Turkish Cypriots Offer Two-State Plan at U.N. Talks

GENEVA (Reuters) - The Turkish Cypriot delegation to U.N.-sponsored talks proposed a two-state solution for Cyprus on Wednesday to end the conflict with Greek Cypriots and put the island's two communities on an equal footing, but it was swiftly rejected by the Greek Cypriot side. The Mediterranean island was split in 1974 between a Greek Cypriot south and a Turkish Cypriot north. Only Turkey recognises the breakaway state in Northern Cyprus. Recommended Videos Powered by AnyClip 'Be creative': U.N. chief says as Cyprus talks open 333 Play Video NOW PLAYING'Be creative': U.N. chief says as Cyprus talks open Low expectations as UN tries to kickstart Cyprus peace talks European Parliament ratifies EU-UK trade deal marking beginning of post-Brexit world Prince Harry meets with family for clear-the-air talks Texas police to demand Tesla crash data The proposal was presented at informal talks with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Geneva, who had urged both sides to "be creative" after a four-year stalemate in peace negotiations. The foreign ministers of Greece, Turkey and Britain are also taking part as guarantor nations in the two-day talks. Turkish Cypriot leader Ersin Tatar, who presented the plan, told Reuters earlier this week that he hoped his proposal for a two-state solution will bring a "new vision" to the talks, despite its prior rejection by Greek Cypriots. "The Turkish Cypriot proposal is aimed at establishing a cooperative relationship between the two States on the island based on their inherent sovereign equality and equal international status," the Turkish Cypriot proposal said. It called on Guterres to take an initiative leading to the U.N. Security Council adopting a resolution securing the equal international status and sovereign equality of the two sides. On that basis, negotiations would follow under his auspices on the future relationship between the two independent states, focusing on property, security and "border adjustment", it said. Any agreement reached would be submitted for approval in simultaneous referenda in the two states, it added. But Greek Cypriot leader Nicos Anastasiades, who serves as president of the island's internationally-recognised government, said that the proposal was a "great disappointment". "Of course I have told the Secretary-General that our attempt was to create a positive climate, without provocations, without any references to whatever unacceptable (things) we heard. I have also told the Secretary-General that we will submit, in writing, our own positions,” he said in a statement. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay and Emma Farge in Geneva and Michele Kambas in Nicosia; writing by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Toby Chopra) Copyright 2021 Thomson Reuters.

Bigotry on the rise in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka cabinet approves ban on Muslim face veils Sri Lanka's cabinet on Tuesday approved a proposed ban on wearing full-face veils including Muslim niqabs in public, citing national security grounds, despite a UN expert's comment that it would violate international law. The cabinet approved the proposal by Public Security Minister Sarath Weerasekera at its weekly meeting, Weerasekara said on his Facebook page. The proposal will now be sent to the Attorney General's Department and must be approved by parliament to become law. The government holds a majority in parliament and the proposal could easily be passed. Weerasekara has characterized veils which cover the body and face worn by some Muslim women as a sign of religious extremism and said a ban would improve national security. Wearing of niqabs and burqas was temporarily banned in 2019 after the Easter Sunday suicide bomb attacks killed more than 260 people. Two local Islamist extremist groups that had pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS) were blamed for the attacks at six locations — two Roman Catholic churches, one Protestant church and three top hotels. Last month, Pakistani Ambassador Saad Khattak tweeted that a ban would hurt the feelings of Muslims. The UN special rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ahmed Shaheed, tweeted that a ban would be incompatible with international law and the right to free religious expression. Muslims make up about 9% of Sri Lanka's 22 million people, with Buddhists accounting for more than 70%. Ethnic minority Tamils, who are mainly Hindus, comprise about 15%.

Damascus Gate: The symbolic flashpoint of Jerusalem’s latest tensions

By Aseel Jundi in Jerusalem East Jerusalem’s towering, turreted Damascus Gate, one of the main entrances to the Old City, was the scene of tension and violence between Palestinians and Israelis over the past few weeks, as it has been many times before. Palestinians have been protesting since the beginning of Ramadan, on 13 April, against an Israeli ban limiting their access to the full Damascus Gate plaza after Ramadan's night prayer, known as tarawih, ends. Israeli military police detained four Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday evening for chanting national slogans and waving Palestinian flags in celebration after tossing aside barricades blocking them from sitting on the plaza, a popular gathering spot for Palestinians during the Muslim holy month. Many Palestinians see Israel’s increasing restrictions and heavy security presence at Damascus Gate and elsewhere in the city, as well as recent bouts of settler aggression, as part of ongoing attempts to erase Palestinian identity from Jerusalem. Jerusalem protests: Palestine's new generation rises up Alaa Tartir Read More » Israeli authorities are “rejecting everything that strengthens Palestinian identity in Jerusalem on the one hand, and disrespecting Islamic rituals and Palestinian traditions on the other”, Ahmad Sub Laban, a researcher from Jerusalem who specialises in settlement affairs, told Middle East Eye. A history of violence The area around Damascus Gate - which Palestinians call Bab al-Amoud - is a popular spot where Palestinians gather, drink coffee and sing national songs as a form of civil protest. It has also been the site of more formal demonstrations and violent clashes between protesters and Israeli police. In October 2015, during a wave of violence sparked by political tensions, Palestinian youths attempted to stab Israeli military police in separate incidents near the gate. They were often shot and killed. Israeli forces have killed scores more Palestinians at Damascus Gate over the years. Many of the deaths have never been investigated. Two watchtower checkpoints were established there in 2018 and are used to stop and search Palestinians entering the Old City, which has been occupied by Israel since the Arab-Israeli war of 1967, in contravention of international law. In late 2020, the Israeli municipality of Jerusalem renamed the Damascus Gate steps after Israeli police officers killed in confrontations there in 2016 and 2017. Escalation across the Old City Other parts of the Old City have also witnessed hostilities in recent weeks. On 14 April, as Israel marked its national day, Israeli police entered Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City and cut the wires of the minaret's loudspeakers. Israel also banned Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, Al-Aqsa's imam, from travelling on 19 April. Far-right Israeli settlers took to the streets of Jerusalem on Thursday evening in a march to "restore Jewish dignity", chanting "Death to Arabs” and attacking Palestinians. Ensuing clashes, which lasted from late Thursday evening until Friday morning, left 110 Palestinians and 20 Israeli policemen injured, while 50 Palestinians were arrested, according to the official Palestinian Authority news agency Wafa. On Friday, Israeli military police closed one of the Al-Aqsa Mosque's gates, preventing Palestinians who gathered at Bab Hutta gate in the Muslim quarter from performing dawn prayer on the second Friday of Ramadan. The occupied West Bank cities of Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem and al-Bireh saw protests on Sunday evening. Meanwhile, Israeli forces repressed demonstrations at the military checkpoints of Qalandiya and Bethlehem. On Monday, the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem said that 72 settlers had entered the Al-Aqsa courtyard from the Mughrabi Gate despite days of tension in the Old City, Wafa reported. 'No Ramadan for Jerusalemites' Sub Laban, the settlement researcher, regards the recent events at Damascus Gate and Al-Aqsa as part of a long-standing plan to extend Israeli control over the city. Abdallah Marouf, Assistant Professor of Jerusalem Studies at Istanbul 29 Mayis University and the former media and public relations officer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, agrees, saying Israeli authorities have been trying to establish a new reality in the city of Jerusalem since the time of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who wanted to control the gates of the Old City completely and fill the area with settlers. As housing minister in 1987, he occupied a house in the Old City’s Muslim quarter, galvanising settlers trying to establish a presence in that part of the city. Israel is taking advantage of the pandemic, Marouf added, to send a message to Palestinians that "there is no Ramadan for Jerusalemites... there are no special occasions for Muslims in Jerusalem". Palestinians using a restricted Damascus Gate (MEE/Aseel Jundi) Palestinians use a restricted Damascus Gate in late April (MEE/Aseel Jundi) He believes Israeli forces are working to empty the entire area of Palestinians ahead of the imminent Jewish celebration of "Jerusalem Day", which falls this year on the 28th day of Ramadan. There have been warnings that Israeli settlers may use the occasion to try to storm Al-Aqsa. In 2020, the mosque was shut twice after the coronavirus pandemic hit. The first closure was from mid-March to 31 May, while the second, from mid-September, lasted for a month. Israel had banned Palestinians from entering the mosque for the whole month of Ramadan in 2020, due to Covid-19. However, Israeli settlers were reportedly allowed to visit Al-Aqsa at the time, escorted by Israeli security and intelligence units. A 'deliberate emptying' of the city “In the month of Ramadan, the city is filled every year with hundreds of thousands of worshippers who revitalise its mosques and markets, so the occupation deliberately spreads fear among them by harassing citizens with random beatings, and firing tear gas and rubber bullets,” Jerusalemite lawyer Medhat Dibeh told MEE. “What is happening at the Damascus Gate is a deliberate operation to empty Jerusalem [of Palestinians].” Dibeh sees the police failure to contain the recent violence of far-right Israeli groups as evidence of a policy to increase the Jewish presence in the city. Ziad Ibhais, a researcher of Jerusalem affairs, said Palestinians must push for an unconditional opening of the Damascus Gate, and hopes that enough of them will gather around Al-Aqsa on the morning of the 28th day of Ramadan to hold off Israeli groups hoping to perform rituals there. “Events are likely to escalate until the end of Ramadan,” said Marouf, warning that Jerusalem is “on the brink of explosion”.

