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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Massad understated the necessity for the liberation of Palestine.
The Black freedom movement in the 1960's certainly didn't weigh its words with a thimble to make sure that no whites would be offended. It rightfully issued countless broadsides against the genocide that Black America was subjected to, and demanded immediate liberation.
Black Americans were being murdered, disenfranchised, and robbed at the beginning of the '60's, and no power on Earth could stop it.
Thanks only to the Black freedom movement, at the end of the '60's, no one could stop you from attending school, voting, working, or living where you chose, unless they were willing to be dragged in front of the courts and the news media as a racist criminal.
Similarly, the anti-apartheid movement of the 1970's and '80's never worried that someone might mistake them for being "anti-white". That movement cursed South Africa for its racist crimes, boycotted South Africa, issued broadsides against South Africa, and helped to free South Africa's people from white supremacist rule.
If that timid, shamefully polite thing called "the BDS movement" ever goes nationwide, marching on student governements for total boycotts of Apartheid Israel, then Palestine will be liberated in no time flat. Until then, the BDS movement will be awaiting permission, hat in hand, from its "allies" who so hate to offend Israel.
The so-called BDS movement should listen to Massad. Then maybe they will spend their summer getting ready to demand boycott against Israel, starting on September 1, 2013, and never be muted for a single week after that.
How many more Arabs are going to be massacred by Israel before BDS becomes a public boycott group, instead of a timid bunch of perpetual "strategizers" and "planners"?
Joseph has to break out of the blog ghetto and into the mainstream media, as clase as he can get to the big microphones.
He tried, with Al Jazeera. He needs to push into the 'Nation' and 'New York Review of Books', like Edward did, and into the larger TV talk shows and newspapers.
He's going in a good direction -- previously, he wrote about how Gaza today is like the Warsaw Ghetto. Now he's pushing nice big broadsides essentially showing how Zionism is 21st-century Naziism.
It's good that he shows that-- because what do you do with a Nazi state? You boycott it. You cut all ties with it. As Apartheid South Africa was abolished, apartheid Israel will be too.
It's a relief to see Joseph going big on the issue of Palestine, saying "J'Accuse" loudly enough to be censored, which will give him a higher profile.
That leads to action: flat-out boycotts of Israel, followed by liberation for its victims.
I was afraid Joseph was never going to get heard -- glad I was wrong about that. The best defense is a good offense.
When they try to gag you, yell louder and use the "B" word (boycott!)
U.S. intervention did a lot to destroy Syrian democracy since the 1940's.
Note especially the U.S.-backed overthrow of President Shukri al-Quwatli (شكري القوتلي), whose party won the elections in Syria. He was overthrown in March 1949. This led to more coups and had a ruinous effect on the nation. See link to en.wikipedia.org
The cumulative ruin caused by U.S.-backed coups and wars in the Middle East is incalculable, from the 1940's until today.
Just one example: the 1953 U.S. coup that destroyed Iranian democracy.
The U.S. and Israel were both gunning for Yemen in the 1960's.
In March 1963, U.S. President Kennedy agreed to deploy a squadron of U.S. Air Force F-4s to Saudi Arabia, to fly near the Yemeni border, and to train Saudi pilots, as a demonstration of U.S. support for Saudi Arabia, as it fought to restore the overthrown Yemeni monarchy.
(See “Uncle Sam, Supreme Guardian of the Saudi Crown”, By Herman F. Eilts, U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia (1965 to 1970), in the Spring 2000 issue of American Diplomacy.)
On top of that, the Israeli Air Force intervened to oppose the Yemeni republic and support the royalists.
Add to that the catastrophic U.S. support for Israeli violence and racism throughout the Arab world for so many decades.
It's a spectacle of one nation after another being shattered, the spinal column of political discourse broken in country after country, by coup after coup, war after war. The basics of human survival -- even a national infrastructure of schooling, medical services, public health, public utilities, the ability to walk tranquilly down your own street, have been incinerated by U.S. and Israeli interventions across the Middle East.
