Rojava.

          In this world in the grips of insanity and savage brutality in the name of power and wealth, it is no surprise that the powers that be turn a blind eye to such atrocities as the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people and seizure of their lands, the Turkish state's war crimes against the people of Rojava. Our media is filled with how bars, restaurants, airlines are suffering because of covid19 and are screaming for tax payers money to keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed. The destruction of lands and killing of its people doesn't seem to register with their mind set.
       It is up to the ordinary people of this world to take to task the fascist Turkish state the Zionist genocide brigade and their bedfellows, among them all the major states on the planet.
      This call for support from the fighters of Rojava should receive all the solidarity and support we can muster, their dream can be our tomorrow.

The following from Enough is Enough:

 

Originally published by Anarkismo.

        Embargo, cutting off water sources and air strikes against civilians have been some of the war crimes committed by the fascist Turkish state throughout this year against the revolution in Rojava.
       While facing the internal political and economic crisis, the Erdogan government has to accept the failure of the military operations in the mountains of Kurdistan, appealing to the use of chemical weapons, in the face of the resistance of the Kurdish warriors of the revolution.
       The intensification of the attacks last October, the flyers launched from the aeroplanes and the recent troop movements threaten a new invasion of the autonomous territories in the North and East of Syria.
       At this delicate moment, we want to reaffirm our solidarity with our revolutionary comrades and all the peoples of Rojava and condemn once more the occupation of Rojava, the multiple aggressions and war crimes of the Turkish neo-fascist state and its jihadist allies, as well as their preparations for war.
      The Rojava Revolution, which is about to celebrate 10 years, and together with the free Kurdish mountains, represents not only a grassroots democratic and federalist alternative for the Middle East, but for the peoples of the world.
      In this 21st century of economic, social and ecological crisis, in a world transformed into a junta of great powers and capitals for financial speculation; the struggle and creation of projects of a different society have a global strategic role. The Rojava revolution, with its strong roots in the struggle of women, the deepening of democracy with broad popular participation and the protection of the environment, is a revolutionary example of these times from which the peoples of the world must learn.
      It is not a coincidence that since its beginning thousands of people all over the world have risen up in solidarity with the heroic resistance of Kobanê against the fascist forces of ISIS.
      ISIS, a criminal, obscurantist and fascist group, whose creation was facilitated by the disastrous US military intervention in Iraq, the funding and support of Saudi Arabia, and which has the ideological and tactical support of the Turkish state, and whose fighters were recycled as mercenaries for the invasions of Afrin and Serekanyie, and are now preparing to invade Rojava as a paramilitary force of the Turkish army.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info     

Built-in Racism.

         For those who don't see the religious, racist, fundamentalism that sits as a government in the Zionist state of Israel, this video should perhaps open their eyes and give a clearer picture of the cancer that controls that part of the planet. It might be rather long, but well worth the time as it is packed full of facts, names and dates. 

Visit ann arky's home at 

http://strugglepedia.co.uk/index.php?title=Main_Page

Gaza.

        So the bombing and killing has stopped for the moment, but the people of Gaza were not subject to this brutal bombardment from Israel as a one off, they are subjected to a constant savagery from the Israeli military on a daily basis, as are all the Palestinian people who are under the apartheid thumb of the Israeli Zionist state. The fight to free the Palestinian people from the vicious grip and violent whims of the Zionist state of Israel must continue. A stop to the overwhelming military power of the Zionists being unleashed on the people of Palestine must be permanent. The pressure must continue to highlight the true savagery of the Israeli Zionist state and bring justice to the people of Palestine.  

A call for solidarity for the people of Palestine.

Stop the War Coalition

NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION FOR PALESTINE

SAT 22 MAY - 1PM - EMBANKMENT, LONDON

         Saturday's national march in solidarity with Palestine is to go ahead despite the ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel.
        The bombs may have stopped but the brutal occupation, siege and ethnic cleansing continues. We are marching tomorrow in solidarity with the Palestinian people.
       We will be demanding an end to the UK’s complicity in Israel’s actions.
Boris Johnson expresses his 'deep concern' yet happily sells Israel the weapons it uses to kill innocent Palestinians.
       That's why we must all be out on the streets of London this Saturday to pressure our government to take concrete action to end it's support for Israel's apartheid regime.
       We can’t stop just because Israel has temporarily stopped bombing Gaza. We must campaign and protest until the Palestinian people enjoy what is their birth right: freedom, justice and equality in their historic homeland.

Join us today. Help us by tweeting and sharing on social media #UK4Palestine

       Finally, organising demonstrations costs money and at Stop the War we rely solely on membership contributions and donations to support our campaigning. Can you help support our work?