Settlers Set Palestinian Vehicles on Fire near Jerusalem (VIDEO)

Jewish settlers Wednesday overnight set three Palestinian-owned vehicles on fire near the village of Beit Iksa, northwest of Jerusalem, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. Local sources said that a group of Jewish settlers torched the vehicles, which were parked nearby the illegal Israeli settlement of Ramot, spray-painted racist graffiti, and smashed the window shields of other vehicles parked in the area. In March, Jewish settlers set two Palestinian vehicles on fire and scrawled hate graffiti in the village. “Price tag” refers to an underground anti-Palestinian Israeli group that routinely attacks Palestinians in the occupied territories and inside Israel. The Israeli government still refuses to label it as a terrorist organization and considers it only a group of vandals. Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities. Settler violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, attacks on vulnerable homes, among others. There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law. (WAFA, PC, Social Media)

Corona Pandemic and Targeting of Minorities in India

Ram Puniyani Currently (April 2021) India is passing through its worst period as Covid19 Phase II is at its peak, with high rate of infectivity and mortality. The shortage of beds, Oxygen, test facilities and medicines is the cause of concern all over. The victims and their families are feeling the massive tragedy as the nation watches the gross mismanagement and lack of foresight in planning. As the criticism of the rulers is coming up a new word ‘system’ has been thrown up. Now it is not Mr. Modi who is to be blamed for the shortcomings and worsening plight but the system is to be blamed. On one hand the lack of scientific temper of the rulers made them make statements like we will conquer the Pandemic in 21 days. Some leaders exhorted the devotees to come for mass congregations of Kumbh. The other set of them held massive election rallies without wearing masks and without following the norms of physical distancing. Two high Courts have held election Commission responsible for the massive spread of the disease. On the other side there are the stories of amity and dedication. Dedication of Corona warriors working under adverse circumstances are writ all over. Hindu-Muslims helping each other yet again affirm the core values of our country. At places Muslims who were held responsible for the spread of the disease are now being seen as fellow citizens sharing the pain and coming forward to do their bit in alleviating the tragedy. While this massive tragedy is comparable only to the mass migrations during partition, the added element this time is also the plight of migrant workers, risking their lives along with livelihood. While the rulers are patting their backs, the inadequacies of their governance are writ large; and the World as a whole is taking the note of the painful happenings here. The shortage of oxygen shook us from our slumber. While the tall statues, central vista and temple took the lion’s share of national budget, the tiny state of Kerala invested comparatively miniscule funds in the oxygen plants and is today supplying the same to even the neighboring states. The parallel aspect of the tragic story has been the demonization of Muslims in the spread of Corona, as in March 2020 an International conference of Tablighi Jamaat was taking place in Markaz Nizamuddin. In India the communal politics is riding on the back of creating a phobia against Muslims, using the medieval history in particular, other aspects like love Jihad, polygamy, beef, personal laws, alleged large families and link with global terror has added in no mean way. This phobia against Muslims got a shot in the arms when Tablighi Jamaat’s Seminar came to light. Starting from the leaders of communal organizations to the biased media different aspects of congregation of Muslims were highlighted while the naked truth of other congregations and sources of global spread were deliberately overlooked and hidden away from the public perception. While Markaz was supposed to have been a deliberate attempt to spread Corona, the preceding mass congregation of Namaste Trump, the visit of Kanika Kapoor and other worthies who were having Corona could not be seen by the dominant section of our media, which incidentally has become more as the broadcaster of the views of ruling party. Not only words like Corona Jihad, Corona bomb were coined the ‘innovative’ section of media went on to discover various types of Jihad which the Muslim minority is out to implement. The very comprehensive report; ‘The Covid Pandemic: A Report on the Scape-goating of Minorities in India’ from Center for Study of Society and Secularism, Mumbai, meticulously lists various propaganda against Muslims. The report points out that various Jihads were listed to target the community, “the Economic Jihad: use business and trade to spread polarization, History Jihad: manipulate history to speak in favor of Islam, Media Jihad: use paid media to speak in favor of Islam, Films and songs Jihad: use films to glorify Mughals and mafia and use films and songs to popularize Islamic culture, Secularism Jihad: take the support of leftists, communists and liberals, Population Jihad: Marry four wives and increase the population, Land Jihad: encroach on land and make mosques, graveyards and madrasas on them, Education Jihad: build madrasas and promote Arabic, Victim Jihad: demand reservation, personal law etc, Direct Jihad: direct armed action against non-Muslims.” The report also gives the account of fake news like Muslims spitting recklessly, licking utensils etc. The very language used for Muslims on one side and Hindus/Sikhs on the other presented Muslims as culprits, The report points out, “113 people hiding in 8 mosques” (Zee News) or “Covid 19: 600 foreign Tablighi Jamaat workers found hiding across Delhi, and counting” (Hindustan Times); contrast this with news reports of some 200 Sikhs stuck at the ‘Majnu ka Tila Gurudwara’ in Delhi and around 400 Hindu pilgrims stuck at Vaishno Devi unable to go home when the lockdown was imposed. Amit Malaviya of IT cell of BJP came out with the most scathing indictment, he tweeted “Delhi’s dark underbelly is exploding!... and now the illegal gathering of the radical Tablighi Jamaat at the Markaz. It needs a fix (From Twitter).” Even Gujarat Chief Minster Vijay Roopani blamed the Tablighi Jamaat for spread of Corona in Gujarat. While other perceptions have stuck to the minorities through the consistent use of media, social media in particular, this one may be a concrete example of the falsehoods which are used to target the religious minorities for political purposes. While we need to overcome the effects of Corona Pandemic, we also need to overcome the mistrust created against minorities through the abuse of media/social media guided by political goals. In case of Corona, the truth is there for all to see, will this example help us negating perceptions which are divisive? Will the concrete experience of Corona, its relationship to global spread, mass congregations like Kumbh and election rallies, open our eyes to the truth and lead us to the path of amicable perceptions and harmonious living?

Beatings and Indignity: the Plight of an Afghan Refugee BY AHMAD SOHEIL AHMADI

The grimness grinds on for the world’s 80 million forcibly displaced persons, 34 million of them children. Covid-19 is proving to be hard to beat, putting severe, months-long restrictions on activist support for refugees in transit and host nations alike. Ali (not his real name), who spoke to us from Ritsona camp in Greece, has been contributing to camp life as a volunteer educator. The psychological and educational toll of living as a refugee child is a blight on young lives. With education services often overstretched even in refugee camps where agencies have easy access, teaching the young is vital activist work for many asylum seekers who despite their own tough circumstances, seek to better those of others, particularly the young. Ali is a well-educated Afghani who has negotiated a perilous path to Europe alongside his wife. In this first interview, he spoke to Ahmad Soheil Ahmadi about the terrible conditions of his journey. ASA: Mr Ali, you spent time in Iran and studied at one of Teheran’s colleges. How did you get to Greece? Like many Afghan refugees, we travelled overland to get to Greece. I want to share two bitter experiences we had along the way. While moving from Turkey to Greece, illegally, the Turkish police arrested my wife and I and we spent that night in detention. However, by the next day my wife had been taken elsewhere and I could not find her. I asked the officers where she was and they told me they’d taken her to a migrant camp and that I’d join her there soon. I was taken to the camp, but it was for male migrants only and there were no women there. I asked the police why my wife was not there and they said they didn’t know. During the anxious week I spent in that camp, I could not find out where my wife was located. No one would answer my questions, and our phones had been confiscated. Because the authorities were going to deport me back to Afghanistan, I had to escape, though it was very difficult. However, when I asked the police where my wife was, they still gave me no answer and claimed not to know of her. After three days, I discovered that female refugees were being held in a separate camp. When I went there and gave officials my wife’s details, they said she was indeed there but that I needed an official legal document to release her. I asked them how I could get one of these as a foreigner in Turkey, but they could not assist me. After three days of continuous attempts, I was able to save my wife, who by then was suffering greatly from grief and anxiety. During all this time, neither of us had heard from the other. While I was separated from my wife, they took her to the Afghan embassy several times to pressure her into signing up to a voluntary return to Afghanistan, but she resisted and said that she would not allow herself to be deported without her husband. Many refugees and migrants have experienced this tactic, and it is among the worst misfortunes that can happen to migrants in Turkey. My second unforgettably bitter memory is of our attempt to reach Germany via Greece. Among refugees, Croatia is notoriously brutal in dealing with defenceless asylum seekers, and there have been numerous reports of assault and violence by the Croatian border police. We tried to make this journey in a truck full of sheep, which was very uncomfortable, smelly, and dirty. However, the Croatian police stopped the truck and found us. They beat us viciously, without asking any questions and without assessing out situation, and regardless of gender. Unfortunately, this happens to many migrants. I passed out. When I woke up, I saw that I was in the emergency room. A nurse came to my bedside and checked whether I was concussed. He asked me if I needed anything, and I asked him how I came to be there. He replied that I had been unconscious for two days. I was hospitalized there for another two days. I asked them to feed me but they made fun of me and laughed at me. Sometimes they even went so far as to say, ‘If you are hungry, why did you come here?’ I told them that we were all human, and I had not eaten anything for a week. On the last day, after much insistence, they gave me apple juice. They were standing and laughing while I was drinking. They insulted me and my human dignity. We experienced many misfortunes on our journey to Germany. ASA: Why did you want to make it to Germany from Greece? Although the Greek people are good people, there is no economic security there. From the beginning, we wanted to go to Germany and I did not want to stay in Greece. While I was living in Greece for ten months, the government not only did not grant me a residence permit, but also withheld financial aid from other refugees. They did not give me shelter when I was vulnerable. Camp officials stated that they did not accept me as a refugee on the pretext that I had not initially resided on the Greek islands and had entered directly into mainland Greece. If I protested, they would definitely have deported me. I know refugees whose applications were accepted but who fled because of the bad situation in Greece, so I had no reason to stay there even though I was not recognized as a refugee. This interview first ran on Maqshosh. Ahmad Soheil Ahmadi is an editor at Maqshosh.

