Dear Friend,
The bodies of 39 migrants were found yesterday in the back of a freight lorry parked in Grays, Essex, in the United Kingdom. The deaths have evoked public outrage and revulsion toward the British government’s brutal “deterrence” regime against migrants and refugees. The real authors of this immense crime reside in 10 Downing Street, along with the government and opposition parties in Westminster Palace and their accomplices in every European capital.
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Thirty-nine migrants found dead in lorry
trailer in UK
by Laura Tiernan
The bodies of 39 migrants were found yesterday in the back of a freight lorry parked in Grays, Essex, in the United Kingdom. The deaths have evoked public outrage and revulsion toward the British government’s brutal “deterrence” regime against migrants and refugees. The real authors of this immense crime reside in 10 Downing Street, along with the government and opposition parties in Westminster Palace and their accomplices in every European capital.
The bodies of 39 migrants were found yesterday in the back of a freight lorry parked in Grays, Essex, in the United Kingdom. The deaths have evoked public outrage and revulsion toward the British government’s brutal “deterrence” regime against migrants and refugees.
Police were called to the Waterglade Industrial Park in Essex by East of England Ambulance Service at 1.40am. All 39 people—adults and a teenager—were pronounced dead at the scene.
The victims’ identities are not known. Police forensic teams last night transported the truck’s cabin and trailer to Tilbury Docks to begin the process of formal identification. Deputy Chief Constable Pippa Mills told reporters this would be “a lengthy process”.
Police escort the truck, that was found to contain a large number of dead bodies, as they move it from an industrial estate in Thurrock, south England, Wednesday Oct. 23, 2019. Police in southeastern England said that 39 people were found dead Wednesday inside a truck container believed to have come from Bulgaria. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
Details of the truck’s movements remain unclear. Police have confirmed only that the trailer arrived via ferry from Zeebrugge, Belgium, docking at Purfleet on the River Thames at 12.30am. The truck cabin and trailer left the port shortly after 1.05am.
It is not known where or at what time the 39 victims entered the truck’s freight container. Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association, told the BBC the container appeared to be a refrigerated unit and that temperatures could reach as low as -25C. Conditions for anyone inside would be “absolutely horrendous”. Even if the container was not refrigerated, trucking experts explained that such cabins are sealed tight and lengthy confinement can lead to suffocation.
The truck’s cabin is registered in Northern Ireland. The driver, 25-year-old Mo Robinson from a village in County Armagh, was immediately arrested on suspicion of murder.
But the real authors of this immense crime reside in 10 Downing Street, along with the government and opposition parties in Westminster Palace and their accomplices in every European capital.
Their statements of condolence and crocodile tears are rank hypocrisy. Conservative Party Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s statement was issued via Twitter: “I’m appalled by this tragic incident in Essex… My thoughts are with all those who lost their lives & their loved ones.”
Home Secretary Priti Patel, whose entire career is built on anti-immigrant xenophobia, told parliament, “I’m shocked and saddened by this utterly tragic incident in Grays. My heart goes out to all those affected.”
Only last month, a smirking Patel told the Tory Party conference she was proud to be part of a Brexit government that was “taking back control of our borders” and “ending the free movement of people once and for all.” Johnson has described veiled Muslim women as “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”, deliberately stoking anti-immigrant racism.
The latest horrifying deaths are the direct outcome of a regime of deterrence that has involved a police-military operation on the English Channel and at key ports including Dover.
The truck allegedly driven by Robinson is believed to have arrived at Purfleet to avoid increased police checks and anti-migrant measures put in place at Dover in the leadup to Brexit. Five people have drowned in the English Channel this year.
Seamus Leheny, Northern Ireland policy manager for the Freight Transport Association, told the press, “People have been saying that security and checks have been increased at places like Dover and Calais, so it might be seen as an easier way to get in by going from Cherbourg or Roscoff, over to Rosslare, then up the road to Dublin. It’s a long way around and it’ll add an extra day to the journey.”
In recent months, migrant rights organisations have warned that the British government’s harsh deterrence regime is forcing refugees to resort to riskier methods of entry to the UK, including lorries. In December 2017, a 15-year-old Afghani boy was crushed by a truck he tried to jump on board at Calais, while an Iraqi man’s legs were severed by a train near Dunkirk. In June this year, the frozen body of a stowaway from Kenya fell from a plane onto a London garden. An investigation last November by BBC South East found there was a “pre-Brexit rush”, with people-smugglers warning migrants to enter now before “the borders shut properly.”
In January, former Tory Home Secretary Sajid Javid met with his French counterpart to agree new anti-migrant measures along the English Channel including £3.2 million for drones, radar, night goggles and number plate recognition along with additional border patrol boats.
One year earlier, the Sandhurst Treaty was negotiated by then Prime Minister Theresa May with French President Emmanuel Macron. Signed at Britain’s premier military academy, the treaty saw the UK commit an extra £44.5 million for fencing, CCTV and detection technology in Calais and other Channel ports.