We have not even discussed the analagous ruin of the Congo, the destruction of African unity and civil society, caused by the assassination of Lumumba.
Nor have we discussed the choking of the Latin American continent, under the weight of so many U.S.-backed coups in the 1960's and '70's.
Think about that, whenever the U.S. government throws its military and diplomatic force against the Middle East, pretending that "democracy" will be the outcome.
Another victory for the boycott of the apartheid state.
Speaking of which, check this morning's Daily Californian for an excellent review of why divestment from apartheid is a simple and necessary action, taken to oppose a horrifically plain human rights disaster whose perpetrator is... Israel.
Here is the article: link to dailycal.org
A big thank-you to the author.
This would be a good spot to suggest a Harvard campaign to boycott Israel.
This ad is perfect. It will change the atmosphere. It openly broadcasts this crystal-clear demand: cut off every penny to Apartheid Israel.
The ad should be duplicated in every city.
This ad has another great message: that the words "Muslim" and "Palestine" are positive words that you really want to broadcast.
Bonus: The letters themselves are proudly large. They clearly identify Israeli apartheid with the old, dead South African apartheid state.
Only two things are missing:
1. A few thousand Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students to lead marches on Washington with the exact same demand you see on this ad. Young Palestinians should very proudly lead these marches. What an honorable way to start out your life.
2. Simultaneously, we need a constant drumbeat of student resolutions demanding a boycott against Israel to the maximum extent allowed by law. This month's spectacular victories at UC Riverside and UC San Diego are an excellent start. Future resolutions will bluntly demand boycott against Israel. Clarity is good.
Those trillions of dollars spent on killing Muslims worldwide should be immediately halted -- trillions should be spent to re-build the U.S. inner cities. That demand can unite the Palestine freedom movement with everyone who remembers the Black freedom movement.
Racists have no chance against that kind of movement.
Ms. Al-Sheemary's article should be assigned reading in every history class. Thank you very much for sharing this with your audience. I hope she writes more.
This article appears at the right time -- just as the news media reveals an epidemic of birth defects in Iraq, following its bombardment.
See the BBC News report, released March 21, 2013. These birth defects have been attributed to war munitions, by interviewees at the Iraqi Health Ministry & also at Basra Maternity Hospital: link to bbc.co.uk
See also CNN: "Birth defects on the rise in Fallujah", March 20, 2013, at: link to edition.cnn.com
See also SBS World News Australia: "Iraq's epidemic of birth defects linked to war", March 21, 2013, at link to sbs.com.au
See also Al Jazeera: "Epidemic of birth defects in Iraq and our duty as public health researchers", at link to aljazeera.com
See again Al Jazeera: "Iraq: War's legacy of cancer", March 15, 2013, at link to aljazeera.com
See the most shocking coverage at Democracy Now: "Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq with Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers", March 20, 2013, at link to democracynow.org
See MSNBC: "Bush promised Iraqi civilians a better future. What are their lives like now?", March 18, 2013, at: link to tv.msnbc.com
Thank you again for Ms. Al-Sheemary's fine article.
Yes, three campuses make a trend! And there are more:
This victory follows divestment resolutions approved by the student government of UC Riverside -- link to latimesblogs.latimes.com
It also follows the divestment victory at UC Irvine -- link to latimesblogs.latimes.com.
It also follows the pioneering Wayne State University divestment vote -- link to tinyurl.com
That evening, the Wayne State Student Council actually voted for total divestment against Israel.
Also...
