Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude: palestine

5/25/2022

palestine

For nearly three decades, Palestinians were told that the Nakba – or Catastrophe – is a thing of the past. That real peace requires compromises and sacrifices, therefore, the original sin that has led to the destruction of their historic homeland should be entirely removed from any ‘pragmatic’ political discourse. They were urged to move on.

The consequences of that shift in narrative were dire. Disowning the Nakba, the single most important event that shaped modern Palestinian history, has resulted in more than political division between the so-called radicals and the supposedly peace-loving pragmatists, the likes of Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority. It also divided Palestinian communities in Palestine and across the world around political, ideological and class lines.

Following the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993, it became clear that the Palestinian struggle for freedom was being entirely redefined and reframed. It was no longer a Palestinian fight against Zionism and Israeli settler colonialism that goes back to the start of the 20th century, but a ‘conflict’ between two equal parties, with equally legitimate territorial claims that can only be resolved through ‘painful concessions’.

The first of such concessions was relegating the core issue of the ‘Right of Return’ for Palestinian refugees who were driven out of their villages and cities in 1947-48. That Palestinian Nakba paved the way for Israel’s ‘independence’, which was declared atop the rubble and smoke of nearly 500 destroyed and burnt Palestinian villages and towns.

At the start of the ‘peace process’, Israel was asked to honor the Right of Return for Palestinians, although symbolically. Israel refused. Palestinians were then pushed to relegate that fundamental issue to a ‘final status negotiations’, which never took place. This meant that millions of Palestinian refugees – many of whom are still living in refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, as well as the occupied Palestinian territories – were dropped from the political conversation altogether.

If it were not for the continued social and cultural activities of the refugees themselves, insisting on their rights and teaching their children to do the same, such terms as the Nakba and Right of Return would have been completely dropped out of the Palestinian political lexicon.

be sure to read the whole article.

and let's pair that with this from 'electronic intifada.'

let's close with c.i.'s 'Iraq snapshot:'

Wednesday, May 25, 2022. Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, possible plot against Bully Boy Bush, the stalemate continues in Iraq . . .

US President Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange for Julian's 'crime' of reporting the truth. The world watches as Joe targets Julian and declares war on a free press. At SCHEERPOST, Joe Lauria notes:

At some point during the next nine days, British Home Secretary Priti Patel will decide whether or not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange to the United States to face espionage charges for publishing accurate information revealing U.S. war crimes.

Pressure is building from both sides on the home secretary. Press freedom and human rights organizations, a Nobel laureate, the Council of Europe’s human rights commissioner, journalists and Assange supporters have appealed to Patel to let Assange go.

While it would be deemed improper for outside influence to be brought on judges, it would not be fanciful to imagine that behind the scenes Patel is getting the message from the U.S. Department of Justice and possibly from U.S. and U.K. intelligence services about what is expected of her.

The home secretary should know without prodding what the U.S. and British governments want her to do. Patel is a highly-ambitious politician who no doubt will calculate how her decision will impact her career.

“Politicians think about their next election, they think about their voters … that’s what makes them tick,” Kristinn Hrafnnson, WikiLeaks editor-in-chief, told Consortium News at a protest outside the Home Office in London last Wednesday. “For the first time it’s in the hands of a politician, and Priti Patel, if she wants to think about her legacy … she should do the right thing.”

Really, Joe? Then maybe we should all be applying pressure to Joe Biden who faces a huge upset in the mid-terms. Joe Biden is the one who can end it. Joe can drop the charges immediately. The left -- faux and real -- has been so pathetic for years now. With few exceptions, they refuse to make demands. Joe L wants yu to scare a British politician. But Joe L is Americn. And Joe Biden is American. We're getting as pathetic as that blogger Luke back in 2005 and 2005, remember him? An Australian citizen blogging from Australia who spent every day railing against Bully Boy Bush and Tony Blair for the Iraq War yet never calling out John Howard. He was the ruler of Australia. But Luke was too pathetic to call out the politician in his own coutry.

That's how Joe L is looking right now.

Joe Biden can end this. Joe Biden should end this. But when you're doing everything but demanding Joe Biden end it, you're not really doing anything except looking pathetic.

do we want to game this thing out?

Let's say Joe L gets what he wants and the British politician refuses to hand Julian over to the US. That becomes the official position. So they release Julian and allow him to book a flight to Australia. Do you think the US government grabs him at tHeathrow Airport or do you think they wait until he lands in Austraia and they grab him there?

Because that it what would likely happen.

Both the UK and the Australian government would likely be very cooperative with the US government and possibly even assist.

And Julian would be disappeared.

Joe L is trying to plug holes on the sinking boat Julian's trapped on instead of rescuing him.

Joe Biden has got to be pressured to stop this persecution.

And that means some of the timid on the left need to find their voices and use them.

Their voices.

Some idiot e-mailed the public account about how happy I must be that ISIS went after Bully Boy Bush. First off, did they?

I think they have more on their plate and this was probably some wanna-be. I could be wrong.

But, no, I don't want Bully Boou Bush murdered. That's too easy for him. I want him to be shunned, I want him -- and his family -- to know that blood is on his hands and will be forever more. I want him to be haunted by the ghosts of dead Iraqis to the point that he fears sleep.

I wouldn't mind seeing him in prison but I don't want him murdered.

You murder him and you create sympathy and the revisionary nonsense that's already taken place with regards to that War Criminal gets even more intense.

He is an awful man. If you use violence on him, you are helping him. All we need to combat Bully Boy Bush is our voices. We need to boo him when he tries to go out in public. We need to remind him over one million Iraqis are dead because of him. And we need to make it clear to an idiot like him, even him, that it is not a joking matter and we are not laughing.

Killing him is too easy.

And it's also the weakest move you can make. He needs to be Glenn Close t the end of DANGEROS LIASONS.

Alina Romanowski was finally sworn in as US Ambassador to Iraq yesterday. US Vice President Kamala Harris swore her in. Hopefully, she can now leave DC and head to Iraq.

Iraq where the political stalemate continues. Elections were held October 10th and still no prime minister, still no president. Only the foolish observers were shocked by the Iraqi court ruling tht the holdover prime minister does not have the power to implement long range plans for Iraq. Maybe now, observers will start to take the stalemate seriously?

We're 16 days away from eight months since the election and the rulers can't pull it together still. Will every US reporter who hailed Moqtada back in October as a "kingmaker" step forward so we can mock them?

There was never a reason to make that claim. He had no pattern of being a kingmaker. He was an ineffective cleric who ran in and out of Iraq anytime he thought the bench warrant against him was going to be issued.

His hold on his cult has grown less and less. There are very real complaints against him coming out of even Sadr City -- the slum he holds sway over that has seen no improvements despite his so-called rise to power. His voters showed up in lower numbers in the October election.

He's at his weakest. The young Shi'ites mock him publicly.

But ignoring all of this, US observers kept insisting that he was a kingmaker. Still want to pimp that claim today?

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