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info      

Same Old.

       With the Trump Biden farce still gurgling along, we should remember that America is not just Trump and Biden, across that country, I suppose as in other countries, there are lots of little Trumps and Bidens fashioning their own authoritarian wet-dreams. Lots of states across America are merrily passing legislation restricting freedom and directing people how they should think, all without any directive from their lashing insane viper leader, in the White House. Lots of anti-abortion, anti-gay banner carriers hold power in states, as well as an army of pro-Zionists under the spell of emperor Benjamin Netanyahu. An army of Zionist groupies in America have been merrily peppering various states legislation with acts to stop any criticism of Israel, and they are not going to disappear when the new Messiah Biden places his posterior on the U$A throne.

The following from Mondoweis: 

Rep. Deborah Silcox introduces Harold Hershberg of Israeli consulate (l, partial image) to Governmental Affairs Committee hearing in Atlanta, GA. March 11, 2020. Screenshot. 

         A Georgia state legislator who has pushed the state law opposing boycotts of Israel testified at a hearing that the Israeli consulate “asked me” to introduce an amendment to the law, and she did. The lawmaker appeared at the hearing in March with an Israeli consular officer seated at her side, and introduced him to the House committee.
      State Rep. Deborah Silcox made her comments a month after Benjamin Netanyahu bragged that Israel was promoting these laws. Netanyahu tweeted on February 12:
       Whoever boycotts us will be boycotted… In recent years, we have promoted laws in most US states, which determine that strong action is to be taken against whoever tries to boycott Israel.
       The Israeli government’s intervention was first reported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in a March press release. I learned about it from an interview with a lawyer who is suing the state of Georgia, which was posted on Empire Files by journalist Abby Martin last Friday.

Here is the back-story.

      Thirty-two states, including Georgia in 2016, have adopted laws denying state funds to those who advocate boycotting Israel. The U.S. Senate has passed a bill urging other states to do so (The “Combatting BDS Act of 2019”). Last summer the Forward reported that an organization that has helped draft these laws received a grant from the Israeli government.
      In February 2020, Abby Martin was “disinvited… from delivering a keynote speech at an academic conference” at Georgia State University, losing out on a $1000 honorarium, because she refused to sign what she calls an “Israel loyalty oath,” affirming that she would not engage in boycotts against Israel.
     Backed by several groups including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Martin then sued Georgia State in federal court, saying that it had violated her First Amendment rights by applying the law.

       Will the ascension of Saviour Biden change all that, I doubt it very much. When you look at the "team" he is gathering around him, what you are watching is the forming of a kettle of hawks. So get ready for the big change that will keep everything the same.

 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

Isreali's Apartheid.

 

      Any observer of elections in the "democratic representative" style governments, will know that they change nothing. They may tinker around the edges, but will leave the power structure as before. What they can sometimes tells us is the way the majority think. The recent Israeli elections, as expected, left the Israeli state much as it has always been, but it did tell us that the majority of the population of Israel are right wing, believers of land grabbing and the persecution of those on the land they wish to grab.

     During the recent Israeli elections, Netanyahu made no secret of his plan to grab more Palestinian land for Jewish settlements and get rid of those who have lived there for centuries. Still the people of Israel said yes, that's what we want.

His nearest rival in the election was another right wing authoritarian, with just a slightly different shade of racism and race supremacy. How do you deal with a people with that mind set? 

I think Gideon Levy's article hits it on the head.

       You can be disgusted, you can be fearful, you can even be shocked, but you can’t deny his incredible talent: Benjamin Netanyahu the wizard struck again. Now he’s also an alchemist – take a serious indictment, scatter incitement, and win the admiration of the masses. You can be contemptuous, you can denounce it, you can even rise up against the nation that voted that way, but you have to respect its choice. To bow your head. It’s the will of the people. The people want Netanyahu.
      The time has come to recognize that fact: Israel is right-wing, hard right. Racism is politically correct, personal corruption makes no difference, as long as you guarantee the continuation of Jewish supremacy, rule over another nation, arrogance and hatred. Peace, equality and justice are for the weak. Not for most Israelis. They said it loud and clear on Monday, more decisively than in the two previous election campaigns: Netanyahu is our king. Netanyahu is the king of most Israelis.

Read the full article HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Israel's Future???

        Israel, a state born on the promise of an invisible man in the sky, who is said to have promised this particular tribe a large part of the Middle East. As far as I am aware, there were no witnesses to this promise, and I doubt if an invisible man in the sky would have the where-with-all to write the promise down and sign it. So some "man" had to do the writing, again, as far as I am aware, their were no witness at the invisible man's dictation. What a load of crap to use as the foundation of a state, but those who believe this nonsense are prepared to maim, kill, and steal land from others to fulfill this childish fiction story.

