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librewolf · 9 months ago

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[Graphic: Netanyahu's War, Emad Hajjaj, Alaraby Alijadeed Newspaper, London] By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD How to Distinguish between Moral Beings and Beasts of War? Human beings as a species were created by God on the best “possible structure of creation”, as the most intelligent moral beings on this Earth given a choice of being righteous versus evil-mongering and therefore, recognized by our character and actions. Do the Israeli and American war planners know the consequences of their evil-mongering? Are they waging the war of insanity against the innocent people of Gaza and the West Bank (Palestinian) attempting to avoid their end of history and inundation? If Israel and the US leaders ever claimed any moral and intellectual values, surely they were misinformed and delusional? “Hell on Earth” – warns the conscientious global community from all spectrums of reason with more than 41,000 civilians massacred, more than 91, 355 injured, more than 16,000 children and women still buried under rubble and unaccounted for, and the rest of humanity under continuous bombardment by the Israeli war machine supported and aided by the US-supplied weapons of mass destruction. Even the hospitals, places of worship, schools, graveyards, and safe zones are not spared by the Israeli war agenda. Israeli leaders reportedly have dropped more than four equal to Hiroshima nuclear bombs on Gaza. International observers spell out the tragic events: words cannot describe the humanitarian calamities and sufferings of the besieged people of Gaza and the West Bank. Are the global institutions of peace, security, and conflict management fast becoming obsolete in a real crisis? And global humanity is captive of the US-Israel’s intransigence and plans never experienced in recent times. History is repeating the cruel insanity - the cursed evil of egoistic power - the unstoppable insanity of the war continues unabated. The professed animosity is against Islam and Israel spearheads the killings of Muslims throughout Palestine to end the freedom movement for an independent State of Palestine. Evil is inseparable from the political agenda. When sinisterism and unacknowledged motives conduct the affairs of life, the people, societies, and policymakers become abnormal, disfigured, and lose their sense of rational direction. President Biden and Secretary Blinken continued to deceive the humanity of a ceasefire deal since May, 24 except it was a delaying tactic to complete the crimes against humanity and open Gaza to new Israeli settlers. It was PM Netanyahu and Israel who were not sure of a ceasefire and peace in the region. Thousands of concerned Israeli citizens march daily and hold continuous night vigils in Tel Aviv to demand peace, the resignation of Netanyahu, and an immediate ceasefire for the safe return of 100 or so hostages. Netanyahu’s political goal was to flatten Gaza and he has done it without any challenge. The cycle of dreadful humanitarian crises unfolding in Gaza and across Palestine is baffling as if global humanity and institutions do not exist for anyone other than Americans and Israel-allied Europeans. The war scenario emboldens Netanyahu‘s political absolutism – an egoistic leader with a controversial profile will do his utmost to pursue his unbridled ambition whether by manipulation, violence, or new conflicts. The current paradigm links directly to PM Netanyahu’s affiliation with extreme Jewish Ultra Nationalists to deny the Palestinian people their right to exist as an independent State and to dismantle the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Please see: “Al-Aqsa Mosque Waiting for the Arab Leaders”. The Israel-American Collaborative War against Earth, Muslims, and Humanity The UK Government is one of the staunch supporters of the Israeli war against Gaza. British Prime Minister Starmer claims Islam and Mohammad are at the epicenter of challenges and animosity towards democracy and liberal values.“UK politicians are whipping up an anti-Muslim panic. Where’s the evidence?” is the headline appearing in the Middle East Eye magazine (UK), and The Sun:

Our real problem is with Islam itself and will remain so because we have no choice but to confront the Islamic flow and Islamic thought in all ways…...*Our differences are not really with the Islamic peoples or the ruling regimes, because the regimes revolve around us and derive their survival from us, and implement our policies that serve Western national security first, regardless of their national security….*Our real problem lies with Islam and Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam because it is a civilized religion that has detailed answers to all existential and civilizational questions, and it is a stubborn competitor to Western civilization, which has begun to lose its brilliance, while Islam and Muhammad are becoming increasingly brilliant even within our European societies, which liberal values have allowed freedom of thought and weakened the authority of the Church, and this free and abstract thinking has led many elites and youth to embrace Islam, because they found in it all the answers to their psychological, spiritual, existential and social needs that our contradictory civilization has drowned them in. Those bombing and destroying the Earth and its life cycle are not normal human beings. Were the ancient people of the Stone Age more intelligent and responsible for not destroying the earth and environment in wars keeping mankind in safety and unity? The Earth is a Divine living entity and a trust to mankind. American-supplied weaponry massacred more than 41,000 innocent people of Gaza, 16,000 children and women, and several thousand buried under the rubble; and Israel bombed and destroyed the habitats and its citizens for no other reason except intransigence and hatred against Arabs and Muslims. If the original population of Gaza and West Bank-Palestine happened to be Jews or Christians, the bombing and destruction were unthinkable. “ It is only wrong doers stand as Protectors- one to another; But God is the Protector of Righteous” clarifies the Divine message. (Quran: 45;19). Another clarification spells out the truth: “We have not created the Heavens and the earth and whatever is between them in sport: We have not created them but for a serious end. But the greater part of them understand it not.” (Quran: Chapter 44: 38) The Earth belongs to all humanity and is a living entity. It rotates itself at a speed of 1000 miles per hour at the equator and orbits the Sun at an average speed of 67062 MPH. The Divine warning (Chapter 7: 56: The Qur’an), tells: Do no mischief on the Earth after it hath been set in order, but call on God with fear and longing in hearts; For the Mercy of God is always near to those who do good. Earth is a trust to humanity and trust includes accountability. The Earth sustains all forms of living things(known and unknown), the essential foundation of our very existence. Pathologically wicked leaders and nations claiming to be most powerful start acting like God to challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God; historically, they become an object of unthinkable natural calamities- earthquakes, wildfires, floods, deaths, and destruction.“Say! Travel through the earth; And see what was the end of those who rejected Truth.” spell out the annals of human history. Those who are bombing and causing catastrophic events to destroy the planet Earth and mankind and all of its treasures and enrichments are not normal human beings. And the killing of innocent people is prohibited in the Ten Commandments (Torah): 'Thou shalt not kill' (Exod. 20:13; also Deut. 5:17). Jewish law views the shedding of innocent blood very seriously, and lists murder as one of three sins (along with idolatry and sexual immorality), that fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor - meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it. Arab-Muslim Leaders Waiting for the End-Game Sigmund Freud (Civilization and its Discontent, 1930) noted that “the inclination to aggression is an original self-subsisting instinctual disposition in man, and that it constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization.

” The Arab Middle East is no exception. The game is the same “do nothing” and talk loudly. In a global age of knowledge and information, Arab -Muslim leaders cannot pretend to be ignorant and unaware of the catastrophic humanitarian crisis unfolding daily on the television screen. Most are corrupt egoistic puppets of the West enjoying life within the palaces guarded by foreign mercenaries. The alleged war crimes and genocide in Gaza warranted swift action to safeguard human lives entrapped in the war zones - why did the UNO not organize a force to protect the civilians in war zones across Gaza and the West Bank? Caitlin Johnstone (“Opposing The Gaza Genocide While Supporting Biden Is A Dishonest” 04/29/24), offers rational insight into many concerns: You really couldn’t put together a more incoherent position if you tried. You can’t acknowledge that Israel is committing genocide without also acknowledging that the Biden administration has been actively participating in that genocide. If you acknowledge that Biden is guilty of genocide, then you are acknowledging that he is guilty of the most horrific crime a state leader can possibly commit short of initiating a nuclear exchange…..Those who are supporting Biden while opposing the destruction of Gaza do not have any kind of integrity. They’re just wearing whatever mask is politically convenient based on the way the winds are blowing on a given moment, while continuing to support the US-centralized empire which cannot be sustained without nonstop tyranny and bloodshed. Animals live and do not reflect on the imperatives of life whereas, we, human beings, cannot act like animals as we are supposed to be intelligent and responsible species on this Earth. At the edge of reason, the notion of evil leads to the realization that evil and the tyranny of war must be stopped by all means, and those responsible for the genocide and crimes against humanity must be held accountable to restore the manifestation of a sustainable human future. Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and is the author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany, 12/2019.

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librewolf · 1 year ago

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[Photo: Night bombing of Gaza. Abed Rahim Khatib – Anadolu Agency via MEM] By Domenica Bianca [su_box title="Editor's Note" style="glass" box_color="#870c14" title_color="#F6CE5F"]This poem was written in 2014 by Domenica Bianca during one of the many such attacks on Gaza by Israel over the decades. Ms. Bianca died several years ago, but her voice still speaks meaningfully. She was a friend of another author who sometimes shares her vision here, Elizabeth West. May the time come when Earth's children can watch light streak across the sky with wonder rather than fear. [/su_box] [su_divider top="no" divider_color="#1f7081" size="6"] Domenica Bianca [caption id="attachment_35930" align="aligncenter" width="570"] Comet Hale-Bopp, 1997 (PhilippSalzberger.[/caption] Comet: A celestial body having a head and elongated luminous tail that orbits the sun along a highly eccentric course. Our name for it is based on a figurative resemblance between it and humans. Comets have been feared throughout much of human history. ~ Under cover of a holy holocaust-shadow, with its twisted barbwire words, streak bombs of a nation’s own abomination: demon-body missiles slaughter-purge their Prey Pray Over celestial-body babies without cover: splintered streaks of light, now flash-charred body-abominations razed into Gazan smoke and grief: bone-rubble of blood. Under cover of starry reverberations, a Graveyard of Comets… burnt surge of belonging.