The police measures agreed by the French and British governments were aimed at bolstering the European Union’s “Fortress Europe” policy against desperate migrants and refugees fleeing wars in the Middle East and North Africa and economic deprivation across large parts of Eastern Europe.
Yesterday’s atrocity was the worst in Britain since 2000, when the bodies of 58 Chinese people were found in a sealed airless container at Dover, Kent. An inquest was told the migrants banged frantically on the inside of the container as they suffocated.
More recently, in August 2015, 71 bodies were found decomposing in an abandoned lorry on the A4 motorway in Austria, near Parndorf. This produced a mass outpouring of sympathy for refugees across Europe. Overnight, thousands of ordinary people organised accommodation, transport, food, clothing and medical supplies, turning out to greet and welcome the convoys of refugees arriving from across the Mediterranean, from Turkey and North Africa.
It was this public sentiment which forced Angela Merkel’s government to open Germany’s borders and allow refugees right of entry. But the sympathy for refugees cut across the plans of the German ruling class for remilitarisation and for deepening austerity. Powerful forces in the government and intelligence services set about smothering and reversing this social opposition through the promotion of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and manufactured scares such as the Cologne New Year’s Eve “sex attacks”.
Yesterday’s events in Britain are not only a tragedy for the family and loved ones of the 39 people who have perished. They are a crime perpetrated by the capitalist governments of Britain and Europe against the international working class. Over 19,000 people died or went missing in the Mediterranean between 2014 and October this year. A total of 92 migrant deaths were recorded on land in Europe in 2018. The 39 people murdered yesterday brings this year’s total to 91.
Originally published by WSWS.org
Iraq is taking legal action to kick unauthorized U.S. forces out of country
by Countercurrents Collective
The Iraqi government is now taking legal action against the uninvited presence of the U.S. forces in Iraq.
Case Mismanagement in London: Julian Assange, Political Offences and
Surveillance
by Dr Binoy Kampmark
While Australian journalists bonded and broke break in condemning national security legislation that some of them had previously supported, one figure was barely mentioned. Julian Assange was making his first public appearance since April for a case management hearing at the Westminster Magistrates Court.
Steve Bannon – A Profile of a U.S. Apparatchik. From China To The Pope
by Andre Vltchek
Individuals like Steve Bannon, often greatly influence leaders like President Donald Trump.Then they fall out of grace, sometimes because of some personal quarrels, and “get fired”. But, regularly, at least some of them, bounce back. And, even if they do not return to the White House, do they disappear into thin air? Hardly. Their
destructive legacy marches on.
Individuals like Steve Bannon, often greatly influence leaders like President Donald Trump.Then they fall out of grace, sometimes because of some personal quarrels, and “get fired”. But, regularly, at least some of them, bounce back.
And, even if they do not return to the White House, do they disappear into thin air? Hardly. Their destructive legacy marches on.
Mr. Bannon cannot stand the Pontiff of the Catholic Church. Same as he hates the leadership of the People’s Republic of China,or the Worker’s Party (PT) in Brazil.
It is clear that behind his emotions is a disease so common to all neocons: loathing for the poor, and admiration for wealth and brutal power.
Pope Francis is as far from the former darling of the Western right-wing establishment, the Polish Cold-War warrior Pope John Paul the Second, as one can get. An Argentinian, a former bouncer ofa nightclub, and an outspoken defender of the “have nots”, Pope Francis is truly eccentric and human. As such he is continuously criticized, even insulted by Mr. Trump’s entourage, as well as by the President himself.
“Disgraceful,” fumed Mr. Trump, as early as 2016, when Pope Francis travelled to Mexico and declared that building walls between countries was not Christian.
The Pope’s statements about social justice and the evilness of capitalism turned both Mr. Bannon and Mr. Trump, into his sworn enemies.
In 2019, it was reported by The Telegraph that Steve Bannon advised the far-right Italian leader, Matteo Salvini, Italy’s interior minister, to attack the Pope on immigration issues.
*
Mr. Bannon was forced to leave the White House in August 2017 (where he served as President Trump’s strategist), but he never abandoned the struggle against progressive governments, movements and individuals, worldwide.
Now he is based outside Rome, in the Trisulti Monastery, working with the far-right Dignitatis Humanae Institute.
He was accused of aiding Ms. Le Pen in France, and various other right-wing leaders in Europe. On May 20, 2019, The Telegraph publisheda chilling analysis:
“Mr. Bannon has made no bones about wanting to unify European nationalist parties via his group, The Movement, and is known to be close to Miss Le Pen and Italian populist leader Matteo Salvini.
‘If sovereignist, populist and nationalist movements do well in European elections, it will help these movements around the world and that will also be useful for Trump in America’, he told RMC.”
One wonders whether Mr. Bannon, as well as Mr. Bolton, and others, truly left the White House, or whether they were reassigned to some concealedbut more effective positions at home and abroad.
*
In July 2018, Bannon declared:
“We are at war with China. We’re winning.”
Just a few days earlier, he spoke to CNBC and put it really bluntly:
“Trump knows he needs to unite the West against the rise of a totalitarian China… How it ends is in victory. Victory is when they give all full access to their markets.”