      That ludicrous fictional promise has spawned the largest concentration camp on the planet, the enslavement and creeping genocide of a group of people who happen to have lived on the plot of land for countless centuries, the Palestinians.

       It is hard to imagine any state built on such ludicrous foundations could possible come into existence, let alone last, but it suited the imperialist powers of the time, and today Israel survives as it is doing the job of the Western imperialists policeman in the Middle East. But for how mach longer?

An interesting article on Israel's possible future,

  By Gilad Atzmon, The End of Israel

          September 14, 2019 "Information Clearing House" - The lesson to be drawn from the current Israeli political stalemate is that Israel is imploding, breaking into the elements it has never managed to integrate into one. The schism is no longer the more quotidian dichotomy of Ashkenazi vs. Arab Jews (aka Sephardim); this divide is ideological, religious, spiritual, political, ethnic and cultural. Nor does it break down to Left and Right, Jewish Israelis are politically with the right even when they pretend to be ‘Left.’ Although some of the most astute critical voices of Israeli politics and Jewish fundamentalism are Israelis (such as Gideon Levi, Shlomo Sand, Israel Shamir and others), there is no political Israeli Left. Israeli politics break down into a lot of extreme right voters and many ordinary hawks. The Arab Joint List Party is practically the only Left party in the Israeli Knesset. This should not be surprising any more. Jewish Left, as I have been arguing for many years, is an oxymoron; Jewishness is a form of tribal identification and Left is universal. The ‘tribal’ and the ‘universal’ are like oil and water, they do not mix very well.
       What is peculiar about the Israeli political divide is that the Israelis are more united than ever in their nationalist beliefs and in the primacy of their Jewish symptoms. Why is it, if the Israelis are so unified, that no one can form a government in their so-called ‘Jewish State’?
        Avigdor Lieberman, formerly an enthusiastic Netanyahu ally and himself a radical Jewish nationalist, delved into the Israeli political deadlock yesterday. He maintained that the elections had already been decided: “The ultra-Orthodox and Messianic bloc reaches 62-61 seats.” The leader of the rabid nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu said, “If there is no voting rate of at least 70% in Gush Dan and Sharon, the Halacha government will be established.”
        Basically, Lieberman said that unless secular Israelis in Tel Aviv go to the polls, they should expect to live in a Halacha State under an ultra right wing Netanyahu government. Lieberman appears to hold the key to Israel’s political stability. Although he and Netanyahu are ideological twins regarding Israeli security and nationalist matters, the two are bitter rivals who fight aggressively against each other. Netanyahu has known for a few years that, absent a strong ultra right wing government, he can expect to spend some time behind bars, an adventure that has become common for Israel’s prime political figures. Netanyahu’s natural partners are the ultra right parties and the orthodox parties. Ideologically, Lieberman should also feel comfortable within such a political coalition but Lieberman has made a crucial political decision, essential for his political survival. A while back he grasped that his political home base, Jewish immigrants from the former Soviet Union, many of them barely Jewish and subjected to constant rabbinical terror, regard the Jewish Orthodox parties as their ultimate foes. Many of these Russian and Ukrainian Jews hold ultra right wing political positions but also see the Rabbis as an imminent threat to their survival.
         Theoretically, Lieberman could broker a huge unity coalition with Netanyahu at the top, joined by Blue and White (Kachol Lavan) and its three right wing field marshals, Lieberman’s own party and probably the Labour party. Such a coalition would hold around 80 Knesset seats, more than enough to sustain a strong government but this coalition would refuse to guarantee Netanyahu’s immunity.
       Netanyahu gambles instead on a weak ultra right wing religious government, a government that may not hold for very long but would buy more time for its PM to stay out of jail.
        This conflict at the heart of Israeli politics is a window into the Jewish state and its fears. Israel is rapidly becoming an Orthodox Jewish state. Israel’s Orthodox Jews are the fastest growing group in the country. They are also the country’s poorest population, 45 percent live below the poverty line in segregated communities. Ordinarily, one would expect the poor to support the left, but Israeli Torah Jews are rabid nationalists and openly lend their support to Benjamin Netanyahu and his party.
        Prof. Dan Ben-David of Tel Aviv University warned recently that Israel could cease to exist in a couple of generations. He pointed to the astonishingly high birth rate among ultra Orthodox Jews and predicted that, based on current trends, they will comprise 49% of Israel’s population by 2065. The ultra Orthodox parties are destined to dominate the Knesset within a generation or less. Ben David predicts that their dependence on Israel’s welfare system will lead to a rapid decline is Israel’s economy. This is economically damaging enough and is made worse by the refusal of most rabbinical schools to incorporate standard Western subjects such as mathematics, science and English into their core curriculum. Consequently, Israel is educating a growing percentage of its population in a fashion that fails to equip them to contribute to the needs of a hi-tech society that is immersed in a conflict for survival.
        The picture that comes across is peculiar. As Israel becomes increasingly Jewish and fundamentalist in its nationalist and religious ethos, it has also become more divided on everything else. The Russian immigrants find it impossible to live alongside the ultra Orthodox and vice versa. The secular enclave in Tel Aviv is committed to seeing their metropolis as an extension of NY. The Israeli Left has morphed into an LGBT hasbara unit. It has practically removed itself from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Jewish settlers adhere to the concept of a ‘Two Jewish States Solution.’ They want to see the West Bank become a Jewish land. Orthodox Jews are barely concerned with any of these political issues. They well know that the future of the Jewish state belongs to them. All they need to do is sustain a productive secular Jewish minority to serve as their milk cow. On top of all of that we face Bibi’s survival wars that threaten to escalate any minute into a world conflict.
         In light of all of this, the Palestinians are in relatively good shape.. They simply need to survive. Israel seems to be Israel’s fiercest enemy.
         Gilad Atzmon is a saxophonist, writer, and political activist. He was born in Israel, but now lives in London. https://gilad.online/writings/2019/9/12/the-end-of-israel

