The US-centralized power alliance is losing control of the Palestine narrative as awareness continues to spread of the injustice of Israeli apartheid, and it’s one of the most interesting things happening in the narrative matrix today.
It’s very encouraging to see an entirely grassroots activist campaign get this far off the ground, where ordinary people online and in demonstrations around the world overpower an official establishment narrative by sheer numbers and force of will until the imperial media are forced to acknowledge the legitimacy of their position. Rather than waiting for the corporate media to begin covering the plight of the Palestinians in a just manner, the people simply seized control of the narrative by speaking the truth with their own voices and becoming the dominant perspective on the matter, forcing everyone else to play catch-up.
And now we see Ireland passing a parliamentary motion condemning the “de facto annexation” of Palestinian land. After the oligarchic empire expended all that effort sabotaging Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign in the UK to keep Palestinian rights from going mainstream in the western world, Israel’s own actions have sent them mainstream anyway.
This loss of narrative control is a problem for Israel, whose nature is premised upon keeping Palestinians from attaining equality which would effectively end the Jewish ethnostate. This in turn is a problem for the empire, who needs to keep the Middle East fractured, imbalanced, and as far under its control as possible so long as human civilization is dependent on fossil fuels; if it hadn’t done that the region could have seen the rise of its own global superpower decades ago, or fallen into alignment with some other power not aligned with Washington and London. The nuclear-armed military force of Israel has consistently played a key role in bashing Middle Eastern affairs into alignment with imperial interests; as Joe Biden once said, “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect her interests in the region.”
The empire spends so much energy manufacturing consent for its agendas because it absolutely requires that consent. If it becomes a focal point of mainstream attention that your government is doing something that is clearly evil and firmly against the will of the people, the public will rapidly begin losing its trust in the political and media institutions that are needed to manipulate them into compliance in this managed democracy model of society we live in.
Without trust in those institutions, it’s impossible to propagandize the public, and if they can’t propagandize the public, the rulers of the oligarchic empire cannot rule. As Noam Chomsky put it, “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state.”
So the managers of empire are going to have to regain control of the narrative somehow and get the public consenting to the US-centralized empire’s arm of operation in Israel again. How are they planning on doing this? Well, I know how I would do it if I were them.
I’ll start with what I would not do. If I were an imperial narrative manager trying to regain control of the Israel narrative, I definitely would not be telling all the pro-Palestine protesters to shut up and obey and get back into line. I definitely would not want the oligarchic media churning out articles and cable news segments screaming in unison that everyone must support Israel even when it kills scores of children in Gaza. That would only make things worse.
The absolute worst thing you can do to shut down a populist protest movement is push back against it. Unless you’re willing to alienate all your allies and lose the narrative war on the world stage by mowing down protesters with machine guns and throwing online dissidents into prison, opposing them will only create more resistance from them and give the protest movements more energy.
The Lesson Of The BLM Protests
Americans shook the earth with mass protests demanding an end to the police state and the entire liberal establishment just kept saying “I hear you, I agree with you” while doing absolutely nothing to reduce police brutalityhttps://t.co/1vyhyvJb5h
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) February 3, 2021
That’s why the establishment didn’t meet the Black Lives Matter protesters with opposition, but with “We hear you, we support you.” If they’d said “Silence you filthy riff raff and obey the police!” as many of them doubtless wanted to, it would have only showed people that the system is indeed unjust and their protests must continue with greater force. Instead they kept assuring protesters that they were heard and that their country’s political, media and corporate institutions fully support them, the whole time intending to do nothing whatsoever, and the protests eventually died off with the imperial police state having been left fully intact.
This validate-and-divert tactic is what the leaders of American corporate liberalism specialize in. It’s also the tactic caregivers are taught to employ in dementia care facilities. If you’ve got an agitated resident demanding to leave such a facility, the worst thing you can do is tell them no, because it will trigger a catastrophic response. What you do instead is validate their demand, assure them you’ll help them, then distract them with conversation until they forget what they were demanding a few minutes earlier.
