfully (I recommend Ilan Pappe’s book “Lobbying for Zionism on both sides of the Atlantic”). Over the past 150 years, billionaires became Zionists starting with the 19th century Rothschild family. The die was cast for the western partnership by its full partnership in the Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine but also the die was cast for the end of a 500 + years of western enlightenment. Trum was the orange straw that could be the final breaking point. This was so foreseen long ago by students of history who understand how empires implode.

Thomas Cole, the Collapse of the Roman Empire 1836

What most attracted many of us to “western ideals” has been eroding for a long time. That is liberal ideas and laws with checks and balances that ensures the common person not only has a say in the system but can actually influence the system. This is how common people were able to get their way in areas like women right to vote, civil rights, social security, unionization, medical care access, ending western support for oppression (e.g. in Vietnam and South Arica), among many others. This liberalism also allowed unfettered pursuit of knowledge even when it challenged dogma (e.g. Darwin’s “Theory of Natural Selection” and Franz Fannon’s work)  

In the US much of the knowledge was also generated by immigrants (most PhD students from other parts of the world). I was a beneficiary of this culling of minds from other countries though I chose not to stay in the West. I reached pinnacles of knowledge becoming an (associate) professor at universities like Duke and Yale, publishing books and over 200 peer reviewed research articles that advanced knowledge (from medicine to biology to human rights), and befriending tens of thousands of people would not have been possible without that freedom of thought afforded in a liberal west. But I also witnessed a relentless war on knowledge and truth in this western world in my 44-year academic career. Ironically, the same people who declared this war are those who benefitted from Western openness and ability to lobby to get their way. The erosion of freedoms is accelerating. It reached a point were the Congress of the most powerful country on earth passes laws that a) equate anti-racism/anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, b) gives the Secretary o Treasury (whose allegiance is to Zionism not to the US) the authority to strip NGOs of non-profit status if they call for basic human rights like Palestinian refugee right of return and ending apartheid.  Advocating for an end to genocide becomes a crime. This is of course not only in the US (and not even worst in the US) but in other western “democracies.” Flying a Palestinian flag became a crime.  Questioning Zionist (mis)use of the Jewish holocaust also becomes a crime. This even before the incoming fascist government of Donald Trump takes office and declares war on climate change and health sciences. But also we noted collective amnesia in eh west so while there was a proliferation of Jewish holocaust museums funded by western governments, there was to bew few if any museums to the hundreds of holocausts and genocides perpetrated by those same Western governments (Slavery, natives/indigenous people in what became USA and Australia and Latin America, African genocides from Congo to Namibia, Syria, Yemen, Iraq etc.).

The decline of this openness and knowledge-based systems concomitant with mass media managed by billionaires drumming up non-sense led to situations where voters think their only choices are “lesser of two evils”. One evil advocates genocide and the other genocide and mass hysteria about immigrants.  Both led by a deep state mechanism resentful, fearful, and suppressive of any mass people movement.  Thus, the US (and other western countries) become more and more insular and anti-immigrant and anti-knowledge and superficial and continue the slide towards self-implosion. Any casual observer or student of growth and decline of empires will tell you that the western/European powers are now in decline and this is due to their own “implosion”. The vacuum is being filled by rising powers now organized under the BRICS+ umbrella (Brazil, Russia, China, India, South Africa, now being joined by many other countries. It saddens us to see how the proud European powers became subservient to special interests. US foreign policy is no longer driven by US national interests but are driven by supra-national entities like the world Zionist organization. This indeed turned out to be the final nail in the coffin of western scientific and rational “progress”. Perhaps Mahatma Gandhi was right to answer a question about what he thought of Western Civilization by saying “I think it would be a good idea”.  Is it still possible to save the western world? Perhaps it will take the massive global uprising against the tyrrany and genocide we ar already seeing. Perhaps it is inevitable to have new world powers  like China or the rise o the Islamic world (already Western Zionist-led Islamophobia is leading to strengthening Islam) (I save this for another article) or perhaps an awakening of the 2.3 billion Christians to the destruction happening in the Holy Land including to us Christians. Perhaps a combination of those. Time will tell.

Tackling corruption

I give talks and interviews on Palestine daily. I also travel the world giving talks; in one recent trip to Australia and New Zealand I gave 212 talks in 17 cities (average four per day). The most embarrassing question I get asked frequently is along the lines of “with the most just cause in the world and the most ruthless colonizers, why do you Palestinians have such incompetent corrupt leaders?”  My late friend Edward Said wrote about the Palestinian authority extensively and prophetically write a scathing article about the Oslo Accords in October 1993 (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v15/n20/edward-said/the-morning-after).  His books and writings were thus banned in the Palestinian areas for a while by the late Yassir Arafat. I was not as strong a critic as he was. But after returning to Palestine in 2008 I learned so much more about the inner workings of the hooligans who signed this “surrender document” and were placed by Israel and the US to run the civil affairs of our people under occupation so I became more critical and less forgiving. 