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Anti-Semitism--Anti-Zionism!!

       The great antisemitism witchhunt: McCarthyism redux. By John Wight 

https://off-guardian.org/2019/06/29/the-great-antisemitism-witchhunt-mccarthyism-redux/

          This article was first published on March 1st of this year, however, it is given fresh relevance in the wake of Labour’s reinstatement, and then re-suspension, of Derby MP Chris Williamson.

PUTNAM: Now look you, sir. Let you strike out against the Devil, and the village will bless you for it! Come down, speak to them — pray with them. They’re thirsting for your word, Mister! Surely you’ll pray with them.

PARRIS: (swayed) I’ll lead them in a psalm, but let you say nothing of witchcraft yet. I will not discuss it. The cause is yet unknown. I have had enough contention since I came; I want no more.
Arthur Miller – The Crucible

         In his magisterial autobiography, Timebends, describing his motivation behind his classic work The Crucible (extracted above) — the most compelling and enduring allegorical piece of drama to grace the American theatre — Arthur Miller reveals the following: 

      What I sought was a metaphor, an image that would spring out of the heart, all-inclusive, full of light, a sonorous instrument whose reverberations would penetrate to the centre of this miasma. For if the current degeneration of discourse continued, as I had every reason to believe it would, we could no longer be a democracy, a system that requires a certain basic trust in order to exist.”

        The ‘miasma’ referred to by Miller in the above passage was the atmosphere of censorious paranoia whipped up by the anti-Communist witchhunts of the 1940s and 1950s, starting under the auspices of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), established in 1938, joined thereafter by Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate hearings into alleged Communist infiltration from the late 1940s. 

Arthur Miller

        The period concerned, commonly referred to as McCarthyism, illuminated the parameters of free speech and expression in a country and culture which prides itself on both. It drilled home the profound truth that tyranny is less the by-product of totalitarian political systems and more the product of totalitarian ideas and nostrums that sustain political orthodoxy in a given space and time. And, too, whenever those ideas and nostrums come under challenge, said democracy is exposed as a cloak behind which mendacity resides, ruthlessly seeking malcontents to expose and miscreants to punish. In Britain in 2019 we need no longer turn to US history for an understanding of McCarthyism and its execrable fruits.
       For in Britain in 2019 McCarthyism is with us and among us, corroding our public and political discourse, poisoning it with the untruths, lies and mendacious smears of some of the most malignant political forces that ever existed in these islands.
       Reds under the bed has been replaced with antisemites under the bed; this with the full and open complicity of a mainstream media whose dread over the prospect of transformational political change is entwined in tight embrace with that of an Establishment — political and security — in ensuring nothing but nothing will ever change in this country apart from the colour of the curtains on the windows in Downing Street.
      Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party has to intents been usurped by his deputy Tom Watson, a man for whom Shakespeare’s “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here!” line from The Tempest could have been written with in mind. 