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librewolf · 1 year ago

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[Photo: Banner at Harvey Milk Day march (Scott Thomas)] By Declan Goldenbogen Source: Freedom Socialist Party [su_box title="Editor's Note" style="glass" box_color="#870c14" title_color="#F6CE5F"]As a lesbian, being an activist has been a lifelong pursuit for my survival and the survival of humanity. Early on I realized that the fight to be seen and treated as a human being impacted not just me but everyone who was counted as less than human because of characteristics far beyond our control. While that included sexual orientation, it also included sex (and gender), race, class, doctrine, and ability. The mechanisms of stripping people of their humanity are hauntingly similar, and they hold the privileged in their place as effectively as they hold the dehumanized in ours.[/su_box] [su_box title="" style="glass" box_color="#870c14" title_color="#F6CE5F"]It is difficult for folks to see the privileged as being disadvantaged by these cruel systems of dehumanization - especially in a time when these actions are rising. In the United States, there are growing legislative efforts to actively strip gays and transpeople in particular of our rights, including rights to healthcare. As the rules around who is fully human and who is not deepen it also becomes narrower. It is social eugenics which can rapidly turn into biological eugenics. I turn 70 soon and it is with deep sadness that I watch the resurgence of so-called "culture wars". The "culture war" at its base is about civil rights. Millions of people in the U.S. and elsewhere have struggled to expand full human rights to people of color (or non-dominant racial groups), women, non-binary individuals, transexuals, class, caste, and non-dominant religious groups. Rights have been extended to non-homosapiens, and nature, or at least to the environment that supports us all. All of this is labeled as being "leftist", "woke" and even evil. It hurts me deeply and personally to see groups ripping through the garden we have so carefully tended and figuratively salting the Earth behind them. I would ask why, but I know the answer. It is not the Taliban or the MAGA Trumpians, but the highly crafted efforts of a handful of exceedingly wealthy individuals. These are not "Illuminati". Over the last few decades, they have worked ever more publicly to advance their interests at the expense of everyone else and the planet herself. We must be clear about what is happening and tell the truth wherever and whenever we can. And we must stand with each other. Regardless of our identity, color, or status, we are human and we all deserve a place in the sun. Come on, we have a garden to repair. [/su_box] [su_divider top="no" divider_color="#1f7081" size="6"] Declan Goldenbogen From bigotry in schools to inadequate healthcare services, LGBTQ+ young people in America face a laundry list of threats to their mental and physical well-being. But no amount of “anti-woke” legislation can suppress the unconquerable zeal of youth. Queer youth today are fortunate to live in a time when more and more people are comfortable identifying as something other than heterosexual. But this tide of unashamed self-acceptance is inconvenient to capitalism’s inflexible structure. To the ruling class, LGBTQ+ folk’s resistance to binary gender roles represents a threat to the systems of oppression rooted in capitalism’s need for classes of people they can pay less or keep unemployed. A tight grip on the “normal” nuclear family is more important to corporations’ bottom lines than the wellbeing of all. A matter of life and death For this reason, trans and queer youth face a deadly mental health crisis. Troubling statistics from The Trevor Project, a nonprofit focused on suicide prevention efforts for LGBTQ+ young people, show a large percentage, about 36%, of those aged 13 to 24 felt it was unlikely they would live to age 35. The 2023 mental health survey found that half had experienced symptoms of depression, and over 60% said the same of anxiety.

Suicide risk is also at an all-time high, with 41% of those polled having seriously considered suicide within the last year. Transgender youth are six times more likely to attempt self-harm. Compounding these issues is the poor state of U.S. healthcare, both mental and physical. LGBTQ+ youth are often reluctant to access healthcare services for fear of rejection or bigotry. Young people who face a lack of acceptance from their families have an even greater barrier, having to seek clandestine care. From the same Trevor Project survey, among the queer and trans youth who indicated wanting mental healthcare, 56% of them were not able to get it due to fear or utter lack of access. What’s important to note from these hair-raising statistics is not that LGBTQ+ youth are inherently predisposed to mental health struggles. Though homophobic authorities may insist otherwise, there is nothing “wrong” with or “broken” inside these young people. Their struggles come from extreme frustration and hopelessness caused by attacks from the capitalist system and its right-wing shock troops. The reasons for this crisis are not mysterious. Across the country, fearmongering politicians and right-wing parent groups are proposing invasive rules out of delusional paranoia. According to the ACLU a record 484 anti-LGBTQ+ bills have been proposed or enacted in the last year. Book banning, restroom policing, and barring transgender girls from sports, are only a few. Two in three polled by The Trevor Project cited this as a major factor in worsening their mental health, on top of issues like climate change, police brutality, poverty, and student loan debt. Almost 50% of Black trans youth said they felt unsafe at school due to a combination of racism and/or transphobia. Valuable time is spent on censoring sex education and restricting access to gender-affirming care, while sensible inclusive practices like respecting pronouns are mocked and resisted. Trans youth in particular face unbelievable legislative assaults. At least 23 states have banned puberty blockers or gender-affirming care for minors. The gruesome nature of this ugly public debate is felt intensely. Trans folks and nonbinary students also experience disproportionate physical violence in schools. For some, the negative attention is fatal. Nex Benedict, a non-binary 16-year-old from Oklahoma who committed suicide after being brutally beaten by peers in February, is just one example of a young person bullied to death for their gender identity. “Anti-woke” education officials, like some in Oklahoma, encourage an environment where hatred and violence surge unchecked. Bigots claim to “protect” young people, and if kids die along the way they don’t seem to mind. To them, each death is an opportunity to twist the narrative by shifting the blame onto the victim. Fighting for a world worth inheriting There’s another big reason why LGBTQ+ youth are targeted so severely: they are a powerful unstoppable force. They identify and condemn injustice, are highly organized and informed through social media, and after years of exhausting assaults, refuse to give up any gained ground or be crushed into capitalism’s mold. They recognize the need for solidarity, stand up for other oppressed groups, and understand that urgent action is required to face down fascism. Youthful energy and eagerness to build a better world are critical to achieving working-class liberation. In recent years, queer youth took to the streets with Black Lives Matter to demand cop accountability. Today, their determined activism adds fuel to the protests against Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. It is for LGBTQ+ youth and with them that we strive for a necessary and inevitable socialist feminist revolution. Send feedback to: [email protected].

