Monday, May 17, 2021

Israel: An Apartheid State Created & Propped Up By the West

As Israeli military pounds Gaza and kills large numbers of Palestinian men, women and children yet again, the western media and politicians are busy white-washing the Israeli crimes by repeating the same old mantra: "Israel has a right to defend itself". There's little mention of the decades-long occupation and continuing brutalization of the Palestinian people by the Israelis. Nor is there any discussion of how the West is culpable in this long-running injustice.

To put the current events in perspective, let us examine how we got to where we are today.  The foundation of the state of Israel as we know it now was laid when the British government issued a public statement in 1917 called the "Balfour Declaration" in support of the creation of a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. This came at a time when the First World War was still ranging and Palestine was a province of the Ottoman Empire. The Balfour Declaration was contained in a letter of November 2, 1917 from British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. The text of the declaration was published in the media on 9 November 1917.   

Palestinian & Israeli Flags

Later in 1937, famous British politician Winston Churchill disparaged Palestinians who had been living in the region for centuries as "dogs". Churchill said, "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." Churchill's racist comments made it clear that the Israeli settler colonialism in the Middle East was no different than the European settler colonization of America and Australia. In an Israeli cabinet meeting in 1949,  Israel's founding father David Ben-Gurion referred to Palestinians as "donkeys", according to Israeli newspaper Haaretz

A large number of European Jews, including victims of Nazi persecution, poured into Palestine before the end of the Second World War. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven out of their land and their homes by these European Jews who had the full support of the West.  There were over 700,000 Palestinians in the land given to Israel by the United Nations controlled by the United States and major European colonial powers. Only 156,000 of the native Arab population remained after the Israelis dove out or killed the rest of them. Here's an excerpt of a story about the Israeli cabinet meeting as published in Haaretz:  

"The minutes of the meetings held by Mapai, which are stored in the Labor Party Archive in Beit Berl, outside Kfar Sava, attest to the deep dispute in the party over two conflicting approaches concerning the Arabs in Israel. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his associates – Moshe Dayan (Israel Defense Forces chief of staff 1953-1958) and Shimon Peres, at the time a senior official in the Defense Ministry – urged a policy of segregation and a hard hand against what he argued was a communal threat to national security; while Sharett and other Mapai leaders – Pinhas Lavon, Zalman Aran, David Hacohen and others – promoted a policy of integration". 

Miko Peled, Israeli author of "The General's Son", has detailed and documented the history of forced mass expulsions of Palestinians by armed Jewish gangs during the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The following quote from an interview with The Middle East Monitor captures the essence of what Peled has been saying: "In hindsight, that was catastrophic for the Palestinians, because a lot of it has to do with why we are here today – the fact that they dropped the struggle."   


Danish Cartoon on Israel-Palestine History

The essence of what has happened in Palestine over the last century has been caricatured by a Danish cartoonist. In the first frame, labelled as “1946” – the cartoon shows a man sleeping comfortably in his bed, with a dog on the floor near the bed. The man is marked with the Palestinian flag, while the dog is labeled as Israel, bearing the Israeli flag. In the second frame, labelled as “1947”, the dog is shown sleeping in the bed, while the man is now pushed over to one side. By the third frame, marked “1967”, the dog is seen sprawling out across the bed, kicking the man in the face. In the final frame, labelled “2000”, the man is sleeping on the floor and the dog has the entire bed to itself.   

There can be no hope for peace in Israel and Palestine as long as Apartheid survives. The only way to achieve durable peace in the region is to establish equal rights of all of its inhabitants regardless of their race or religion. 

A video presentation by Miko Peled, author of The General's Son:

https://youtu.be/Z6PR7XrOQcM



Here's a video on Israeli Apartheid targeting Palestinian citizens of Israel:

https://youtu.be/ZYhsKRngW88


 

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

South Asia Investor Review

Nakbah, The Catastrophe Day

Jewish Power in US Congress

Pictorial Review of Young Gaza Victims 

Israel's Gaza Attack is Criminal, Not Defensive 

Warsaw's Nazi Concentration Camp 

Pakistani Media Revolution 

Gaza Flotilla Massacre and US Media Coverage

Riaz Haq's YouTube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

37 comments:

Mantou said...

A lot of the world's conflict can be traced back to this disgusting country Britain, that's for sure.

samir sardana said...

The HAMAS timing in the May 2021,operation, is perfect.

There is NO REAL political authority in ISRAEL,and Benjy is on his way out
The Allies of Benjy,are all ULTRA RIGHT ORTHODOX JEWS - who will provoke Benjy
Benjy and his wife,are ALMOST in Jail
If the ULTRA RIGHT ORTHODOX JEWS cannot PUSH Benjy,to annex West Bank,and start an Exodus of Arabs,from Jerusalem - in 2021 COVID - then,they will never get another opportunity (which will doom Benjy,and the ULTRA RIGHT ORTHODOX JEWS - forever)
HAMAS has forced Benjy to crackdown on Arabs,lynch Arabs and evict Arabs - as a retaliation and show of control and strength - thereby,providing more popular support to HAMAS,INSIDE ISRAEL - with the Arabs
No SANE US President or the UN,will support a IDF invasion or blockade of Gaza or annexation - in 2021 COVID, by a leader who is on his way to jail and is a caretaker PM
Benjy needs a DISTRACTION and a VICTORY,and an EMERGENCY (which is the current strife)
IRAN is possibly to resume N Negotiations,with the US - thereby giving the US and Iran,multiple levers to play with
Benjy knows that IRAN is behind HAMAS
Using the Temple of Solomon,was the BENJY Card - as it provoked the Israeli Police - and nurturing and fanning this fire,can create mass unrest,across Muslims nations
Unrest across Muslim nations (due to the HAMAS insurrection) ,will allow Iran to fish and scuba rocket dive,in troubled waters
If Hamas keeps on firing rockets,that is a victory,irrespective of,how many are killed in Gaza.The rocket saturation and decoy model,is meant to ensure that 10-20% of the rockets, penetrate the ADS (Iron Dome) - so the success of the IRON DOME fits in with the PLAN OF HAMAS.It also games the ADS,for the NEXGEN ROCKETS (which will come depending on the US-IRAN N Dialogue and events in the Temple)
To Stop Hamas - IDF will have to ENTER GAZA,as the blockade,is of no use - since Hamas is stocked up. With the blockade,there will be a lack of food,water,medical aid in Gaza and the Media will be there to report it

ALL THE ABOVE WILL ENSURE,MORE VC FUNDING FOR HAMAS

The Temple of Solomon,is DUE to be rebuilt (as per Prophecy).TO REBUILD - YOU 1ST NEED TO DESTROY ! dindooohindoo

There are 3-500 rockets in the air,over Jerusalem EVERY DAY and there is a stockpile of explosives,inside the Temple !

Anything can happen - and it is all PURE CHANCE OR PROVIDENCE (And the Red Moon has passed)

If Something happens or is inevitable - THEN the TURKS (Ottonmans) will move in,for sure - and then,History repeats again !

samir sardana said...

Riaz Haq states ".....repeating the same old mantra: "Israel has a right to defend itself"?

So does Palestine

And so does KASHMIR

The Palestinians,Persians,Turks ....need to note the PINDROP silence,of the GOI ! If this is NOT enough,for the Arabs to note - which side the Indians stand - then,they deserve doom

Riaz Haq states "...called the "Balfour Declaration" in support"

The fact of History is that NO ONE HAS OPRRESSED AND GASSED the Jews as much as the Europeans - this also includes France,Spain,Portugal,Germany,Italy and Russia

Martin Luther said “We are at fault for not slaying them,” he wrote. “Rather we allow them to live freely in our midst despite their murder, cursing, blaspheming, lying and defaming.”

Jews were EXPELLED,KILLED,TAXED AND GASSED - and mainly by CHRISTIANS - right from the time of the 1st Crusade.All the stories of Jews eating babies ........, ​were also,MANUFACTURED IN THE EU - long ago.

TO WHITEWASH THEUR SINS,THE EU took the opportunity afforded by WW1 and WW2 and the Chaos in the world,and the defeat of the Nazi allies,in the Middle East - to CREATE THE STATE OF ISRAEL - and EXPORT ALL THE JEWS,TO ISRAEL.

In return,Jews do NOT forget ,to excoriate the Nazis and Germans - BUT THEY DO NOT MENTION, THE OTHER European nations.Since the Israelis have enough dirt,on the European states - the EU nations take no CONCRETE STEPS,to stop Israel's steamrolling,of Palestine.

That is also Y,you can abuse and mock Jews in USA - but would NOT dare do that,in the EU.

Even Putin has offered Russian Jew Billionaires, a 1 way ticket, to Israel - but they have to leave,their cash behind !

Over the last 70 years,Jewish money in media,research and politics,has led the Europeans to be a pacifist,liberal,secular,socialist,welfare nation with exceptional freedom of speech and action (minus racism) to encompass Gay Marriage,LGBTQ and Refugees .....

Y ?

It is simple ! In doing so,the Jews have created,on a defacto basis (on principles of dialectics) large social movements which are Anti-Muslim,Anti-African,Anti-Coal,Anti-Abortion,Anti-LGBTQ,Anti-Refugees,Anti-Religion,Anti-Burqa,Anti-Muezzin Call .......................

All these are HURDLES to be crossed by the "Enemies of the Jews",and RACISM (by speech or action) is a SIN,greater than what BLASPHEMY was in the DARK AGES !

And that is Y,the Jews Rule the world.

We are in the DARK AGES - but with Thernal Power,TV and Mobiles !


Riaz Haq said...

In this latest crisis, Palestinian use of smartphones and social media is enabling them to cut the middle man and tell their story directly to the world, humanizing their plight & transcending the mainstream western media framing, filters, and tropes.

Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem is flooded with young people, day and night, documenting every moment on their cellphone cameras. Its story is at the heart of the turmoil sweeping Israel and the Palestinian territories https://reut.rs/3bzSpUn

Riaz Haq said...

Don't Take the Narrow View of What's Happening in Gaza - The Atlantic

By Shadi Hamid

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/israel-palestine-gaza-hamas-history/618896/

"Despite inching toward the Democratic Party’s left flank on various domestic- and foreign-policy issues, the Biden administration has fallen back on the usual formulas, offering robotic recitations about “Israel’s right to defend itself.” On Thursday, President Joe Biden said that he hadn’t seen a “significant overreaction” from Israel, while failing to mention a word about Palestinian deaths. In so doing, he gave Israel what amounts to a green light to intensify its bombing campaign. The White House has been eager to highlight Biden’s “unwavering support” for Israel, which raises the question of what, if anything, might cause America’s support for the Israeli government to waver even slightly. This question is worth asking sooner rather than later, now that more than 120 Palestinians have died, a quarter of them children—all in a few days—according to Palestinian officials."


Supporters of the status quo tend to focus on the fact that Hamas started lobbing rockets into Israel, and they argue that Israel has no choice but to retaliate, as any other country would. Some even suggest that the Israeli army is historically unparalleled in its efforts to spare civilian casualties. This line of argument, however, does not tend to offer many details on how this latest conflagration came to be. Why is all of this happening now? Wars and skirmishes don’t occur in a vacuum; they are the result of an accumulation of actions and reactions over years, if not decades.

Riaz Haq said...

Israeli police in riot gear pushed a Palestinian protester to the ground in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, a moment captured on the smartphones of people looking on.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2021-05-17/how-east-jerusalem-flashpoint-sheikh-jarrah-got-its-own-hashtag

"See what they're doing! They're beating up women!" Aya Khalaf, a Palestinian social media influencer, screamed in the background as she caught the May 9 incident on a live stream to her 187,000 Instagram followers.

The scene is one of several shared on social media from the near-nightly confrontations between Israeli police and protesters against the expulsion of eight Palestinian families from the neighbourhood, which is claimed by Jewish settlers.

The hashtag "#SaveSheikhJarrah" has gained momentum overseas, with British singer Dua Lipa and Academy Award-winning actress Viola Davis among those expressing solidarity.

In October last year, an Israeli court ruled in favour of settlers who say the Palestinian families are living on land that used to belong to Jews.

Palestinians are appealing the decision at Israel's Supreme Court.


But a court hearing was delayed earlier this month amid rising tensions at Sheikh Jarrah - which lies just a few minutes' walk from the Old City's Damascus Gate, another recent flashpoint.

Anger over the proposed evictions was a key factor behind tensions in Jerusalem over the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which last week escalated far beyond the holy city into the worst hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians for years.

Portraying itself as the defender of Palestinians in Jerusalem, the militant Islamist group Hamas launched a rocket assault on Israel, which hit back with multiple air and artillery strikes on Gaza.

A week later, nearly 200 people have been killed in Gaza, including 58 children, Gaza's health ministry said, and 10 people have been killed in Israel, two of them children, according to authorities.

On Sunday in Sheikh Jarrah, Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian driver who had crashed his car into a police roadblock, injuring six officers.

AREA COVETED BY BOTH SIDES

A tree-lined area of sandstone homes, Sheikh Jarrah is named after a personal physician to Saladin, the Muslim conqueror who seized Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187.

It also houses a site revered by religious Jews as the tomb of an ancient high priest.

The settlers who filed the lawsuit say they bought the land from two Jewish associations that purchased it at the end of the 19th century. Palestinians, who question the legitimacy of the settlers' documents, have lived there since the 1950s.

Standing outside a settler house that sits beside Palestinian neighbours, Yaakov, a religious Jew who gave only his first name, said: "This is traditionally a Jewish neighbourhood ... the Jordanians and the UN settled Arab refugees in these houses, so if there are any settlers here it's the Arabs who are living here."

samir sardana said...

No one will help the Palestinians - EXCEPT Turkey,Pakistan,Russia and China.Once this QUAD steps in,other nations MIGHT follow.

Israel gets Military and Financial aid from CHRISTIAN NATIONS - and that will NEVER STOP.The Genius of the Jews,is that,as per the OT, the Jews excoriated and killed Jesus, Condemned Jesus as a Mamzer/Charlatan/Blasphemer,and a violator of the Ora Law - BUT STILL,all the POPES are JEWS, and all the sites of Jesus in the Middle East,are UNDER THE CONTROL OF ISRAEL.

In addition,ISRAEL PROBABLY HAS THE ORIGINAL BARNABUS BIBLE AND THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS - which blows the MYTHS OF JESUS - as reckoned,by CATHOLICS.CHRISTIANS TRAVEL TO ISRAEL TO VISIT THEIR SITES - TO PAY BILLIONS OF USD,AS TOURISTS - TO ENSURE, THAT THE RABBIS KEEP A LID ON THE "SECRETS OF JESUS"

Israel CONTROLS the Christian FATH,PEOPLE and Christian Nations.The Israelis convinced Cyrus, Napoleon and Trump - that they were the chosen ones,to REBUILD THE TEMPLE - and TRUMP moved the US embassy to Jerusalem - as the 1st STEP ! dindooohindoo

The Only force,which can COUNTER THE ISRAELIS are the NON-CATHOLICS (like the Greek Orthodox Church of Russia),Islam (Turkey,Pakistan),Shiasm (Persians) and Leftists/Marxists (PTRC and Socialists/ Leftists/Marxists - all over the world - including the USA)

SO IT IS WAR OF IDEOLOGIES and RELIGIONS - being played,on the dead bodies of Palestinians and Arabs,in Gaza,Iraq,Syria and Iran ! THIS IS WHAT NO ONE ADMITS !

THAT IS Y HISTORY IS REPEATING FROM THE HEBREW BIBLE !

Zephaniah 2:4 ESV

For Gaza shall be deserted, and Ashkelon shall become a desolation; Ashdod's people shall be driven out at noon, and Ekron shall be uprooted.!!

Zechariah 9:5 ESV

Ashkelon shall see it, and be afraid; Gaza too, and shall writhe in anguish; Ekron also, because its hopes are confounded. The king shall perish from Gaza; Ashkelon shall be uninhabited;

PROVIDENCE = ASHKELON AND ASHDOD ARE BOMBED, BY HAMAS ! "KING OF GAZA" is killed - which is the HAMAS COMMANDER IN GAZA !

MORAL OF STORY - SATURATION (EVEN BY ROCKETS) CAN DEFEAT ANY ADS !

IT IS ALL A IRANIAN PAYBACK FOR QASIM,N-PLANTS BOMBING AND KILLING OF N-SCIENTISTS.FROM ALL CALCULATIONS - COVID IS THE TIME TO STRIKE

samir sardana said...

Hamas is making new age rockets - and so,there will be manufacturing defects in the Rockets.it is easier to smuggle missile raw materials,into Gaza - than to smuggle the entire missile,from Iran.

Hamas rockets can REACH Dimona, and will ULTIMATELY PENETRATE the ADS,over DIMONA.The IDF has NO INTEREST,in destroying HAMAS - as it NEEDS HAMAS,to create a so-called terror entity,as an ENEMY OF THE JEWISH people,and the JEWISH state.That justifies the Arab oppression, military state,siege mentality and the fear psychosis,among the Jews !

That is Y,every 5 years,the IDF pounds GAZA, and takes a few hits - so that the SELF DEFENSE STORY of a state,and a race under SIEGE,since the times of MOSES - continues - and the moolah,keeps flowing in.

The ADS uses at least 2 rockets,to target the Hamas rockets,which have no remote or AI control,in the TERMINAL DESCENT.So Y do the ROCKETS ESCAPE THE ADS OF THE IDF ? Surely the IDF,using the cutting edge US tech can stop 100& of all the rockets,fired by HAMAS.

The answer - the IDF DELIBERATELY ALLOWS THE ROCKETS TO SLIP THROUGH - which is Y none of the rockets land of high density targets ! These rockets land on empty houses or kill 1 or 2 people ! A projectile in its terminal descent (with its warhead),has a 100% predictable trajectory of descent.This is the GENIUS of the IDF.This MAGICAL TRAUMA - is COMPOUNDED BY THE MEDIA AND SOCIAL MEDIA - TO CREATE THE FEAR,IN ISRAELIS AND THE HATRED !

Y is IDF not targetting the launch sites of HAMAS ? HAMAS is using HEAVY AND LARGE ROCKETS - which need sturdy or semi-permanent launchers ? Surely ISRAELI ABR (which are Drones and AWACS) can triangulate the launch site,in 1 or 2 seconds - and these sites cannot be removed, in even 45 seconds - and can be bombed by the IAF,in 1 or 2 seconds.Evem IDF - GBR can triangulate the launch sites in 2-3 seconds.

But the IDF is NOT taking out the launch sites - because it wants to keep the rockets sailing in ! It will aid Israel in navigating Biden,in the Iran N talks.

Besides,propping up HAMAS as a Savior of the Palestinians,taints the Palestinians across the comity of nations,UNDERCUTS AND EMASCULATES THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY,and ALLOWS THE IDF,to plunder GAZA - to build the Anti-Israeli hate,in Gaza - which also UNDERCUTS THE CAUSE OF THE PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY,and ensures a stream of fighters of HAMAS.

Even if the PALESTINIAN AUTHORITY wants a 2 state solution - HAMAS and the so-called public opinion - will TORPEDO it - and that also suits,the ISRAELIS as they WANT THE WHOLE OF JERUSALEM for the Jews (With the TEMPLE).Therefore,it assists the MOSSAD propoganda of Palestinians as anti-peace,anti-Jew,anti-israel .........