If I were an imperial narrative manager trying to help regain control of the Israel narrative, I would employ such validate-and-divert tactics. I would not try to dismiss people’s concerns about the oppression and murder of Palestinians, I would validate those concerns. I would get on their side. I would insert myself into the conversation by condemning Israeli apartheid abuses and calling for Palestinian freedom. And then, once I was a part of the conversation, I would begin working to make the conversation about anti-semitism instead.
It wouldn’t take much. Just a step back from my Palestine advocacy to say “Oh, hang on, this rise in anti-semitism is very concerning, can we pause and fix this please?” And just like that I’ve knocked a lot of the momentum off of the movement and taken the conversation in a very different direction that will never reach any kind of resolution.
Over 30 children killed. Mothers dead. Hundreds injured. We are on the brink of a full-scale war. Sanctions on South Africa helped free its Black people – it’s time for sanctions on Israel to free Palestinians. Join the call. #GazaUnderAttack https://t.co/N72e0xLvX5
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) May 15, 2021
I have reflected & wanted to apologize for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing “genocide”. It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful & is being used to justify antisemitism here & abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.
— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) May 25, 2021
Actor Mark Ruffalo did a lot more to help restore the pro-Israel narrative by first opposing Israeli apartheid and then apologizing and saying his statements were being “used to justify antisemitism” than he ever could have done by just siding with Israel from the beginning. He gained a sympathetic ear from those who support Palestinian rights and then piped that drivel right into their brains, while giving virulent Zionists a narrative weapon to uphold with an “It’s good to admit when you’re wrong! I hope everyone can learn how wrong such statements are!”
I am not Jewish, so I have no perspective on the claim that Israel supporters use claims of anti-semitism in bad faith whenever there’s a need to regain control of the narrative. But there are plenty of Jewish people who do say so, including journalist Max Blumenthal who has a good article out on the way imperial spinmeisters have been falsely framing altercations at Palestinian rights demonstrations as anti-semitic hate crimes, as well as Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir, American political scientist Norman Finkelstein, and the Anti-Defamation League’s own records of supposed “anti-semitic” incidents during demonstrations.
https://twitter.com/catcontentonly/status/1397561708831559684
This is not to suggest that anti-semitism isn’t real or doesn’t occur, just that attempts to spin it as something that has suddenly become a surging epidemic which needs to be made the new area of focus are made in bad faith. This narrative is being uncritically shoved through with increasing urgency, and if you say that attempts to turn the pro-Palestinian conversation into a stop anti-semitism conversation are cynical and manipulative you can find yourself targeted by some of the most influential people in the world.
Palestinian-American comedian and activist Amer Zahr is an ordinary citizen with just 14 thousand followers on Twitter, yet when he tweeted a short video telling Palestinian rights activists to stop letting bad faith actors derail the conversation into a bottomless pit of apologies and denunciations that will never be enough, he was angrily quote-tweeted by the likes of Senator Ted Cruz and CNN’s Jake Tapper, and two Fox News smear pieces were written about him.
This was from Saturday, after numerous acts of Jews being physically assaulted in the U.S.: https://t.co/Fj8FEiZgYq
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) May 25, 2021
So this is a bit of a touchy area for the imperial spin machine.
You don’t kill a protest movement with force and opposition, you kill it by sapping its energy using bad faith diversions, tone policing and concern trolling while pretending to support justice. I leave it to Palestinian rights activists to discern as individuals when that is happening on a case-by-case basis, but if the energy’s going to get sucked out of the movement, that’s probably the exit it will slip out through.
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50 responses to “How To Sabotage The Pro-Palestine Movement”
Very good, Caitlin.
If I were the imperial manager, I would found and finance Jewish Voice for Peace, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International… wait. That’s exactly what’s being done.
Yeah, it’s all temporary. A little diversion in whatever direction and the machine rolls on. That’s classic Tucker Carlson stuff. Point out the truth to salve the unfooled wounds and then move on to the next diversion feelings assuaged. Where do you think this shit’ll be in three months? Forgotten by the wayside. Rendered into insignificance by the storm of what’s to come. Have your Khardashian moment.