My life’s work over the past 40 years of activism was focused against the Zionist onslaught on our people and our environment. I wrote hundreds of research and other articles, over 30 chapters in books, and several books. I discussed in these and some interviewed shortcomings including corruption, collusion with occupiers via security coordination, incompetence and removal or marginalization of Fatah people of good will and importance (people like Afif Safieh, Ihab Bseiso, Marwan Barghouthi, Nabil Saath). I started to compile data. I befriended critics like Nizar Banat (who was killed by the Authority) and Basil Al-Araj (jailed and mistreated by the authority and killed by Israel). The data and material I accumulated corruption is voluminous and I may end up putting it in a book later. 98% of my time remained focused on fighting colonial racist Zionists. But I also was harassed by governments (including Israel, Jordan, USA, and indeed the Palestinian authority). The older I get, the more experience tells me I need to speak out more.

When I researched my book on popular resistance in Palestine, I understood how much damage the authority caused and still causes to all forms of resistance including popular resistance (unarmed). But I also learned increasingly that their biggest sin is “ego”, not being willing to admit their mistakes (be it in Jordan, Lebanon, or the biggest mistake of all: Oslo agreements).  Oslo as Edward Said labeled it was our second Nakba. If the Zionists do succeed in liquidating the Palestinian cause, you can squarely put the blame largely on the signing of Oslo and its ramifications. The second mistake was not leaving Oslo after the interim 5 years “transition period” of Oslo ended in 1999. But an equally important mistake (sin) was not using the opportunity of governance to develop a system of governance based on law which respects all segments of our society rather than promote those who kiss ass to the leader regardless of their corruption or incompetence.

Thus, year after year the corruption and incompetence grew worse especially in the areas most critical for our Palestinian cause. For example, the foreign service appointments: “ambassadors” who are appointed for political purposes and who know very little and harm the cause rather than help it. This is a generalization that applies to 99% of our representatives. Exceptions like the brilliant (and friend) Husam Zumlot our representative in the United Kingdom actually prove the failure and incompetence of others. But other areas clearly saw corruption and nepotism become systematic and malignant. Even in areas like the environmental protection where good people were removed and subservient individuals promoted regardless of competence. Government contracts are handed out not on meritocracy on cleptocracy.

I, like Edward Said and millions of Palestinians, disagreed strongly with the choices made by this Oslo group to build the Palestinian administration that relieved Israel from cost of occupation and from International isolation based on not even promises of freedom or return of rights.  But I also can't help but feel sorry for those who took that path. It must be very painful for a human being to go down a tunnel where there is no possibility of a light at the end and during this trip into the depths of darkness feel the leaches crawling up his back sucking his blood and voices from behind calling him back (some of them his political enemies, others ex-comrades in Fatah). Palestinian negotiators are fearful of going back because they think it might give political opponents a PR tool. They are just fearful of losing face; I am always grateful to a wise advisor who 30 years ago convinced me to drop this fear of admitting mistakes. They may also be fearful of losing a job, or fear that the alternative to Fatah maybe just as bad, fear of Israel, or fear of the US or just simply fear of their own power. But ultimately fear is a lack of self-confidence to take another course. And their fear should be balanced by the fact that people are literally dying for justice and wanting leaders to care about them and not about themselves

The leaders had many chances to admit mistakes and reset the course: 1) the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin and elections of the right wing Netanyahu government in the 1990s; 2) the murder of Yasser Arafat in 20004; 3) the Palestinian elections in 2006, 4) the opportunity created by the Gaza Ghetto uprising and the ongoing genocide.  The latter is particularly important since it may be the last chance to reset the course. How do you reset the course: get rid of corruption, reform the judiciary to be truly independent, end the unilateral decisions, bring the masses of Palestinians with intellectual abilities to replace all the corrupt people, leverage our only golden asset: our people. Yes, this is not going to be easy, but you can start. Palestinians do not have to line-up with governments. We do have to 1) speak truth to power, 2) build something positive despite incredible odds, 3) try to find and encourage the goodness in ALL humans. Briefly, we must challenge corruption and greed that leads to war and conflict. We see both large scale greed and corruptions: Trump, Biden/Harris, the rulers of Saudi Arabia and the UAE and General Sisi of Egypt, and our own corrupt Palestinian “leaders”. How do we make sure that people we know do not continue down that path (addictive/destructive)? Fatah and other factions can redeem themselves if we get strong intellectual leadership. But this must emerge from the bottom and go up. People can make a difference. With courage and conviction, Palestine can rise like the Phoenix from the ashes. You/we owe it to over a quarter million martyrs, a million injured, we ow it to the millions of refugees. We owe it to our children, grandchildren and generations to come. We owe it to the dismembered bodies of Palestinian children. We owe it to the fidayyeens who paid the ultimate price of resistance. We owe it to the hundreds of millions around the world who declared in the streets of every city in the world “in our thousands, in our millions, we are all Palestinians.” We owe it to Palestine and to the world. Let us work hard NOW to start a dialogue and start organizing…