The usual Western dogma: full surrender, unconditional obedience,falling to the knees. Religious submission to capitalism, and to “Western values”. And all that hypocritical chatter about “totalitarianism”, “freedom” and “rights”.
China said “no”, by words and deeds. No surrender, no slavery.
What followed was predictable: direct, relentless propaganda attacks against Beijing, the triggering of a Western-sponsored ‘rebellion’ in Hong Kong, the further arming and radicalization of the Uyghurs, provocations in the South China Sea, and an assault on one of the flagships of China’s high-tech industry: Huawei.
Steve Bannon’s statements and actions had been monitored and analyzed by several media outlets, including RT, which reported on 22 May, 2019:
“Donald Trump’s former chief strategist Steve Bannon gave an impassioned account of what is driving the US war on Chinese tech firm Huawei… and trade has little to do with it. The US wants to destroy its competitor, for good.
Bannon, often credited with putting Trump in the White House, said that driving Huawei out of the US and Europe is far more critical than any trade deal with Beijing, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.”
The report then concluded:
“Bannon’s threats went beyond Huawei. He called for Chinese companies to be restricted from accessing capital markets “until [they agree to] fundamental reform.” While his outlook of fundamentally clashing civilizations is often viewed as extreme, his comments are actually in keeping with Brendan Carr of the Federal Communications Commission, who said that companies that want access to US markets need to first prove they “share Western values.”
Yes, ‘Western Values”. Read clearly between the lines: No other ‘values’ than Western ones should be allowed to govern the world. In fact, “there are no values but Western values”. Sounds familiar? Fundamentalism? Yes, precisely. And for years and decades, I have been warning my readers, that this is exactly what the West, its leaders and its propaganda, have been emitting.
*
In Zero Hedge, Tyler Durden correctly analyzed true position of Steve Bannon:
“Despite Bannon has been cast away from the close circle of Trump advisors – at least for public consumption – Bannon is still the main puppet master in the White House.”
That is clearly evident.
And so, Bannon could be defined as a chief [shadow] U.S. emissary to the world.
He is openly trying to unite extreme-right-wing forces in Europe, meddling in the internal affairs of, at least on paper independent countries of the “old continent”. He is so ruthless, that he is even proving to be ‘too much’, too aggressive, for some right-wing governments, like that of Austria.
He is insatiable; essentially operating everywhere, where dark, fascist forces are at work, or could be encouraged to re-emerge.
He helped to put an extreme right-winger, Jair Bolsonaro, onto the throne in Brazil. Mr. Bolsonaro is so outrageous, so brutal, that his success in Brazil appeared to be, at first, unimaginable. But Steve Bannon made sure that impossible dream of the right-wing would come true.
In August, 2018, Telesur wrote:
“Political strategist Steve Bannon, a founding member of the far right-wing news website Breitbart News and former chief advisor to United States President Donald Trump, will be an advisor to Brazilian Presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro for the upcoming elections in October.”
“Bannon said that Bolsonaro’s mission in Brazil” will be more “arduous” than Trump’s presidential campaign, said Eduardo Bolsonaro[Jair Bolsonaro’s son].”
“According to Bannon, his exit from the White House was pre-meditated. “I’d always planned on spending one year… I want to get back to Breitbart,” he said to the Weekly Standard.”
“Now I’m free. I’ve got my hands back on my weapons… I am definitely going to crush the opposition. There’s no doubt. I built a fucking machine at Breitbart. And now I’m about to go back, knowing what I know, and we’re about to rev that machine up. And rev it up we will do.”
He is smearing Pope Francis who has been departing from the conservative position of previous Popes, and openly criticizing capitalism and Western foreign policy.
And, he goes against China, in such an aggressive way that, if Donald Trump follows his advice, it would not only lead to a new Cold War, but to an unavoidable confrontation between two of the most powerful countries on earth: China and the United States.
No one elected him, and after Donald Trump officially fired him from the White House, no one from the political establishment of the United States has been employing him.
Yet, Steve Bannon is increasingly ‘influential’, in his destructive way. No one dares to charge him with meddling in the internal affairs of Italy, or the European Union. He appears to be ‘untouchable’.
He pushes the West into a suicidal confrontation with China. He insults and provokes China so openly and vulgarly, that Beijing is forced to react, resolutely and indignantly.
It is therefore time to ask, who Steve Bannon really is?
Yes, sure: a former naval officer, an investment banker, a Hollywood producer, a mass media policymaker, chief executive of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, a man connected to the notorious Cambridge Analytica.
He not only scares the Left, but many inside the U.S. establishment.
According to the Boston Globe:
“On November 15, 2016, U.S. Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island released a letter to Trump signed by 169 Democratic House Representatives urging the President-Elect to rescind his appointment of Bannon. The letter stated that appointing Bannon “sends a disturbing message about what kind of president Donald Trump wants to be”, because his “ties to the White Nationalist movement have been well documented”; it went on to present several examples of Breitbart News’ alleged xenophobia.”
Mr. Bannon, it was feared, belonged to a white nationalist movement.He denied it, but the allegations never vanished.