Human Rights Watch Will Accuse Israel of ‘Crime of Apartheid’

Israel’s status as an apartheid state is likely to be cemented further with a new report by Human Rights Watch concluding that the occupation state has crossed the threshold to be classified as such. The report, titled “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution”, is expected to be released tomorrow. It has been authored by Omar Shakir, the Jerusalem-based director of HRW who was expelled by Israel two years ago. Although precise details are as yet unknown, pro-Israel groups have already started a campaign against HRW in what appears to be an attempt at damage limitation by trying to discredit the organization. Controversial pro-Israel lobby group NGO Monitor argued that the report is merely part of a much wider assault on Israel and its self-declared identity as a Jewish state. “HRW’s text is part of a renewed NGO push over the past 18 months, attaching the term ‘apartheid’ to discourse on Israel… The NGO network seeks to reinforce political narratives, in contrast to credible factual presentation and legal analysis.” NGO Monitor also tried to dismiss HRW as a racist organization by citing examples listed in the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. Critics insist that the IHRA definition itself has been weaponized by pro-Israel lobbyists to suppress criticism of the Zionist state. In January, the prominent Israeli human rights group B’Tselem also branded Israel as an “apartheid” state that “promotes and perpetuates Jewish supremacy between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.” This echoed the conclusion of a 2017 UN report which was shelved following pressure from the US and Israel. (MEMO, PC, Social Media)

World Military Spending Rose to Nearly $2 Trillion in 2020 by Dave DeCamp

Last year saw an increase in global military spending despite the damage the coronavirus lockdowns did to the world’s economy. A new study from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) found total global military expenditures rose to $1.98 trillion in 2020, representing a 2.6 percent increase from 2019. The 2.6 percent increase came as the global gross domestic product (GDP) shrank by 4.4 percent. Military spending accounted for 2.4 percent of the global GDP, a figure known as the military burden. The military burden for the 2019 global GDP was 2.2 percent. The increase in military burden from 2019 to 2020 represents the most significant year-on-year rise since the 2009 financial crisis. As always is the case, the US was by far the biggest spender. The SIPRI study estimated that the US spent $778 billion on its military, accounting for 39 percent of the global total. US military spending saw a 4.4 percent increase from 2019. The study said 2020 marked the third consecutive rise in military spending for the US after seven years of continuous reductions. Following the US in spending was China at $252 billion, a 1.9 percent increase from 2019. India came in third at $72.9 billion, followed by Russia at $61.7 billion. Notably, Russia’s spending was 6.6 percent lower than its military budget for the year. The UK was the fifth-highest spender at $59.2 billion.

Global rights group accuses Israel of apartheid, persecution By JOSEPH KRAUSS

JERUSALEM (AP) — One of the world’s best-known human rights groups said Tuesday that Israel is guilty of the international crimes of apartheid and persecution because of discriminatory policies toward Palestinians within its own borders and in the occupied territories. In a sweeping, 213-page report, the New York-based Human Rights Watch joins a growing number of commentators and rights groups who view the conflict not primarily as a land dispute but as a single regime in which Palestinians — who make up roughly half the population of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza — are systematically denied basic rights granted to Jews. Israel adamantly rejects that characterization, saying its Arab minority enjoys full civil rights. It views Gaza, from which it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005, as a hostile entity ruled by the Islamic militant group Hamas, and it considers the West Bank to be disputed territory subject to peace negotiations — which collapsed more than a decade ago. Human Rights Watch focused its report on the definitions of apartheid and persecution used by the International Criminal Court, which launched a probe into possible Israeli war crimes last month. Israel rejects the court as biased. Citing public statements by Israeli leaders and official policies, HRW argued that Israel has “demonstrated an intent to maintain the domination of Jewish Israelis over Palestinians” in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, coupled with “systematic oppression” and “inhumane acts.” “When these three elements occur together, they amount to the crime of apartheid,” it said. As to the charge of persecution, the group cited “grave abuses” in the occupied territories, including land confiscation, the systematic denial of building permits, home demolitions and “sweeping, decades-long restrictions on freedom of movement and basic human rights.” The report cites a range of policies it says are aimed at ensuring a Jewish majority in Israel and lands it intends to keep, while largely confining Palestinians to scattered enclaves under overarching Israeli control, with policies that encourage Palestinians to leave. While such policies are far more severe in the occupied territories, HRW said they can also be found in Israel itself, where Palestinian citizens, who make up roughly 20% of the population, face widespread discrimination when it comes to housing, land access and basic services. Omar Shakir, the author of the report, said that from the heady early days of the peace process in the 1990s up until the Obama years, “there was enough there to question whether there was an intent for permanent domination.” But with the demise of the peace process; Israel’s plans to annex up to a third of the West Bank, which were put on hold but never abandoned; its massive expansion of settlements and infrastructure linking them to Israel; and the passing of a controversial nation-state law favoring Jews — many say it’s no longer possible to view the current situation as temporary. “Prominent voices have for years warned that Israeli conduct risked turning into apartheid,” Shakir said. “This 213-page report finds that the threshold has been crossed.” Israel rejected the report. Human Rights Watch “is known to have a long-standing anti-Israel agenda,” the Foreign Ministry said. “The fictional claims that HRW concocted are both preposterous and false.” Israel’s supporters reject allegations of apartheid, pointing to the existence of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which administers scattered West Bank enclaves under agreements signed in the 1990s. Israel and the Palestinians have held several rounds of peace talks since then that included discussions of Palestinian independence but were unable to reach a final agreement. Eugene Kontorovich, director of international law at the Kohelet Policy Forum, a conservative Israeli think tank, said the Palestinians were responsible for their fate. “They have chosen it by rejecting alternatives,” he said. HRW and other rights groups say that despite the existence of the Palestinian Authority, Israel maintains overarching control over nearly every aspect of Palestinian lives in both the West Bank and Gaza. Israel has exclusive control over 60% of the West Bank, its borders and airspace, and imposes restrictions on movement and residency. The nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers living in the West Bank have full Israeli citizenship, while the territory’s 2.5 million Palestinians live under military rule. The disparity could be seen in Israel’s successful coronavirus vaccination campaign, with shots freely offered to settlers but largely denied to their Palestinian neighbors. In Gaza, an Israeli blockade imposed after Hamas seized power has largely confined 2 million Palestinians to the coastal strip and decimated the economy. Israel imposes heavy restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza, as does neighboring Egypt. The agreements reached in the 1990s were intended to be temporary, pending an historic peace accord that would establish a Palestinian state in most of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 war. But that kind of agreement appears farther out of reach than at any point in the last three decades. Israel is dominated by right-wing parties opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state. Neither of the rival Palestinian governments in the West Bank or Gaza commands a national movement that could make major concessions, even if Israel were willing to do the same. Many have concluded that a negotiated two-state solution — still widely seen internationally as the only way of resolving the conflict — will never happen. Instead of focusing on maps and borders, they call for equal rights for Jews and Palestinians in one binational state, a confederation or some other arrangement. Kontorovich, voicing a common Israeli criticism, accused HRW of unfairly singling Israel out and trying to delegitimize it. “Why say it’s apartheid? Why not just say Israel has some discriminatory policies that we don’t like?” he said. “Because for discriminatory policies, what do you do? You change the policies. ... What do you do with an apartheid regime? You have to replace it.” Human Rights Watch does not adopt a position on what a final agreement should look like, but says any attempt to resolve the conflict must recognize the reality on the ground. “The underlying issue is structural repression and discrimination,” Shakir said. “You need to address rights abuse and then create a context in which there can be a political solution that all parties reach.”