معالجة الفساد

ألقي محاضرات ومقابلات عن فلسطين يوميًا. كما أسافر حول العالم لإلقاء المحاضرات. في إحدى رحلاتي الأخيرة إلى أستراليا ونيوزيلندا ألقيت 212 محاضرة في 17 مدينة (بمعدل أربع محاضرات يوميًا). السؤال الأكثر إحراجًا الذي يُطرح عليّ كثيرًا هو على غرار "مع القضية الأكثر عدالة في العالم والمستعمرين الأكثر قسوة، لماذا لديكم أيها الفلسطينيون مثل هؤلاء القادة الفاسدين غير الأكفاء؟". كتب صديقي الراحل إدوارد سعيد عن السلطة الفلسطينية على نطاق واسع وكتب مقالاً لاذعًا عن اتفاقيات أوسلو في أكتوبر 1993. https://www.rommanmag.com/view/posts/postDetails?id=6256 بالتالي تم حظر كتبه وكتاباته في المناطق الفلسطينية لفترة من الوقت من قبل الراحل ياسر عرفات. لم أكن ناقدًا قويًا مثله. ولكن بعد عودتي إلى فلسطين في عام 2008، تعلمت الكثير عن الذين وقعوا على "وثيقة الاستسلام" هذه بحسب سعيد، والذين وضعتهم إسرائيل والولايات المتحدة لإدارة الشؤون المدنية لشعبنا تحت الاحتلال، لذلك أصبحت أكثر نقدا ولكن قليا ما كتبت بهذه المواضيع لأنني ركزت على مدى السنوات الأربعين الماضية نشاطاتي ضد الصهيونية المدمرة لشعبنا وبيئتنا. كتبت مئات الأبحاث والمقالات الأخرى، وأكثر من 30 فصلاً في كتب، وعدة كتب. ناقشت في هذه الكتابات وبعض المقابلات بشكل مقتضب أوجه القصور بما في ذلك الفساد والتواطؤ مع المحتلين من خلال التنسيق الأمني ​​وعدم الكفاءة وإزالة أو تهميش أفراد فتح الشرفاء (مثل عفيف صافية، إيهاب بسيسو، مروان البرغوثي، نبيل شعث). بدأت في تجميع البيانات. صادقت منتقدين آخرين مثل نزار بنات (الذي قتلته السلطة) وباسل الأعرج (سجنته السلطة وأساءت معاملته وقتلته إسرائيل). البيانات والمواد التي جمعتها عن الفساد كثيرة وربما أنتهي إلى وضعها في كتاب في وقت لاحق. ظل 98% من وقتي مركزاً على محاربة الصهاينة العنصريين الاستعماريين. ولكنني تعرضت أيضاً لمضايقات من الحكومات (بما في ذلك إسرائيل والأردن والولايات المتحدة والسلطة الفلسطينية). وكلما تقدمت في السن، كلما أدركت أنني بحاجة إلى التحدث بأكثر قوة عن الفساد المدمر لقضيتنا.

في كتابي عن المقاومة الشعبية في فلسطين شرحت مدى الضرر الذي ألحقته السلطة وما زالت تلحقه بكل أشكال المقاومة بما في ذلك المقاومة الشعبية (غير المسلحة). ولكنني تعلمت أيضاً بشكل متزايد أن خطيئة ارتكبها عرفات وثم أبو مازن هي الأنانية واستفراد القرار، وتبعها عدم استعدادهما للاعتراف بأخطائهما (سواء كان ذلك في الأردن أو لبنان أو أكبر خطأ على الإطلاق: اتفاقيات أوسلو). أوسلو كما وصفها إدوارد سعيد كانت نكبتنا الثانية. إذا نجح الصهاينة في تقويض القضية الفلسطينية، فيمكنك أن تلقي باللوم بشكل كبير على توقيع أوسلو وتداعياته. الخطأ الثاني هو عدم مغادرة أوسلو بعد انتهاء "فترة الانتقال" المؤقتة التي استمرت خمس سنوات في عام 1999. ولكن الخطأ (الخطيئة) الأكثر أهمية هي عدم استغلال فرصة الحكم لتطوير نظام حكم قائم على القانون يحترم جميع شرائح مجتمعنا بدلاً من تشجيع أولئك الذين يتملقون الزعيم بغض النظر عن فسادهم أو عدم كفاءتهم.

وهكذا، سنة بعد سنة، تفاقم الفساد وعدم الكفاءة وخاصة في المجالات الأكثر أهمية لقضيتنا الفلسطينية. على سبيل المثال، التعيينات في الخدمة الخارجية: "السفراء" الذين يتم تعيينهم لأغراض سياسية والذين يضرون بالقضية بدلاً من مساعدتها. هذا تعميم ينطبق على 99٪ من ممثلينا. استثناءات مثل الصديق الرائع  حسام زملط ممثلنا في المملكة المتحدة تثبت في الواقع فشل وعدم كفاءة الآخرين. لكن مناطق أخرى شهدت الفساد والمحسوبية وهي منهجية وخبيثة حتى في مجالات مثل حماية البيئة حيث تم عزل الأشخاص الطيبين وترقية الأفراد الخاضعين بغض النظر عن الكفاءة. في مجالات كثيرة يتم توزيع العقود الحكومية ليس على أساس الجدارة ولكن على أساس المحسوبية.