*
In summary: is Steve Bannon an apparatchik of the U.S.? Yes. A propagandist of the extreme right-wing? Definitely. A white supremacist? Most likely. A promoter of Western exceptionalism? No doubt about it. But it appears that he is much more than all that. Much more! As Bolton is more than he appears to be, and even Mike Pompeo.
What do these neocons really want? Of course, they want absolute victory for the West. They want to be able to dictate to all the continents of the world how to think, how to live, how to behave, even how to produce and consume. They do not know how to stop, or how to compromise. They can only go in one direction; never looking back.
The most terrifying thing about them is that they are willing to easily sacrifice anything and everything, for the implementation of their dogma: millions of human lives, or even entire economies, world peace, prosperity, anything.
As far as they are concerned, if the West cannot compete, if it is losing in competition (ideologically, economically, culturally or socially), then it has to fight militarily, or through sanctions, plus propaganda. It clearly stinks of fanaticism: either victory or death. Not unlike ISIS.
Steve Bannon is not the only one of the ‘elite’ ideological warriors of the West. But he is one of the most dangerous, determined,and a shady apparatchiks West has.
Steven Bannon is a talented propagandist and promoter of Western supremacy and imperialist “culture”.He is extremely dangerous,mainlybecause he knows precisely what he is doing and what he wants to achieve: total control over the world. He has been operating in business, media, entertainment and politics. He wears many hats. He is in possession of what he calls, “many weapons”.
The damage he has been causing to the world is enormous.
*
[First published by NEO – New Eastern Outlook – a journal of the Russian Academy of Sciences]
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Four of his latest books are China and Ecological Civilization with John B. Cobb, Jr., Revolutionary Optimism, Western Nihilism, a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire”. View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter. His Patreon
Israel’s Promotion of Anti-Semitism
by Dan Lieberman
The word anti-Semite has grown from identification with the name of an organization, to its use in characterizing those who commit crimes against Jews, to those who offend Jews, and finally to stigmatize those who criticize Israel. The latter characterization is not only a malicious falsification, it may be mistaken identity; the accusers might be looking at a mirror image of themselves. Jews who criticize Israel’s policies claim they follow the teachings and traditions of their Semitic Hebrew ancestors, prophets who sought social justice and righteousness.
Due to its awkward characterization and specific reference to Jewish people, modern anti-Semitism is a term that has been criticized and debated. Is it a condition, or a response to what people observe as Israel’s oppressive policies toward the Palestinians and its contrived association with the Jewish community? The words anti-Semite and anti-Semitism are relatively knew, and, if taken in correct context, should be obsolete. Wikipedia, at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people, explains how the term Semite entered the jargon.
The word Semite originated in the late 1700s by members of the Göttingen School of History, the terminology was derived from Shem, one of the three sons of Noah in the Book of Genesis, together with the parallel terms Hamites and Japhetites.
From this classification, spurious historians divided the world into three large-scale racial groupings, corresponding to the three classical continents: the Semitic peoples of Asia, the Hamitic peoples of Africa and the Japhetic peoples of Europe.
For scholars, “Semitic is a linguistic and cultural classification, denoting certain languages and in some contexts the literatures and civilizations expressed in those languages.” The definitions of the word Semitism are (1) of Semitic character or qualities, and (2) a characteristic feature of a Semitic language occurring in another language. Who are the Semites; they are “a member of any of the peoples who speak or spoke a Semitic language.”
Apart from use in linguistics and archaeology, why have the terminologies, which confuse language and race, not become obsolete? Bernard Lewis in his book, Semites and Anti-Semites: An Inquiry into Conflict and Prejudice (1987), W. W. Norton & Co Inc., describes the incongruity.
The confusion between race and language goes back a long way, and was compounded by the rapidly changing content of the word “race” in European and later in American usage. Serious scholars have pointed out – repeatedly and ineffectually — that “Semitic” is a linguistic and cultural classification denoting certain languages, and, in some contexts, the literatures and civilizations expressed in those languages. As a kind of shorthand, it was sometimes retained to designate the speakers of those languages. At one time it might thus have had a connotation of race, when that word itself was used to designate national and cultural entities. It has nothing whatever to do with race in the anthropological sense that is now common usage.
Regardless of the mischaracterizations, the words anti-Semite and anti-Semitism impart themselves on the autonomic nervous system and create responses. Has the term anti-Semitic, which literally means against the languages of the Semites, been sidetracked to highlight actions only against Jews, giving them a special significance in comparison to attacks against other ethnicities? Has this domineering position led to misuse of the term anti-Semitism, leading it to become a contentious pejorative, a word that generates hate, rather than subdues it, that causes undue violence to innocent persons, a confusing word that is used as a catch-all expression to represent harm to the Jewish people, which can range from prankster to physical violence? We know something has gone awry when we notice that arguments against Israel’s policies have been attacked as anti-Semitic, and those who proffer the arguments are labeled as anti-Semites. Should the words anti-Semite, anti-Semitic, and anti-Semitism be judged as counterproductive misnomers and be erased from the vernacular? Serious questions that arouse serious charges and demand a serious discussion; creating a challenge that can never be answered to everyone’s agreement.