* Arizona State University in 2012 -- link to electronicintifada.net
* Evergreen State College in 2010 --http://electronicintifada.net/content/evergreen-state-students-overwhelmingly-pass-divestment-votes/1067
* The University of Michigan-Dearborn -- link to michigandaily.com
* Carleton University graduate students in 2012 -- link to electronicintifada.net
Also:
* The University of Wisconsin-Platteville faculty senate approved its own divestment resolution -- link to michigandaily.com
* MEChA, voted overwhelmingly in 2012 to endorse the global call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel -- link to nationalmecha.org
* South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, voted to make boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel part of its official policy in December 2012-- link to panafricannews.blogspot.com
* The Olympia Food Co-op, in 2010, voted to boycott all Israeli products --http://www.theolympian.com/2010/07/21/1310754/israel-cleaned-from-co-op-shelves.html
* Ann Arbor, Michigan's Interfaith Council for Peace & Justice voted for a resolution urging divestment against the Israeli military, and now Ann Arbor City Council is faced with demands to boycott Israel entirely -- link to annarbor.com
How many more murders will Apartheid Israel get away with, before the boycott and divestment movement stops it?
Here's an answer, from late last night:
A huge divestment victory at the University of California-Riverside. Another student government has entered the history of the Palestine Freedom Movement.
I hope to read more details in Mondoweiss. Yes, the student government at the University of California-Riverside has voted overwhelmingly for divestment against Israeli Apartheid.
The vote was 11-5, overriding a veto that attempted to kill the divestment resolution.
This follows a recent vote for divestment at UC-Irvine's student government (in the L.A. Times at link to latimesblogs.latimes.com ).
It also follows earlier student government votes for divestment at:
* Evergreen State College in 2010 (link to electronicintifada.net ),
* Wayne State University (at link to tinyurl.com ),
* Arizona State University in 2012 (at link to electronicintifada.net )
* The University of Michigan-Dearborn (at link to michigandaily.com ),
* Carleton University graduate students in 2012 (at link to electronicintifada.net )
Also:
* The University of Wisconsin-Platteville faculty senate approved its own divestment resolution (at link to michigandaily.com ),
* MEChA, the largest association of Chicano youth in the U.S., voted overwhelmingly at its 2012 national conference to endorse the global call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel ( link to nationalmecha.org ),
* South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, voted to make boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel part of its official policy in December 2012 (at link to panafricannews.blogspot.com ), and
* The Olympia Food Co-op, in 2010, voted to boycott all Israeli products (at link to theolympian.com )
In these votes, every argument that apartheid could make was rejected. After all, the arguments favoring Apartheid Israel are identical to the arguments made to preserve the old dead Apartheid State of South Africa.
Furthermore, Apartheid South Africa was tighly allied to Apartheid Israel. (See link to guardian.co.uk )
Another divestment vote is coming at UC San Diego next week.
This is because UC San Diego's student government adjourned their meeting following eight hours of divestment debate last night (see link to ucsdguardian.org ; at the end it quickly mentions the divestment victory at UC Riverside. )
Thank goodness there's a Barcelona demonstration today, chanting "Boycott Israel", over and over - link to youtube.com
When will "Boycott Israel" beome the main chant of the Palestine solidarity movement in the United States?
As the massacre of Gaza continues, the York University Graduate Students Association has just approved a divestment resolution: link to youtube.com
Can someone post further news on this?
Divestment against Israel is also spreading to York University, and to Swarthmore College.
Divestment against Israel is now being urged at the UCSB (University of California, Santa Barbara) student government - link to dailynexus.com
Also, a demonstration for Gaza, and for divestment against Israel, is going on at Vari Hall, at York University. The York divestment campaign can be seen here: link to youtube.com
Thank goodness, today comes news that Swarthmore College students are starting a campaign to divest from Israeli apartheid. You can see it in their college newspaper at:
link to swarthmorephoenix.com
And UC-Irvine's student government just voted unanimously for a resolution favoring divestment from Israeli apartheid. See today's Los Angeles Times - link to latimesblogs.latimes.com
A hundred campuses should do the same, immediately.
Demand divestment now-- while you can still save Palestinians from being massacred to the extent we saw in 2008-2009.
You really can demand total divestment, total boycott against Israel. It worked at the Wayne State University Student Council --
link to 4.bp.blogspot.com
Total divestment from a racist state which richly deserves to be abolished - exactly as the apartheid state of South Africa was abolished.
Follow the example of Wayne State students and go for total divestment. The Palestinian people deserve at least that much.