إنني، مثل إدوارد سعيد وملايين الفلسطينيين، كنت أختلف بشدة مع الخيارات التي اتخذتها مجموعة أوسلو لبناء الإدارة الفلسطينية التي أراحت إسرائيل من أعباء إدارتها لنا ومن العزلة الدولية. لم تستند حتى إلى وعود بالحرية أو إعادة الحقوق. ولكنني لا أستطيع أيضاً إلا أن أشعر بالأسف على أولئك الذين سلكوا هذا الطريق. فلا بد وأن يكون من المؤلم للغاية بالنسبة للإنسان أن ينزل إلى نفق لا توجد فيه أي إمكانية لظهور ضوء في نهايته، وخلال هذه الرحلة إلى أعماق الظلام يشعر بالعلقات تزحف على ظهره وتمتص دمه، والأصوات من خلفه تدعوه إلى العودة (بعضهم من أعدائه السياسيين، وبعضهم من رفاقه السابقين). المفاوضين الفلسطينيين يخشون العودة لأنهم يعتقدون أن ذلك قد يمنح المعارضين السياسيين أداة اعلامية. إنهم يخشون فقدان ماء الوجه. ولكن ماذا يكسب الإنسان اذا خسر نفسه؟  أنا ممتن دائماً لجدي المربي الفاضل عيسى عطالله الذي أقنعني قبل أربعين عاماً بالتخلي عن هذا الخوف من الاعتراف بالأخطاء. إن الشعب الفلسطيني غاضب للغاية، رغم أن العديد منهم يخشون التعبير عن آرائهم خوفاً من خسارة مصادر دخلهم، أو خوفاً من أن يكون البديل لفتح أكثر سوءا ولكن لماذا لا تصلح فتح نفسها وإلا تندثر كما اندثرت كل الفصائل الفلسطينية التي كانت فاعلة في عشرينيات وثلاثينيات القرن الماضي.  أو خوفاً من إسرائيل، أو خوفاً من الولايات المتحدة، أو خوفاً من قوتهم. ولكن الخوف في نهاية المطاف هو افتقار إلى الثقة بالنفس لاتخاذ مسار آخر. وينبغي أن يتوازن خوفهم مع حقيقة مفادها أن هنالك ابادة جماعية والكل مٌستهدف. لقد أتيحت للقادة العديد من الفرص للاعتراف بالأخطاء وإعادة ضبط المسار: 1) اغتيال إسحاق رابين وانتخابات حكومة نتنياهو اليمينية في التسعينيات؛ 2) اغتيال ياسر عرفات في عام 2004؛ 3) الانتخابات الفلسطينية عام 2006؛ 4) الفرصة التي خلقها طوفان الأقصى والإبادة الجماعية المستمرة. والأمر الأخير مهم بشكل خاص لأنه قد يكون الفرصة الأخيرة لإعادة ضبط المسار والكيان لا يرحم أحدا وترون كيف يدمر الأخضر واليابس بما فيه الضراب المسروقة بالمليارات. كيف يمكننا إعادة ضبط المسار: التخلص من الفساد، وإصلاح القضاء ليكون مستقلاً حقًا، وإنهاء القرارات الأحادية الجانب، وجلب الجماهير الفلسطينية ذات القدرات الفكرية لتحل محل الفاسدين -- الاستفادة من أصولنا الذهبية الوحيدة: شعبنا. نعم، لن يكون هذا سهلاً، ولكن يمكن البدء. لا يتعين على الفلسطينيين الاصطفاف مع الحكومات. يتعين علينا 1) قراءة الواقع بدقة (مثلا أمريكا وعملائها في انهيار) والتحدث بالحقيقة للسلطة الحاكمة، 2) بناء شيء إيجابي على الرغم من الصعوبات المذهلة، 3) محاولة العثور على الخير وتشجيعه في جميع البشر. باختصار يجب أن نتحدى الفساد والجشع والهبل المتفشي. نرى الجشع والفساد على نطاق واسع: ترامب، وبايدن/هاريس، وملوك المملكة العربية السعودية والإمارات العربية المتحدة والجنرال السيسي في مصر، و"قادتنا" الفاسدين. كيف نتأكد من أن الأشخاص الذين نعرفهم لا يستمرون في هذا المسار الإدماني والمدمر؟ يمكن لفتح والفصائل الأخرى أن تنقذ نفسها إذا جندت قيادة فكرية قوية والتزمت بمشروع التغيير الثوري. وأقول أيضا مهم أن يسمعوا النقد ويغيروا (ما فائدت أن تغلقوا دماغكم كما أتوقع أن يفعل البعض بإهمال هذا المقال ومهاجمتني ككاتب ؟).  يمكن لك (نعم أنت) أن تحدث فرقًا!!! فلسطين، بالشجاعة والإصرار، قادرة على النهوض مثل طائر الفينيق من الرماد. إننا مدينون بهذا لأكثر من ربع مليون شهيد، ومليون جريح، ومدينون لملايين اللاجئين والأسرى ومدينون لأبنائنا وأحفادنا والأجيال القادمة. ومدينون لجثث الأطفال الفلسطينيين المقطعة الأوصال. ومدينون للفدائيين الذين دفعوا الثمن الأغلى للمقاومة. ومدينون لمئات الملايين في مختلف أنحاء العالم الذين أعلنوا في شوارع كل مدينة في العالم: "بآلاف، وبالملايين، نحن جميعاً فلسطينيين". مدينون لفلسطين وللعالم بأن نعمل. يللا نبدأالحوار للتغيير !!