SO THE ISRAELIS ARE WINNING AND HAVE A TREATY WITH 4 ARAB NATIONS - who live in mortal fear of the Persians,and their local Shia population.dindooohindoo

Anonymous said...

Israelis Indians Russians Chinese,Myanmarese,Philippines, Thai...just some of the countries which kick M ass with impunity..

BTW did you see the way the big bomb fell through the roof in Gaza yesterday..amazing stuff..

Go Israel!!

Riaz Haq said...

New #Arab Street: Online protesters have linked arms with popular movements for minority rights such as #BlackLivesMatter, reclaiming the narrative from mainstream #media & picking up support in Western countries that have reflexively supported #Israel. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/world/middleeast/palestinian-arab-protest-internet.html?smid=tw-share


The video traveled at 4G speed, leapfrogging across international borders, social media platforms and social justice movements: a young Palestinian woman in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, shouting in furious English at a Jewish man, “You are stealing my house!”

“If I don’t steal it, someone else will steal it,” he retorts.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/18/world/middleeast/palestinian-arab-protest-internet.html

https://twitter.com/RamAbdu/status/1388520211574317057?s=20


Within days — as Israel bombed the coastal territory of Gaza, Palestinian militants there launched rockets at Israel, and Arab and Jewish mobs faced off in Israeli cities — the video had rocketed from young Palestinians’ social media feeds into the Arab diaspora, then lit up the internet, kindling outrage around the world.

The cellphone video joined a profusion of pro-Palestinian voices, memes and videos on social media that helped accomplish what decades of Arab protest, boycotts of Israel and regular spurts of violence had not: yanking the Palestinian cause, all but left for dead a few months ago, toward the political mainstream.

It used to be that when Palestinians were under fire, protests would follow in the streets of Arab cities. That potential for combustion forced Middle Eastern and Western leaders to keep a wary eye on the temperature of what was called the “Arab street.”

This time, a week into an Israeli bombing campaign that has killed 212 Palestinians in Gaza, the reaction from Arab capitals has been muted and protests small and scattered, generating little pressure on Arab governments to move to resolve the crisis.

Instead, solidarity with the Palestinians has shifted online and gone global, a virtual Arab street that has the potential to have a wider impact than the ones in Middle Eastern cities. The online protesters have linked arms with popular movements for minority rights such as Black Lives Matter, seeking to reclaim the narrative from the mainstream media and picking up support in Western countries that have reflexively supported Israel.

------------------

“There’s an instinctive sense of solidarity,” said Michael R. Fischbach, a professor at Randolph-Macon College in Virginia who wrote the 2018 book “Black Power and Palestine.” “People from marginalized communities are going, ‘Wow, I could be the one on the other side of the fence. I could be the one looking down the barrel of the gun.’”

The main difference between then and now, Mr. Fischbach said, is velocity. While newsletter screeds against Israel took months to spread in the 1960s, today’s reposts and retweets are piling up by the second.

“This time — call me naïvely hopeful, but — for some reason the world seems to have an appetite for change these days,” @sufra_kitchen, an Instagram account that explores Middle Eastern food, wrote. “Whatever it is, please pay attention this time, because we all have been looking the other way for far too long"

Riaz Haq said...

Minister Fawad Chaudhry: #Pakistan to send aid to #Palestine to help with #COVID19, #medical emergency situation. #GazaUnderAttack #StopIsrael https://www.dawn.com/news/1624340

Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry disclosed on Tuesday that Pakistan would send aid to Palestine to help the country deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and the medical emergency situation created by Israeli air strikes that have been ongoing for more than a week.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad after a meeting of the federal cabinet, he said Pakistan was the first Islamic country that adopted a "very clear and strong stance on Palestine" which it was standing by even today. The foundation of Pakistan's policy on Palestine was laid down by the Quaid-i-Azam and Prime Minister Imran Khan was its "trustee", he added.

Chaudhry said that Pakistan's leadership and efforts for Palestine were being "accepted by the entire Muslim ummah", including Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas and the country's ambassador to Pakistan who had thanked Pakistan for its support.

"[Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdogan said what was in his heart for Palestine was on Imran Khan's tongue. There is a very big role of Prime Minister Imran Khan."


Read: Qureshi calls on Muslim nations to unite over Israeli action against Palestinians

A day earlier, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi left for Turkey on a diplomatic mission to bring the international community's attention to the worsening situation in Palestine.

After Turkey, Qureshi will leave for New York with the foreign ministers of Palestine, Turkey and Sudan where he will hold "important meetings" with dignitaries and "raise a voice [for] oppressed Palestinians in the United Nations General Assembly".

Report on electoral reforms
Chaudhry said that the government would present a report on electoral reforms in parliament on Monday. "Our stance is that ECP (Election Commission of Pakistan) reforms are very necessary and we want to bring EVMs (electronic voting machines)."

To this end, the National Assembly speaker and the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs would invite parliamentary reporters and leaders for a meeting this week so a detailed discussion could be started from Monday, he added.

During the meeting, the reporters and parliamentary leaders would analyse the EVMs themselves and see how they could prove to be effective in combatting rigging in elections, the information minister said.

Criticising the opposition for its inconsistent "narratives" on electoral reforms, Chaudhry said the PPP and PML-N had first claimed the Result Transmission System (RTS) malfunctioned in the 2018 general elections.

"We asked which constituency [it malfunctioned in], they didn't say anything. Then they claimed that Forms-46 were missing. We asked in which constituency, they didn't say anything. Then they claimed that there were videos showing [people affixing] fake stamps. We asked in which constituency, they didn't say anything.

"The opposition's narrative on election reforms is not only non-serious but proves that they do not believe in transparent and fair elections," Chaudhry said.

He also said the PPP and PML-N had not clarified their stance on giving overseas Pakistanis the right to vote. "Our position is very clear, we want to give [them the right]. Overseas Pakistanis are the backbone of our economy and we want to give them every facility that is their right," he emphasised.

The information minister said the government was also going to bring legislation that would make it mandatory for an elected parliamentarian to take oath within six months, failing which their seat would be considered to be vacant.

Riaz Haq said...

#Trump-Kushner’s Absurd #Peace Plan of Bribing Arab Regimes Has Failed. Justice for the #Palestinians is a precondition for peace. The reason there has been so little justice for the Palestinians is because of #US policy of unconditional support of #Israel.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/17/opinion/us-israel-palestine-jared-kushner.html?smid=tw-share

By Michelle Goldberg

“We are witnessing the last vestiges of what has been known as the Arab-Israeli conflict,” Jared Kushner crowed in The Wall Street Journal two months ago.

He was surveying the results of the Abraham Accords, the ersatz Middle East peace plan he helped negotiate under Donald Trump. At the heart of his supreme self-assurance, and of the accords themselves, was the deadly fiction that the Palestinians were so abject and defeated that Israel could simply ignore their demands.

“One of the reasons the Arab-Israeli conflict persisted for so long was the myth that it could be solved only after Israel and the Palestinians resolved their differences,” wrote Kushner. “That was never true. The Abraham Accords exposed the conflict as nothing more than a real-estate dispute between Israelis and Palestinians that need not hold up Israel’s relations with the broader Arab world.”

To circumvent that dispute, the United States set about bribing other Arab and Muslim countries to normalize relations with Israel. The United Arab Emirates got an enormous arms deal. Morocco got Trump to support its annexation of the Western Sahara. Sudan got taken off America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

But the explosion of fighting in Israel and Palestine in recent days makes clear something that never should have been in doubt: justice for the Palestinians is a precondition for peace. And one reason there has been so little justice for the Palestinians is because of the foreign policy of the United States.

“I don’t think that there’s any way that this occupation and creeping annexation process could have gotten where it is today if the United States had said no,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of the liberal Zionist group J-Street.

One can condemn Hamas and its rockets and still recognize that this current conflagration began with Israeli overreach born of a sense of impunity. A major flash point was the campaign led by Israeli settlers to evict Palestinian families from their homes in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. There was also an Israeli police raid on the Al Aqsa Mosque on the first night of Ramadan, not to prevent violence, but to cut off its loudspeakers lest prayers drown out a speech by Israel’s president.

Palestinians fear, not without reason, that Israel is trying to push them out of Jerusalem altogether. That, in turn, has let Hamas position itself as Jerusalem’s protector. And Israel seems to consider its right to defend itself from Hamas justification for causing obscene numbers of civilian casualties. So much horror has been born of the delusion, on both the Israeli and American right, that when it comes to the Palestinians, the status quo is sustainable.

To be fair, this is not something that began with Trump: America has been enabling Israel’s occupation and settlement project for decades. Tareq Baconi, a Ramallah-based senior analyst for the International Crisis Group, argued that in some ways the Trump administration was simply more honest than its predecessors about its disregard for the Palestinians. All the same, he said, Trump’s foreign policy allowed “the Israeli right-wing to understand that they can get away with their most extreme policies.”

Before Trump, it was common to say that the occupation would eventually force Israel to choose between being a Jewish state and a democratic one. During the Trump years, Israel’s choice became undeniable.

Israel’s 2018 “nation-state law” enshrined “Jewish settlement as a national value” and undermined the legal equality of Israel’s Arab citizens. As settlements expanded, a two-state solution turned from a distant dream into a fantasy.

Asghar A. said...

Good historical background. Unless Western governments, especially USA changes its policy, nothing will happen, just like Kashmir. Unfortunate, but it is the reality for last 6 decades.

Riaz Haq said...

#Biden faces sharp criticism from some #Democrats over #Israel. #Palestinian-#American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib confronted Biden in #Detroit over #Gaza. “The president needs to tell Netanyahu to stop,” said #SiliconValley Congressman Ro Khanna. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-democrats-israel-palestinians/2021/05/18/0d78da76-b7ed-11eb-a5fe-bb49dc89a248_story.html?tid=ss_tw


The president’s top spokeswoman has repeatedly declined to say whether Israel’s military response in the Gaza Strip was appropriate to the provocation, while many Democrats have not been shy about calling it disproportionate. And Biden and his advisers have stuck to an assertion that liberal Democrats reject as insufficient, the notion that Israel has a right to defend itself.