I attended the first national divestment conference at Berkeley in February 2002.
During the divestment workshop of that 2002 conference, we were told that any campus campaigns to divest from Israel must wait-- until more research and planning can be completed.
I also attended the second national divestment conference at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, in October 2002.
Ten more years have gone by.
Israel massacred Lebanon in 2006.
Israel massacred Gaza in 2008-2009.
Now it's October 2012.
When exactly will there be a wave of campus campaigns to boycott all products from Israel?
Where is there even one campus campaign to boycott Israel?
I have to have a movement with room for those who say totally boycott Israel until that racist state is abolished and Palestinians are finally safe.
I don't have to have the whole movement agree with me. I don't have to have any of the movement agree with me.
But it has to have room for those who totally reject and totally boycott that racists state, or else it's too mealy-mouthed to get anything done.
Rusty,
I hope you will be shocked to discover that the same official BDS site, on a different page ( link to bdsmovement.net ) , is suddenly asking only for Israel to end “its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967″.
Do you see how the BDS movement is breaking its own legs?
Now it has reduced its land claims down to Gaza and the West Bank.
I guess that puts my total rejection of the Israeli state outside of the official BDS movement, doesn't it?
Too bad for Palestine that the BDS movement is so terribly afraid.
In response to Annie, I did some research.
I found that the official BDS movement is suddenly on the record asking only for Israel to end "its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967".
This is a change.
Up until now, the official BDS movement had always asked for an "end of occupation and colonization of all Arab lands".
Do you see how far the BDS movement has devolved into accepting the Israeli state?
Why have they done this?
Because there is no movement rejecting the Israeli state, only a movement begging Israel to please make a deal.
Pitiful.
Don't believe me? Then look at your new BDS movement's statement:
link to bdsmovement.net
Of course there is no written policy.
But how many times do I have to submit "Boycott-Israel" campaigning news, and see it front-paged nowhere (except one small blog)?
How many times do I have to see funny dances for miniscule boycotts front-paged instead?
How many times do I have to see Mondoweiss respectfully front-page steadfast Zionists?
You're right; there is no written policy, and yet the words "Boycott Israel" somehow don't appear in Mondoweiss, or in any BDS campaign I have seen in the United States.
Why?
Because the whole visible BDS "movement" wants to make a deal with Israel, they don't want to see it abolished.
You can't imagine it being abolished as Apartheid South Africa was.
Too bad for Palestine.
P.S.: Annie, Mondoweiss and the BDS movement are the best thing out there -- and yes, they still suck. They do good work, but they have no backbone and no conviction. They will improve as they move toward demanding the boycott and abolition of the racist state of "Israel".
I emailed the article and photo to you today.
I'll send it again.
Colin,
You're right; our primary duty is not to advance formulas for what Palestine should look like.
But I think it's very constructive to demand full boycotts against all products from Israel. Why? Because that was common in the movement to boycott South Africa.
The predominant attitude to South Africa was "Cut all Ties to the Apartheid State".
That's simple, true, and it works.
Today, the predominant attitude of the BDS movement is "Let's look responsible and respectable and ready to dialogue".
As Palestine dies.
Annie, you are sharp as a tack.
You are acutely aware of the difference between "BDS" and a total boycott against Israel.
BDS has come to mean tiny boycotts of one product (like Ahava or HP), and even more often just an attitude of liking BDS. In Mondoweiss, I can't remember any time "BDS" has meant a blanket boycott against everything from Israel.
To be fair to you, the BDS "movement" has also rejected blanket boycotts against Israel. That is their shame and Mondoweiss's too.
Because the BDS movement is thus signaling that they are ready to make a deal with Israel. And Israel is always ready to make, and break, a deal. That way, Israel keeps its legitimacy, its nukes, and a hell of a lot of land.
That's because the movement, including Mondoweiss, lacks the backbone to fully reject the whole apartheid state of Israel.
That full rejection of Israel will win the day, as it did with apartheid South Africa.