I think that is precisely what will happen. You can see it already… the mainstream narrative changing to one of support for Palestine, nuanced with counter arguments. Watch as the concern for the people of Palestine morphs into something else. A shift to decry Hamas? Or a return to the trusty anti Semitic rhetoric as Caitlin suggests? Watch over the coming months as the momentum is sapped from the movement and its urgent and forceful message watered down and compromised. Come 2022 we will all be wondering whatever happened to that time when people were concerned for Palestine? 2022 – Israel beating the shit out of Palestinians again – business as usual.
Dollyboy….here we go:
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you got two confused eyes and 4 weird hairs…..your arms remind me of another symbol of the past and your legs seem barely able to hold up your bloated mass. I advise you to change somehow because I’m worried about your health
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I don’t think it is going to go that way. I think they are going to try another false flag event to get folks emotions all wrapped up, and I hope wiser minds keep this foolishness from even happening in the first place, but even if they can’t there are way too many of us who already know, and we will see through it and they will be exposed for what they are because our numbers grow day-by-day and if they do this again our numbers will grow exponentially.
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So much ignominy is fixing to be exposed it might overwhelm many but that is gonna be part of the new narrative DollyBoy…..
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BK
52721659pmest
Thanks for your concern Ken. This all lard diet I’m on is probably the cause. I’ll cut down.
I wish I shared your confidence. I do place some credence in your false flag scenario but I’m fairly confident you’ll see ZERO change in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Mark my words, this time next year we will be looking at the same old scenario. I sure would like to be wrong though!
DollyBoy…..
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I super appreciate your response. Thanks for your kindness. Little things add up.
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I raise a toast to DollyBoy, and lets come back in a year if we can. Lets see what the situation is on the ground then.
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Change is in the wind and so the probability of improvement on some things might be low, but it is steadily increasing. I can say though definitively, if it can be imagined, the probability is not zero. It is higher than that, but that ain’t saying much.
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Anyhow, too much lard is trouble, but the way your feet are aligned seems to me you can hold yourself up. Plus, the way your arms go doesn’t bother me cause I know it is just an image, and others might see something different, and who cares really cause what matters is what you do.
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I’ve been thinking I might apply my own medicine to myself at some point, and I hope to have the opportunity to do that cause I could provide many details regarding the “Buffalo” coin that I took a picture of so many years ago and which has been my moniker image on WordPress for a long time.
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Sad thing is the glorious ginormous seemingly never-ending herds of american bison are gone from the plains, and it is ironic that after they were mercilessly slaughtered in mass and left to decay in the wind somebody had the audacity to try to celebrate the “Buffalo” on a coin. How twisted is that? Speaks of the American contradiction, of which there is no lacking, in so many ways. It breaks my heart what happened, but it is what it is. The american bison weren’t wiped out entirely, so who knows maybe in a few centuries their herds could freely roam again on the plains where they were and still remain an an integral part of any healthy ecosystem, but since their gone mostly, the ecosystem has suffered needlessly and it annoys me that I’ll never get to see a herd of them like the old days before the settlers (mostly Europeans) who came over as immigrants to get away from suffering did what they do so well. Like Caitlin says, if you have suffered, then you have a tendency to dish it out I reckon……sorry, I’m rambling.
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Best to you and thanks,
Ken
528211030
May I be so bold as 2 suggest that many a good folk are reading Mr. STEVEN LENDMAN.com, who is Jewish 2 the core,,and has an absolute disgust 4 the way Israel is abusing Palestine. His incredible voice, attitude, dislike of NYT, especially considering his origin is 2 this mind anyway, one of the most rational solutions 2 that entire problem. “Try it, u mite just like it”!!
wholecproblem
I tried to include a link to a documentary which exposes Z10nits control of global finance and politics but that comment with the link did not appear on Caitlin’s page. Is there an intelligent filter which blocks information which Z10nits do not want people to see?
Modern research shows that most modern day Jews are NOT descendants Israel, but descendants of Esau his brother, Ishmael, a step uncle and Nahor brother of Abraham. It is quite likely that Z10nits in particular are descendants of Esau. History records that descendants of Israel were exiled from their land, migrated to Eurasia and inter-married with other races so that their half-cast descendants now live incognito among other European people and unaware of their ancient ancestry. A great war will eventually erupt between deceiving Z10nits slave-masters and descendants Israel who are now their financial slaves.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/leaked-report-israel-acknowledges-jews-in-fact-khazars-secret-plan-for-reverse-migration-to-ukraine/
Ashkenazi Jews are not Semites, rather the decedents of converts from the Caucasus who chose a third road between Christianity and Mohammedanism, wanting neither.