Is anti-Semite a correct term?
The question might seem presumptuous, but consider that although Hebrews were Semites, the Ashkenazi Jews are not Semites, no more than Americans are Anglo-Saxons. Because Semites and other Semitic tribes than Hebrews existed in the ancient Middle East, isn’t it demeaning to them that their culture and heritage are being usurped by misuse of the word Semitic? If anti-Semitic is not directed against all the Semitic populations, what expression is used to convey prejudicial actions against each of them?
The question might seem presumptuous, but consider that although Hebrews were Semites, the Ashkenazi Jews are not Semites, no more than Americans are Anglo-Saxons. Because Semites and other Semitic tribes than Hebrews existed in the ancient Middle East, isn’t it demeaning to them that their culture and heritage are being usurped by misuse of the word Semitic? If anti-Semitic is not directed against all the Semitic populations, what expression is used to convey prejudicial actions against each of them?
Let’s get to basics. The League of anti-Semites, led by Wilhelm Marr in 1879, prompted the more general use of the word anti-Semitism. Note that the word :anti-Semites is only a name for an organization, which did not want to use a label, such as Jewish, in characterizing its thrust. They could have called themselves “The League of Super Patriots.” If they had a different name, the word anti-Semite might have never been used, and there would be no persons called anti-Semites.
The Jewish History on-line commentary describes Barr as a nationalist whose extremist views focused on the proposition that, “The full emancipation of Jews therefore presupposed their emancipation from Judaism.” Many commentators have highlighted that the Zionist message echoed that of the anti-Semites, that emancipation meant Jews would shed their Judaism and their salvation depended upon leaving Europe and establishing their own state.
Barr also, “tied to this claim the widely held view that Judaism functioned as a form of theocracy, in which religious faith is identical with a Jewish state constitution and system of law enforcement.” Reads like the direction of Israel.
Can it be that Zionism and Israel, which both agree with principal features of the anti-Semites, are also anti-Semites and guilty of anti-Semitism? Give the Zionists and Israel the benefit of doubt. A case can be made, but the illogic of the situation demands a more logical perspective — the words have ill-defined meanings, which lead to their misuse and outlandish characterizations.
The more rightful term
The terms anti-American, anti-Catholic, anti-Communist (usually praiseworthy), and other similar expressions do not arouse total indignation — there may be valid reasons for prompting the accusations. Vitriolic and irrational hatred of nationalities, ethnicities, and religions are another manner and are approached by proper characterization of the prejudice, calumny, and hatred. As an example, those who feel they have sensible and adequate reasons for not agreeing with the Evangelists and for determining that the actions of the Evangelists are detrimental to society are anti-Evangeiist. There are many, many, and many of those peoples. and they attack Evangelists with words, scorn, and vitriol, daily and widely. Not considered good taste but not considered criminal. Those who physically attack the Evangelists, without reason, with excessive vitriol, with slander, and mendacity earn the title of Evangelist-hatred. This approach to prejudice, and how it should be characterized, applies equally to all nationalities, ethnicities, and faiths, including Judaism and Jews. Jewish-hatred is the correct word for uncalled for attacks on Jews.
Why do we hear so much about anti-Semitism? One word — Israel — clarifies the excessive attention to this one form of prejudice. Israel needs this attention in order to convince the world and Jewish peoples that it is the sole haven for an attacked Jewish community. Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian peoples stimulates aggression against Jewish peoples. Mis-characterization of anti-Semitism, especially by the anti-Defamation League (ADL), indicates there must be more to its excessive use than a plea for tolerance.
Mis-characterization of anti-Semitism
The Anti-Defamation League founding charter, in 1913, explained its thrust.
The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience, and if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens.
Decades later, events diminished the reasons for ADL’s national thrust, and the organization found a new cause — defense of a foreign country, Israel. It informed everybody that:
ADL has always been a strong voice for Israel. Since its birth in 1948, the Jewish homeland has faced consistent threats and challenges to its security and legitimacy from both hostile neighbors and from anti-Israel voices across the international community. ADL remains an unwavering supporter of Israel, advocating for a secure and stable democratic Jewish state. We educate and inform about the important security, diplomatic and societal issues confronting Israel.
ADL showed its strong voice for Israel by its attack on the The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS).
The campaign to delegitimize Israel is being waged across the globe: The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), which rejects Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, is the most prominent effort to undermine Israel’s existence. The BDS campaign is rampant with misinformation and distortion. ADL responds to BDS threats through advocacy and education, and we recently partnered with Reut Institute to develop in-depth analysis and strategic initiatives to marginalize and expose the illegitimacy of the BDS movement.
ADL’s other support for Israel lies in its expositions of anti-Semitism.