India: A peep into Hindutva narratives of Bengal’s history

Note: my latest book: Bangladesh: A Polarized and Divided Nation? - deals with Maratha invasion on Bengal and its impact on the people. Here below is an article shared from sabrangindia.in that shows how the Hindutvadis are exploiting religion in the 2021 election in India. - Habib Siddiqui ===== sabrangindia.in The whole thrust of the RSS-BJP election campaign for 2021 state assembly elections in Bengal has been to save Bengal from the rule of Mamata Bannerjee who is not a ‘Hindu’. PM of India, Narendra Bhai Modi, a self-proclaimed Hindutva nationalist, as usual set the polarising agenda. While addressing the first election rally, he called upon the electorate to overthrow the ‘nirmam’ (cruel) rule of Mamata by showing a ‘Ram Card’. He did not name Hindus directly but there was no confusion about the religious identity of the electorate Indian PM was addressing to. [1] Amit Shah, the RSS-BJP Chanakya or the main strategist for Bengal polls minced no words in exposing the anti-Hindu Mamata Banerjee. According to him, “school teachers in Bengal were beaten up for organising ‘saraswati puja’. The TMC dispensation does not allow Saraswati puja celebration in schools.” [2] Amit Shah kept on harping upon the theme that Mamata-led government was behind the infiltration of the Bangladeshis [meaning Muslims] in Bengal “who are loved dearly by Didi”. Thus, Mamata Banerjee was indulging in appeasement of Muslims. He added another crime of Mamata against Hindus when he alleged that the latter did not get permission for doing visarjan [immersion] after Durga Puja under Mamata government’s rule.” [3] How the star ‘Hindu’ campaigner from Bengal Suvendu Adhikari targetted Mamata Bannerjee for chanting ‘Inshallah’ [Allah-willing] and ‘Khuda Hafiz’ [Khuda takes care] used by Muslims and not ‘Jai Shri Ram’ was made clear by Monideepa Banerjie, a Bengal based renowned journalist in the following words: “A campaign that has seen Suvendu Adhikari of the BJP repeatedly addressing Mamata Banerjee as ‘Begum’ [Muslim lady], repeatedly referring to the threat of Nandigram turning into a mini-Pakistan if she is voted to power, repeatedly warning people that if the Trinamool wins this time, the Hindus will not be able to wear the traditional dhoti and the traditional tilaks (the smear of red on the forehead.)” [4] RSS-BJP also fielded Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, a hard-core Muslim basher and anti-secularist as a prominent campaigner after Modi and Amit Shah. In a series of meetings, he declared Trinamool Congress (TMC) led by Mamata Bannerjee as a party which was opposed to the chant of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ [Hail Sri Ram]. Yogi was confident that that the public would definitely punish the ‘Ramdrohis’ [disloyal to Rama]. Yogi Adityanath, in an election meeting held in the first week of March (2021), went to the extent of describing Mamata Banerjee-led TMC as an organisation which was opposed to God (‘bhagwaan’) in the state. Since festival of colours, Holi was few days away, he reminded the audiences, “Holi will be celebrated after few days. Holika is lit on the day of Holi. Holika also opposed God.” He was seeking votes for RSS-BJP so that anti-god party like TMC meets the fate of Holika. It was not difficult to miss the connection between female demon Holika and a female leader Mamata. Mamata needs to be destroyed. [5] Adityanath while attacking Mamata Bannerjee kept on referring to other anti-Hindu crimes of her borrowing from the RSS hateful propaganda literature. Cow slaughter, smuggling and ‘love jihad’ were happening due to the ‘appeasement politics’. Without naming Muslims, he kept on stating that “appeasement politics for the sake of vote bank has endangered the security of not only West Bengal but also of the country.” He also kept on telling the audiences that the raising of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ slogan was not allowed in West Bengal, Durga Puja was banned so the TMC government should be punished for “playing with their religious sentiments”. What did he mean by ‘their’ was not difficult to surmise. [6] Those of us who are familiar with the RSS-BJP’s propaganda mechanism would know that mere allegations of anti-Hindu crimes of Mamata Bannerjee were presented as truth without offering any proof. Interestingly, the Left and to some extent Congress competing with TMC in these elections criticized her for appeasing the Hindutva forces in Bengal. Economist, social justice thinker and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen expressed his indignation at “the fanning of the dangerous flames of communal divisions [that] has not occurred as strongly in Bengal since 1946.” According to him the saddest part has been that “one of the major political contenders in the electoral battles portrays a part of the ‘insider’ population of Bengal — in particular, Bengali Muslims — as less deserving of support, while deriving their strength from the support of Hindu activists coming originally from outside Bengal, the dividing lines are hard to be kept pure”. [7] UP chief minister Adityanath has been reminding the electorate in Bengal that “the national leadership of the BJP and every worker of the party has come here to connect to the Bengali brothers and sisters to re-establish the identity of Bengal and carry forward a new change through this.” In the light of the totality of the content of his speeches during the current Bengal elections or otherwise it is too obvious to know that Adityanath’s reference to Bengali brothers and sisters meant Hindus of Bengal only. [8] Interestingly, it is not for the first time in the history that Hindus of Bengal are being promised liberation from the anti-Hindu rulers by the outsider Hindus. RC Majumdar (1880-1980) was a doyen among Indian historians whose works on ancient India and freedom struggle are rated highly. He is even described by the Hindutva scholars as a true ‘Bhartiya’ historian. He narrated how once Marathas promised to establish ‘Hindu Raj’ [Hindu rule] and what the consequences were. According to Majumdar, “There are good grounds to believe that some such idea was present in the mind of the great Peshwa Baji Rao 1 (1700-1740), and he openly preached the ideal of Hindu Pad Padshahi (Hindu empire). This ideal evidently helped him in great deal, as the Hindu Zemindars and ruling chiefs showed active sympathy with the Maratha cause. But, unfortunately, this ideal was not systematically pursued, and seems to have been altogether given up by his successors. As an evidence of this, we may cite two positive facts. “In the first place, when the Marathas invaded Bengal during the reign of Alivardi Khan, they terribly oppressed the Hindus and Muslims alike. Contemporary Bengali records seem to indicate that the Hindus of Bengal at first regarded the Marathas as deliverers from the yoke of the Muslims, but the incredible atrocities perpetrated by the Marathas completely alienated the Hindus from them. Secondly, it is a well-known fact that far from enlisting the sympathy and support of the great Rajput chiefs, the Marathas terribly oppressed them and made them their enemies. [9] Sir Jadunath Sarkar (1870-1958), again a renowned historian, held no brief for Islam or Muslim rulers in India. In fact, he is regarded as a narrator of the Hindu history during the Mughal rule. However, his description of the Maratha invasion of Bengal in 1742, too, makes it clear that this army of ‘Hindu nation’ cared least about honour and property of Hindus of Bengal. According to Sarkar, “the roving Maratha bands committed wanton destruction and unspeakable outrage”. [10] Sarkar, in his monumental work on the history of Bengal, quoted eyewitnesses to relate the stories of sufferings of Bengali Hindus at the hands of Marathas. According to one of the eyewitnesses, Gangaram, whose testimony was reproduced by Sarkar, the Marathas snatched away gold and silver, rejecting everything else. Of some people they cut off the hands, of some the nose and ear; some they killed outright. They dragged away the beautiful women and freed them only after raping them. [11] Another eyewitness, Vaneshwar Vidyalankar, the court Pandit of the Maharaja of Bardwan, thus narrated the horrifying tales of atrocities committed by the Marathas. “Shahu Raja’s troops are niggard of pity, slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brahmans and the poor, fierce of spirit, expert in robbing the property of every one and committing every kind of sinful act.” [12] What the RSS-BJP is attempting to accomplish as champions of Hindus of Bengal is not a new strategy of the ruling classes when faced with challenge to its dehumanized exploitative rule from its own people. Karl Marx, in his monumental work, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), brilliantly, highlighted this character of the rulers who when faced with periods of revolutionary crisis, “Anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle-cries and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honoured disguise and this borrowed language.” [13] *Views expressed are the author’s own. References: [1] https://theshillongtimes.com/2021/02/08/bengal-got-nirmamta-in-mamatas-rule-pm/ [2] https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/amit-shah-egra-rally-religious-freedom-under-bjp-rule-1781872-2021-03-21 [3] https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/politics/amit-shah-slams-mamata-banerjee-over-infiltration-in-west-bengal-confident-of-bjps-win.html [4] https://www.ndtv.com/blog/in-nandigram-begum-mamata-vs-suvendu-the-traitor-2403225 [https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/suvendu-adhikari-mamata-banerjee-hindu-mantras-minority-appeasement-1777663-2021-03-10 [5] https://www.republicworld.com/india-news/politics/up-cm-yogi-adityanath-takes-on-west-bengal-counterpart-mamata-banerjee-at-malda-poll-rally.html [6] https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/uttar-pradesh-smuggling-love-jihad-appeasement-politics-yogi-adityanath-west-bengal-malda-mamata-banerjee-1774771-2021-03-02 [7] https://www.telegraphindia.com/west-bengal/west-bengal-assembly-elections-2021-amartya-sen-backs-local-not-central/cid/1813094 [8] https://www.indiatoday.in/elections/west-bengal-assembly-polls-2021/story/uttar-pradesh-smuggling-love-jihad-appeasement-politics-yogi-adityanath-west-bengal-malda-mamata-banerjee-1774771-2021-03-02 [9] Majumdar, R. C., History of the Freedom Movement in India, vol. i (Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay, 1971), pp. 2-3. [10] Sarkar, Jadunath (ed.), The History of Bengal- Muslim Period 1200 A.D.–1757 A.D., volume ii, (Delhi: BR Publishing, 2003), (first edition 1948), 457. [11] Ibid., p. 457. [12] Ibid., p. 458. [13] Marx, Karl, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, in Karl Marx–Frederick Engels Collected Works, Vol. 11, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979), p. 130.

Twenty Years Of The War On Terror by Hunter DeRensis

We’re approaching the 20th anniversary of the Global War on Terror when the George W. Bush administration made the decision to ruin the 21st century. Trillions of dollars spent, a permanent and expanding war bureaucracy on our shores, upwards of a million civilians dead, tens of millions more displaced, entire regions of the globe destabilized, and the American people no safer than they were on September 10. When the immensity of the nefariousness is laid bare, a normal man is tempted, in the words of satirical cynic H.L. Mencken, “to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” That is the conclusion when one finishes Scott Horton’s Enough Already: Time to End the War on Terrorism, which stands as the most irrefutably argued and damning indictment of modern U.S. foreign policy yet written. Published on the anniversary of Operation Desert Storm, its release date is a distressing reminder that, with a brief respite from 2011 to 2014, the United States has been bombing Iraq continuously for 30 years. Add Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and a dozen other countries, and the cascade of errors (and worse) can overwhelm the reader. Indefatigable localist writer and TAC luminary Bill Kauffman once called the unasked question of American foreign policy, “What does this war mean for my block, my neighborhood, my town?” Horton’s answer, as biting as it is accurate, is that the American people have gained nothing from the War on Terrorism “beyond, perhaps, increasingly necessary technological advancements in the manufacture of prosthetic limbs.” The schizophrenic demeanor of Uncle Sam is summarized succinctly: The U.S. backed the Arab-Afghan mercenaries and terrorists and then fought them; backed Saddam Hussein and then fought him; backed the Taliban and then fought them; worked for Sadr, then fought him; fought al Qaeda in Iraq, backed them, and then fought them again; worked with Gaddafi, Assad and the Houthis against al Qaeda, and then fought all of them too—for al Qaeda. Does that sound right to you? According to majorities of Republicans, Democrats, veterans, and every other polled demographic, that does not sound right. If there is one through-line in Enough Already, it is the contempt that the managerial elite hold for the average American and his antiquated loyalty to fellow citizens. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, should the focus of the United States have been apprehending Osama bin Laden and those responsible? “I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him,” President Bush said, after his obstinance allowed the terrorist leader to escape from Tora Bora. “I truly am not that concerned about him.” Should the U.S. military be used as a tool to knock off secular dictators, inversely advancing the strategic goals of either the Islamic Republic of Iran or Sunni jihadists? Yes, according to every think tank report produced in Washington or Tel Aviv in the 1990s and 2000s. Should the American government provide training, weapons, and money to terrorists sworn loyal to Ayman al-Zawahiri, the butcher of New York City, in the most treasonous operation since the Rosenbergs? Try to ask the late Senator John McCain, who took selfies with the Northern Storm Brigade in Syria just years after their members were shooting American servicemen in Iraq. Or Foreign Affairs, the flagship journal of the Council on Foreign Relations, which published numerous articles with innocuous titles like “Accepting al Qaeda.” Horton represents the pinnacle of citizen journalism, a man outside major media institutions who feels more comfortable at a skatepark than a newsroom. When the Washington Post op-ed page was disseminating disinformation about WMDs in Iraq, Horton was debunking “aluminum tubes” to any stranger who transited his taxicab on the way to the Austin airport. The disparity between Horton’s history of U.S. foreign policy and the narrative perpetuated by the corporate press is depicted in an exchange between the author and Charlie Savage, “probably the second or third least-worst reporter at the Times.” When confronted about his publication’s circulation of a false report about Russian bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Savage counseled Horton, “I think you have overlearned the lessons of the pre-Iraq War reporting failures—almost 20 years ago now—and see that dynamic as the norm rather than the aberration that it was.” May all sensible Americans “overlearn” the lessons of the Iraq war! According to Horton, the lessons are: “These wars are already lost. There is no victory or stable peace to be had in any of them. If the U.S. must stay until its goals have been accomplished, then that is not opposition or skepticism, but a blank writ for another two decades of war.” The path towards absolution is clear. Sweep aside the insufferable patricians who scorn our nation. Stop invading other countries. End the drone war. Abandon the quest for universal empire. Bring our troops home. And be satisfied with the advice of that great statesman of Idaho, William Borah, who told us to “hold fast to those political principles and foreign policies which others call provincialism but which we call Americanism.” Hunter DeRensis is communications director for BringOurTroopsHome.US and a regular contributor to The American Conservative.