Powerful, wealthy nations have been subjugating, colonizing and exploiting weaker nations for as long as human history has existed. With some exception’s of the Roman Empire, most subjugated nations were peopled by darker skinned Indian, or Negroid ethnic types. Oddly, most of Israel’s leaders, at least initially seemed to be mostly white, Caucasion European types, whereas people living in Palestine (now Israel) seemed to be of a darker swarthy skinned people, and who had lived in these lands for thousands of years. Now modern Christians portray Jesus Christ as having been what appears to be a very white, Caucasion type person. So maybe among the Arab/Jewish populations generations ago there was a sect of particularly white people who wound up migrating to, and populating Europe, Maybe these were the Biblical “Prodigal son types” returned to reclaim the whole Kit n Kaboodle. You would think though, that they would have somewhat higher regard for their ancient brothers who stuck it out for these thousands of years in the holy land.
Carol – I think you are correct. I ain’t even gonna try to breakdown your beautiful moniker image cause I ain’t gonna mess with you. Holy crap I got some Jimmy Hendrix screaming in my ear just now. Holy crap. Maybe later baby.
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Somebody else speculated there ain’t no holy land anymore and I think they might be on to something. If Jesus was in front of my face just now, I would say to him: Is this what you wanted?
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Best to you and I hate typing this, but sometimes it is what it is.
BK
52721321
very good. they also might go full throttle on the wuhan lab-leak theory as an excuse for ignoring the movement.
Well, I’d just assume they do that versus all the other most horrible ideas they might come up with that cause so much suffering of innocence and has been the modus operoadi cause i don’t think they really care about the little People in their twisted minds and I’m sick of that and they better think twice before they plan some effing false flag BS again. We know and we are watching your every step.
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BK
52721245pm
modus operandi
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for the sake of correctness
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BK
52721248pm I can’t stand the number 48 or 84 as well seems full of bad intent…..
The intentional lab leak theory not to be mentioned in the same breath with non-Chinese interests involved in the process collaboratively, each to their own nefarious ends.
You know sometimes semantics are seriously important. Other times it ought be obvious.
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I think mainly we are in one of them other times collectively – at least those of us who have humility and humanity.
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So, best some entities might try, they have lost the narrative, and once you lose it, ain’t no getting it back except in your own imagination, and then guess what – your are kidding yourself? I don’t know about the rest of you all, but I try to learn something every day and I try to share what I have learned mainly with my children cause I know their future belongs to them.
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Come up with a better story if you want followers. Myself, I’ve basically got none, cause I don’t participate in no facebook or twitter, but I don’t care because I relish the direction the narrative is heading now and you wouldn’t believe what I just sensed – it is good for US all, but my Lord knows I have no idea what is going to happen next. Still, faith can move mountains.
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Can’t argue with that when you are just a peasant now can you?
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I think the Palestinians have been seriously empowered and there is a whole new younger generation that shares that sentiment. So my advice to you is if you are an old man or an old women whose mind resides in the 20th century – set your head down softly and take a nap, and then wake up and get with the game.
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Peace is easy,
BK
527211215est
Not to worry, the “New York Times” is on the story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/26/us/anti-semitism-attacks-violence.html?smid=url-share
So’s the UK’s Times –
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/placards-with-anti-jewish-hatred-mar-protests-by-tens-of-thousands-hvnqg5njm – May 23
(‘McDonnell said: “We welcome a ceasefire. But let’s be clear, there will be no ceasefire in our campaign to boycott, disinvest and sanction the Israeli apartheid state.” A spokesman for the Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “Having seen the solidarity shown for Black Lives Matter, this just reinforces the feeling that in the UK in 2021, racism against Jews does not count.”’)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/islamist-extremists-use-protests-to-spread-antisemitism-gcprwrbwp – May 22
(‘Islamist extremists will use the renewal of hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians to spread antisemitism and push their “twisted” world view, a former head of counterterrorism has said.’)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jewish-student-told-to-gas-herself-as-antisemitic-incidents-rise-3t37ph5m9 – May 21
(‘The message “Free Palestine” was scrawled several times on the wall of a cubicle in the girls’ lavatories as well as “F*** Israel”.’)