By attempting to be unique, the word anti-Semitism conjures an image of severe harm to Jewish persons. All ethnic prejudice and hate crimes are dangerous and must be challenged. However, because the ADL reports every harm to Jewish persons, no matter how slight or unverified, as an anti-Semitic statistic, the exact damages to Jewish psyche and interests are difficult to place in context and evaluate. Reports contain mostly verbal, passive, and non-violent attacks — many can be classified as mischief, others are not definitely proven to being directed against the Jewish community, and many are against persons who just happen to be Jewish. The ADL report at https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/Selected%20List%20of%202017%20Anti-Semitic%20Incidents.pdf identifies 1,986 anti-Semitic incidents perpetrated throughout the United States in 2017, an increase of 57% over the incidents reported in 2016. Included in the totals are 1,015 instances of harassment, many of which occurred in schools with people of student age, such as “Anti-Semitic graffiti found at non-Jewish school.” One hundred sixty-three of the harassment cases were part of a spree of bomb threats made against Jewish institutions in the first quarter of 2017, mostly by two persons and copycats.
Israel police arrested an Israeli Jewish teenager, evidently interested in promoting hatred against his fellow Jews, for more than 100 of the bomb threats. U.S. federal authorities arrested a reporter, who had been fired from the online news site, The Intercept, and accused him of making at least eight of the bomb threats in an attempt to intimidate someone after their romantic relationship ended.
The subjective term “vandalism” accounted for 952 incidents, most of them being the tumbling of cemetery tombstones and posting of Swastika drawings, such as “Swastika in Walgreens bathroom,” and “Nazi flag discovered in housing complex,” which were not specifically directed against Jewish persons. Tombstone vandalism is mainly performed by teenagers and rarely has a direct link to a specific prejudice. In one case, authorities determined that tombstones disturbed at a historic Jewish cemetery in New York were damaged by environmental causes and not by vandalism. The desecration of 93 gravestones at a non-Jewish Warrenton, Virginia Cemetery shows how widespread and non-denominational is tombstone vandalism.
The ADL report has 19 assaults against Jews in 2017 — certainly more than one is alarming. However, the statistic is less alarming when only six were considered as serious, and, of these, the two most serious were (1) Jewish family harassed at local Target, and (2) A 12-year old boy was attacked on his way home from outside a synagogue after Friday night prayers (no detail of injuries or if attacked because of being Jewish).
Compare these assaults to a Pew Research report of 127 assaults against Muslims in the same year.
- A man shot and killed an Indian immigrant engineer he thought was Middle Eastern and wounded two others after shouting, “get out of my country,” and opening fire.
- A man shot and injured a Sikh after shouting, “get out of my country.”
- A man beat an Arab employee of Al Aqsa Restaurant with a pipe, yelling “go back to your country terrorist” and “get out of America.”
- A Florida man, who attempted to set fire to a convenience store, told deputies that he assumed the owner was Muslim and that he wanted to “run the Arabs out of our country.”
- A man fatally stabbed two people and injured a third on a MAX Light Rail train, after he was confronted for reportedly “yelling a gamut of anti-Muslim and anti-everything slurs.”
- Bomb detonated in the Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota.
No intent to underestimate attacks on American Jews and compare them with attacks on Muslims — all forms of racial hatred should be exposed and combated. Nevertheless, proper perspective is required for proper attention, which leads to proper marshaling of resources and forces against all hatred. The 2018 massacre at the Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh was given the required attention and, hopefully, will result in proper actions so that this horror does not occur again.
A Reuters headline, The FBI shows that U.S. anti-Semitic hate crimes spiked 37 percent in 2017, demonstrates how the word anti-Semitic mistakenly haunts our psyche. Echoed by other media, the FBI report on hate crimes, which can be retrieved at https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2017/tables/table-1.xls, never mentions the word anti-Semitic and has only anti-Jewish incidents, mostly provocative and harmless, as a single bias in the religious category. Three quarters of the Jewish-hatred crimes were instances of vandalism, only 7% were assaults; and less than one percent was aggravated assaults, a far different breakdown than recorded for nearly every other group included in the FBI’s report. Across all hate crimes in 2017, roughly a third were assaults and a third were vandalism.
Want to observe pernicious Jewish-hatred, go to Israel, and learn that country has the largest collection of groups that commit violent action against Jews by other Jews.
Jewish anti-Semitism
A previous article, Is Israel a Democracy or a Kleptocracy? at http://www.alternativeinsight.com/Changing_Israel_Part2-Democracy.html, revealed the discrimination against Jews by fellow Jews in Israel.
On January 18, 2010, over 5,000 young Ethiopian-Israelis and their supporters marched through central Jerusalem to protest against racism and discrimination.
Government studies conducted in conjunction with The Hebrew University of Jerusalem have found that “a job applicant with an Ashkenazi-sounding name has a 34 percent higher chance of being hired by an employer than a person with a Sephardi-sounding name applying for the same position. “
During the last 70 years, more disturbing and more violent acts against Jews have been committed by a variety of Jewish groups, considered religious terrorist organizations in Israel. Only groups attacking Jews are listed; many others, guilty of severe attacks on Palestinians, are not shown,
- Brit HaKanaim was a radical religious Jewish underground organization, which operated in Israel between 1950, and 1953.The movement’s ultimate goal — establish a state run by Jewish religious law.