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librewolf · 1 year ago

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[Photo: "Trump Buddies". Pat Bagley. The Salt Lake City Tribune, UT. 10/15/2018.] By: Henry A. Giroux Source: Truthout If recent swing-state polls are to be believed, Donald Trump could be on his way to potentially being reelected president. He embodies the overt, brutal, punishing symptoms of the racism, class warfare, and attacks on youth and women that have marred the United States since its inception. Beneath these not-so-hidden authoritarian undercurrents lies neoliberalism’s erosion of and attacks on critical and civic education. This ideology is characterized by a staggering indifference to human needs, systemic racism, intensified class warfare, the fear of living with difference, and a profound obsession with instrumentalist methods, such as racially discriminatory and class-based “zero tolerance” policies, and teaching that focuses on standardized testing outcomes. These issues have been exacerbated by a culture of “disimagination machines,” in which the ruling financial elite control all major media apparatuses. These tools of indoctrination relentlessly churn out manufactured ignorance and a shallow notion of self-interest, promoting a depoliticized notion of individualism. Additionally, these machineries of misinformation undermine the moral imagination’s power to empathize with the claims of others while undercutting the courage of individuals to see beyond the socially induced fog of a culture of immediacy. In this context, critical inquiry and thinking are divorced from the public imagination as sources of resistance. One consequence is that individuals and the larger public are thwarted from envisioning a future that advances democratic values of social and economic justice. The educational force of U.S. society is now dominated by cultural and political institutions such as Fox News and conservative talk shows that erode any sense of shared citizenship, historical consciousness and common vision. No longer part of a moral, civic and ethical project, cultural politics has increasingly degenerated into a repressive corporate-controlled pedagogical apparatus. Functioning as a right-wing war machine, far right cultural platforms battle critical ideas, language, social relations and values that highlight the promise of radical democracy. Under such circumstances, cultural politics are dominated by observation posts of pedagogical repression, transforming what historian Robin D.G. Kelley labels “freedom dreams” into freedom’s nightmares. Propaganda has become the political weapon of the 21st century, corrupting every form of education and every institution associated with the production of ideas, values and knowledge. This has undermined both the capacity for critical thinking and the concept of truth itself. The past does not simply live in the present; it is now being used to cancel out reason and justice as harbingers of a more democratic future. Furthermore, imagining a better world is no longer related to learning from the past. On the contrary, historical knowledge is now being erased as far right legislators ban ideas and subjects that reveal the legacy of slavery, Indigenous genocide, and repression. What Ralph Ellison once called “the shadows of our historical knowledge” are now being purged from public and higher education. No longer a crucial archive and “treasure trove of resources” that “gives shape and contour to present imaginings,” history and remembrance are being suppressed by the new McCarthyite assassins of memory, who engage in censorship, misinformation and political repression. What far right politicians and right-wing media make clear and want to suppress, as historian Tiya Miles observes, is that “U.S. history would not make sense without the study of slavery. Period.” The powerful influence of manufactured ignorance isn’t confined to the morally and politically vacuous right. The liberal mainstream media rarely summon up the truth or journalistic integrity by attacking gangster capitalism or inviting truly informed commentators who have addressed the roots of U.