Anything less is, you know, nice, but it leaves Israel with legitimacy that you should not allow them to claim.
Israel deserves no legitimacy.
Someone explain this to me:
Mondoweiss refuses to front-page any story where people are demanding a total boycott against Israel. I know that, because I submit those stories to Mondoweiss and get nothing back but a question about why I spell "Israel" with quotation marks.
Yet Mondoweiss sounds like it's cheering on young people to get themselves arrested in subways, trying to spray graffiti on advertisements, while enraged Zionists try to physically block their spray cans!
Is Mondoweiss going to pay the legal bills for any Arab students who foolishly get into spray-can fights with Zionists in the subways?
Is Mondoweiss going to explain to these students' parents why these kids got deported for some spray-can fight?
What if a physical fight resulted in the subway, caught on video? -- That could end in jail time, and in hospital bills up the wazoo.
It's beyond my comprehension why Mondoweiss is so hostile to a nice legal demand to boycott "Israel" until it's abolished, yet so reckless in urging people to get arrested for spraying graffiti while Zionists hurl their bodies in their path.
Somebody explain it to me.
Boycott worked. Total boycott, total rejection of the apartheid state, and the abolition of the apartheid state.
That worked.
No one in the boycott movement asked for "dialogue" with that racist state.
No Annie,
I am sick of subtext.
You tell me where anyone in the "Movement" has demanded total boycott against Israel, total abolition of the Israeli state, the kind of shunning we remember happened to Apartheid South Africa.
At most, all you will find is hedging and double-entendres about "BDS", whatever that means now. So in public, the BDS-ers claim fervently that they are not anti-Israel. In private -- who cares what they say in private? Not me. Not anymore.
So the legitimacy of "Israel" is denied where, exactly? By now, it should be denied everywhere, and for the most obvious reasons.
Thank you for that anti-colonialist thought!
I want the U.S. to boycott Israel until that apartheid state is abolished, just as happened to apartheid South Africa.
As with South Africa, racism is the problem. Colonialism, too.
Colonialism is racism with a tank.
Most of the current Palestine solidarity crowd has no problem with U.S. colonialism -- their distaste is only for Israeli colonialism.
The current Palestine solidarity crowd has no quarrel with the Israeli state, and the Israeli nuclear arsenal, as long as a small pacifist Palestinian state is allowed to survive next door, in an oxygen tent. That's all they want.
The current Palestine solidarity crowd is all about "The American Interest", as defined by State Department types. Many were, or aspire to be, those types.
Their priority is to strengthen the United States government, as it continues its violent and racist crimes around the world. Their case is simply that Israel hurts "The American Interest". They are willing to throw the rest of the world, including Iran, overboard, as long as the U.S. downgrades its alliance with Israel.
The problem is the official "American Interest", as practiced, has meant the destruction of Black America, and the destruction of Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salavdor, Guatemala, Iran, Indonesia, and the Congo. And the destruction of much of the Arab world.
In most of these cases, Israel was heavily involved, cheek-by-jowl with the United States.
Again, I want the U.S. to boycott Israel until that apartheid state is abolished, just as happened to apartheid South Africa.
And I don't care whether that is in "The American Interest" or not.
Now Mondoweiss has zeroed in on Princess Middleton's body parts, way over in Europe.
I used to wonder why no one in Mondoweiss is willing or able to front-page proposals to totally boycott Israel, to cut all ties to Israel, until Israel is abolished.
Now I see that Mondoweiss is a comfort zone for Americans who are not too bothered by America's crass racist brutality-- except in the case of Palestine.
Mondoweiss is comfortable with giggling over a faux pas committed by a mass media celebrity, or with mild-mannered activism that never demands the total rejection of Israel.
True, Mondoweiss finds Israel's brutality excessive, and truly would like it to be toned down. Therefore, cute videos showing dances for "BDS" are allowed in Mondoweiss. (BDS has come to mean this: very gentle boycotts of a cosmetic here, a hummus there, never defiance against the existence of the Israeli state)
But boycott Israel? Abolish Israel? Oppose imperial power?