Olives, hope, and more

 Today is the last day we work on our olive trees at the museum gardens in Bethlehem (80 trees). Earlier last week we picked olives in our own home garden in Beit Sahour. This is a form of resistance but it is also physically and mentally healthy exercise that gets us to understand both the blessings and the challenges of life. As a communal event, we receive help from volunteers (local and international) and we get to feel camaraderie and friendship while we also discuss the horrors of starving people of Gaza, of children body parts blown by US bombs, of what motivates genocide, geopolitics, and of our role and purpose in life. T see pictures/reports on activities at our institute, check out our facebook page. 

The olive picking season and the olive tree have been a sacred part of our lives for thousands of years. Here is an article I wrote many years ago about this. Hope is also rekindled in our hearts from our people. Those who volunteered with us like the employees of the red crescent society who helped us pick olives. I am inspired by a Palestinian Tamer who holds two jobs (one as a guard here at our institute but also helped with olives and one as a mechanic), thus working 16 hours a day and yet walks his daughter to school every day. I am inspired by Mosab Abo Taha (see this and this) and Ramzy Baroud a brilliant writer who lost his MD sister in Gaza (see this) and Lebanese women Ghadi Francis. I am inspired by this missionary who walks where Jesus walked, even in time of war. I could list thousands of people like that that I personally know; someone should compile a webpage; I am sure we can list hundreds of thousands of candles in the darkness

Thus, we have hope and faith despite the genocidal onslaught against our people of Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and also Syria and Yemen goes (76 years of colonialism, supremacy, hegemony, and control).  

The Cactus and the cucumber: A reflection on hope (I wrote this almost 20 years ago)

THINGS NOT SEEN IN THE COMPLICIT WESTERN MEDIA:

Naomi Klein sums things well https://x.com/democracynow/status/1848726603112612275

Col. Larry Wilkerson & Scott Ritter on how Iran destroyed Israeli attack while IDF crushed by a recovered Hezbollah  https://youtu.be/9JoIAfK07uM

Zionist plan: Nile to Euphrates https://youtu.be/KMxooA7CQ8g
This is what it looks like when masses of people are transported to concentration and torture camps in the 21st century. Will the people behind the wheel one day claim that they were 'just drivers'? https://x.com/pawelwargan/status/1849084175829078189
Israeli Soldiers SICKENING War Crimes EXPOSED https://youtu.be/gEo813rYm8g
Nakba happening again in front of the entire world:
https://x.com/Timesofgaza/status/1849378844089647136
and one more massacre (now over 3000 massacres) from Khan Younis
https://x.com/warfareanalysis/status/1849684329582166413
reminiscent of another massacre at same place in 1956:
https://x.com/user104021010/status/1720394748169539715
(yes this is not new)
Kill Them All: The Extermination of Palestinians
https://thecradle.co/articles/kill-them-all-israels-extermination-of-palestinians-in-gaza
UN report confirms MASS RAPE of Palestinian hostages in Israeli torture camps
https://www.naturalnews.com/2024-10-18-un-report-confirms-mass-abuse-palestinian-hostages.html
Chris Hedges: Extermination works - at first
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/extermination-works-at-first
CIA and a private company to run concentration camp in Gaza
https://youtu.be/RRzkIIw2_us
People of Gaza are starving while Arabs hold lavish feasts
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1171559400958009
Australian-Israeli dual citizen Mark Regev under trial for genocide advocacy
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2024-10-22/ty-article/.premium/australian-israeli-former-diplomat-mark-regev-under-trial-for-genocide-advocacy/00000192-b4e6-d006-a5b3-feee3fa30000
The "President of the European Commission" Ursula von der Leyden not only has excused every crime committed by Israel (war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid, genocide) but even advocates suppression of free speech in Europe ala what they have in Germany (no Palestinians flags, no speech against Zionism or colonialism, no "Free Palestine" slogans). She is truly a "daughter of nationalist Germany" which committed the genocide in Namibia and of Nazis and neo-Nazis. And here is a bit about her father and his role in WWII Germany Who was the father of Ursula von der Leyden in WW2? . We do not know if her affinity to Israel is a (deluded) way of making up (she should not because Nazis collaborated with the Zionists who do not represent Jews and even broke the boycotts of Nazi Germany). She should know better. The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell criticized her biased stance which, he said, undermined Europe's geopolitical position and was at variance with reality of a catastrophic Israel induced humanitarian catastrophe.
https://www.quora.com/Who-was-the-father-of-Ursula-von-der-Leyen-in-WW2