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/huge-increase-in-antisemitic-incidents-in-uk-vngvp5gc9 – May 17
(‘four people were arrested on suspicion of shouting antisemitic abuse through a megaphone while driving in a convoy of cars bedecked with Palestinian flags through an area of London with a large number of Jewish residents’)
Ian thanks for the information about where you live and the folks you live amongst.
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Is the point your making just to elaborate on the sentiment in the article? I think that is the case, but I can’t tell for sure. Just imagine if we were actually sitting at the Table of Peace. Then, when you get to sense body language it would be evident much more fully.
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Still, clear communication with the written word is critical and I have some ideas about improving that and I hope to share these ideas here.
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Alright Ian….here goes:
Ian has 4 eyes. 2 of them come right off the top of Ian’s head and he has a skull. The other two eyes emerge out on antenna’s from the center of the upper part of his torso. He has a big mouth just like NN, and I already said I like that and I like it on Ian as well. He reside upon a solid foundation and I have nothing but respect for that. His arms and hands are pretty much worthless cause they might as well be eyes. They eye on the left has the most surface area 2-dimensionally. Hard to get into the third dimension in the land of bits and bytes, but I’m sure there are more words Ian has to teach me and I look forward to future learning together
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BK
52721119pm
LOL, that was certainly funny about playing mind games on the mentally, defective since most humans are mentally defective. Especially Americans who have been so well trained to be attack dogs, the president says the Chinese are terrorists, they’re going to kill us all, and then some mental rejects start attacking Asians, but of course the president is no more responsible for the actions of others than Jesus, Moses or Aaron ever were. Same is true of Buddha and Confucius and all the Hindu gods. Obviously, all the humans are on some sort of narrative, mostly I once thought rather benign, but now obviously mostly like the snake and the farmer that saves its life only for it to kill him for his reward. I love your efforts to try to inform them of the Holocaust that is coming to consume them, but I think that the reason they can’t process your words any better they could the words of Jesus is because they’re all snakes and if only given the chance would happily become mass murders.
Here we go.
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Patty’s body is shaped like a heart but she has thorns on her head and ears that stick out and she ain’t even got no hands to speak of. Nor fingers which makes me sad for her. Her lips look dismal and her feet are sticky, 3 little toes, and she seems like a reptile to me with her sentiment of mass murder. There is a line of light coming out of the rectangular visual sight and i think patty is a robot.
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Hey Patty – tell me what I got wrong if you don’t mind.
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Get with the game.
BK
52721130pm est
The narrative could also include the fact that both those of Hebrew ancestry and Palestinian Arab ancestry are included in the term “Semitic.” Moreover, as has been pointed out in previous comments on this site, much of the Jewish population of Israel are NOT Semitic Jews.
Consequently, Israeli actions against the Palestinian population is, by definition, “anti-Semitic.” It is time for the charge of anti-Semitism to be retired.
The evidence that much of the Jewish population of Israel are not Semitic is flimsy at best, while multiple genetic studies indicate they are. And the word anti-Semitic has historically been used to mean hostile or opposed to the Jews, even though Semitic on its own has a wider meaning than Jewish.
“And the word anti-Semitic has historically been used to mean hostile or opposed to the Jews, even though Semitic on its own has a wider meaning than Jewish.”
Narrative control alert.
From the OED:
anti-Semitism
(æntɪˈsɛmɪtɪz(ə)m)
[f. anti-1 7 + Semitism.]
Theory, action, or practice directed against the Jews. Hence anti-ˈSemite, one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews; anti-Seˈmitic a.
1881 Athenæum 3 Sept. 305/2 The author, apparently an anti-Semite. Ibid., Anti-Semitic literature is very prosperous in Germany. 1882 Athenæum 11 Feb. 184/1 In these days of anti-Semitism. 1935 Economist 24 Aug. 366/1 The Nazi Party stalwarts‥have all been leading an anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Protestant‥crusade. 1941 J. S. Huxley Uniqueness of Man ii. 50 Germanic nationalism on the one hand and anti-Semitism on the other.