Labour Friends of Israel

       Watson is the Labour Party’s Matthew Hopkins, the infamous witch-hunter whose reign of terror in 17th century Britain finds its metaphorical equivalent in the 21st century with the objective not of locating and hanging out to dry antisemites but instead anti-Zionists, which means to say genuine anti-racists.
       For what is Zionism if not racism, a species of white supremacy responsible for relegating the humanity of five million men, women and children of the illegally occupied West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip to that of latter-day Helots?
      Adding to the mountain of intellectual and moral ordure erected in service to this miasma of untruth and base hypocrisy, are the findings of a UN investigation into the Palestinians killed and wounded by Israeli snipers during last year’s Great Return March in Gaza.

According to the UN’s Santiago Canton:

        Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.”
       In diplomatic-speak, Mr Canton is here referencing the manner in which Israeli soldiers shot down dozens of unarmed Palestinians — among them children, medics and journalists — like deer in a forest, with some of those Israeli soldiers caught on tape laughing and celebrating their ‘kills’.
       It is to this monstrosity of an apartheid state Tom Watson and his friends are giving succour and sanction; and it this supremacist juggernaut of oppression we are expected to accept as compatible with left-wing progressive values.
       There is nothing more grotesque than being lectured to about antisemitism, or any other form of racism, by apologists for a racist apartheid state. Yet this grotesquerie is precisely where we have arrived at in response to Corbyn’s unlikely elevation to the leadership of the Labour Party.
        His legacy as a staunch supporter of Palestinian human rights and self-determination has been weaponised against him and his supporters by a pro-Israel lobby within and without the Labour Party, plumbing depths of indecency last witnessed during the era of McCarthyism across the Atlantic.
       For those who doubt how deeply entrenched the pro-Israel lobby now is within the UK body politic, Al Jazeera’s blistering documentary The Lobby is required viewing.
       Given the context and the stakes involved in this ongoing witch hunt and smear campaign, the lack of meaningful resistance on the part of Corbyn is unconscionable; his refusal to mobilise his base in the face of it inexplicable. The result has not been to see it disappear but for it to prosper and grow in ferocity.
          Be under no illusion either of the complicity of key figures in and around the Labour leadership in whipping up and/or acquiescing in this baseless hysteria — Lansman, McDonnell et al. — to the point where Corbyn has been rendered well nigh unelectable as a prospective prime minister.
         That this is a smear campaign and witchhunt conducted, regardless of the fog of obfuscation deployed to the contrary, on behalf of a foreign power — and an apartheid power at that — compounds the offence.
        But this issue is now bigger than Corbyn. It is about where we stand on matters of intellectual and moral integrity; and most of all on the rights we accrue to an oppressed people and those of their oppressor. Future generations are watching and waiting for the stance that we take.
         Arthur Miller understood this, which is why his light will shine forever bright as a beacon of moral courage in an age of deceit.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

Apartheid Israel And Genocide.

     I, like many others, understandably get "rather angry" at that grouping of pro-Israeli, Friends of Israel, who jump up and shout "anti-Semitic" at anyone who should have any inkling of a criticism of the state of Israel. They continually point the finger of contempt, and act as cheerleaders, in an attempt to vilify anyone who casts a critical eye over the affairs of that apartheid state. I for one don't think they are blind to the apartheid structure of the Israeli state, I do believe they see nothing wrong in the inhuman, brutal actions of that state. Their anti-Semitic protestations are an attempt to divert the public eye away from the reality on the the ground, perpetrated by the Zionist cabal that rule over that plot of land called Israel.  

     All the evidence is there, Israel is an apartheid state, the suffering of the non-Jews under it heel is there for all to see, but our millionaire pro-Israeli press look the other way. I would go further and state that the state of Israel is carrying out a planned, deliberate, slow, but brutal genocide on the people of Palestine. All this based on the insane belief that some 2,000 years ago, a man in the sky gave this patch of the planet to the Jews, and they will shed blood to hold onto that ridiculous belief, while the world turns a blind eye, or worse, aids and abets this inhuman, vicious insanity.

This from Information Clearing House:

The many forms of apartheid Israel

        While there is still widespread ignorance among most people in the West, as most readers of Mondoweiss will know by now, apartheid in Israel takes many forms. One more obvious form it takes is in the overt racism enshrined in Israel’s 2018 “Nation-State law” that discontinued Arabic as an official language and that is now being challenged in Court. Another obvious form is Israel’s continued blockade and frequent bombing of the trapped residents of Gaza (since 2005). That treatment is currently the subject of a preliminary examination by the International Criminal Court and has also been investigated by the United Nations, which has called for criminal investigations into the killings of protestors at the Gaza border beginning last March.
       As explained by human rights organisations such as Al-Haq and Palestinian Center for Human Rights, further argued by international law scholars John Dugard and John Reynolds and elaborated in a UN report, apartheid also takes the form of literally hundreds of insidious Israeli military orders. This includes Order 101 that has been specifically condemned by Amnesty International as making it impossible for Palestinians to legally protest. Israeli regulations make it virtually impossible for Palestinians to build a home. This is due to the fact that Israel’s land and zoning regulations are, according to Israel’s Basic Law, oriented around “preserving” the land for Israel’s Jewish inhabitants.
         But the most insidious manifestations of Israeli apartheid are the decades-long, everyday experiences of Palestinians. Farmers have to stand in long lines to reach their sheep in the agricultural village of Qalandia (that is surrounded by a high, concrete wall). Schoolchildren in Hebron cannot walk to school without being stopped daily by soldiers at a military checkpoint to check the contents of their schoolbags. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has heard numerous cases of official abuse against Palestinian women, including a seven-month pregnant woman assaulted at a checkpoint.
         So again, why are these widely-reported examples of Israeli apartheid being ignored?

Read the full article HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk
 

The Prostitution Of Language For Political Gain.

 

         It is common place in today's political world to indulge in the prostitution of language for political gain, Orwellian double speak is the language of the politician and requires deconstructing and interpretation before digesting. Now however it has also invade all aspects of "news" reporting, meaning that dialogue in that field is practically impossible.

         Some words from my friend and comrade Stuart Christie, words that I fully embrace and would like the population at large, before switching on the TV or picking up a "newspaper" to repeat out loud at least three times.
   

        Don’t get me wrong, full disclosure: Jeremy Corbyn is, in my highly subjective opinion, a Cromwellian tosspot, albeit well-intentioned and principled — as far as anyone engaged in party politics can be principled. But the relentless, covert/overt, McCarthyist misinformation campaign—carefully orchestrated by a cabal of Likudnik Blairites and Thatcherites led by Tom Watson and Sajid Javid, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the media-owning political-economic elite (e.g. the Mail on Sunday’s recent blunt hatchet job on Seumas Milne, Corbyn’s strategy and communications adviser, by ex-SIS head (1999-2004) Sir Richard Dearlove), et al, — maliciously fusing anti-Zionism and opposition to the State of Israel with anti-Semitism, and painting Corbyn as a dangerous headbanger and latter-day Julius Streicher, isn’t doing a great deal for my irritability quotient or blood pressure. I know I'm banging my head inside an echo chamber here, but for the sake of my psychic wellbeing, I just had to vent some spleen. Just saying!

        Activist and academic Sai Englert explains why conflating Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism is "problematic".

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

Keep the Focus On Target.

 

          Just a few more photos to help to keep in focus, the Israeli Zionist state's brutal genocide of the Palestinian people. The protest was held to show and gather support for the Palestinian people's fight for justice. It was held in Argyle Street Glasgow Saturday 26th May, outside Marks and Spencer's, store, a known strong supporter of the Israeli Zionist state.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Israeli Apartheid Support Thwarted In Glasgow.

      Saturday in Glasgow was a very wind and bitterly cold day, despite this, approximately 1,500 brave individuals faced up to the vicious weather to take part in Glasgow's anti-racism march and rally. Perhaps the organisers would like to explain why COFIS, (Confederation of Friends of Israel Scotland) was allowed to join the march? This is a group that openly supports the violent racist Israeli state and its Zionist forced apartheid, a state where non Jews are second class citizens. Why was the national flag of this openly racist state allowed to be carried at an anti-racist march? This was a slap in the face to the Palestinian people, from the organisers of this march.

        I was delighted to see that a considerable number of people thought the same as me on this matter, and had managed a well organised and very efficient counter demonstration, managing to isolate the COFIS group, and their Israeli flags, from the main march. They contained and delayed the COFIS group to such an extent that by the time that the racist COFIS group reach George Square for the rally and speeches, the rally had already dispersed. Well done to each and everyone that took part in that real anti-racist counter demonstration.

     I thought the symbolic Israeli racist wall had a very powerful effect, forming a barrier between the racist COFIS and the pro Palestinian and other protesters. A strategy that could be employed to great advantage in other situations. Great idea comrades.

The "wall" that the COFIS had to march behind all the way to the Square.

COFIS being contained at the start of the march.

Some of those that helped contain and delay COFIS.

COFIS on their slow walk to the Square.

COFIS being being contained at the start of the march.

 Part of the main march reaching the Square, with COFIS a mile behind.

 Of course, no anti-racism march would be complete without them.