Shooting revives criticism of Israel’s use of deadly force By JOSEPH KRAUSS

JERUSALEM (AP) — Hours after Israeli soldiers shot and killed Osama Mansour at a temporary checkpoint in the occupied West Bank, the military announced that it had thwarted a car-ramming attack — but the facts didn’t seem to add up. By all accounts, Mansour had initially stopped his car when ordered to do so. His wife, the mother of his five children, was sitting in the passenger seat. And after the soldiers sprayed the vehicle with gunfire, killing him and wounding her, they declined to arrest her as an accomplice. Witnesses say the soldiers killed Mansour for no apparent reason, part of what rights groups say is a pattern of fatal shootings of Palestinians by Israeli forces under questionable circumstances. The debate over the soldiers’ conduct echoes that over the high-profile police killings of Black Americans in the United States. The conviction this week of former Minneapolis, Minn., police officer Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd, who police initially said had died of a “medical incident” during a “police interaction,” drew attention to the accuracy of official statements about deadly encounters. In its initial statement, the Israeli military said the vehicle had accelerated “in a way that endangered the lives of the soldiers” and that forces opened fire to “thwart the threat.” But shortly afterwards, the military said the shooting was under investigation, without elaborating. A military spokeswoman declined to answer detailed questions about the incident submitted by The Associated Press, including whether the army still believes it thwarted an attack. Somaya, the widow of the deceased, says her husband took her to see a doctor in the early hours of April 6. On the drive back to their home village of Biddu they passed through the village of Bir Nabala, just outside Jerusalem.They saw Israeli troops and armored jeeps up ahead, a common sight in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli forces often carry out overnight arrest raids. “I said ‘There’s a checkpoint, Osama, stop,‘” she told the AP. “He said ‘I see it,’ and he stopped like the other cars.” She said two soldiers came over to the car with their rifles pointed at them. One of them ordered Osama to shut off the ignition, and he complied. The soldier asked where they were from and what they were doing, and they told him, she said. “He said ‘Fine, OK, go.’ So we started the car, we moved forward, and a second later they opened fire,” she said. “I froze out of fear, with broken glass falling over my head and the sound of bullets. It was very scary.” She said the car veered back and forth. She called out to her husband to go faster, then saw that he was slumped between the seats and took the wheel until they reached some people who helped them get to a hospital. “There was blood all over the floor, so much blood,” she said. “I was asking about Osama, I was crying out for him. They said he was in the operating room, for four hours he was in the operating room, and finally they said he had died.” The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem says it interviewed two witnesses who largely corroborated her account. Roy Yellin, a spokesman for the group, said the fact that Somaya was not arrested strongly indicates that the military did not think it was an attack. She has been summoned for questioning next week, but there’s no indication Israel views her as a suspect. "The army is not very conservative about detaining Palestinians who are suspected of anything,” Yellin said, pointing to the routine arrests of protesters and stone-throwers. B’Tselem has documented severalsimilarincidents in recent years, in which Israeli forces said they opened fire to prevent car-ramming attacks, killing or wounding Palestinians, only to later back away from the claims without making arrests or pressing charges. “There’s a very trigger-happy approach in the West Bank in which Palestinians are guilty until proven otherwise,” Yellin said. The army’s suspicions are not always unfounded. In recent years, Palestinians have carried out a series of stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks that have killed or wounded Israeli soldiers and civilians. Military checkpoints in the West Bank are a frequent target. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. Defenders of the military say soldiers must make split-second decisions in life-or-death situations. International law and the Israeli military’s rules of engagement say lethal force can be used in life-threatening situations. But rights groups say Israel often falls short of that standard and rarely punishes wrongdoing by its security forces. B’Tselem says it stopped referring such cases to military authorities in 2016 after concluding that doing so was ineffective. Yellin says Israel only prosecutes wrongdoing in rare cases in which there is overwhelming evidence. Even then, soldiers often get light sentences. The military said it investigates every incident in the West Bank in which a person is killed. “In cases where a deviation from the rules is found, steps are taken according to the circumstances of the case,” it said. The military pointed to an incident in March 2019 in which a soldier shot and killed a Palestinian after mistaking him for another individual suspected of throwing stones at passing Israeli vehicles. Under a plea bargain, the soldier was sentenced to three months in prison and demoted, it said. The International Criminal Court will likely scrutinize Israel’s handling of such cases as part of a probe it launched earlier this year into possible war crimes. Israel has condemned the investigation, which was requested by the Palestinians, and says the court is biased against it. Earlier this month, Israel said it would send a formal letter to the ICC rejecting its mandate. Israel denied committing any such crimes and said it was able to investigate and prosecute any violations by its forces. That was two days after Mansour was shot dead. Israel is not a party to the ICC, but Israelis could be subject to arrest in other countries if the court hands down warrants. In the meantime, with little hope for accountability, Somaya is left to raise her five children alone. “After Osama, what am I supposed to do with my life?” she said. “It’s over.” ___ Associated Press reporter Jelal Hassan in Biddu, West Bank, contributed.

Over 100 Palestinians Injured after Israeli Extremists March through Jerusalem

Over 100 Palestinians were injured and 50 others were detained in nightly violent clashes with Israeli police and Jewish settlers amid simmering tensions surrounding the holy month of Ramadan in the occupied city of East Jerusalem. Violent clashes broke out between extremist Jewish settlers and Palestinians after some 300 extremist Jewish settlers marched towards Damascus Gate outside the Old City of Jerusalem, shouting “Death to the Arabs” and “Arabs get out” late on Thursday. The settler march was organized and led by Lehava, a Jewish supremacist anti-miscegenation group whose members physically assault Palestinians suspected of dating Jewish women and whose leader, Bentzi Gopstein, also expressed support for burning down churches. Policemen fired stun grenades, tear gas and water cannons against Palestinians who attempted to confront the settler march, and some of whom threw stones and bottles, injuring over 100 and detaining some 50 others. The Palestinian Red Crescent sources said that at least 105 Palestinians were injured, including 22 who sustained moderate injuries and required hospital treatment. The others were treated at the scene. The clashes spread to other parts of the occupied city of Jerusalem, including the Sheikh Jarrah, Musrara, the French Hill colonial settlement, al-Tur and Wadi al-Joz, and lasted until the early morning hours of Friday. Meanwhile, dozens of Jewish settlers took to Highway 1, the main highway which separates West and East Jerusalem, intercepting vehicles to identify Jerusalemite Palestinians and assault them, as Israeli police did nothing to stop them.The past ten days have seen night-time clashes between police and worshippers in the East Jerusalem, with tensions mounting over the police decision to ban people from sitting on the stairs outside Bab al-Amoud, also known as Damascus Gate, under the guise of implementing the coronavirus restrictions, and its decision to disconnect the power supply to the call to prayer at the mosque compound. For many Palestinians in Jerusalem and across the occupied Palestinian territory, Ramadan is directly connected to the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Al-Aqsa Mosque compound houses both the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque and is considered the third holiest site in Islam. Al-Aqsa is located in East Jerusalem, a part of the internationally recognized Palestinian territories that have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967. (WAFA, PC, Social Media)