Resistance and colonization

Palestinians, like others, reflect on resistance and fate of other nations subjected to colonization. Zionist leaders wish for us a fate similar to that of the Lakota Nation in what became the United States of America. As the Polish new tough-man who received the torch from Hitler said: you have to keep beating them and killing them so hard they never rise. Most Palestinians think of decolonization ala Algeria or (mostly) like South Africa. In Algeria, after a protracted 132 year conflict, the colonizers left (many of them six or seven generations so were not really “returning to Europe”). But this was a costly conflict with some one or two million Algerians killed (a genocide). The South African model is cited more by Palestinians who are recruiting international support with boycott, divestments and sanctions and locally engaged in resistance. Like Algerian or Apache or Lakota or South African or Aztec people, resistance took both armed and non-armed forms. There were those who believed in armed resistance (Crazy horse, Sitting Bull, Geronimo, Nelson Mandela, Omar Mukhtar, Che Guevara) and others who believed in popular resistance (Desmond Tutu, Mahatma Gandhi). Individual way of death varied for each. There were movements like the African National Congress in South Africa and the National Liberation Front in Algeria or the PLO labeled as terrorist organizations by both the colonizers and the West. Most of the resistance whether it was in South Africa or Algeria or Palestine was popular resistance (see my book). That did not matter to the colonizers who wanted the land without the troublesome indigenous people. All resistance was in the cross-hairs of the colonizers past, present, and future.  Genocides, pogroms, massacres continued anyway. 

In all such situations, both the colonizers and the colonized understand it is a fateful and existential struggle for their narratives. Shiny city on a hill, manifest destiny, heroic resistance, terrorism, promised land, defending ourselves (circling the wagons), barbarians, white or red devils, forces of darkness and forces of light, are the language terms used over and over again depending on where you stand on colonization (see books by Franz Fanon and Edward Said). The outcomes are limited with only three possible scenarios: Australia/USA, Algeria/Vietnam, and South Africa/rest of world models. I know that I and millions push for that third model and it is the most common outcome found in 160+ countries/territories (see my other book). But for indigenous people under the boot in times of hopelessness or times of hope, survival itself is a form of victory. We Palestinians survived 76 years of horror that no one saw before and survived even in the midst of horrors of an ongoing extermination campaign in the Gaza Strip.

A message from Omar in the Gaza strip (sent to my friend Heather): "We were informed that we had to head to southern Gaza as it was declared a 'safe humanitarian zone.' On our way south, the road felt like hell itself. A bus carrying a family was bombed, and it was the first time I saw body parts flying through the air. Every kilometer or so, you would see a car, completely charred with the people inside, people who had lives and dreams. These cars were left as they were, and perhaps even run over by tanks. We reached Khan Younis, where I stayed at the Red Crescent for 90 days. I lived through experiences you cannot even imagine. The Red Crescent was bombed more than 10 times. Death was closer to me than my jugular vein. I could almost taste it, yet it refused to take me, until Israeli tanks surrounded us. The Israeli forces then stormed the Red Crescent. A soldier stood at the door, cursing and spewing vile, despicable words. He started yelling, "Come out, you animals!" The path between their tanks was one of the hardest things I’ve ever faced in my life. They humiliated us, and they humiliated our women and elderly in the most brutal ways. They took one young man from among us and ordered him to take off his clothes and dance. When he refused, they put a bullet between his eyes. The road was filled with corpses and tears. We eventually reached Rafah.... the Israeli army entered Rafah and closed the crossing, forcing us to flee to Deir al-Balah. I now live in a tent at a UNRWA school in Deir al-Balah. We are surrounded by the Zionists from all sides. They starve us, kill us, and bomb the schools every day. I’ve been displaced more than five times while in Deir al-Balah, from one tent to another, from one form of death to the next. Each time, I begged death to take me, but it refused, as if it found pleasure in my suffering. This Zionist enemy has inflicted upon us every kind of torture imaginable..."

MSNBC highlights Shaaban (one of many tens of thousands burned or buried alive) in his own words 

Are hospitals collateral damage? Assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023

The Destructive Legacy of Mass Starvation

Israel Is Routinely Shooting Children in the Head in Gaza: U.S. Surgeon & Palestinian Nurse testify

and this was videotaped just this week in the west bank: https://youtu.be/_Z6VByIrDw0

And what is happening here in the wild West Bank is harrowing 

Palestinian content is censored on social platforms owned by META 

Can Israel survive Netanyahu? and Is Israel plotting its own defeat? 