       No matter what blurb comes out from COFIS about this event, the true result of this counter demonstration is, that it was a complete success, they prevented this support group of racist Israel from attending the rally in George Square, a success for anti-racism.

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

 

RAGE AGAINST ISRAEL, NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION 5 JUNE

       

       The astounding turnout at Monday's emergency protest, when at only a few hours notice, thousands laid siege to David Cameron's residence in Downing Street and then marched to the Israeli Embassy

(see http://bit.ly/aEMHws), was a reflection of the intense rage at Israel's deadly attack on the Gaza flotilla, felt by millions worldwide.

        Ours was just one of hundreds of protests that took place in towns and cities across the globe.

A national demonstration in London this Saturday 5 June has been called by Stop the War, CND, BMI and Viva Palestina. The Gaza Flotilla March will assemble at Downing Street at 1.30 and march to the Israeli Embassy

        Monday's emergency demonstration showed how fast we can mobilise if we use all available means to spread the word as fast as possible. Please do all you can to publicise the demonstration among your friends, in your workplace, in your trade union, in your college or school, in your community group etc.

GAZA FLOTILLA MARCH: SATURDAY 5 JUNE

END THE SIEGE OF GAZA:   FREEDOM FOR PALESTINE

ASSEMBLE DOWNING STREET LONDON 1.30PM

        We urge all local Stop the War groups and trade union branches affiliated to Stop the War to bring their banners on the march.

FOR UPDATES,

PLEASE GO TO THE STOP THE WAR WEBSITE REGULARLY:  http://bit.ly/aEMHws

LONDON STOP THE WAR GROUPS AND SUPPORTERS:

Please note there is a protest today 1 June at 5pm outside the  Israeli Embassy, High Street Kensington.

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ISRAEI TERROR ON THE HIGH SEAS!!!

The death toll after the Israeli assault on the Gaz aid flotilla is now reported to be over 20. The attack took place in international waters, making it a major violation of international law. Imagine the response if such an attack had been carried out by Iran. We would now be at war.
     Below is athe press release issued by Stop the War earlier, calling for the British government to condemn the attack and to break links with Israel.

See the Stop the War website for links to videos of the Israeli attack: http://bit.ly/aEMHws

Please use all means you can -- by email, text, Facebook, Twitter, phone -- to publicise today's emergency demonstration.

EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATION TODAY
MONDAY 31 MAY 2.00PM DOWNING STREET LONDON

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MORE ISRAELI VIOLENCE.

ISRAELIS KILL TEN STORMING GAZA FLOTILLA
EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATION TODAY
MONDAY 31 MAY 2.00PM DOWNING STREET LONDON
SPREAD THE WORD

       Yet another act of Israeli barbarism as its forces storm one of the seven ships on the international flotilla taking aid to Gaza, where Israel’s illegal siege is starving Palestinians of essential resources. At least ten activists on board have been killed by Israeli forces.

        Please join the emergency demonstration today if you can. Publicise it as widely as possible.

See video of Israeli assault from Turkish television: http://bit.ly/aKExFf
For updates see: http://http//bit.ly/bg5gIu

CONTACT FOREIGN SECRETARY WILLIAM HAGUE & YOUR MP

PROTEST TO FOREIGN SECRETARY WILLIAM HAGUE:

EMAIL:http://mailto:correspondence@fco.gov.uk
AND/ORmailto:private.office@fco.gov.uk
AND MSU.mailto:PublicIn@fco.gov.uk

LETTER TO:

William Hague MP,
Foreign Secretary,
King Charles Street,
London, SW1A 2AH

CONTACT YOUR MP:
http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/ Ask him/her to contact Hague on your behalf

CONTACT DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER NICK CLEGG
EMAIL: cleggn@parliament.uk

LETTER TO: Nick Clegg MP, House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA


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NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION FOR PALESTINE

Saturday 15 May is a day of action for Palestine, including a demonstration in London, calling for:


* An end to Israel's violations of international law
* An end to Israel's illegal occupation and settlements
* Israeli war criminals to be brought to justice
* An end to the siege on Gaza
* A ban on all settlement goods
* Suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement
* An end to the arms trade with Israel

LONDON FREE PALESTINE DEMONSTRATION SATURDAY 15 MAY, 12-2PM
OPPOSITE 10 DOWNING STREET, LONDON SW1 (nearest tube Westminster)

Organised by: Palestine Solidarity Campaign, British Muslim Initiative, Stop the War Coalition, CND, Palestinian Forum in Britain.