S. fascism, criticized Israel’s war on Palestinians, addressed the plague of global neoliberalism, or analyzed the war on higher education. Nor do they uplift voices of those critical of the onslaught against reproductive rights, the attacks on oppositional journalists, the threat of nuclear war, the war on the ecological system, the far right war on democracy, the rise of the carceral state, and racial capitalism and systemic racism. The punishing state now wraps itself in mindless entertainment and cruel invective parading as political theater. Americans are bombarded with the babble of liberals who are too cowardly to name Trump as a fascist or as a racist, treating him as either a normal candidate or a bullying clown rather than as a symptom of a deeper malaise of fascism, echoing a pernicious and frightening past. The culture of Google, Instagram, Facebook and X is the enemy of historical consciousness. It is a place where history as a repository of resistance and record of violence dies, along with the power to learn from the past. Historical consciousness, civic courage, and historic movements of resistance are diluted, if not erased, in a culture awash in misinformation and the cult of the self — a culture of willed and commodified ignorance. In such an environment, informed thinking vanishes amid a relentless image-based tsunami of advertisements, reality TV, game shows, and a regressive tide of commodification, atomization and privatization. The spectacle swallows any viable notion of critical agency, turning out zombies consumed with the emotional release and satisfaction that comes with the embrace of bigotry. MAGA hats are the new symbols of a death culture. While there has been a historical tradition in the U.S. of civil rights advocates making education central to politics — especially with the emergence of Freedom Schools and the Highlander Folk School, among other popular cultural pedagogical institutions — too many on the left have neglected the importance of acknowledging the centrality of education to politics for years. In doing so, they have underestimated the pedagogical dimensions of struggle, the power of persuasion, and the pedagogical strategies necessary for challenging forms of domination and for shaping mass consciousness. The recognition that forms of domination are not merely structural but also intellectual and educational has once again emerged within the movements for Black lives, reproductive justice, LGBTQ rights and planetary justice. However, we must make the pedagogical more political and the political more pedagogical at all levels of society and in a wide range of institutions. With the exception of the vast work done in the field of cultural studies and critical pedagogy, many on the left have for too long downplayed matters of culture while focusing on structural analysis, often using jargon that sabotages their politics by functioning as a firewall of obscurity. I am not suggesting that the broad left use language and modes of analysis that are overly simplistic. On the contrary, it is crucial for us to hold the bar of analysis high while still being rigorous and accessible, so that people can recognize themselves in the rhetoric of persuasion and calls for economic and social justice. The U.S. is now home to a significant number of utterly reactionary, ignorant people who are complicit with a politics and social order that will ultimately destroy their dignity, welfare and agency — not to mention democracy itself. Authors George Orwell and Aldous Huxley could not have imagined a scenario where the merging of power and culture today works so insidiously to usher in fascism under the guise of electoral integrity. Trump and his followers have run the authoritarian gambit, supporting election fraud, aligning themselves with dictators, such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orbán, calling for racial cleansing, threatening violence against Muslims and immigrants, embracing antisemitism,

expressing a contempt for dissent, endorsing white Christian nationalism, calling for the jailing of alleged “enemies,” and expressing a contempt for democracy. Novelist Sinclair Lewis’s purported statement made 80 years ago, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross,” speaks presciently to a current brand of U.S. fascism that blends white Christian religious fundamentalism, ultranationalism, and a culture of lies and ignorance. This observation challenges the claim that fascism is limited to a specific historical period, suggesting that it offers no insights into the present. In The Black Hole of Auschwitz, Italian writer and Holocaust survivor Primo Levi rejects that view, asserting that the seeds of fascism are not only present in every society but are spread in a variety of ways, including through the use of a repressive culture and educational system. He writes: Every age has its own fascism, and we see the warning signs wherever the concentration of power denies citizens the possibility and the means of expressing and acting on their own free will. There are many ways of reaching this point, and not just through the terror of police intimidation, but by denying and distorting information, by undermining systems of justice, by paralyzing the education system, and by spreading in a myriad subtle ways nostalgia for a world where order reigned, and where the security of a privileged few depends on the forced labor and the forced silence of the many. The forces of fascism at work in the U.S. have grown from an endless series of assaults on democracy. The memory of fascism and its consequences are disappearing with the erosion of historical memory and a politics of erasure, most evident in the GOP’s banning of books, repression of dissent and whitewashing of history. Racism, nativism and a culture of cruelty now shape the mission of schools at various levels while broadcasting an insidious pedagogy of bigotry, hatred and white nationalism through various circuits, platforms and channels of culture. Equally insidious is the presence of Vichy-like politicians and celebrities condemning young people in the U.S. fighting for Palestinian freedom while facing police violence. These same individuals ignore (if not perpetuate) some of the most serious problems facing the globe. As the blood flows and tens of thousands die in Gaza, with reports of mass graves of Palestinian civilians becoming more public, the mainstream media dismiss and disparage campus protesters as uninformed and antisemitic. These accusations often serve to cover up the genocide in Gaza while highlighting the alleged moral indignation of far right antisemites in the GOP, such as the bullying New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Attacks on campus protesters have also come from Trump, who claimed in a speech to wealthy donors that if elected in 2024, he would expel student demonstrators from the United States, asserting that many of them are foreign students. He also praised the New York City Police Department for forcibly removing the protesters from Columbia University. Instead of condemning Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians, Trump stated that he supports Israel’s “war on terror,” while boasting of his support for Netanyahu’s Israel. Trump’s rhetoric of punishment and deportation is especially dangerous given his relentless admiration for dictators, support for authoritarian governance, and repeated calls for using state violence against his enemies, including Black people, immigrants and the dissident media. Moreover, Trump and his billionaire enablers despise democracy, aligning perfectly with Trump’s vision, as presented in a recent video, of a “unified Reich.” Those who attack higher education institutions as bastions of radical leftists are often the same ones who believe that Trump won the 2020 election and remain silent about his indictments, his lying, his endless threats of violence and his embrace of the language of dictators.