Capitalism as a Suicide Cult BY ROB URIE

From the launch of the U.S. war against Iraq to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic there were over four million ‘excess deaths’ in the U.S., deaths over and above the rates experienced in other rich nations. Given the class distribution of longevity— the rich live a full decade longer than the poor on average, these excess deaths were overwhelmingly concentrated amongst those cast aside by neoliberal economic policies. Should this read as old news, the Lancet provides updated data suggesting that as of early 2021, none of the underlying causal factors have been resolved. Interpretation is that as devastating as the Covid-19 pandemic has been, to date it has been but a bit worse than business as usual in the U.S. of A. This will no doubt read as a surprise, implausible even, to the managerial class, the PMC, who have benefitted from government policies that have favored them, and the financial economy in general. But consider: excess deaths as measured here (explained below) are relative to rich European nations that saw the same drop in economic growth as the U.S. in the Great Recession, but who also saw a secondary downturn in 2013 – 2014 that didn’t occur in the U.S. Assigning blame on the Great Recession requires looking past both different experiences in other rich nations, and that the problem both preceded, and followed, the Great Recession. It is peculiar to American-style neoliberalism and the much, much poorer nations. Graph: excess deaths, defined as a rate of deaths (per 100,000) relative to a benchmark, was high and growing prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. Given that the U.S. population is younger than the benchmark population, excess deaths should in theory have a minus sign on them. Instead, it totals over four million excess deaths since 2003. The causes: alcoholism, drug addiction and suicides, indicate a society in decline. Source: OECD. This point— that the problems causing such widespread social misery are systemic, means that the solutions need to be so as well. To understand why, the difference between socialism and social welfare liberalism is that socialism requires a redistribution of power— from corporate executives and capitalist owners, to workers. A transfer of power, if not ownership, is what the New Deal accomplished. Conversely, welfare state liberalism subsidizes capitalism. One third of the recipients of food stamps (SNAP) who work, work at Walmart. Seventy percent work. SNAP is a subsidy of low wage employers, not its recipients. The transfer of power of the New Deal was accomplished 1) through reforms that constrained business in its ability to rob people and crash the economy, and 2) through building public institutions that redistributed power from oligarchs and executives to workers. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated investment from commercial banking, thereby leaving investment banks to speculate with their own money. This effectively ended the financial mania that cascaded into the forced sales of bank ‘assets’ in the early years of the Great Depression. As readers know, Glass-Steagall was repealed in 1999. The result: a world-historical residential real estate bubble and the Great Recession. Early in the Covid-19 pandemic, several trillion dollars was transferred from public coffers to Wall Street to assure that bankers would be able to buy-up the assets of the pandemic dead and dying at fire sale prices. The current housing bubble— inflation-adjusted home prices are back to where they were at the peak of the last housing bubble in 2006, is being driven by hedge and private equity funds buying residential real estate to rent it back to those who can no longer afford to buy a house. In other words, one new, New Deal has already taken place. The Federal government stepped in to secure the incomes, power and wealth of the rich. The effort was bi-partisan. That effort represented the second chance in a generation to implement a transfer of power downward through transforming ‘the economy.’ Had the Federal government done nothing, power would have been transferred through ‘markets.’ The S&P 500 at a level of 500 would redistribute a lot of power. What this means is that efforts made by the Federal government and the Federal Reserve to elevate stock prices redistributed a lot of power upward to the richest 10% of the population. The point: if power can be redistributed upward— as it has been, it can also be redistributed downward. Graph: Life expectancy, both absolute and relative, is another way to consider death rates within and amongst nations. The U.S. has a much higher number of ‘excess deaths’— deaths over and above a benchmark number, than other rich nations. In the late 2010s, this resulted in absolute declining life expectancy in the U.S. In relative terms— relative to a benchmark that combined Canada, France, Germany and the U.K., the U.S. began the 2000s two full life-years below the benchmark. Then between 2003 – 2019, relative life expectancy in the U.S. declined another 1.3 years. The U.S. population is younger than that of the benchmark, meaning that age should have worked in the opposite direction. Source: OECD. The data on excess deaths is provided to make the point that while the pandemic is a calamity, for much of the U.S., it is just one more in a long series of calamities. In fact, income levels have determined life expectancy for decades. Economic class reflects concrete differences in how people live. It isn’t a psychological malady as the term ‘economic anxiety’ suggests. This relationship of class to longevity has held irrespective of which party controls government. The relationship in the U.K. is directionally the same, but the difference in life expectancy is half as much. In other words, life expectancy is a policy choice. The American war against Iraq was launched in 2003, making it a logical starting point in considering the question of rising excess deaths. According to counts of U.S. war dead, only 4,500 or so Americans (and 300,000 – 3,000,000 Iraqis) died as a result of the War. The other precipitating factor was that between 2001 and 2010, approximately six-million manufacturing jobs in the U.S. disappeared (graph below). This ended the paychecks and the health insurance coverage of six million workers as it economically devastated communities and entire regions of the U.S. Given that slow and fast suicide— alcoholism, drug addiction and shooting oneself, are leading causes of excess deaths, the latter seems the better explanation. Graph: left out of the ‘White working-class’ storyline of economic dispossession is that manufacturing facilitated the Great Migration of Blacks from the rural South to the industrial North. Deindustrialization explains the relative immiseration of the (disproportionately large) Black, urban, working class that has taken place since the 1960s. This kind of ‘sectoral’ explanation— where Blacks disproportionately work in dying industries while Whites work in rising industries, usually implies that market capitalism determined which industries are rising or dying. Nonsense: NAFTA versus the Federal Reserve. Source: St. Louis Federal Reserve. While the decline of manufacturing employment is widely known— enough so that it has been given a special place in the renewed culture wars, it is widely understood to be an historical artifact. In fact, policy decisions leading to deindustrialization were serially made over the last half century. From the perspective of ‘markets,’ dumping six million former manufacturing workers into the deindustrialized hellscape of rust-belt towns and cities reduced wages and economic security for all workers. Furthermore, the financial economy that replaced it has been being bailed out since the ‘Greenspan put’ began in the late 1980s. Apparently unbeknownst to its members, the PMC— the financialized analog of the communist bureaucrats of 1950s pulp novels, doesn’t produce anything. For those alive and conscious in the early-mid-1990s, entire layers of the corporate ‘facilitators’ of capitalism were unceremoniously tossed on the economic trash heap. The employment recession that doing so represented was far out of proportion to drop in economic production that had defined the post-WWII relationship of economic growth to employment. The current bureaucracy of lobbyists, money managers, realtors and health insurance workers could similarly be written out of gainful employment with the flick of a pen. To understand how this works, consider the money management business. A Wall Street bank issues equity or debt on behalf of another financial services company. Money managers invest existing money on behalf of ‘investors,’ mostly the richest ten or so percent of the population. For performing this service, the money manager takes a percentage of the money it invests. Because overhead is low, profits are high in that business. This profitability allows the money manager to sell equity, and / or debt in its own business, which is then bought by another money management firm on behalf of its investors, that then earns a percentage of the money invested. Money, a claim on things of value, is the only thing of value that is produced. A service is performed— investing. But the entire edifice of managers, consultants, analysts and salespeople is ultimately a bureaucracy that is leveraged on the business of making things. Without things being made, there is nothing for the PMC to buy. In theory, this bureaucracy of ‘facilitators’ grows the economic pie, and in so doing, causes more to be produced than otherwise would be the case. But if the people who make things are expendable, why aren’t the facilitators? Again, this lightbulb went off in the early-mid 1990s, with the result that they were canned en masse. Wall Street didn’t recover its 2007 level of employment until 2017. The Federal government and the Federal Reserve stepped in with every tool they had to save markets and the people and firms that ‘facilitate’ them. Recall, as this was taking place, six million manufacturing workers were being cut loose. At the peak of the housing bubble of the early-mid 2000s, drywall installers in California were reportedly earning $300,000 per year. Should the existing bubbles in house and financial asset prices ever be allowed to deflate, they would take a lot of the PMC down with them. Today’s corporate brand consultant earning $450,000 per year might find that their next opportunity is restocking oil filters at Pep Boys. Lest this point elude readers, should six million members of the PMC be ‘freed’ to compete with the stocking staff at Pep Boys, wages at Pep Boys would decline. Giving the displaced PMC six months of additional unemployment benefits would be better than not doing so, but it wouldn’t solve the problem of more workers than jobs. In the 1930s FDR created nine new agencies, and built out six more, to provide employment for the unemployed doing work that served a social purpose. In so doing, the New Deal redistributed power away from the rich and corporate executives to workers. The question that separates claims of a new, New Deal from delusional chatter is: does it transfer economic and political power from corporate executives, oligarchs and Wall Street to workers. And if so, to which workers? To understand the motive for the question, here is a list of New Deal programs. None of them were public-private partnerships in the neoliberal sense. Had FDR not garnered popular support for the New Deal, its Wall Street and industrialist opponents would have eaten him alive. The way FDR did this was to reduce their power while building power from below. Welfare state liberalism enhances the power of capital. Socialism redistributes it away from capital to workers. In the parlance, this is the difference between ‘transformational’ change and superficial reforms intended to paper over problems. Should this language frighten, transformational change was shit-canning six million manufacturing workers while elevating corporate brand, yacht and wellness consultants. No one in DC is afraid of transformational change. They have been engineering it for the last half century. This is why a third of the country is on suicide watch. Again, the degree of social misery that would motivate 350,000 – 450,000 people per year to not care enough about living to continue doing so makes it the measure by which the U.S. should be judged. To understand the politics around Federal programs as they unfold, the question is: does they transfer power from the rich, Wall Street and corporate executives to workers and the poor? A Federal Job Guarantee could be a transfer of power away from private employers. This is why they hate the idea. It would place a floor under private wages, provide gainful employment to the reserve army, and put people to work doing something more socially constructive than ‘brand consulting.’ Social welfare liberalism is the transfer of money without a transfer of power. The question for the social welfare approach is: what will people do to earn a living? The ability to leverage the economy that makes things is finite— the greater the leverage, the greater the risk of calamity. Imagine a circumstance where some fair portion of PMC jobs go poof and there is nothing to replace them with. This is partly why Barack Obama chose to save Wall Street. Writer Ron Suskind spent a lot of his book Confidence Men following Mr. Obama as he pondered the question. The answer? That was how what’s his name got elected. If you want to put the politics in context, follow the distribution of power. Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book Zen Economics is published by CounterPunch Books.

Further evidence in case against Indian activists accused of terrorism was planted, new report says

NEW DELHI — An unknown hacker planted more than 30 documents that investigators deemed incriminating on a laptop belonging to an Indian activist accused of terrorism, a new forensic analysis finds, indicating a more extensive use of malicious software than previously revealed. The report will heighten concerns about the controversial prosecution of a group of government critics under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Arsenal Consulting, a Massachusetts-based digital forensics firm, examined an electronic copy of the laptop at the request of defense lawyers. The Washington Post reviewed a copy of the report. A previous analysis by Arsenal, which The Washington Post reported in February, found that 10 letters had been deposited on the laptop, including one that discussed an alleged plot to assassinate Modi. The latest report by Arsenal finds that 22 additional documents were also delivered to the computer by the same attacker. The documents — now totaling 32 — have been cited by law enforcement as evidence against a group of activists accused of working with a banned Maoist militant group that has waged a decades-old insurgency against the Indian state. Known as the Bhima Koregaon case, the prosecution is considered a bellwether for the rule of law in India. Human rights groups and legal experts view the case as an effort by the government to clamp down on critics. The space for dissent has diminished in Modi’s India, where journalists, activists and members of nongovernmental organizations have faced arrest and harassment. The activists accused in the case deny the charges against them. They include a prominent academic, a labor lawyer, a leftist poet, a Jesuit priest and two singers. All are advocates for the rights of the country’s most disadvantaged communities and vocal opponents of the ruling party. Many of them have been jailed for nearly three years as they await trial. The two reports by Arsenal focus on a laptop belonging to Rona Wilson, a Delhi-based activist. In February, lawyers for Wilson submitted the first report to a court in Mumbai and urged the judges to dismiss the charges against their client. The court is expected to hold a hearing on the petition. Jaya Roy, a spokeswoman for the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the anti-terrorism authority overseeing the case against the activists, said an analysis by a government forensic laboratory did not indicate that the laptop had been compromised by malware. She did not provide details on how the laboratory reached that conclusion. “Our investigation is complete,” Roy said. The NIA cannot revisit “any evidence based on a private lab’s report.” The Washington Post asked three experts on malware and digital forensics in North America to review Arsenal’s initial report, and they found its findings valid. A fourth expert reviewed both reports and said the conclusions were sound. In its latest report, Arsenal includes data it recovered from the laptop showing the attacker typing commands to deliver documents to a hidden folder. It’s the equivalent of a “videotape of someone committing the crime,” said Mark Spencer, Arsenal’s president. Arsenal has so far conducted its work on the reports on a pro bono basis, Spencer said. Founded in 2009, Arsenal performs computer forensic analysis for companies, law firms and government agencies, and it has provided expert testimony in cases such as the Boston Marathon bombing. In the Indian case, an attacker used NetWire, a commercially available form of malware, to compromise Wilson’s laptop for nearly two years starting in 2016, Arsenal said. The latest report shows that 22 additional documents were placed in a hidden folder on Wilson’s computer. They include details of purported meetings of Maoist militants, alleged correspondence with Maoist leaders and details of funds received by the banned group. Two other files were stored in a folder on the Windows drive of the laptop. Unlike the other 22 files, Arsenal could not confirm they were delivered specifically by NetWire. But it found no evidence of any legitimate interaction with the documents and called their location in an unrelated application folder “suspicious.” Arsenal’s “step-by-step” explanation of how the 22 documents were delivered is very clear and experts in the field “would draw all the same conclusions” based on that data, said Kevin Ripa, president of the Grayson Group of Companies and an expert in digital forensics. The compromising of Wilson’s computer was just one element of a larger malware campaign. The same attacker also targeted his co-defendants, Arsenal said. Eight people seeking to help the activists, too, received emails with malicious links that deployed NetWire, according to a report from Amnesty International. Several of the same domain names and Internet protocol addresses were used to target both the activists and their associates. Most of the IP addresses are assigned to HostSailor, a web-hosting and virtual private server company whose website indicates it is based in the United Arab Emirates. HostSailor declined to respond to requests for comment on whether it was aware of the reports or had taken any action in response to them. The case against the activists has its origins in a clash that unfolded on Jan. 1, 2018, in a village known as Bhima Koregaon following a memorial event celebrated by Dalits, who occupy the lowest rung in India’s caste hierarchy. The investigation into the violence, which left one dead, rapidly expanded into a wider probe of conspiracy against the Indian state. The authorities alleged that the clash was linked to the Communist Party of India (Maoist), a banned militant group based primarily in the forests of central India. Earlier this month, 22 security personnel were killed in an apparent ambush by militants, the worst such incident in nearly four years. The most recent activist to be jailed in the Bhima Koregaon case is an 83-year-old Jesuit priest named Stan Swamy. He is the oldest person in India to be arrested on terrorism charges. Swamy suffers from Parkinson’s disease and requires help to bathe and write letters, said Joseph Xavier, a priest and close friend. Swamy has spent more than six months in jail during the coronavirus pandemic. Swamy lives in Jharkhand, one of the poorest states in India, where he works for the rights of Indigenous tribal communities. He has spearheaded campaigns challenging the acquisition of tribal land and the detentions of tribal youths on flimsy or no evidence. In a video recorded before he was arrested, Swamy said he and other activists were being targeted because they had “expressed their dissent or raised questions” about India’s ruling party. On a recent phone call from jail, Swamy’s chief concern was the well-being of his colleagues and the organization he ran, Xavier said. Even in moments of hardship or pain, Swamy “will not complain,” his friend said. “That is the kind of person he is.” They were accused of plotting to overthrow the Modi government. The evidence was planted, a new report says. India’s government is arresting lawyers and activists amid accusations of plotting to overthrow Modi He is a prominent anti-Modi intellectual. The Indian government wants him behind bars.