Who supplies Israel with weapons (to commit genocide)

The Guardian: Israel is a rogue nation. It should be removed from the United Nations
Biden administration helping genocide putting US troops at risk [will the Hannibal directive also apply to US troops like Israeli troops?] and Dr. Jill Stein on US election

On sisters and personal reflection

 This message now reaches over 60,000 individuals directly and many more by forwards. They are mostly activists (perhaps 75-80%), 15-20% spectators and “neutral” people (journalists etc), and perhaps 400 Zionists (which is OK with me as in some cases they may see the light). I usually try to relay situations on the ground that are missing from the manipulated/controlled western “mainstream” media. I also sometimes quote articles for example today I could put links to articles about the extermination in Jabalia and Beit Hannoun.  Craig Murray wrote from Scotland: "A deliberate and complete extermination of the population of Jabalia and Beit Hanoun is happening this very second, so that Israel can annex this piece of Northern Gaza. The world does nothing. Sorry, that is not true. The western world supplies the weapons." And Francesca Albanese wrote: "You can be a celebrity or an ordinary person. If you stay SILENT, PASSIVE, INACTIVE while Palestinians trapped in Gaza - human beings who breathe, feel and dream exactly like you - get slaughtered by an unchecked army, you are no different from those who continued to go by their lives during past genocides who erased millions from the earth." And John Gutterman Tranen wrote: "The IOF observed Yom Kippur by turning Jabalia into an extermination zone. May they never be forgiven and may their names be removed from the book of life." and John Lyons, ABC Sydney correspondent, wrote from Beirut: "Israel has bombed one of the main water channels from Litani River. Thousands of hectares now without irrigation. This will cause huge food shortages. On top of heavy shelling and “widespread” (HRW) use of chemical weapons by Israel (white phosphorus) on south Lebanon. This is devastating."

On some (rather rare) occasions I state my own fears, hopes, and thoughts. This message is one to do so more poignantly. What prompted me to do this is a message from Hiam in Gaza (displaced now a fourth time and living with her surviving family in a tent). Hiam lost an eye to an Israeli bullet in 2001 (she was 7 years old then) and we had hosted her then in our home in the US as we got her a prosthetic eye (which she has since outgrown and now merely puts a batch on her eye. Hiam, now 30 years old, has a 10-year-old son Mohannad whose school was bombed. She still calls me Baba (dad) and calls Jessie Mama (Mom) and our son Akhoya (my brother). Her daily description of the horrors she is witnessing around her and her feelings keeps me awake at night. Islam whose son Mohammad on a whee chair was partly burned with his sister from the Israeli shelling of their tent. But the two families of Hiam and Islam are two of many I am in touch with in Gaza and they are ones still alive (awaiting the machine of extermination to reach them). I dread the coming winter for them all (1.9 million people). Sometimes they tell me they envy the dead (>200,000 dead in Gaza in the last 12 months) as they are starving and since most of them are highly religious they believe in an afterlife which has no suffering and pain.

Hiam  and her son Muhannad in 2023 (before the horrors) 

Mohammad Abulkhair in early 2023 (before that home was demolished and he was burned with his sister) and his sister Layan being treated

Here in Bethlehem, I talk daily to people who were beaten by Israeli soldiers and settlers or who were denied access to tend to their lands. Just last week we lost Ziad Abuhleil (a person I knew who, in his 60s was my age) beaten to death by Israeli soldiers. And yesterday were were informed of the death in Israeli prison of a Bethlehemite 37 year old (he would be 58th tortured to death this past year). This past week, our friend Dr. Ramzy Baroud lost his sister. Ramzi, a renouned author co-edited with Dr. Ilan Pappe the book "Our Vision For Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders & Intellectuals Speak Out"  (available in Arabic and English) in which I had a chapter. Ramzy wrote Friday 1 AM about his sister:

"Early this evening, Israel has killed, or more accurately assassinated, my sister Dr Soma Baroud, by bombing her taxi in the Khan Yunis area, killing her and six other innocent people. She was the kindest soul, a great mother and a most loving sister. She was a member of a generation of female doctors that revolutionized medicine in the Strip. She healed many people, never charged the poor and until the last day of her life remained principled, loving, kind and patient, even when Israel blew up her house a few weeks ago. I don’t know what else to say, aside from the fact that I suddenly feel as if a child who became orphaned all over again. She was a leader of our family, and fulfilled the role of our mother who died at a young age. I am sorry, sister, that I could do nothing to protect you. I feel deep shame that I live in the very country that paid for and made the bombs that killed you. When the numbness is gone, I will try to stay strong only driven by the hope that we will meet again in Paradise."