- The Kingdom of Israel group was active in Israel in the 1950s. Members of the group were caught trying to bomb the Israeli Ministry of Education in May 1953, because they saw the secularization of Jewish North African immigrants as a direct assault on the religious Jews way of life and a threat to the ultra-Orthodox community.
- Keshet (1981–1989), an anti-Zionist Haredi group, focused on bombing property without loss of life.
- Sicarii, an Israeli terrorist group founded in 1989, plotted arson and graffiti attacks on leftist Jewish politicians who proposed rapprochement with the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- Lehava, an extreme religious minority, used terror to implement their views of how the society should look. Former Justice Minister Tzipi Livni stated, “This organization works from hatred, racism, and nationalism, and its goal is to bring an escalation of violence within us.”
- Sikrikim, an anti-Zionist group of ultra-Orthodox Jews, committed acts of violence against Orthodox Jewish institutions and individuals who would not comply with their demands.
- The Revolt terror group claims the secular State of Israel has no right to existence; they hope to create a Jewish Kingdom in Israel. Arabs will be killed if they refuse to leave.
The principal misuse of the anti-Semite label is to silence opponents, which is important to Israel’s strategy of confuse and conquer. Israel’s partisans have made anti-Semite an all-encompassing word, posing it as the defining characteristic of humanity, not allowing any shades to a person’s demeanor, character, and beliefs, and shaping it as the third rail of public discourse
Israel’s promotion of Anti-Semitism
It is difficult to equate, with 100 percent certainty, Israel’s oppressive actions with attacks on Jewish persons. Described in a contrary manner, attacks on Jewish persons seem to follow Israel’s attacks against the Palestinians and their allies. For a while, terrorist actions by Muslim extremists in Europe against Jewish interests and persons escalated as Israel’s assaults on Palestinians increased. Other attacks on Jews succeeded attacks on Hezbollah and Iranians.
On 16 February 16, 1992, Israeli helicopters attacked a motorcade in southern Lebanon, and killed Hezbollah spiritual leader Abbas al-Musawi, his wife, son, and four others. One month later, on March 17, a bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, linked to Hezbollah, killed 29 persons.
The 18 July 18, 2012 Burgas, Bulgaria, bus bombing, which killed five Israelis and wounded 32, came after a series of deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists.
Not difficult to equate is the use of the word anti-Semite to silence Israel’s opponents.
The Canary Mission, at https://canarymission.org/ documents people and groups that it falsely accuses of promoting hatred of the USA, Israel, and Jews on North American college campuses. This bigoted organization also posts its Jewish Friends of Anti-Semites. Included in that list are descriptions such as:
Note: Names omitted for obvious reasons
Sara xxxx has shown support for an anti-Israel agitator, spread hatred of Zionists, and demonized Israel.
Jean xxxx is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is a professor of American Studies & History at Yale University.
Adam xxxx has expressed support for anti-Israel campus activists and defended intimidation tactics led by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
Jean xxxx is a supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and is a professor of American Studies & History at Yale University.
Adam xxxx has expressed support for anti-Israel campus activists and defended intimidation tactics led by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP).
ADL, the organization concerned with false stereotypes, publishes its Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in America at https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/israel-international/Top-10-Anti-Israel-Groups-in-America.pdf
AMCHA, at https://amchainitiative.org/amcha-publishes-list-of-over-200-anti-israel-middle-east-studies-professors/, joins the forces of Israel supporters that make a mockery of the word anti-Semite with its list of more than 200 anti-Israel Middle East Studies professors, many of whom are Jews.
On the flip side, we have Jewish scholars crticizing the Trump government for actions that encourage false anti-Semiric charges. Over 100 Jewish scholars condemned the Trump administration in an open letter, which can be accessed at http://jewssupportuncduke.org/.
In particular, we take issue with how your letter to Duke and UNC justified its investigation by exploiting Jewish fears of anti-Semitism. This move fits within a clear pattern of the Trump administration using Jews and our concerns over anti-Semitism in order to try and justify repressive policies. We take great offense at this cynical weaponization of our historical trauma, particularly as anti-Semitic attacks on Jews have skyrocketed since Trump came into office.
More significant than the disgraceful and deceitful manner in which the words anti-Semitism and anti-Semite are used to turn the public against Israel’s antagonists, is the violence committed to innocent persons, stigmatizing them, and causing severe economic, social and emotional damage. Impossible to mention the hundreds, if not thousands, of known, decent, and respectable persons who have been severely wounded and suffered from being unfairly labeled anti-Semitic, only because they have been critical of Israel’s policies. Is there anything more disgraceful than using a word that exposes prejudice and hatred for generating prejudice and hatred of others?
The Zionists created Israel with the assumption of uniting the entire Jewish population in agreeable surroundings, and free from anti-Semitism. Seventy years after the establishment of the state of Israel, the Jewish community is severely disunited, Israelis disagree on forming governments, and the claim is made that anti-Semitism is rapidly increasing.