Every Dollar of Aid to Israel Breaks This U.S. Law

Brian McGlinchey This fiscal year alone, the U.S. government will redistribute over $3.8 billion in American wealth to the government of Israel—violating federal law every step of the way. While having amassed upwards of 200 nuclear warheads, Israel is not a member of the the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—unlike every other state on Earth other than North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan. That makes U.S. aid to Israel illegal under the Symington Amendment of 1976, which bars economic and military assistance to countries that acquire nuclear reprocessing technology without submitting to international safeguards and inspections. The law was reinforced by the Glenn Amendment of 1977. Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal: A Not-So-Secret Secret Where its arsenal is concerned, Israel is said to pursue a policy of “nuclear ambiguity”—neither confirming nor denying its existence. For nearly 50 years, the U.S. government has played along. However, in the face of overwhelming information in the public domain—including revealing statements by U.S. officials—the government’s implicit and explicit professions of ignorance of Israel’s nuclear weapons program long ago grew farcical. The most glaring of that public information surfaced in 1986, when former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu spilled the beans on Israel’s nuclear weapon program to the British Sunday Times, providing photos and details from his eight years working at the country’s Dimona nuclear facility in the Negev desert. Israel’s retaliation was swift: Using a female agent posing as an American tourist, Israel’s Mossad lured him to Italy, where he was drugged, abducted and smuggled to Israel on a freighter, where he was prosecuted and sentenced to 18 years in prison. More pointedly underscoring the dishonesty surrounding American aid to Israel, there have been many occasions in which the U.S. government and its officials have either quietly or inadvertently acknowledged the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons. Here’s a small sampling: A declassified 1974 National Intelligence Estimate declared “We believe Israel has already produced nuclear weapons.” In 2006, then-incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who had previously served as Director of Central Intelligence, told a Senate committee that Iran is “surrounded by powers with nuclear weapons—Pakistan to their east, the Russians to the north, the Israelis to the west and us in the Persian Gulf. Wikileaks published a 2015 email to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from an assistant secretary of state who declared “what Israeli military leaders really worry about—but cannot talk about—is losing their nuclear monopoly.” In a hacked 2015 email, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told a colleague “the boys in Tehran know Israel has 200 (nuclear weapons), all targeted on Tehran.” Under pointed questioning in a 2018 press conference, now-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, “It is a well-known fact that Israel has nuclear weapons.” Perversely, U.S. government employees who dare discuss or release information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program—and thus illuminate the ongoing criminality of U.S. aid to Israel—would themselves be subject to prosecution, thanks to a secret classification directive issued by the Obama administration. The two-page gag order was released in 2015 in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. Other than the title—“Guidance on Release of Information Relating to the Potential for an Israeli Nuclear Capability”—nearly every word has been redacted. How to Make Aid to Israel Legal Again Short of repealing or amending Symington and Glenn amendments, there are two ways aid to Israel can become legal. First, Israel could join the NPT. That’s not going to happen anytime soon. Here’s why. There are two categories of NPT membership: nuclear-weapon states (NWS) and non-nuclear-weapon states (NNWS). Since NWS status is only open to states that built and detonated a nuclear weapon before 1967, Israel and others can only join now as non-nuclear-weapon states. That means Israel would have to not only acknowledge its nuclear arsenal, but then completely dismantle it under international supervision. There’s a much simpler way to restore the legality of American aid to Israel: Both the Symington and Glenn Amendments allow presidents to waive aid restrictions by certifying in writing to the Speaker of the House and the Senate foreign relations committee that “termination of such assistance would…jeopardize the common defense and security.” Those waiver provisions have been used before, with India and Pakistan. Issuing a waiver for Israel, however, would equate to formally proclaiming the country’s status as a nuclear power. Particularly today, that kind of publicity would be deeply unappreciated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government and its domestic U.S. champions, who continue cultivating an ongoing, manufactured crisis regarding Iran’s alleged but likely nonexistent nuclear weapons ambitions. Lawsuit Seeks to Force Compliance with U.S. Law With the executive and legislative branches showing no sign of obeying the Symington and Glenn amendments anytime soon, one man has turned to the judicial branch to restore compliance. In 2016, Grant F. Smith, who leads the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep), filed a lawsuit against the federal government, seeking an injunction against the continuing flow of illicit aid to Israel. Smith alleged that the government and named defendants, including then-President Obama and CIA Director John Brennan, “have collectively engaged in a violation of administrative procedure and the Take Care Clause by unlawful failure to act upon facts long in their possession while prohibiting the release of official government information about Israel’s nuclear weapons program.” The case is still working its way through the federal courts. In the meantime, President Biden and Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle continue making a mockery of U.S. law, and American wealth keeps flowing to Israel, a country that—while ranking 100th in worldwide population and 153rd in area—is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II.

A Palestinian Prayer for Ramadan: May the Voices of the Oppressed Be Heard by Ramzy Baroud

COVID-19 cases in Palestine, especially in Gaza, have reached record highs, largely due to the arrival of a greatly contagious coronavirus variant which was first identified in Britain. Gaza has always been vulnerable to the deadly pandemic. Under a hermetic Israeli blockade since 2006, the densely populated Gaza Strip lacks basic services like clean water, electricity, or minimally-equipped hospitals. Therefore, long before COVID-19 ravaged many parts of the world, Palestinians in Gaza were dying as a result of easily treatable diseases such as diarrhea, salmonella and typhoid fever. Needless to say, Gaza’s cancer patients have little fighting chance, as the besieged Strip is left without many life-saving medications. Many Palestinian cancer patients continue to cling to the hope that Israel’s military authorities will allow them access to the better equipped Palestinian West Bank hospitals. Alas, quite often, death arrives before the long-awaited Israeli permit does. The tragedy in Gaza – in fact in all of occupied Palestine – is long and painful. Still, it ought not to be classified as another sad occasion that invokes much despair but little action. In fact, the struggle of the Palestinians is integral to a larger struggle for fundamental human rights that can be witnessed throughout the Middle East which, according to a recent Carnegie Corporation report, is one of the most economically unequal regions in the world. From war-torn Libya to war-torn Syria, to Yemen, Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and many parts of the Arab and Muslim world, the dual tragedy of war and want is a scathing reminder of the price ordinary people pay for frivolous power struggles that yield nothing but more uncertainty and achieve nothing but more hatred. Once more, the holy month of Ramadan visits the Muslim Ummah while its tragedies are still festering – new conflicts, unfinished wars, an ever-expanding death toll and a never-ending stream of refugees. Sadly, not even Ramadan, a month associated with peace, mercy and unity, is enough to bring about however fleeting moments of tranquility, or a respite from hunger and war for numerous Muslim communities around the world. In Palestine, the Israeli occupation often takes even more sinister turns during this month, as if to intentionally compound the suffering felt by Palestinians. On April 14, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and preacher of Al-Aqsa Mosque called on Arabs and Muslims to intervene so that Israel may cease its harassment of Palestinians at the holy shrines of Al Quds – occupied East Jerusalem. Aside from the increased attacks by Jewish extremists, who are now storming Al-Aqsa Mosque at a significantly higher rate than ever before, the Israeli occupation authorities have "removed the doors of the Mosque’s minarets, cut the electrical wires of loudspeakers to prevent the Adhan (call to prayer) and seized (Ramadan) iftar meals, in addition to threatening to storm the Mosque on the final days of the holy month of Ramadan," Sheikh Hussein said in a statement. Israel fully comprehends the spiritual connection that Palestinians, whether Muslims or Christians, have to their religious symbols. For Muslims, this rapport is further accentuated during the holy month of Ramadan. Severing this connection is equal to breaking the collective spirit of the Palestinian people. These are only a few examples of a multifaceted and deeply rooted tragedy felt by most Palestinians. Numerous similar stories, though of different political and spatial contexts, are communicated every day throughout the Muslim world. Yet, there is no meaningful discussion of a collective remedy, of a strategy, of a thoughtful answer. Ramadan is intended to be a time when Muslims are united on the basis of a wholly different criterion: where political and ideological differences disappear in favor of spiritual unity which is expressed in fasting, prayer, charity and kindness. Unfortunately, what we are witnessing is not Ramadan as it was intended to be, but different manifestations of the holy month, each catering to a different class – a painful but true expression of the disunity and inequality that have afflicted the Muslim Ummah. There is the Ramadan of boundless wealth, finely catered iftar meals, coupled with endless, cheap entertainment. In this Ramadan, platitudes are often offered about charity and the poor, but little is delivered. There is also the Ramadan of Palestine, Sudan and Yemen, of the Syrian refugee camps and of little dinghies dotting the Mediterranean, carrying thousands of desperate families, holding little but their hope of a better future beyond some horizon. For them, Ramadan is a stream of prayers that the world, especially their Muslim brethren, may come to their rescue. For them, there is little entertainment because there is no electricity and there are no massive iftar feasts because there is no money. "Dua" is Arabic for supplication. For the oppressed, dua is the last resort; at times, even a weapon against oppression in all of its forms. This is why we often see bereaved Muslims raising their open palms to the sky whenever tragedy has befallen them. Ramadan is the month where the poor, destitute and oppressed raise their hands to Heaven, beseeching God in various accents and languages to hear their prayers. They are reassured by such hadiths – sayings of Prophet Mohammed – as this: "The supplications of three persons are never turned away: a fasting person until he breaks his fast, a just ruler and the supplication of the oppressed which is raised by Allah above the clouds, the gates of Heaven are opened for it, and the Lord says: By my might, I will help you in due time." There has never been a more critical time for the Ummah to work together, to heal its collective wound, to uplift its downtrodden, to care for its poor, to embrace its refugees and to fight for its oppressed. Many Muslim communities around the world are aching and their pain is unbearable. Perhaps this Ramadan can serve as the opportunity for social justice to be finally enacted and for the oppressed to be heard so that their hymn of torment and hope may rise above the clouds.