Dr. Soma

Dr. Soma is gone as a sister. Hiam and Layan are disfigured as sisters but still alive for now. Each death and each injury and each difficulty produces a scar and Palestine has millions of scars.  For each of us who care, these scars are personal and they do not heal. They shape our minds and hearts. We do not forget. The only thing we try to do is channel these traumas towards actions for justice and for peace. I investigated hundreds of forms of resistance and wrote a book and many papers on popular resistance. This allowed me to experiment and work with various forms of resistance also as therapeutic to our traumas. It is not merely civil disobedience or being in the wrong place at the wrong time that results in our detention or arrest (this of course happened to me as to over 1 million Palestinians). There are hundreds of other forms of resistance which I explained in my book and that I personally practice. I must say in retrospect that the most important form of resistance is resistance to mental colonization (see this paper). That also means not losing our mind over all the atrocities we see but to stay focused on the work that needs to be done. I wrote lessons I learned in a reflection in  2018 still valid.

Keep Palestine alive by staying humane and active

Need for action

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip. Maybe we need reminder of other facts showing why this matters globally and ask how we collectively can act to stop being pushed into a cataclysmic future:

-Zionism worked to forcefully transform a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious, and multi-lingual country called Palestine (part of the land of Canaan) to a “Jewish state of Israel” 

-(Zionism partially successful): Today there are 15 million of us Palestinians, 8 million are refugees and millions live in shrinking reservations/ghettos/bantustans/concentration camps subject to the most brutal daily attacks and torture for 76 years.

-A genocide started in 1948 with 33 massacres and ethnic cleansing (Nakba) and accelerated in the past year after the Gaza ghetto uprising 7 October 2023. Over 250,000 Palestinians have been killed since 1948, over a million injured.

-Zionism started and promoted from Western Powers using a distorted image of Judaism in the same way that crusaderism used a distorted image of Christianity.

-These western powers (themselves colonial and build on the destruction of hundreds of millions of indigenous people) are supporting now one of the most dangerous colonial power in history (dangerous for all humanity, see below).

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

-All colonial powers dubbed any form of local/native resistance as terrorism, barbarism, savagery etc.

-To be honest with ourselves we must admit that hundreds of millions of people of the global south were (lethally) mistaken in assuming there was relevance to a western (read colonial) created global system that talked about International law and order while committing the most heinous crimes against humanity. Exhibit A: check US behavior at the UNSC.

-Any moral laws in Christianity, Islam, Judaism or other religions are totally meaningless to saving us when their subjects engage in committing horrors like what we saw in the past 200 years (massacres, pogroms, over 50 genocides, etc) and their co-religionists stay silent.

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

-This genocide is different than say the genocide of native Americans or aborigines or others: 1) broadcast live (no one can claim they did not know, see ongaza.org for links), 2) accompanied by the largest body of lies perpetuated on (controlled) mass media and pop culture in the West/Global North, 3) originates not from one regime but from several (many under strong Zionist lobbies), 4) Perpetrated by Zionists with an superiority-inferiority complex (claim of perpetual victimhood while claiming superiority over “goyim”), 5) it accelerated in the 21st century in the era of weapons of mass destruction (hyperbaric bombs, nuclear, chemical, mass planting of explosives in common house-hold devises) and mass control (Zionist Pegasus software, control of mass media and technology etc)

-Zionism being in the active phase of colonization does not set its borders. They tell us they are expanding and they expand. Their next occupation/colonization areas being talked about is all the lands from the Nile to the Euphrates. But it goes beond that since Zionists now control education and many business is countries like the USA and the UAE (Exhibit A: watch suppression of free speech on university campuses).

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

-Jewish Zionists represent at best 8 million people and Christian Zionists at best 50 million (there are 16 million Jews and 2.38 billion Christians in the world). Zionists thus represent 0.72% of the total world population. Any rational analysis shows how they drive apocalyptic fate of the world against the wishes of 99.28% of the world population (minus those who profit from militarism and the rampant capitalism system, people like Trump and Musk).

-Military spending keeps increasing especially in Western colonial powers (including “Israel”) and in their puppet regimes like “Saudi Arabia” and UAE. 

-The military is the largest single contributor to pollution and climate change. Geopolitcal tension and wars also divert people attention away from sustainability issues.

-Colonial oppressive regime used and still use “divide and conquer” strategies to get poor people hating other poor people while the rich get richer (see populist right-wing rhetoric in Western countries for good examples).

-Global joint struggle can work as it did against colonial apartheid South Africa

Reminder: There is an ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip

Whole families are daily being wiped out in the Gaza strip (and now in Lebanon) while the trends above portend a catastrophic and cataclysmic end of human civilization. People around the world are waking up (hundreds of millions were on the streets). Yet, we must organize better, get our activists better educated, and understand the nature of the evil forces that will make this planet uninhabitable if we do not stop them. The burden is on this generation to stop the rush to our extinction. In particular oppressed people around the world must unite. We are the majority as noted above. Search your city for organizers and events in this week on the anniversary of the acceleration of Genocide or organize your own activity. Let us also all redouble our efforts for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions. We are lucky to live in an era of transformation where we can make a difference and it is an existential struggle for humanity. And yes, there is a path forward