That has led to sharp criticism of the Biden administration from some Democrats, which otherwise has been rare.


President Biden tours a Ford electric vehicle plant in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday. The factory is in an area that is 90 percent Arab American.
President Biden tours a Ford electric vehicle plant in Dearborn, Mich., on Tuesday. The factory is in an area that is 90 percent Arab American. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
“The president needs to tell Netanyahu to stop,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who is part of a new generation of liberal Democrats. While Biden’s cease-fire comments were a marginally positive step, Khanna said, “I think it has to be much stronger.”

Khanna called on Biden to meet with Arab Americans in Michigan on Tuesday and set a deadline for Netanyahu to end his military assault in the Gaza Strip.

Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who represents Dearborn, said that Arab Americans were incensed by Israeli military action near one of the holiest Muslim sites in Jerusalem last week, and that many of her constituents wanted to convey their concern to Biden.

“I’ve lived in this community for 30 years. These are very intense, passionate and caring people, and they did not believe that in the midst of a war in the Middle East that their voices should not be heard because many of them have family there, and they are deeply concerned,” Dingell said in an interview.


Biden was greeted Tuesday by local Democrats, including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D), the first Palestinian American woman to serve in Congress and a vocal critic of his Middle East policy. The two shook hands shortly after Biden arrived at the airport and spoke for several minutes.

In his comments at a Ford auto plant, Biden addressed Tlaib and mentioned family members she has in the Middle East. “I pray that your grandmom and family are well. I promise you, I’m going to do everything to see that they are on the West Bank. You’re a fighter. And God, thank you for being a fighter.”

Changing Democratic attitudes have been evident across the country in recent days. Rep. Cori Bush, a freshman Missouri Democrat and Black Lives Matter activist, delivered an impassioned speech on the House floor, promising to “fight for our rights in Palestine and in Ferguson,” tying the conflict in the Middle East to battles for racial justice at home.


Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who in recent years has become one of the most prominent elected officials among liberal Democrats, penned a widely circulated op-ed lambasting the Democratic leadership for being too accommodating toward Israel. “Palestinian lives matter,” he wrote in the New York Times.

Even longtime Israel hawks such as Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) have shown a sensitivity to the shifting winds in their party with carefully worded comments suggesting they would not always march in lockstep with the Israeli government. All three have a strong Jewish presence in their constituencies.

Ahmed said...

Sir not all members of UN and not all European countries are in support of Isreal . If you check the recent tweet message of Isreali PM in which he thanked all those countries who stood in support of Isreal ,their are hardly 10 countries to which he thanked .

Recently Irish MP has given a statement against Isreal in a conference .

Also one European official lady has said that they must Expell the Isreali ambassador from their country .


Pls note that although Isreal has a very strong millitary and possesses an advance technology in millitary warfare but still Isreal is not included as a member of NATO .

samir sardana said...

The Book of Genesis of BENJY NETANYAHU

He does not believe that Palestinians,EVER lived in Israel
He believes that the Philistines are NOT,the CURRENT Palestinians

So,he believes that Palestinians were PARACHUTED into ISRAEL,by the Arabs/EU and Jordan

The REAL TRANSCENDENTAL ENEMIES OF THE JEWS,ARE THE "PHILISTINES" - as was recorded in the Hebrew Bible ! The "PHILISTINES" ruled over the Pentagon,within ISRAEL,for centuries - LONG BEFORE DAVID !

Joshua 13:3

from the Shihor River on the east of Egypt to the territory of Ekron on the north, all of it counted as Canaanite though held by the five Philistine rulers in Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath and Ekron; the territory of the Avvites

The Torah records that the "PHILISTINES",intermingled (read as "COPULATED") with the Avvites.

So the claim of the Philistines,PREDATED DAVID AND EVEN MOSES.When Moses EXITED Egypt - he was warned NOT TO GO NEAR THE PHILISTINES !

SO THE PHILISTINES ARE THE TRUE OWNERS OF ISRAEL - IN TERMS OF THE PERIOD OF STAY - PRINCIPLE !

The PHILISTINES ALSO KILLED SAMSON ! This was an AFFRONT AND DEFEAT of YAWEH ! In Judges - Samson was a BOON to the Jews,to KILL THE PHILISTINES - and the Philistines killed SAMSON !

Judges 13:3

3 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto the woman, and said unto her: 'Behold now, thou art barren, and hast not borne; but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son.

24 And the woman bore a son, and called his name Samson; and the child grew, and the LORD blessed him.

THE PHILISTINES WERE CREATED,TO DESTROY THE JEWS - AS PER THE TORAH - and they ALSO SEIZED THE ARK !

Now the question is,WHO ARE THE PHILISTINES ? Preponderance of opinion says - Europeans or Southern Europeans (in 12OO BC).These SOUTHERN EUROPEANS,have proliferated across EU/ Russia/UK.

THAT EXPLAINS THE JEW POGROMS,IN THE EUROPE UNION AND UK,IN THE LAST 1500 YEARS UPTO WW2 !
The Philistines were destroyed,scattered and subsumed by the Assyrians - BUT THEIR SOUL SURVIVED IN EUROPE ! THE CORE DNA OF THE PHILISTINES SURVIVED IN THE EUROPEANS !

The CREATION OF ISRAEL by the EU,after WW2,WAS DONE TO EXPORT THE JEWS TO ISRAEL - BY SUASION,PERSUASION AND COERCION.It is ALSO the EU and UK,who SUPPLANTED THE PALESTINIANS,in Israel.

THE AIM WAS TO CONCENTRATE ALL THE JEWS,IN 1 GEOGRAPHUCAL PROXIMATE COORDINATE !

And so,who are the Palestinians,Hamas,Hezb ? They are AT WORST,the OFFSPRING of the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians per se,or the fusion of these 3 races - with the scattered Philistines !

AND Who are the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians ? These are the races PROPHECISED to DESTROY THE PHILISTINES,ISREALITIES,JEWS AND HEZEKIAH !

SO THE PALESTINIANS ARE THE "PRIORI ENEMIES" OF THE JEWS OF ISRAEL - AND HISTORY SHOWS THAT BESIDES HEZEKIAH'S VICTORY ON GAZA AND THE RIDICULOUS DAVID-GOLIATH TALE (GOLIATH = PHILISTINE) - ISRAEL LOST "ALL THE WARS" !

IT IS THE END OF TIMES !

HISTORY RECORDS THAT YAWEH (USA) COULD NOT SAVE THE PLUNDER OF HEZEKIAH (ISRAEL) BY THE ASSYRIANS (PALESTINIANS) !

WAR IS THE ONLY SOLUTION ! dindooohindoo

samir sardana said...

Like I said above "The CREATION OF ISRAEL by the EU,after WW2,WAS DONE TO EXPORT THE JEWS TO ISRAEL - BY SUASION,PERSUASION AND COERCION.It is ALSO the EU and UK,who SUPPLANTED THE PALESTINIANS,in Israel."

Y ?

Y did the EU, create the state of Israel ? It was NOT to export the Jews,to Israel !

It was, to CONCENTRATE,AS MANY JEWS,AS POSSIBLE,IN 1 GEOGRAPHY !

Y ?

It was to make THEM, A PRIME TARGET - WHICH CANNOT BE SAVED OR DEFENDED !

Yaweh said to Abraham that he gave to HIS SEED the land from the Nile to the Euphrates !

Genesis 15:18

On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land— from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates"

— But Yaweh did NOT say - for how long ! That Dream died with David and Solomon - and then, the Curse of Solomon on the Jews began !

BENJY IS TRYING TO REVIVE THAT DREAM - which is NOT ORDAINED,and WHICH IS DOOMED TO FAIL !

Besides,there is the Prophecy in the Quran and the Hadeeth - which foretells, the DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL, and the JEWS !

THEREFORE,in essence,IN A VERY SHORT TIME,the world will know - WHICH SCRIPTURE IS THE REAL WORD,WHO IS THE REAL PROPHET and WHICH WAS THE TRUE PROPHECY !

Hamas,Hezb,Persia ... are on the path to fulfiling the Islamic Prophecy (As per them),and Benjy is fulfiling HIS interpretation, of the Rabbinic and Talmudic,Biblical prophecies for ISRAEL.

1 SIDE HAS TO BE CREMATED - W/O ANY RESURRECTION HOPES !

WHICH ONE WILL IT BE ? dindooohindoo













Riaz Haq said...

Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese, study finds
Date:
May 9, 2000
Source:
New York University Medical Center And School Of Medicine
Summary:
If a common heritage conferred peace, then perhaps the long history of conflict in the Middle East would have been resolved years ago. For, according to a new scientific study, Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese, and they all share a common genetic lineage that stretches back thousands of years.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/05/000509003653.htm

If a common heritage conferred peace, then perhaps the long history of conflict in the Middle East would have been resolved years ago. For, according to a new scientific study, Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese, and they all share a common genetic lineage that stretches back thousands of years.

"Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham," says Harry Ostrer, M.D., Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine, an author of the new study by an international team of researchers in the United States, Europe, and Israel. "And all have preserved their Middle Eastern genetic roots over 4,000 years," he says.

The researchers analyzed the Y chromosome, which is usually passed unchanged from father to son, of more than 1,000 men worldwide. Throughout human history, alterations have occurred in the sequence of chemical bases that make up the DNA in this so-called male chromosome, leaving variations that can be pinpointed with modern genetic techniques. Related populations carry the same specific variations. In this way, scientists can track descendants of large populations and determine their common ancestors.

Specific regions of the Y chromosome were analyzed in 1,371 men from 29 worldwide populations, including Jews and non-Jews from the Middle East, North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe.