No -- not Mondoweiss's department. Too bad for Palestine.
The first national divestment conference was in Berkeley in early 2002.
Over 10 years later, "Israel" has massacred thousands more Palestinians and Lebanese, and has threatened to bomb Iran many times.
Over 10 years later, I expect to see a public debate on an actual proposal to boycott all products from Apartheid Israel. At Berkeley. At many campuses.
It's been 10 years.
Is this article a new trend for Mondoweiss? It's a sick trend that would be death on millions of Arabs, and would be death on Iran as well. This trend would only leave "Israel" intact:
With this article, Mondoweiss's new author has advanced the sickening claim that Iran is the aggressor --
He seems to propose that Israel and the United States contain Iran and preserve the Israeli state, initially with a crappy deal that smothers all backtalk from Palestinians forever, then with an Israeli-Iranian alliance against 300 million Arabs.
Mondoweiss's new author fantasizes that if only the Palestinians (starving and beaten as they are) can be forced to sign some crappy Oslo-style deal, then Israel will be saved and all pro-Palestinian agitation will be silenced.
He fantasizes about inking a deal that would supposedly make you look like you were AGAINST Palestinian self-determination if you demanded any rights at all for Palestinians.
He fantasizes that this deal will somehow stop Iran from claiming that Israel kills and humiliates oppressed Muslims (even though Israel DOES kill and humiliate oppressed Muslims).
But there's more:
* Mondoweiss's new author proclaims that Iran is pursuing a "quest for regional hegemony"
* Mondoweiss's author claims that Iran is making "anti-Zionist threats" -- even though it's Israel that constantly threatens to bomb Iran, and actually has the means to do it.
* Here is the part that is just plain murder:
Mondoweiss's author badly wants an alliance between Israel and Iran against the entire Arab world! How many millions of Arabs is he planning for Israel to kill with that alliance? Or is he only kidding when he says "alliance"?
* Mondoweiss's author does promote something he apparently loves: the phony "Israel loves Iran" media campaign which seeks to legitimize the apartheid state of Israel.
* Mondoweiss's author then goes way overboard to absolve Israel of blame for its threats against Iran (he calls it a mere "impasse"), and to absolve Israel for its years of genocide against Palestinians (he calls it a mere "failure to reach an accord").
But wait, there's more:
* Mondoweiss's author condemns "Hamas’ rejectionism", the "Palestinian Authority's (PA) unpopularity among its own people", and "the failure of both Hamas and the PA to work out a reconciliation deal" -- without mentioning Israel's wholesale massacres of Palestinians!
* Mondoweiss's author then repeats his claim that Iran supposedly has a "goal of becoming a Middle East power".
How does Mondoweiss justify printing such an article, whose venom is directed solely at Arabs and Iranians, apparenly with the main goal of preserving Israel?
Marc,
I saw you speak about the suffering of Palestine in the 1990's. You spoke well.
But your latest writing bothers me. By now, I hope you know that Palestinians are regular people, not exotic, but regular. I was hoping you undertand the same thing about Black people. They are regular people, not exotic, not a joke, but as regular as your own kids.
You write about Rice, Bush's Secretary of State.
She is not some kind of physical fantasy for you to dangle in front of your readers.
She is just as uninteresting as Bush. One day, Bush and Rice, and their accomplices, will go on trial at the Hague, where they belong. Until then, there is not much to say about them.
Like her predecessors, and like her successor, Rice was apppointed to help the U.S. and Israel to slaughter Muslims and Arabs. Since the days of Albright, that seems to be the main job of U.S. Secretaries of State.
And yes, as a child Rice narrowly missed being slaughtered herself in the Birmingham church bombing of 1963. "Denise McNair was my little friend from kindergarten," she said. "Addie Mae Collins was in my uncle's homeroom in school", she said. Here are photos of the four slaughtered girls, when they were fully alive: link to louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com
So yes, Rice should understand that the white church bombers are like the Israeli government as it massacres Palestinians and Lebanese. She should understand, but she doesn't. No surprise there, considering her life's work. End of story.