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Semite
(ˈsɛmaɪt)
[ad. mod.L. Sēmīta, f. late Latin Sēm, Gr. Σήµ Shem: see -ite. Cf. the earlier Shemite.]
A person belonging to the race of mankind which includes most of the peoples mentioned in Gen. x. as descended from Shem son of Noah, as the Hebrews, Arabs, Assyrians, and Aramæans. Also, a person speaking a Semitic language as his native tongue.
1848 C. Bunsen in Rep. Brit. Assoc. Advancem. Sci. 1847 XVII. 266 The country which, according to the most ancient traditions of the Semites, was the cradle of mankind. 1875 Whitney Life & Growth Lang. xii. 247 None but the Semites have, since the dawn of the historic period, seriously disputed with our family the headship of the human race. 1882 Farrar Early Chr. II. 199 The mutual aversion of Semites and Aryans thus finds ample illustration in the literature of both. 1886 Z. A. Ragozin Chaldea ii. v. (1891) 237 Nor did the Semites preserve a separate existence.
Whilst the Palestinians are fighting for their rights, the rights of billions of people are being denied by the implication of creeping totalitarian laws via the Scamdemic!!
Observation/Question:
“And now we see Ireland passing a parliamentary motion condemning the “de facto annexation” of Palestinian land.”
If Ireland still have not been able to rid themselves of British Colonialism, after centuries; having a third of their country annexed, at the close of a barbarous and brutal Anglo-Irish war, how is passing a parliamentary motion going to do the trick for a wholly unarmed Palestinian nation?
Another war that WILL end all wars?
Genius piece Caitlin, you have been dropping gem after gem this month!!! Thank you so much
https://www.johndayblog.com/2021/05/scramble.html
Clashes between protesters and Israeli police flared up in Jerusalem in mid-April 2021 over the eviction of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood.
Hamas’s missile fire against Israel and the Netanyahu government’s response did not occur until May 10.
The Biden administration told Congress that it will deliver $ 735 million worth of high-precision bombs to Israel … on May 5, five days before the war.
In addition to the homes of Hamas dignitaries and smuggling tunnels, the IDF has systematically destroyed desalination factories and power plants in Gaza.
The United States obstructed any intervention by the Security Council. They only imposed a ceasefire after Israel’s stockpile of ammunition was depleted. It will soon be replenished by the delivery expected from the Biden Administration.
https://www.voltairenet.org/article213165.html
The palestinian problem is not apartheid. Apartheid is discrimination based on race. At least that is what the definition states. Jews and Palestinians are the same general middle eastern race at least historically. The problem is not race related but the result of a poorly thought out solution after WW2. No one can screw things up worse than politicians. As others have stated previously Palestinians are scattered in other countries and given no rights there either. This is not to excuse Israel. Just to point out the situation for Palestinians everywhere. Palestinians are a people without a country. Blame politicians again for arbitrarly chopping up the middle east into countries that was previously ruled by tribes. Same with Africa. I am afraid nothing will be done about it.
One of the definitions of apartheid: A policy or practice of separating or segregating groups.
It is not limited to discrimination based on race.
‘Apartheid’ started as an Afrikaans word meaning ‘apartness’ or ‘separateness’. It’s been used by many South Africans, who understand it all too well, to describe Israeli policies.
But in neither old South Africa, nor in Israel-Palestine, is any kind of apartness actually practiced. What went on in both places was a caste system based on ancestry, by means of which are large part of the population was deprived of equal rights. The Palestinians do not need a nation-state; they need normal, equal civil rights in the state that exists and the political and legal means to secure them.
Good of you to decide for them what it is that they need.
LOL, Christians kill Christians, Muslims kill Muslims, Jews kill Jews, the whole WW2 thing was a con game. Maybe you’re the Farmer or maybe you’re the snake as to why you don’t address the obvious that the 100 million dead from from that war was already planned by the beginning of the 1900s. But, snakes and farmers; where would farmers be today without the aid of snakes?
Israel actually promotes anti-Semitism, as unjustified as it may be, by claiming it as a defense while engaged in monstrous acts. In effect, JUSTIFYING IT.