They’re also the same people who support the violent and racist rhetoric embraced by Trump and who claim, with no irony intended, that the people who ransacked the Capitol and carried out violence on January 6 are hostages instead of violent perpetrators. Individuals and groups who support this politically and morally bankrupt view of politics and education, including the indoctrination factories being produced in Florida and elsewhere, have nothing to be proud of. As enemies of democracy, they are either complicit in or willing to implement a counterrevolution in the U.S. against what they have rightly labeled (albeit for the wrong reasons) as the radical spirit of democracy embraced by various social movements in the 1960s. The moral and political degeneracy depicted in the film The Zone of Interest is no longer merely a subject of entertainment or far right distortion. It is a stark reality that no longer hides in the shadows of history. The film focuses on the horror of Auschwitz, which takes place removed from the suffocating cocoon of moral and political indifference defining everyday life. It prompts the viewer to analyze the brutality of the concentration camps through conditions not readily seen or visible. Death and massive suffering are explored through the lens of invisibility. The film makes clear that those who remain silent, look away, or find solace in comforting lies have become akin to the “good Germans” who looked the other way in the 1930s. The brutality of a fascist past is with us once again, bolstered by a merging of manufactured ignorance, the collapse of civic consciousness, and a plague of historical and social memory loss that invites a future too horrible to contemplate. Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include The Terror of the Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of Books, 2019), On Critical Pedagogy, 2nd edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis (Bloomsbury 2021); Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance (Bloomsbury 2022) and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-revolutionary Politics (Bloomsbury 2023). Giroux is also a member of Truthout’s Board of Directors. His website is www.henryagiroux.com

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librewolf · 1 year ago

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[Photo: Third mass grave found at al-Shifa hospital site May 8. 2024. Isrsel-Palestine News.] By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD [su_box title="Editor's Note" style="glass" box_color="#870c14" title_color="#F6CE5F"]The International Court of Justice has called on Israel to halt invasions into Gaza and to reopen the border at Rafah. The world calls out for an immediate cease-fire and to allow aid to flow freely into Gaza. the US government also backs a cease-fire while claiming that protests against Israel's continued invasion are "anti-Semitic" and a threat to Jews. Joining the media across the spectrum who have somehow missed the fact that many of the demonstrators are Jewish. AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) is a longstanding lobbying group that advocates pro-Israel policies in the US. They do NOT represent Jews in America, and they do support the continued march to the right in Israel that has brought Israel Netanyahu and his far-right coalition. [/su_box] [su_box title="Editor's Note" style="glass" box_color="#870c14" title_color="#F6CE5F"]While the NRA has successfully escaped blame for the mayhem on our streets and in our schools caused by guns,, should the US equally continue to reject blame for providing weapons of mass destruction to nations across the planet? This includes the billions of dollars in military aid to Israel raining down on Gaza, and killing tens of thousands of innocent people with no end in strike. It seems to me that the ones calling for an immediate cease-fire and allowing Palestinians the right to a government and a state are the only sane voices right now.[/su_box] [su_divider top="no" divider_color="#1f7081" size="6"] Mahboob Khawaja, PhD Silent Voices of Victims Waiting to be Rescued from the Rubble Political cynicism is characteristic of egomaniac leaders and is used to shield their wickedness and insanity against humanity even though they are wanted by the ICC for crimes against humanity and alleged genocide. There are contrasts and widening gulf between the Israeli-American perception of war on Gaza and how the global community views it as planned massacres of civilians putting finished answers to the freedom of Palestine and crimes against humanity. The masses of Gaza are the net victims of the ongoing war. International laws were imagined to cope with situations of exceptional crises during the 2nd WW. The laws on paper written in dry ink are not laws without a force to implement their meaning and objectivity. A favorite perversion is implied to question the facts of life as the US and some West European leaders are glued to individualistic interests to protect the Israeli leaders from systematic legal accountability. There appear to be sharp differences within the EU as the Republic of Ireland, Spain, and Norway announced to recognize the State of Palestine as a legitimate entity in global affairs. The ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan clarified “the day has come’ to seek arrest warrants for the Israeli PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Galant and some of the leaders of Hamas for the crimes against humanity under articles 7 and 8 of the Rome Statute, including “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare,” wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, willful killing or murder as a war crime, “intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population” and “persecution as a crime against humanity." Professor Michel Chossudovsky, the author notes: There is a complex history behind Israel’s October 2023 plan to “Wipe Gaza off the Map”. It’s genocide, an absolute slaughter......In a bitter irony, the ICC Prosecutor’s accusations against Palestine –which include alleged acts of “Extermination”, “Murder” and “Torture” (see ICC statement) suggest that the State of Israel rather than Palestine is the victim of Genocide. The Emperor Has No Clothes: The US and Israel’s Fallacy of Peace and Moral Integrity The US is a superpower today, but it could be a bewildered