Supported by: Association of the Palestinian Community UK,
Friends of Al Aqsa, Friends of Lebanon, the Green Party, ICAHD
UK, Jews for Justice for Palestinians, Liberal Democrats
Friends of Palestine, Pax Christi, Public and Commercial
Services Union, UNISON, UNITE the Union, Zaytoun

DOWNLOAD LEAFLET:   http://bit.ly/bNg9J4
 
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JUSTICE FOR PALASTINIANS.

       Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJP) have organised a short UK tour by one of the Shministim - Or Ben-David - a 19 year old Jewish Israeli woman who has refused to enter military service and has been imprisoned three times as a result. The Shministim - all 12th grade high school graduates - in the tradition of conscientious objectors worldwide, have taken an incredibly brave and inspirational stand in refusing to serve in the IDF in opposition to Israeli policies of occupation and oppression of Palestinians.

      Or will be spending a couple of nights in Scotland - a great opportunity to meet Or and hear first hand about the Shministim campaign. More on the Shministim here   http://www.shministim.com/

     On Wednesday 12th May, 5.30 pm, Or will be speaking at the Scottish Parliament Cross Party Group on Palestine in Edinburgh.

     On Thursday 13th May - 7.30 pm - Public Meeting at STUC, 333 Woodlands Road, Glasgow G3 6NG.

     The meeting is being jointly sponsored by Scottish Jews for a Just Peace and Scottish Friends of Palestine 

All Welcome.

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THE ISRAELI STATE, JUST ANOTHER BRUTAL STATE.

       Some time ago the media was focusing on the plight of Israelis being forced to end their illegal occupation of Gaza, showing pictures of distressed Israelis being lifted and carried off the illegal settlements. No matter how much they resist, the force against them is never to the extent that they are hospitalised or killed. Nor does it mention that they will each receive $140,000. They also seldom mention that settlements in the occupied West Bank continue to accelerate while Palestinians, whose land it is, are forcibly and brutally evicted as they have been for the last 50 years, with no compensation and in numerous cases hospital and death are part of the eviction process. Those moving onto the illegal settlements on the West Bank are from all over the world, not residents of the Middle East. The only qualification required to grab a piece of somebody else’s land is that you belong to a particular religious faith. The separation wall being built by the Israeli state within their illegal grab of the West Bank is cutting farmers from their fields, workers from their jobs, students from their schools and the sick from hospitals and perhaps the most vicious attack of all is that 90% of the water in Palestine is now under Israeli control.

 

       The catalogue of cruel vindictive crimes heaped on the Palestinian people by the Israeli state reads like some fictional horror story. Since September 2000 the Israeli state machine has seriously injured more than 42,000 Palestinian civilians, killed more than 3,000, it has destroyed over 3,000 homes and damaged more than 43,000. Well over one third of all those injured are under the age of 18. On top of these heinous state crimes the Israeli state machine has also bulldozed 900,000 Palestinian olive and fruit trees plus 28,000 acres of Palestinian farmland, removing the very basic means of survival for the ordinary Palestinian people.

      The Israeli state with its catalogue of vicious crimes against the people of Palestine is not unique in the annals of state history. Being the most powerfully armed state in the area and backed by the world’s most powerful states, it will do what powerful states always do, expand and grab what resources it so desires, be it land, water, oil or whatever. If that means brutal death and destruction, then so be it, if it means genocide, then so be it, Until the people of the Middle East, the rest of the world is not exempt, realise that it is in their mutual interest to end the power of the state with its inherent brutal expansionism and begin to build their society on the basis of equality across and between communities, on communities that are shaped by all those who take part in them and work with co-operation and mutual aid towards a better world for all peoples, then the brutality of this state or that state will continue, war will follow war, occupation will wreak havoc on ordinary people and our children will inherit that brutality.

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ISRAELI APARTHEID.

 

      How long can the horror of the Palestinians continue without a world revulsion of the Israeli State? World opinion linkled to the people of South Africa ended apartheid in that country, when will it end the same situation for the Palestinian people.

      Extract from a speech by Suzanne Weiss, the full speech can be found HERE

    This speech was given by Suzanne Weiss on March 2, 2010, to a meeting of students at the University of Waterloo in Canada, held as part of the Israeli Apartheid Week. Suzanne Weiss, a holocaust survivor, is a member of Not in Our Name: Jewish Voices Against Zionism and of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto.

   A year after a murderous Israel’s assault, the war on the people of Gaza continues. Gaza is still under siege – still surrounded by walls and checkpoints. Its people are denied the necessities of life and the right to rebuild and shape their future.

    For me, as a survivor of the holocaust, the tragic situation in Gaza awakens memories of what I and my  family experienced under Hitlerism – the ghetto walls, the killings, the systematic starvation and deprivation, the daily humiliations.

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