Human Rights
Dear friends (read, disseminate, and act)
It is hard to sleep these days especially in besieged bloodied
Palestine...the scenes of horrors in the Gaza Strip (and increasingly
spreading in the West Bank) are far too graphic, too disturbing. Friends of
ours are mistreated in jails of colonizers, the few released look
physically wasted (skeletons tramatized physicaly and psychologically). I
cannot take their images out of my head (e.g. Basem Tamimi from Nebi
Saleh). Others like Issa Amro are beaten by colonial thugs. We living
under the boots of the Zionazi regime try to be active and productive as
best as possible within our capacities and "wiggle room". The people of
the Gaza strip are in dire non-survival mode: seeing their families wiped
out, finding no medical care for injured or sick, starving and having no
drinkable water, and knowing that hundreds of millions of people around the
world are apathetic and that politicians are bought or blackmailed by the
evil doers. Is 76 years of colonization and ethnic cleansing enough? Eight
million Palestinian made refugees or displaced people. Is that enough?
remember the silence of our friends"
The genocide, ecocude, and scholasticide in Palestine continues. The
Israeli regime ignores calls from the UN, governments around the world, the
International court of justice, the International criminal court, and
hundreds of millions around the world. More Israeli soldiers are killed or
captured by the resistance so Israel continues to kill civilians as that is
all it can do hoping to end indigenous people. But the world is changing
and truth telling is not being silenced by intimidation and threats from
bullies and racists. I see this even in my last few days talking in New
Zealand/Aotearoa. Sold-out events, amazing energy....we are grateful to
people who act around the world. Below are bits of information I share this
week. We must all redouble our efforts (get knowledge and act on knowledge
to end this genocide and in so doing save the planet from catastrophic
global war). And as I explained to politicalleaders both in Australia and
The Democracy Perception Index (DPI) issued its 2024 report on May 8, revealing important and interesting shifts in global perceptions about democracy, geopolitics and international relations.
The conclusions in the report were based on the views of over 62 thousand respondents from 53 countries – roughly representing 75 percent of the world’s total population.
The survey was conducted between February 20th and April 15th, 2024, when the world was largely consumed by the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip.
It is important to note that the Index, though informative, is itself conceived in a biased context as it is the product of a global survey conducted by western-based companies and organizations.
More than 23 years ago, George W. Bush, Jr. signed Presidential Proclamation 7463 declaring that a “national emergency exists by reason of the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center, New York, New York, and the Pentagon, and the continuing and immediate threat of further attacks on the United States.”
The White House has demonstrated, in several administrations, both Democrat and Republican, “threat inflation” for the sake of spending endless money on wars, and manipulating fears to hold on to power to continue to spend endless money on even more wars in the ultimate protection racket.
As a result, the constitutional system of checks and balances is being obliterated in favor of an Imperial Presidency, and, as the Constitution is eroded, so too, are our liberties.
The recent chipping away at our First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights can be traced directly to the psychology of a "State of Emergency," which licenses shredding of freedom.
Inadvertently, Israel has pressed the reset button on its war with the Palestinian people, taking back the so-called conflict to square one.
Save a few self-serving Palestinian officials affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA), most Palestinians do not seem consumed with the return to the peace process, or even engaged in discussions about two state solutions.
The conversation among Palestinians is now mostly concerned with all aspects of the Palestinian struggle, starting with the ethnic cleansing of Palestine 76 years ago, an event known as the Nakba, or Catastrophe.
The Nakba is commemorated on May 15 of each year. The nature of the annual event, however, changes from one stage of the Palestinian struggle to the next. Indeed, the Nakba anniversary acquires its meaning from the political context of the time – it is elevated during times of hope, demoted during times of despair, defeat and infighting.
Throughout history, fringe religious Zionist parties have had limited success in achieving the kind of electoral victories that would allow them an actual share in the country’s political decision-making.
The impressive number of 17 seats won by Israel’s extremist religious party, Shas, in the 1999 elections, was a watershed moment in the history of these parties, whose ideological roots go back to Avraham Itzhak Kook and his son Zvi Yehuda Hacohen.
I got dozens of positive feedback on my "redirection" to focus only or 95%
on positive news for a time (few weeks may) to balance....
"The Old World is dying and the new world is struggling to be born: now is
the time for monsters" wrote Antonio Gramsci But Arundhati Roy adds
"Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I
can hear her breathing.” I indeed can....We Palesinians have experience in
resurrection and remember the story of the Phoenix rising from the ashes,
that comes from our region. Both the Holy Quran and the Holy Bible have
many statements on hope]
ITEM 1: Resilience/Sumud of Gaza in a holy season
Gaza Muslims sharing when they have food and when they don't
https://youtu.be/zARlC6HQqoo
Here is a scary piece of information. In Gaza, there are 37 mothers a day who are murdered by the occupation Israeli Death Forces (IDF). I contemplate this number on the heals of Mother’s Day, which the world celebrated few days ago.
As of Monday, at least 32,333 people have been killed, including more than 13,000 children and 8,400 women. The injured are more than 74,694 people, including at least 8,663 children and 6,327 women. The missing are more than 8,000
Last week, Variety reported that “more than 1,000 Jewish creatives, executives and Hollywood professionals have signed an open letter denouncing Jonathan Glazer’s ‘The Zone of Interest’ Oscar speech.” The angry letter is a tight script for a real-life drama of defending Israel as it continues to methodically kill civilians no less precious than the signers’ own loved ones.
A few ethical words from Glazer while accepting his award provoked outrage. He spoke of wanting to refute “Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation, which has led to conflict for so many innocent people,” and he followed with a vital question: “Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?”