Why can't you end the story there?
Why is it necessary, Marc, for you to invite your readers to obsess over her blackness? At least since James Weldon Johnson, the U.S. government has included Black officials willing to kill. That is old news.
Even before Johnson, there were the Buffalo Soldiers, Black troops who were employed, in part, to kill Native Americans. That is even older news.
So again, Marc, why the fascination over Rice's body, her first name, and her color?
You write about her "Black face".
You write about her unusual first name, which you use as a kind of joke rhyme. You encourage your son, and your readers, to use her name as a joke rhyme.
You publish your fantasies about her as a "powerful African American woman, with perfect conked hair".
Your fantasies about her body seem endless. You write: "Condi went rogue. She began to grow an Afro."
You go further. You write, "Now imagine Mahatma Condi stripping down and saying the hell with it. Cannonball!"
You also call her "Jock Condi".
I found your essay to be a teachable moment. It shows me two paths to freedom for Palestine:
1. Just march for total boycott against Israel. March to "cut all ties" to Israel, until that apartheid state is abolished. Simple.
2. Or you could spend an eternity navel-gazing and indulging in fantasies about people who don't look like you. Before you know it, you could be 60 years old without ever having led a single march to boycott Israel.
Please try to focus on what Palestine needs now. It needs action.
Palestine needs every campus and city to contend with a loud movement to boycott Apartheid Israel until it's abolished.
It does not need you to dangle racialized fantasies in front of your readership, which is already too far gone into ruminations and strategies that never see the light of day.
Your readers have enough weird ideas about Arabs and Jews being "special" (they are not). Now you want them to exoticize Black people too?
Thanks, Dr. Moore.
Sorry you've been compelled to spell out the obvious in such exhaustive detail, for those who still pretend not to get the point.
The point is: the violent, racist apartheid state: "Israel".
Everyone who's harmed by that racist state ought to demand a complete cutting of all ties with it. A total boycott. A total end of all aid, trade, and diplomatic ties. Simple. That was a major help in abolishing the apartheid state of South Africa.
Everyone who expects some benefits from racism will de-emphasize the crimes of that apartheid state, and will instead criminalize its victims. Those who look to Zionists for legitimacy are hardly going to demand any rejection of the Israeli state.
Those who want to sit with Zionists at "dialogues" and symposia, complete with water pitchers and printed programs, are never going to reject the Zionist state.
Thus two little words, "Boycott Israel", are barred from so much discourse, even in the so-called Palestine solidarity movement.
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The only U.S. human rights activists who consistently rejected the apartheid state of "Israel" were the Black Power movement from the summer of 1967 until that movement was crushed in the early 1970's.
See, for example, “An appeal by Black Americans against United States support of the Zionist government of Israel”, link to tinyurl.com , in the New York Times, November 1, 1970.
You see how Israel's racist violence was so clear, even two generations ago, in the most important newspaper on the continent?
You see how the solution was equally clear, in 1970 and today?
The solution is ending all U.S. support to the racist state of Israel.
What a shame that so many words are required to say the obvious, after it has remained so obvious for over 40 years.
I will hazard a guess that Baltzer, Finkelstein and Chomsky are not going to reject the legitimacy of the Apartheid State. That should not prevent you and me from rejecting it!
I also guess that Baltzer, Finkelstein and Chomsky will not call for a total boycott against Apartheid Israel. Don't let that prevent you from demanding a total boycott against Israel.
Racist states ought to be boycotted until they're abolished. What is so hard to recognize about that? Do you remember Apartheid South Africa?
Actually, that total boycott demand, against Israel, is being made loudly and clearly at the University of Michigan campus, and inside its Central Student Government.
See this news coverage: link to youthanormalization.blogspot.com
I have personally alerted Mondoweiss about this important BDS action at the University of Michigan, and I trust they will cover it themselves shortly.