The study, published in the May 9 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that Jewish men shared a common set of genetic signatures with non-Jews from the Middle East, including Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese, and these signatures diverged significantly from non-Jewish men outside of this region. Consequently, Jews and Arabs share a common ancestor and are more closely related to one another than to non-Jews from other areas of the world.

The study also revealed that despite the complex history of Jewish migration in the Diaspora (the time since 556 B.C. when Jews migrated out of Palestine), Jewish communities have generally not intermixed with non-Jewish populations. If they had, then Jewish men from different regions of the world would not share the same genetic signatures in their Y chromosome.

"Because ancient Jewish law states that Jewish religious affiliation is assigned maternally, our study afforded the opportunity to assess the contribution of non-Jewish men to present-day Jewish genetic diversity," says Michael Hammer, Ph.D., from the University of Arizona, Tucson, who is the lead author of the new study. "It was surprising to see how significant the Middle Eastern genetic signal was in Jewish men from different communities in the Diaspora," he says.

The authors of this study are: Dr. Ostrer from NYU School of Medicine; Michael F. Hammer, Alan J. Redd, Elizabeth T. Wood, M. Roxane Bonner, Hamdi Jarjanazil, and Tanya Karafet from the University of Arizona, Tucson; Silvana Santachlara-Benerecetti, University of Pavia, Italy; Ariella Oppenheim, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; Mark A. Jobling, University of Leicester, England; Trefor Jenkins, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa; and Batsheva Bonne-Tamar, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

Ahmed said...

Dear Sir

Thank you for sharing such useful information ,yes it is true that Palestinians ,Jordanians and Lebananes have genetic relations with Jews and Isrealis .

But pls note that most of the major inventions in the field of Science and Technology were done by Jews and Isrealis . According to a recent survey out of 100% of the Scientists ,physicists and chemists who won noble prizes ,atleast 25% of them were Jews .

Most of the best physicians in the world were Jews .

Riaz Haq said...

Ahmed: "But pls note that most of the major inventions in the field of Science and Technology were done by Jews and Isrealis"

It's true of recent history over the last 200 years or so when Jews lived in Europe and contributed to science as did other white Christian Europeans. From 7th to 13th century, vast majority of major innovations are credited to Muslims.


https://www.riazhaq.com/2021/01/will-new-silk-road-help-revive-islamic.html

Riaz Haq said...

#GazaUnderAttackk Stokes ‘Identity Crisis’ for Young #American #Jews. The violence comes after a year when mass protests across the #US highlighted issues of #racialjustice & #socialjustice. #ApartheidIsrael #PalestiniansLivesMatter #Palestine #Gaza https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/19/us/jews-israel-palestine.html?smid=tw-share

Dan Kleinman does not know quite how to feel.

As a child in Brooklyn he was taught to revere Israel as the protector of Jews everywhere, the “Jewish superman who would come out of the sky to save us” when things got bad, he said.

It was a refuge in his mind when white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., chanted “Jews will not replace us,” or kids in college grabbed his shirt, mimicking a “South Park” episode to steal his “Jew gold.”

But his feelings have grown muddier as he has gotten older, especially now as he watches violence unfold in Israel and Gaza. His moral compass tells him to help the Palestinians, but he cannot shake an ingrained paranoia every time he hears someone make anti-Israel statements.

“It is an identity crisis,” Mr. Kleinman, 33, said. “Very small in comparison to what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank, but it is still something very strange and weird.”

As the violence escalates in the Middle East, turmoil of a different kind is growing across the Atlantic. Many young American Jews are confronting the region’s longstanding strife in a very different context, with very different pressures, from their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

The Israel of their lifetime has been powerful, no longer appearing to some to be under constant existential threat. The violence comes after a year when mass protests across the United States have changed how many Americans see issues of racial and social justice. The pro-Palestinian position has become more common, with prominent progressive members of Congress offering impassioned speeches in defense of the Palestinians on the House floor. At the same time, reports of anti-Semitism are rising across the country.

Divides between some American Jews and Israel’s right-wing government have been growing for more than a decade, but under the Trump administration those fractures that many hoped would heal became a crevasse. Politics in Israel have also remained fraught, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-tenured government forged allegiances with Washington. For young people who came of age during the Trump years, political polarization over the issue only deepened.

Many Jews in America remain unreservedly supportive of Israel and its government. Still, the events of recent weeks have left some families struggling to navigate both the crisis abroad and the wide-ranging response from American Jews at home. What is at stake is not just geopolitical, but deeply personal. Fractures are intensifying along lines of age, observance and partisan affiliation.

---------------------

Esther Katz, the performing arts director at the Jewish Community Center in Omaha, has spent significant time in Israel. She also attended Black Lives Matter protests in Omaha last summer and has signs supporting the movement in the windows of her home.

She has watched with a sense of betrayal as some of her allies in that movement have posted online about their apparently unequivocal support for the Palestinians, and compared Israel to Nazi Germany. “I’ve had some really tough conversations,” said Ms. Katz, a Conservative Jew. “They’re not seeing the facts, they’re just reading the propaganda.”

Her three children, who range in age from 7 to 13, are now wary of a country that is for Ms. Katz one of the most important places in the world. “They’re like, ‘I don’t understand why anyone would want to live in Israel, or even visit,’” she said. “That breaks my heart.”

Ahmed said...

Dear Sir

Thank you for your great reply ,yes it is true and I agree that from 7th century till 13th or 14th century ,it were Muslims who were pioneers in the field of Astronomy ,Maths, Medicines ,Architecture and Philosophy .

But Sir if we study the history from neutral sources (histories written by non-muslim authors and non-muslim historians ) then we come to know that although Bagdhad city of Iraq at that time was a great center of learning and knowledge and majority of the Scholars ,Mathamaticians ,Physicians and Scientists who contributed in these different branches of knowledge at that time were Muslims but few of them were Jews who later embraced Islam .

samir sardana said...

This is w.r.t. Mr Haq on May 20, 2021 at 8:02 AM

THESIS 2 - "Jews and Arabs are all really children of Abraham," says Harry Ostrer, M.D., Director of the Human Genetics Program at New York University School of Medicine

Tell that to the children of Zarqawi,Samir Kuntar,Bin Laden and the family of the dead brother of Bejamin Netanyahu ! dindooohindoo

Zia Ul Haq,Bhutto,Ayub Khan,Chou En Lai and Indira Gandhi are ALL really children of Adam or PERHAPS ASHOKA !

Harry Oster is from the SCHOOL OF MEDICINE,and NEEDS MEDICINES !

Arabs existed from the time of Moses - BUT the fact is that their LINK to Abraham is VIA HAGAR - who was an Abyssinian SLAVE - who was mistreated and abused by Sarah - whom Abraham could NOT protect,and who was asked by Abraham to EXIT HIS house,with their child (Ishmael). Hence,from INCECPTION,the Jews treated the Arabs and Ishamelites,as INFERIOR - and glossing over this,is NOT UTOPIA - but intellectual suicide.Besides,Ishmael was also CHEATED by Isaac !

The Hebrew Bible does NOT treat the injunction from Allah,to ask Abraham to exit Hagar,as the CAUSAL REASON,OF THE ACTION OF ABRAHAM.The Jewish scriptures treat it as the FIRST DIVINE CONDONATION of the discrimination of Hagar and her son,and their lineage - as a divine injunction,of the SEPARATION OF RACES AND 1 SUPERIOR RACE.

This was ALSO affirmed many centuries later,by Jesus who stated that "He came to deliver the Law to the Chosen People" - and then when the CHOSEN PEOPLE ABUSED HIM - Jesus changed COURSE,probably to SLIGHT THE JEWS - and then things went out of control - and the REST IS HISTORY OR PAUL's STORY.

From where has this intellectual warp of SAME DNA,SAME BLOOD,SAME FATHER (akin to Amitabh Bachhan's dialogues in Bollywood) come from ? The answer,sadly is,from Jesus - who turned the world UPSIDE down - with this EQUALITY and NOT equity.This is what led to the collapse of the civilisations,all over the world - as people REFUSED to RECKON REALITY.

The Greek,Roman,Assyrian,Babylonians were on the model of the anti-thesis of the Jesus philosophy - and after their collapse,no other kingdom rose to the same level - as the world was swamped with intellectual,rational and scientific mediocrity and superstition and primitive and heathen conduct.If Galileo and company,were not killed - Humans by now,would have developed a NEW RACE with the Martians.

But we are all 1 - with 2 hands and feet,eyes,ears,the same red colour blood (the Bachhan Dialogue) ........just like Baboons.SCIENCE has proven that humans and apes have a 99% common DNA,and Humans and Rats have a 98% common DNA - and what does that prove ?

SAMIR SARDANA said...

This is w.r.t. Mr Haq on May 20, 2021 at 8:02 AM

THESIS 1 -'Jews are the genetic brothers of Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese, "

Nope !

All humans are GENETIC BROTHERS as, they had the same source gene,of Adam and Eve ! EXVEPT THE SEED of the Serpent and Eve

Palestinians and Israelis CANNOT LIVE TOGETHER ! Like in the UK, the Palestinians will compromise a Liberal Jewish Party,and take over the Knesset,In addition,they will multiply in key constituencies - and wipe out the Right Wing Jewish parties from the Vote map (just like the Brit Parliament).If the Palestinians DEMAND THEIR SOCIAL,EDUCATIONAL,HEALTH AND POLITICAL RIGHTS,IN THE 1 STATE SOLUTION - THE ISRAEL ECONOMIC STORY WILL BE DEAD -AS THE STATE WILL HAVE NO MONEY LEFT

Only a fool will think, that IDF will allow the Palestinians to get REPRESENTATION, in the IDF and the Police/Security apparatus,in the 1 state solution !