powerless entity tomorrow as worldly power and economic influence are constantly changing and do not bring happiness and infinity. President Biden called the arrest warrants "outrageous," and Secretary Blinken asserts the US "fundamentally rejects the announcement." President Biden and PM Netanyahu maintain denial of the facts of the raging war when facts of life warrant a navigational change for an immediate ceasefire and peacemaking. Intelligent and responsible leaders always have a passion for facts, not fantasy. Today, two of Gaza’s hospitals (Al-Adwan and Al-Aqsa) in the Northern area were targeted by the IDF and medical staff, and 1300 patients were ordered to leave - Does this cruelty have another name? The US is complicit in making the war on Gaza. There are unexpected volcanic eruptions at major universities and students raising voices of reason and scholars challenging the Israeli onslaught on Gaza and demanding change in the US official policies and practices toward Israel. The Israeli leaders used American-supplied weapons to massacre more than 35,500 innocent people of Gaza, 14,000 children, 9,500 women, and some 12, 000 children or more buried under the rubble and some 75,000 or more injured; and habitats destroyed and killed innocent citizens for no other reason except intransigence and animosity against Arabs and Muslims. Mike Whitney, a renowned geopolitical and social analyst based in Washington State, explains the crux of the problem: (“Fighting Back Against A Historical Racist Genocide.” Global Research: 5/20/24): And that’s just typical of the colonial mindset. The thing is, is that Israel is really the last bastion of that form of settler colonial mindset. And you can see the impact of that over the decades....., You wonder where this rash of sadistic behaviour comes from. And it comes from that years and years of colonial supremacy just steeped in these people’s bloodstreams. So it’s a very toxic environment that creates a very prejudicial mind.....And then eventually, when you see the other as distinctively inferior to yourself, then any form of crime can be perpetrated and justified because you are the superior being.... the most effective tool we have right now, one of the EU leaders said it just two days ago, he said, “the only way Netanyahu’s going to stop bombing Gaza is when he runs out of bombs.” Are There Any Lessons To Be Learned From Jewish History? Do human cultures and civilizations grow out of maligned proclamations of the rule of law, freedom, and justice, or from cruelty, occupation, and conquest of other lands? Is the US-Israel alliance floating on the stream of place and time to be wiped away by the Laws of Nature? The Earth being bombed and destroyed by Israel is the same planet on which Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus lived and preached the message of God for truth, peace, human unity, freedom, and justice. Those denying the truth will be questioned and punished by God. The Earth is a sacred trust to mankind and is a living organ floating in space by the Will of God and sustains all life and aggressors are warned by the Divine injunction: “Say! Travel through the earth; And see what was the end of those who rejected Truth.” The Divine Reminder is explicit: Quran: Chapter 6): We have sent down the Torah containing guidance and light...We prescribed with children of Israel (progeny of Jacob) that anyone who kills any person without another soul being involved or causing mischief in land, acts as if he had killed all mankind. Anyone who spares life acts as if he had granted life to all mankind.....Those who do not judge what God has sent down are wrongdoers. And killing of innocent people is prohibited in the Ten Commandments (Torah): 'Thou shalt not kill' (Exod. 20:13; also Deut. 5:17). Jewish law views the shedding of innocent blood very seriously, and lists murder as one of three sins (along with idolatry and sexual immorality), that fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor - meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it.

"According to Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague: ‘Jewish law forbids the killing of innocent people, even in the course of a legitimate military engagement.’ The Arab-Muslim Leadership is a Dead-ended Entity on the Global Chessboard Steven Cook (“Arab Countries Have Israel’s Back—for Their Own Sake.” Foreign Policy: 4/18/24) explains that “Last weekend’s security cooperation in the Middle East doesn’t indicate a new future for the region.” Historically, wicked and aggressive people enjoin friendship and apathy for vicious plans against mankind. They were submissive to the Master, not safeguarding the interest of their own people. Many Arab leaders including the Saudi and the UAE princes have investments in Israel via Jared Kushner- son-in-law of Donald Trump. America and Israel view all the Arab States as vulnerable to besiegement and political supremacy. If the Zionist plans of conquest continued as is the case, soon there will be no Arab states left without foreign occupation. The Israeli-American denial of crimes against humanity, genocide in Gaza, and forcible expulsion of millions, clearly represent a ferocious conception of right and wrong and how irrational the leadership tends to be in real-world affairs. Political cynicism is endemic and leaders appear mentally and morally retarded without any accountability to the informed global masses seeking an end to the war and peace in the Middle East. What a shame, what a disgrace that Arab-Muslim countries have armies, and resources but no responsible leadership and would not act to defend people’s freedom, rights, dignity, and sustainable future. Please see: “ Israel Lost the War and America Betrayed Humanity in Gaza.” Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and is the author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany, 12/2019.