FORSEA co-founder Dr Maung Zarni shares his expert view of the Burmese military

On 20 April, Dr Maung Zarni joined the 2-hour expert-discussion on Myanmar’s troubling situation since the February 1, 2021 coup against the democratically elected government of National League for Democracy. Better known as a human rights activist, Maung Zarni’s research has focused on his country’s military affairs over the last 30 years. His presentation at the Democracy Forum – broadcast live on YouTube – focused on the institutional history with Fascist DNA and its short-lived attempts at professionalisation of the military by the martyred founder General Aung San and his successor General Smith Dunn, an ethnic Karen trained at the British Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, Surrey. He pointed out that the institutional character of the Tatmadaw as government military, and the mindset of the officer corp were single-handedly moulded by the late general Ne Win, the dictator who was trained in Tokyo’s Kempeitai Training Academy, which was dismantled in 1945, following Japan’s unconditional surrender. Ne Win led the Tatmadaw from February 1949 till his official resignation as head of state of Burma in July 1988. Of the Fascist military units of WWII Japan’s imperial military, the Kempeitai were a cross between Nazi SS and Gestapo, and were principally responsible for the Rape of Nanking, “Comfort Corps” (where thousands of Korean women were organized as sexual slaves for Japanese troops across Asia) and other mass-atrocities such as forced labour throughout the Fascist-occupied Southeast Asia. Maung Zarni highlighted the 4-deeply disturbing features of the Tatmadaw:    neo-Feudalist practices of regional commanders treating their regions as “fiefdoms”, with blanket impunity;  neo-Fascist ideological orientation, that is, extreme racist, ethno-nationalism;  well-organised Mafioso with a web of familial ties between top generals and Chinese cronies who manage the generals’ vast ill-gotten gains  across Southeast Asia and Asia’s money-laundering bank systems in China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand; and  the neo-colonial modus operandi in the regions of national minorities such as Kachin, Karen, Shan, Chin, Mon, Kayah, and so forth.  Zarni argues that contrary to the state-centred view of western journalists and Burma experts, which has for decades promoted that empirically false view of the Tatmadaw as “the glue” that keeps the country’s myriad and restive ethnic groups together, the Tatmadaw has been the single most divisive and destablising institution in diverse ethnic nations who formed a voluntary Union of Burma in the last days of the British rule post-WWII.The FORSEA co-founder offered two pieces of evidence – namely, first, a radical shift in popular consciousness that now views the national armed forces like a Fascist occupier with terroristic behaviour towards virtually all communities throughout the country and second, the emergence of a recognizably inclusive, tolerant society at large, across ethnic, racial, religious and class lines. He pointed out that the public now embrace Rohingya genocide victims as part of the country, and have publicly issued apologies to Rohingyas and other national minorities who have borned the brunt of the Tatmadaw’s systematic and sustained repression over the last 70-years.He finally contended that the reconciliation between this terroristic Tatmadaw and the society at large is inconceivable. The multi-ethnic society has ostracized anything Tatmadaw and is demanding the establishment of the multi-ethnic Federal Army befitting a Federal Democratic system.  The Full Programme: ’Myanmar coup: a blow to democracy’ - A Live Seminar.

Renegotiating JCPOA: Biden, Europe and Iran BY ROBERT FANTINA

While this writer never felt that the inauguration of Joe Biden as president would usher in a period of Utopia for the United States, he at least felt that he had climbed out of the rabbit hole into which Alice, in the form of the Electoral College, had shoved him four years earlier. But, in true Orwellian form, black is white and white is black under this new administration. And nowhere is this bizarre view more pronounced than in the context of the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). Let us set a baseline of understanding. After years of negotiations, the U.S., under President Barack Obama (don’t get this writer started on him), Iran and several other nations signed an agreement that limited Iran’s nuclear development program, in exchange for the lifting of many sanctions issued against that nation. This was good news all around: many nations had a major new market for their goods, Iran was able to export its own products and services, and the world, bizarrely, breathed a sigh of relief that Iran would not develop the nuclear weapons that its spokespeople always said it never had any interest in anyway; its nuclear program was for peaceful purposes only. We will only pause here to mention that the only nation that kicked up any fuss about it was Apartheid-Israel, whose prime minister, the currently-indicted Benjamin Netanyahu, actually spoke to the U.S. Congress, imploring the members of that august body not to approve the agreement. Alas and alack for Netanyahu, his pleas fell on deaf ears. Anyway, in 2015, the agreement went into effect. United Nations weapons inspectors were given full and free access to any site in Iran they wanted to visit, and the U.S. Congress certified quarterly that Iran was in completely compliance. But what to our wondering eyes should appear in November of 2016, but a fat, red-faced but far-less-congenial-than-a-merry-old-elf creature not bringing gifts to all sundry, but blustering his way to an Electoral College victory, thus becoming president. This writer hastens to state that he chose not to vote for either of the odious candidates put forth by the Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle Dee (aka Republican and Democratic) Parties, but opted for a third-party candidate instead (Gloria LaRiva of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, in case you are interested). Donald Trump blasted his bloated person onto the U.S. political scene, fueled by racism, Islamophobia, homophobia, misogyny and a hatred of all things Obama, including the JCPOA. Calling it ‘the worst deal ever’ (but certainly not as bad as the one the world got with his presidency), he violated it in 2018, withdrawing from it, re-issuing brutal sanctions, and threatening to sanction the U.S.’s European allies if they, too, didn’t violate it. Iran responded by continuing to maintain compliance for a full year longer. Enter the elderly Joe Biden who, as a candidate, promised to re-enter the agreement. However, once elected, he began dancing to a somewhat different tune. The U.S., he proclaimed, would be happy to come back into full compliance with the JCPOA if Iran did first. The government of Iran, very reasonably, demurred. Since it was the U.S. that had first violated the agreement, and since it was Iran that had suffered the severe economic hardships from U.S. sanctions, and since the U.S. government had very clearly proven that it could not be trusted, Iranian government officials said that that nation would be happy to comply fully, once all sanctions were lifted. In the last few days, this writer has been reading articles about how Iran is not taking negotiations seriously, and that the U.S. wants some assurances that Iran will cease its terrorist activities and human rights abuses. My, my! What statements coming from U.S. government sources! Let us look at a few facts about the U.S. + The U.S. has 655 of every 100,000 members of its population in prison. Iran has 228. And prisons in the U.S. utilize ‘disciplinary’ tactics that are widely seen as torture by the standards of international law. + The U.S. supports anti-Syrian terrorists in Syria, ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinians and countless other terrorist activities. The Iranians know this all too well since the U.S. government overthrew their democratically-elected government in 1953 and replaced it with a brutal dictator who reigned for decades. Iran supports its allies, including the Syrian and Yemeni governments. + One wonders just how, in the name of all the stars in the heavens, the U.S. can possibly proclaim that Iran must not have nuclear weapons, when the U.S. is the only nation ever to have used them (and against two civilian populations of no military importance whatsoever), and supports the rogue nation of Israel, which possesses them? So where this disconnect from reality originates can be guessed; the U.S., wanting to save face following its disgraceful withdrawal from an international agreement that had almost universal support, is now trying to make Iran look like the unreasonable party. The U.S. citizenry may buy into it; Iran is a mostly Muslim nation, and Islam is the U.S.’s current big bad wolf. But despite the apparent acquiescence of some governments (see France; Germany) to the U.S.’s fanciful dictates, much of the global community will simply shake its collective head in disbelief. ‘There goes the U.S. again’, they may say, ‘pretending to be the guardian of international morals while going about the world spreading death and carnage everywhere’. Same old, same old. One hopes that someone in the Biden administration will bring the president back down to earth, but one is not hopeful. The one thing that the U.S. can never do, under any circumstances whatsoever, is lose face. To admit that a mistake was made, even by a president who was viewed everywhere but in Israel as a dangerous joke, whose petty squabbles with world leaders, celebrities, opposition party members and even members of his own party were played out on the international stage, had taken the U.S. dangerously off course, is simply not allowed. No, the U.S. must always be right, even when the consequences of not admitting a mistake bring the world closer to a major and potentially globally-devastating war. Perhaps this writer never escaped the rabbit hole after all. Robert Fantina’s latest book is Propaganda, Lies and False Flags: How the U.S. Justifies its Wars.