SOLUTIONS will come when leaders and people REALISE that Adam and Eve are dead - and different RACES have been spawned - whose intellectual contours are DEFINED ONLY BY RELIGION OR ATHEISM OR AGNOSTICISM.(Rationality is a part of the last 2)

FACT is that even the JORDANIANS AND SYRIANS,do NOT want Palestinians (THEIR BROTHERS) in their nation.The word PALESTINE,in 5 BC was a part of Syria,and NOT ISRAEL.

It is because the world and the UN are NOT interested in a SOLUTION and do NOT have a solution and are incapable of a SOLUTION,AND SO THEY SPIN THIS "WE ARE 1 RACE,1 BROTHERHOOD,1 DNA WITH 1 GOD...".

Divisions into RACES AND SECTS is the SOLUTION,as each race has a right to seclude,evolve and THEN INTEGRATE.That is the path to evolution and salvation.Else,they get swamped with the majority,and are stunted and stifled.

Hence,besides the principles of Justice,the Palestinians NEED A NATION,NOT on principles of Justice or History - but because,they are a DIFFERENT RACE,and they have a RIGHT TO EVOLVE. The Jews of Israel have excelled in their NATION,as they have a SEPARATE NATION,for themselves. There is nothing SPECIAL in the land of Israel - as Oil,Gas and the Minerals of the Dead Sea,are scattered all over the world - but the JEWS could NOT have replicated their success,anywhere else,EXCEPT IN THEIR OWN NATION .dindooohindoo

That is also Y Kashmir,deserves a separate nation - and then,the Indian Muslims (who are genetic brothers of Hindoos) and the Dalits and possibly the Shia minorities in GCC nations. They might DOOM their NEW NATIONS - but that is their EVOLUTIONARY RIGHT !

Ahmed said...

Sir

Few hours ago I watched a video in which an American Jew was speaking and he said that American Jews are trying to distance themselves from Isreal.

Riaz Haq said...

Riaz Haq has left a new comment on your post "US Media Losing Control of the Middle East Narrative?":

#Americans largely support #Israel -- but sympathy for #Palestinians is rising. “It’s not a huge surprise that a lot of non-white Americans can empathize and identify with Palestinians because of their own history of oppression and settler colonialism” https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/05/22/more-americans-back-palestinians-against-conflict-israel/5185821001/

That support for both Palestinians and the Black Lives Matter movement have gained support concurrently is not a coincidence, said Elgindy, director of the Washington institute's Palestine and Palestinian-Israeli Affairs program. Both are rooted in similar anger over a lack of accountability, police brutality and systemic racism, he said, especially among young people.

As buildings fall in Gaza and whole families are wiped out, and as the United States stays largely silent about the plight of Palestinians, he said, “that contrast has not been lost on large numbers of Americans who are starting to awaken to this. For a lot of young people who were in middle school the last time this happened and not necessarily politically aware, they’re coming of age politically, and they’re horrified.”


------------

Last weekend in Atlanta, as hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators rallied downtown, one sign stood out in particular: “We can’t breathe since 1948,” it read – a nod to the social unrest of the last year that has followed the murder of George Floyd.

Experts say it’s a reflection of the way that American support for the Palestinian cause is growing, a trend that a recent Gallup poll showed was on the rise even before the most recent Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

“It’s not a huge surprise that a lot of non-white Americans can empathize and identify with Palestinians because of their own history of oppression and settler colonialism,” said Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. “The old image of Israel as David fighting the Arab Goliath, if it was ever true, is now completely obsolete. Israel is not the underdog anymore, and people realize that.”


Results of Gallup’s annual World Affairs poll, released in March, show that while most Americans still sympathize with Israel, favorable views of Palestine are on the rise. Roughly 30% of overall respondents said they had favorable views of the Palestinian Authority, up from 21% in 2018 and higher than the annual average of 19% since 2001.

Such views are increasingly partisan, with Republican support for Israel at 85%, compared to 77% of Independents and 64% of Democrats. However, the percentage of Republicans who view the Palestinian Authority favorably has risen to 19%, up from 9% in 2018.

-----------------


The area encompassing Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory is home to about 6.8 million Israelis and 6.8 million Palestinians, according to Human Rights Watch. Israel exercises primary authority over the territory, which consists of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with limited Palestinian self-rule. According to the human rights organization, the discrimination and subjugation experienced by Palestinians in parts of the territory are tantamount to apartheid and persecution.

Riaz Haq said...

Teshuvah: A Jewish Case for Palestinian Refugee Return
May 11, 2021 Posted byPeter Beinart

https://jewishcurrents.org/teshuvah-a-jewish-case-for-palestinian-refugee-return/

Even for many Jews passionately opposed to Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, supporting Palestinian refugee return remains taboo. But, morally, this distinction makes little sense. If it is wrong to hold Palestinians as non-citizens under military law, and wrong to impose a blockade that denies them the necessities of life, it is surely also wrong to expel them and prevent them from returning home. For decades, liberal Jews have parried this moral argument with a pragmatic one: Palestinian refugees should return only to the West Bank and Gaza, regardless of whether that is where they are from, as part of a two-state solution that gives both Palestinians and Jews a country of their own. But with every passing year, as Israel further entrenches its control over all the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterannean Sea, this supposedly realistic alternative grows more detached from reality. There will be no viable, sovereign, Palestinian state to which refugees can go. What remains of the case against Palestinian refugee return is a series of historical and legal arguments, peddled by Israeli and American Jewish leaders, about why Palestinians deserved their expulsion and have no right to remedy it now. These arguments are not only unconvincing but deeply ironic, since they ask Palestinians to repudiate the very principles of intergenerational memory and historical restitution that Jews hold sacred. If Palestinians have no right to return to their homeland, neither do we.

The consequences of these efforts to rationalize and bury the Nakba are not theoretical. They are playing themselves out right now on the streets of Sheikh Jarrah. The Israeli leaders who justify expelling Palestinians today in order to make Jerusalem a Jewish city are merely paraphrasing the Jewish organizations that have spent the last several decades justifying the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 in order to create a Jewish state. What Ta-Nehisi Coates has observed about the United States, and Desmond Tutu has observed about South Africa—that historical crimes that go unaddressed generally reappear, in different guise—is true for Israel-Palestine as well. Refugee return therefore constitutes more than mere repentance for the past. It is a prerequisite for building a future in which both Jews and Palestinians enjoy safety and freedom in the land each people calls home.


THE ARGUMENT AGAINST REFUGEE RETURN begins with a series of myths about what happened in 1948, which allow Israeli and American Jewish leaders to claim that Palestinians effectively expelled themselves.

The most enduring myth is that Palestinians fled because Arab and Palestinian officials told them to. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) asserts that many Palestinians left “at the urging of Arab leaders, and expected to return after a quick and certain Arab victory over the new Jewish state.” The Palestinian historian Walid Khalidi debunked this claim as early as 1959. In a study of Arab radio broadcasts and newspapers, and the communiques of the Arab League and various Arab and Palestinian fighting forces, he revealed that, far from urging Palestinians to leave, Palestinian and Arab officials often pleaded with them to stay. Decades later, employing primarily Israeli and British archives for his book, The Birth of the Refugee Problem Revisited, the Israeli historian Benny Morris did uncover evidence of Arab leaders urging women, children, and the elderly to evacuate villages so Arab fighters could better defend them.

Ahmed said...

Dear Sir Riaz


Thank you for your reply ,Sir you didn't understand my point ,when I said that out of 100% of the noble prize winner scientists in the world ,25% of them were Jews ,I mean that inspite of the fact that Jews have such low population in the world ,their population is even lower then Muslims ,and Christians have more population than Muslims .

Inspite of having such low population in the world ,still Jews have 25% share in the total 100% of the noble prize winners of the world .

Ap ko pata hai ke America mein ziadatar nuclear scientists kon hein ?

Sir if we study the history of Prophets ,we come to know that Isrealis and Jews are intellectually very strong . They are genetically very smart and intelligent and this is because they are decendents of Prophet Isaac(pbuh) who was the youngest son of Prophet Abraham (pbuh ) and historical sources confirm that Prophet Isaac(Ishaq) was very knowledagble and intelligent . So this smartness and intelligence was carried down to his generation .

Prophet Isaac(Ishaq) became father of Jews and Isrealis .

Pls watch the video of Dr.I srar who was a well known Pakistani Scholar . Even he said that ke Isrealis and Yahoodi intiha darje zaheen hotey hein .


Ap ko pata hai yah key pads and screens of mobile phones and laptops kahan invent hoay theh ?

I was reading an article which shows that the doctor who 1st invented insulin was an Isreali doctor .


Also in the medical research department of Isreal research is being done to find out cure for cancer .

Riaz Haq said...

The Nakba: an Israel Defense Forces intelligence report said "the displacement of about 70% of the Arabs" in 1948 "should be attributed to military operations carried out by Jewish forces, compared to only 5%...attributed to orders given by Arab leaders."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/28/dueling-histories-debate-over-historic-palestine/

By
Glenn Kessler


At the time of the proposed U.N. partition, Jews comprised only 33 percent of the population, owned 7 percent of the land and yet would have been given 56 percent of the former mandate. There was no reason to accept such a deal. Then when the state of Israel was declared, Jewish forces forced many Palestinian families from their homes. This is documented in a 1948 Israel Defense Forces intelligence report, which said the displacement of about 70 percent of the Arabs during this time should be attributed to military operations carried out by Jewish forces, compared to only 5 percent which could be attributed to orders given by Arab leaders.


Riaz Haq said...

History made as #Arab #Israeli Ra’am party joins Bennett-Lapid coalition to oust #Netanyahu. Islamists make good on promise to seek change from inside, winning billions in promised state funding for #Palestinian citizens of #Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/arab-israeli-raam-party-makes-history-by-joining-bennett-lapid-coalition/ via @timesofisrael

Ringed by flashing cameras in a luxury hotel in Ramat Gan, conservative Islamist Ra’am chief Mansour Abbas made history on Wednesday night as the first Arab Israeli party leader in half a century to sign a deal to sit in a coalition government.