“You don’t kill a protest movement with force and opposition, you kill it by sapping its energy using bad faith diversions, tone policing and concern trolling while pretending to support justice.” This includes protests of a musical nature, as well. If there’s any way to “[sap] its energy” they will try. Thankfully, some movements have been to powerful to for them to overcome. https://seaclearly.com/2017/08/26/protest-music-war-in-the-name-of-god/
Grammatical correction: Thankfully, some movements have been [too] powerful to for them to overcome.
Grammatical correction: Thankfully, some movements have been [too] powerful for them to overcome. (Not enough yet for the morning.)
You could bet your house that what Caitlin has pointed to, as the likely direction of the narrative stream, will come to pass.
Very perceptive. The analogy between how the Black Lives Matter movement was derailed and gently guided into insignificance and what is happening now with the Palestinian rights movement is exactly right. 3 months from now Palestine will have disappeared off our Western media while the misery of the Palestinian people persists. Why do we let this keep happening?
I suppose because you spend your time watching and listening to the said media. However, BLM, although it may have been derailed or diluted, sprang back into significance last summer; a lot of right-wingers are still howling about it. I suppose unlike their liberal counterparts, they didn’t get the extinction memo.
Incidentally, Scott Adams, creator of _Dilbert_ and political philosopher, has called the technique complained about here ‘pacing and leading’. You get in with the vanguard and then ease them into a different direction, like around a circle, or down into a rabbit hole.
But as for concern trolling and apologizing for antisemitism, it’s probably a defensive maneuver, given that a charge of anti-semitism is inevitable any time Israel is criticized. You could probably think of something better. In fact, go ahead….
“…BLM, although it may have been derailed or diluted, sprang back into significance last summer;…”
OK, I’ll bite. What have they managed to change? How is this time different from the last million times there have been riots in the streets protesting racial inequality in the US? In case you’re unfamiliar with that long, lamentable history, try this:
https://www.blackpast.org/special-features/racial-violence-united-states-1660/
I recognize that there has been some limited progress in race relations: after all, at least the US eliminated slavery (outside of the prison system, but that’s another story) after the civil war. And the civil rights movement of the 1960’s moved the needle a little farther towards fairness. But Black Lives Matter? Please, I would love to hear about any significant improvements.
When BLM is embraced by the goverment and by the corporate entities, exactly what do you think that it is?
Love your work Caitlin. Tonight’s Q&A ch2 was excellent. Try & view it if you can. A panel of five, the two women were standouts. The narrative about Palestine is surely shifting. And about time.
Ask Mordechai Vanunu how much the ever changing/fluctuating narrative control, about Palestine, has successfully affected Israeli military truculence in the past thirty-five years.
It’s way easier for them to adapt to the mainstream – whatever it is at any given moment, than having to decide to bring the whole edifice down on top of the entire planet.
South Africa was never permitted to reach the point at which the Israelis are today.
But then again, who ever would have thought that the only country in Africa, with weapons nuclear capabilities, would have become the first and only country, so far, to ‘willingly’ give up its weapons?
(Too) hasty, for what its worth; the the last sentence should read:
But then again, who ever would have thought that the only country in Africa, with nuclear weapons capabilities, would have become the first and only country, so far, to ‘willingly’ give up its weapons?
Maybe they should have held onto them, but I think they were part and parcel of the apartheid machinations, so they had to get rid of them to keep them from getting in the hands of the those with darker colors if you know what I mean em.
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Em, I’m gonna hold off now saying anything else. I know you get tired of my talking, but I appreciate some of what you have had to say. I just wish you didn’t have another big mouth like the rest of em. Are you big mouth ones together somehow?
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You rainbow eyes seem confused to me….your whole image seems full of anger. Don’t be a triangle em, it only spells trouble. Best to get over your anger em and if you can, grow you some arms and hands and fingers if possible. Plus, looks to me like you are fixing to be tripped up.
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BK
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How to cement and encourage hope in the face of evil
Economist and Greek parliamentarian, Yanis Varoufakis, interviews intellectual extraordinaire, Omar Barghouti, co-founder of the BDS movement