Conclusion
The word anti-Semite has grown from identification with the name of an organization, to its use in characterizing those who commit crimes against Jews, to those who offend Jews, and finally to stigmatize those who criticize Israel. The latter characterization is not only a malicious falsification, it may be mistaken identity; the accusers might be looking at a mirror image of themselves.
Jews who criticize Israel’s policies claim they follow the teachings and traditions of their Semitic Hebrew ancestors, prophets who sought social justice and righteousness.
Amos, who insisted that social justice lies at the heart of Judaism. “Let justice roll on like an ever flowing river and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Micah, who said, “What is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”
Isaiah, who said, “This is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own kin.”
Zechariah, who said, “Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
Jeremiah, who said, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.”
Micah, who said, “What is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”
Isaiah, who said, “This is the fast I desire: To unlock fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free; to break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, and to take the wretched poor into your home; when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to ignore your own kin.”
Zechariah, who said, “Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
Jeremiah, who said, “Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.”
By attacking the followers of the Hebrew prophets, Israel’s supporters attack those who represent the teachings of ancient Hebrew Semites, and in effect, they are attacking the ancient Hebrew Semites. These attackers are, therefore, anti-Semites.
From Psalm 23 A psalm of David.
Its compassion renews my soul’s life
Its call for righteousness encircles me and guides me on pathways of justice to what ought to be
For the sake of Transformation
Its call for righteousness encircles me and guides me on pathways of justice to what ought to be
For the sake of Transformation
You spread before me a table in front of my enemies—those I’m bound up with—so we can break bread together
You anoint my head with oil, comforting me
My cup overflows
You anoint my head with oil, comforting me
My cup overflows
Dan Lieberman edits Alternative Insight, a commentary on foreign policy, economics, and politics. He is author of the book A Third Party Can Succeed in America, a Kindle: The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name). Dan can be reached at alternativeinsight@earthlink.net
Marx on Religion
by Ish N Mishra
Many people keep quoting Karl Marx, as “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” But he never used that exact phrase.The exact quotes from the essay on Hegel’s Philosophy
of Right, published in 1844 in “Deutsch-FranzösischeJahrbücher”, during his stay in Paris
Many people keep quoting Karl Marx, as “Religion is the opiate of the masses.” But he never used that exact phrase.The exact quotes from the essay on Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, published in 1844 in “Deutsch-FranzösischeJahrbücher”, during his stay in Paris, are:
“Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
“The demand of abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.”
“Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself.
“It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics.”
“To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself. The evident proof of the radicalism of German theory, and hence of its practical energy, is that is proceeds from a resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man – hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence…”
From these passages it is clear that Karl Marx was no friend of religion, organized or otherwise but never called for abolition of religion but abolition of conditions that need illusion supplied by the religion, religion shall wither away on its own. If people get real happiness they shall not need illusion of it.
Its worth reading 7-8 pages long essay in a poetic language.
Ish Mishra is a retired professor of Delhi University
Redaction: Mainstream Media Censorship & Self-Censorship In Pre-Police-State Australia
by Dr Gideon Polya
On Monday 21 October 2019 Australians around the country picking up their daily newspaper found that page 1 was blacked out in a facsimile of comprehensive redaction by a censor’s black pen. No, pre-police state Australia had not suffered a neo-Nazi putsch or overt US takeover – the blacking out was a collective protest by Australian Mainstream media (MSM) against appalling press censorship by the mendacious and human rights-violating Australian Coalition Government.
Poet Inhabits the Heart of Jimmy Carter
by Gary Corseri
The 39thPresident of the United States (1977-1981),
Jimmy Carter has been in the news recently, and we wish him well…. I consider him one of the great people I’ve had the honor of meeting. Following his too-brief tenure in the White House, Carter worked gratis for decades with “Habitat for Humanity,” physically building and refurbishing houses for those in need…. In these noisy days of sham journalists, virulent political wrangling and pontificating “educators”—on every side of the philosophical spectrum–we pause to acknowledge a man who strove for peace during his presidential term, built houses for the poor after he left office, and found truths to share in the perdurable gemstones of words
Bhagat Singh was for liberation from exploitation
by Farooque Chowdhury
Bhagat Singh had to operate within this perspective, which a section of analysis ignores while evaluates the revolutionary. It’s a gross error. Professor Chaman
Lal’s Reader helps cast off the error.
RSS/BJP Choice For Bharat Ratna Veer Savarkar Decreed Manusmriti As Hindu Law
by Shamsul Islam
How great a rationalist, crusader against Untouchability and practitioner of scientific temper Savarkar was, can be understood by knowing the fact that he was a firm believer in Manu’s Codes? He held Manusmriti as a sacred book for Hindus.
Why Ambedkar’s Constitutional Morality needs to be revisited !
by Nikhil Sanjay-Rekha Adsule
Dr.Ambedkar’s role in crafting of the majestic document called Constitution of India(not Indian Constitution as there is a still a long way to go in becoming a nation!) is undisputed.His entire repertoire of works when keenly read invokes passion and inspiration among the Bahujan masses
especially Dalits.He is the epitome of excellence and a goal for them to mould their lives and what they ought to become
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