“This is the first time that an Arab party is part of the process of forming a government. We of course hope that it works and that a government will rise after four rounds of elections,” Abbas said.

Even before Ra’am announced it was signing on, the nascent coalition was widely regarded as the widest in the country’s history, uniting parties from the left to the pro-settlement right aimed at deposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud faction.

To make it happen, Yamina chief Naftali Bennett and centrist Yesh Atid leader Yair Atid agreed to a rotation scheme, with Bennett becoming Prime Minister for the first two years.

Despite the wide spectrum of views in the so-called “change government,” Abbas said that he had agreed on numerous plans and budgets in Arab Israeli society with his counterparts in the constellation of parties seeking to topple Netanyahu.

Riaz Haq said...

Poll finds 25% of #US #Jews think #Israel is 'apartheid state’. 34% agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States” & 22% agreed that “Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians.” | The Times of Israel

https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-finds-a-quarter-of-us-jews-think-israel-is-apartheid-state/

Among younger voters included in the survey released Tuesday, agreement with those statements was higher, though still in the minority. The poll found that 9% of voters agreed with the statement “Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.” But among voters under 40, that proportion was 20%. A third of younger voters agreed that Israel is committing genocide, a position that even human rights lawyers who are critical of Israel say is extreme; more than a third agreed that Israel is an apartheid state.

The findings are striking as mainstream pro-Israel organizations struggle to make the case that Israel is central to Jewish identity and that criticism of it often veers into antisemitism. They suggest that many American Jews agree with statements by some of Israel’s harshest critics on the left made during the Gaza-Israel conflict in May, including in some cases by a handful of Democratic members of Congress who were then criticized by their colleagues.



The survey of American Jewish political sentiment was wide-ranging, finding wide approval for President Joe Biden and deep concern about Republican efforts in Georgia and Florida to tighten access to the ballot booth. When it came to measuring criticism of Israel, the poll first asked respondents whether they thought each of the four critical statements was antisemitic; those who said a statement was not antisemitic were then asked if they agreed with it.

Of the four statements, only in one case, did a majority — 67% — agree that it was antisemitic to say, “Israel doesn’t have a right to exist.” For the other three questions, more respondents disagreed that the statement was antisemitic than agreed.



The new survey presents the latest challenge as the new Israeli government endeavors to repair ties with a US Jewish community that to a degree became alienated from Israel during the 12 years Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister. Surveys have found that Israeli and American Jews know little about one another.

One statement in the survey, echoing a claim by former President Donald Trump, that “Jews who vote Democratic are disloyal to Israel” was also put forward to respondents to assess whether it is antisemitic; mainstream Jewish organizations have suggested that it is. However, while a vast majority of respondents, 77%, disagreed with the statement, only 26% said they believed it is antisemitic.

Asked about the two-state solution, 61% of survey respondents said it was their preferred outcome. But 19% said they preferred annexation of the West Bank that would deny Palestinians the right to vote in national elections, while 20% said they preferred “establishing one state that is neither Jewish nor Palestinian” and encompassing Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Gaza is currently controlled by the Hamas terror group.



The Democratic lawmakers who lashed out at Israel during the conflict, including Representatives Cori Bush, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib, have also raised the prospect of cutting aid to Israel. While a substantial majority of survey respondents, 71%, said it was “important” to provide financial assistance to Israel, a smaller majority, 58%, said it would be appropriate to restrict aid to Israel so it could not spend US money on settlements. A majority, 62%, support Biden’s reversal of Trump’s policy of cutting off aid to the Palestinians.

Riaz Haq said...

Riots Shatter Veneer of Coexistence in #Israel’s Mixed Towns. While some 2.7 million #Palestinians chafe under military occupation in the #WestBank, the nearly two million Palestinians in Israel are increasingly demanding equal rights as Israeli citizens https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/01/world/middleeast/israel-arabs-jews-palestinians-riots.html?smid=tw-share


The May riots, set off by provocative police interventions at the Aqsa Mosque and the outbreak of the 11-day Israel-Hamas war, tore away a thin layer of civility to expose seething resentments between Israel’s Jewish and Palestinian citizens. Across almost all of Israel’s seven officially “mixed” Arab-Jewish towns, gunfire, arson, stone-throwing and lynching left a trail of destruction. Arab mobs burned Jewish stores to the ground. Rightist Jewish vigilantes chanted “Death to Arabs.” Four people, two Jews and two Arabs, were killed and hundreds, mostly Arabs, were later arrested.

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Israel’s Jewish and Palestinian communities looked past each other until violence and bloodshed forced a reckoning.

ACRE, Israel — Uri Jeremias, a celebrated Israeli chef, saw himself as a benefactor. By bringing jobs, tourists and investment to the mainly Arab heart of the coastal town of Acre, he believed he was seen as nurturing coexistence between Jews and Arabs.

Until an Arab mob torched his Uri Buri restaurant in May and a Jewish guest at his luxury hotel was asphyxiated in the worst inter-community riots in decades.

“I was targeted as a Jew by radicalized thugs,” Mr. Jeremias, 76, said at his airy house in Nahariya, a few miles north of Acre. “But many more Arabs came to help me put out the fires than came to burn my places down. We cannot allow a violent minority to win.”

Mr. Jeremias’s flowing Father Time beard and piercing blue eyes have become a feature of high-end travel magazines, where he has been portrayed as “cooking up coexistence” beside the glowing Ottoman walls of Acre’s Old City. He vows to restore the restaurant soon. He wants to get his 62 employees, half of them Arab, back to work, for the sake of “all the people of Acre and also the state of Israel.”

It won’t be easy. Blending diverse people is tougher than blending flavors.


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In Acre, a city whose Crusader, Ottoman, Arab and Jewish history has been one of uneasy mingling, a spark was enough to demonstrate that many Palestinians, who account for 30 percent of the town’s population of 56,000, saw Mr. Jeremias’s enterprise more as creeping exclusion and oppression than opportunity.

A journey across several mixed Israeli towns and cities revealed the extent of this mutual incomprehension. Seventy-three years after Israel’s birth in the 1948 Independence War, in which hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled or were driven out at gunpoint, Jews and Arabs in Israel live side by side but largely blind to each others’ lives. Towns portrayed as models of peaceful coexistence fester with resentments born of double standards.

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To be stable, that Israeli future will have to include Palestinian children and grandchildren.

Sama Abunassar, the young Palestinian woman attacked by a Jewish mob in Haifa, said: “I always heard talk about discrimination and racism in this country, and I always heard the reference to us as second-class citizens, but I never felt it, perhaps because I live in Haifa. But now I know that I will never be treated like a Jewish girl in this country. If a Jewish girl went through what I went through, she would be protected. I know now for a fact that I will never be protected.”

For a democratic Israel to come close to the ideals of its 1948 founding charter — that the nascent state would “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex” — Ms. Abunassar must one day be convinced otherwise.

Riaz Haq said...

#Google employee resigns saying company ‘silences #Palestinians’. Ariel Koren, who is #Jewish, has worked for Google for over 7 years and said Google’s actions to stifle outspoken workers – not just herself – have been par for the course.

https://aje.io/vrmn00 via @AJEnglish

Ariel Koren had spoken out about a $1.2bn collaboration between Google, Amazon and the Israeli military called Project Nimbus.


A Google employee who became a high-profile opponent of the tech giant’s $1bn artificial intelligence and surveillance contract with the Israeli military has announced her resignation.

Ariel Koren, a marketing manager, will be leaving the company this week, citing what she said was its creation of a hostile work environment due to her social activism.


“I am leaving @Google this week due to retaliation & hostility against workers who speak out,” tweeted Koren. “Google moved my role overseas immediately after I opposed its $1B AI/surveillance contracts with Israel. And this is far from an isolated instance.”

The controversy began when Koren protested Google’s $1.2bn collaboration with Amazon and the Israeli military on a programme called Project Nimbus.

She spent more than a year organising her protest to persuade Google to pull out of the deal, including circulating petitions, lobbying executives and speaking out to news organisations.

However, Koren said that instead of listening to her concerns, Google blindsided her in November 2021 with an ultimatum: either agree to move from San Francisco in the US state of California to Sao Paulo, Brazil, or lose her job.

Koren said there was no business justification for the mandated move and filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

However, both Google and the NLRB investigated her complaint and found no wrongdoing, according to multiple media reports.

At least 15 other Palestinian employees and allies have shared their experiences describing the “institutionalised bias” within the company.

“It has become impossible to express any opinion of disagreement of the war waged on Palestinians without being called into a HR [sic] meeting with the threat of retaliation,” one Palestinian employee said.

In an online post written Tuesday on the publishing platform Medium, Koren said her outspoken views and social activism prompted Google to stifle her by relocating her employment overseas.

Riaz Haq said...

The Settler-Colonialist Alliance of India and Israel
Over the decades, the two nation’s have become closer allies in business and politics. We talked to journalist Azad Essa the origins of this international relationship.
By Deeksha Udupa



https://www.thenation.com/article/world/qa-india-israel-azad-essa/


In 1962, after a series of border conflicts over the disputed territory of Aksai Chin—which both China and India claimed, and still continue to claim, as their own—the two countries fought a one-month war. India’s troops in Namka Chu Valley were considerably weaker and the state of Israel quickly responded to India’s request for assistance. Then–Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion wrote to his Indian counterpart, Jawaharlal Nehru, emphasizing his country’s “fullest sympathy and understanding” and offering to provide weapons to Indian forces. Nehru requested that the weapons be sent in unmarked ships, aware that accepting Israeli assistance could affect India’s relations with Arab nations. Ben-Gurion declined and said, “No flag. No weapons.” Eventually, India relented and accepted arms transported in ships with the Israeli flag. And though India lost the conflict, the country was now aware that in times of need, Israel could be counted on as a potential ally.

The two countries have only grown closer since then, as their military and business interests have aligned. Just this year, for example, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani, chairman of the Adani Group, recently acquired the Israeli port of Haifa, where 50 percent of Israeli cargo is handled. Privatizing the port has been a topic of conversation since the early 2000s and was finally completed when Adani submitted his bid, which was supported by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Just days after the acquisition, however, Hindenburg Research released a report accusing the Adani Group of financial malpractice, fraudulent transactions, and share-price manipulation. Modi and Netanyahu spoke days after the release of the report, and Modi emphasized the importance of “the multifaceted India-Israel friendship.” The purchase of the port launched a new chapter of the Israel-India alliance, with some commentators referring to it as the largest deal between the two nations in the private sector.



AZAD ESSA (Author of Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel): Being from South Africa and growing up towards the end of apartheid, I was enamored by the concept of international solidarity through boycotts and the very idea that people around the world were thinking about us.

And since I am of Indian origin (with the caveat that there was no India, as we now know it, when my grandparents had come to South Africa), I was told stories about how India had been instrumental in standing up to apartheid government. Later, as a graduate student, I was introduced to the story of Kashmir, and I was struck by how a country that positioned itself as anti-colonial, anti-apartheid, and a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement could also have a colonial project of its own. I subsequently went to Kashmir and was shocked by the militarization. I also traveled to Palestine and immediately felt the connections between the two.

Then Narendra Modi came to power in 2014—and when he did, the floodgates opened. Just like when Donald Trump came to power, it was as if the US had been unmasked; likewise, the Indian and Israeli relationship, too, was unmasked under Modi, and they soon became even closer strategic partners. When the Indian consul general spoke in 2019 about replicating Israeli-style settlements in Kashmir, I was convinced that this was a project I wanted to pursue. This is a book, then, about how oppressors work together.

Riaz Haq said...

Noam Chomsky - Why Does the U.S. Support Israel?


https://youtu.be/lUQ_0MubbcM


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Noam Chomsky on settler colonialism


https://settlercolonialstudies.blog/2014/04/04/noam-chomsky-on-settler-colonialism/

Now the settler-colonial societies are particularly interesting in this regard because you have a conflict within them. Settler-colonial societies are different than most forms of imperialism; in traditional imperialism, say the British in India, the British kind of ran the place: They sent the bureaucrats, the administrators, the officer corps, and so on, but the place was run by Indians. Settler-colonial societies are different; they eliminate the indigenous population. Read, say, George Washington, a leading figure in the settler-colonial society we live in. His view was – his words – was that we have to “extirpate” the Iroquois; they’re in our way. They were an advanced civilization; in fact, they provided some of the basis for the American constitutional system, but they were in the way, so we have to extirpate them. Thomas Jefferson, another great figure, he said, well, we have no choice but to exterminate the indigenous population, the Native Americans; the reason is they’re attacking us. Why are they attacking us? Because we’re taking everything away from them. But since we’re taking their land and resources away and they defend themselves, we have to exterminate them.

[T]he settler-colonial societies are a striking illustration of, first of all, the massive destructive power of European imperialism, which of course includes us and Australia, and so on. And also the – I don’t know if you’d call it irony, but the strange phenomenon of the most so-called “advanced,” educated, richest segments of global society trying to destroy all of us, and the so-called “backward” people, the pre-technological people, who remain on the periphery, trying to restrain the race to disaster. If some extraterrestrial observer were watching this, they’d think the species was insane. And, in fact, it is. But the insanity goes back to the basic institutional structure of RECD. That’s the way it works. It’s built into the institutions. It’s one of the reasons it’s going to be very hard to change.

Riaz Haq said...

From Munir Akram, Pakistan's Permanent Representative at the UN

What’s Going On in Kashmir Is Not Normal
By Munir Akram on Aug 03, 2023

The essayist, Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations, notes that it has been four years as of Aug. 5 since India took “unilateral actions to consolidate its occupation” of the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir.

As the sun rises over the picturesque landscape of Kashmir, it’s easy to believe that all is well in the region. But beneath the scenic beauty is a harsh and unsettling reality — composed of a military occupation, oppression of the entire population and expression of fear, loathing and anger by the people of Kashmir. The picture that the Indian government tries to paint — of normalcy and development in occupied Jammu and Kashmir — is a myth.

For the last seven decades, Kashmir has been the epicenter of a bitter dispute between India and Pakistan in which the people in Jammu are an integral party. To resolve the conflict, the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 47 in 1948, and more than a dozen subsequent resolutions, stipulating that the final disposition of the State of Jammu and Kashmir would be decided by its people through a free and impartial plebiscite conducted under the auspices of the UN. This was accepted by India and Pakistan and, in accordance with Article 25 of the UN Charter, both parties are obligated to implement these resolutions.

But this Saturday, Aug. 5, marks four years of India’s unilateral actions to consolidate its occupation of Illegally Indian Occupied Jammu and Kashmir (IIOJK) and imposing what India’s leaders have ominously called a “final solution” for Kashmir. To do so, India has resorted to a series of illegal actions, gross and consistent violations of human rights and other crimes that continue to this day.

India increased its military deployment in IIOJK to 900,000 troops right before Aug. 5, 2019. This is the densest occupation in recent history — with one soldier for every eight Kashmiri men, women and children. This massive force has perpetrated a vicious campaign of repressive actions, including extrajudicial killings of innocent Kashmiris in fake encounters; custodial killings and “cordon-and-search” operations; use of pellet guns to kill, maim and blind peaceful protestors; abduction and enforced disappearances; and “collective punishments,” with the destruction and burning of entire villages and urban neighborhoods.

This brutal campaign is driven by the ideology of “Hindutva,” which propagates the religious and ethnic supremacy of Hindus and hate against Muslims. Noting this pattern, Genocide Watch has warned that “the Indian government’s actions in Kashmir have been an extreme case of persecution and could very well lead to genocide.”

To suppress the voice of the Kashmiri people, Indian authorities have used censorship and surveillance for decades in the occupied territory. Since August 2019, information control has been fully institutionalized. Journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and the entire Kashmiri political leadership are routinely incarcerated, beaten, humiliated, harassed and even accused of “terrorism” for reporting the human rights violations in IIOJK.

There is only one normality: the normalization of violence. Generations have grown up witnessing violence, insecurity and trauma. Numerous human rights organizations, international bodies and independent reports have documented use of rape, sexual assault and harassment perpetrated by Indian security forces against Kashmiri civilians, particularly women as a weapon of war. Emergency laws, such as the 1990-Armed Forces (Special Powers), have created an environment of complete impunity for Indian security forces.

To extinguish the ethno-religious identity of Kashmiris, historical sites have been destroyed and damaged. One of the most troubling aspects of the destruction of cultural heritage is the demolition of religious sites, particularly mosques, which inflicts deep emotional wounds on the Muslim population.

Riaz Haq said...

From Munir Akram, Pakistan's Permanent Representative at the UN

What’s Going On in Kashmir Is Not Normal
By Munir Akram on Aug 03, 2023

In a classic settler-colonial project, India has initiated illegal demographic changes in the occupied territory, grossly violating international law, including the Fourth Geneva Convention. This is central to its plan to convert IIOJK’s Muslim majority into a Hindu majority territory, to drown out the demand for freedom and self-determination. New “domicile rules” have been introduced, and more than four million fake domicile certificates have been issued to Hindus from across India to settle in Occupied Jammu and Kashmir. The land and properties of Kashmiris are also being confiscated for military and other official use.

All the measures taken by India in the last four years are blatant violations of international law, including the relevant Security Council resolutions, specifically Resolution 122 (1957). Therefore, all the actions taken by India on and after Aug. 5, 2019 are not only illegal but, ipso facto, null and void.

To justify its occupation and oppression, India has sought for decades, and particularly since 9/11, to portray the Kashmiri freedom struggle as “terrorism.” Likewise, to delegitimize the indigenous Kashmiri struggle for self-determination, India falsely alleges that it is instigated by Pakistan. To expose India’s falsehood, Pakistan has proposed expanded patrolling by the UN Military Observer Group in India and Pakistan (UNMOGIP) along the line of control in Jammu and Kashmir. However, India refuses to allow the UN mission to patrol the line of control and to expand it. Despite numerous attempts, India continues to deny access to Jammu and Kashmir to the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights and other UN agencies as well as other human rights and humanitarian organizations and international media.

Pakistan desires peaceful relations with all its neighbors, including India. Pakistan has responded with responsibility and restraint to India’s repeated provocations. On the other hand, India continues to resort to aggressive rhetoric and repeated threats of the use of force against Pakistan, even under the nuclear overhang. The onus is on India to create conditions that are conducive for a meaningful dialogue to resolve the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. To this end, India must:

• stop all human rights violations in Jammu and Kashmir

• halt and reverse its illegal demographic changes there

• reverse the illegal and unilateral measures imposed on and after Aug. 5, 2019

• grant access to international observers, including human rights mechanisms of the UN and international media, to observe worsening human rights situation on the ground

The international community must play a proactive role obliging India to respect the human rights of the people of Kashmir and to work toward a peaceful, inclusive resolution of the conflict. Peace in South Asia will be possible only when the Jammu and Kashmir dispute is resolved. The Security Council and the UN secretary-general must make concerted efforts, as empowered by the UN Charter, to promote a peaceful settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute, according to the relevant UN security Council resolutions and wishes of the Kashmiri people.

Preventive measures to stop abuses in IIOJK and to promote global accountability is both a moral imperative and a collective human rights responsibility. Millions of Kashmiris have suffered for too long. To end their plight, they demand a peaceful resolution to the conflict. It is time to make peace a new normal.