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librewolf · 1 year ago

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[Photo: Gazans in the rubble, Sinistra In Europa, Nov. 21, 2023.] By Mahboob Khawaja, PhD Global Mankind vs. Political Wickedness Rationality requires objective reasoning and it is not coming for an impending cataclysm of the Israeli onslaught on Rafah and the United States - the complicit friend in making genocide betrayed its history of civility, morality, responsible political governance, equality of human rights, freedom, and justice and a lot more that only future will unfold. Ferocious concepts of good and evil are being implied by the Israeli war agenda challenging the human consciousness of principles of truth, freedom, and honesty. Mike Whitney (“Genocide in Gaza: King Bibi’s Land Grab” Global Research: 5/10/2024), is an independent reputable citizen journalist who captures the prevalent facts: The assault on Rafah comes despite the acceptance by Hamas Monday of a proposal for a temporary cessation of hostilities in exchange for the release of hostages. But after spending weeks attempting to blame the Palestinians for the ongoing war, Israeli officials flatly rejected the proposal….The cynical and misleading phrase “Israel’s right to defend itself” has become synonymous with the premeditated mass-murder of civilians. Most people have never seen anything as horrific as Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza which explains why college campuses across the United States have become hotbeds of political activism almost overnight. America’s students now serve as the nation’s conscience by opposing a flagrantly immoral onslaught that deliberately targets defenseless women and children....If you’ve ever taken a lifesaving course, you know there’s a real possibility that a drowning person will drag you under and you’ll both die. It’s a lesson that should be kept in mind when discussing America’s relationship with Israel. (Adapted from @LarryBoorstein. PM Netanyahu is not winning the camouflaged political battle and resorts to an extreme fractured mindset to annihilate the innocent people of Gaza and more so at Rafah. He looks like a despotic figure, not a leader, broken in moral, spiritual, and human integrity lacking distinction between virtue and vice, and using the logic of power as the source of controversial strategies violating the international civilized norms of human safety, conflict resolution, and peacemaking. Across the US, new generations of thinking people demonstrate revulsion against the one-track established political perspective of the State of Israel and its war in Gaza on university campuses and question the rationality of catastrophic human sufferings, crimes against humanity, and the alleged genocide of Palestinians. Ironically, America and Israel appear to be ignoring the legally binding implications of the ICJ verdict demanding Israel to “prevent all acts of Genocide in Gaza.” Western Colonialism and the Betrayal of Arab-Muslim Leaders The static Arab-Muslom leadership lacking credibility hides under the OIC (The Organization of Islamic Conferences) - a dry-inked paper entity to propel its meaningless resolution for the ceasefire and peace in Palestine. Some of those signing the paper enjoin business relationships with Israel. They are being watched and cursed by the Arab masses for indifference and betrayal of the Islamic principles of helping the helpless victims of war. There are reportedly several thousand Western (German, French, the US, and British) mercenaries fighting alongside the Israeli forces in Gaza. The Western mythologists view the oil-exporting Arab leaders as “camel jockeys” and brainless figures. They live in palaces protected by American and European mercenaries, while erecting high-rise buildings, organizing football matches, Olympic games, and COP28, while 2.5 million are being displaced and more than 34,547 are massacred across Gaza and some 14,700 innocent children killed. Israeli attacks on hospitals, places of worship, and the killing of civilians go unabatedly. The Arab-Muslim

leaders have no sense of time or history and capacity to defend the interest of Islam as the Israeli Ultra Nationalists plan to dismantle the 3rd holiest site Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Please see: “Al-Aqsa Mosque Waiting for the Arab Leaders” and “America-Israel War on Gaza a Prelude to Conquest of the ArabWorld ”https://www.uncommonthought.com/mtblog/archives/2024/01/05/america-israels-war-on-gaza-a-prelude-to-conquest-of-the-arab-world.php Planet Earth is Living for All - Those Bombing it are Morally and Intellectually Sick People Earth is living and sustains life and all that is needed by all living things and rotates itself at a speed of 1000 miles per hour at the equator and orbits the Sun at an average speed of 67062 MPH. Earth is a “trust” to humankind for its existence, sustenance of life, survival, progress, and future-making. Those who bomb the Earth and destroy human lives and habitats are not normal human beings and God will hold them accountable for the consequences of their crimes against mankind.“Fear God” and ‘do not violate the covenants of peace and trust on Earth’, remind the teachings of the Bible, Torah, and Quran to all mankind, otherwise God’s punishment to the transgressor will be severe. (Quran: 40: 21): “Do they not travel through the Earth and see what was the End before them? They were even superior to them in strength; And in the traces (they have left) in the land: But God did call them to account for their sins; And none had they to defend them against God.” Those who believe in and follow the Divine Judaism - the generations of Israelites are reminded by God (Quran 2: 84-85): And remember, We took a Covenant from the Children of Israel (progeny of Jacob), Worship none but God; ….shed no blood amongst you, Nor displace people from homes: and Ye solemnly ratified...... And on the Day of Judgment they shall be consigned to the most grievous penalty, For God is not unmindful what ye do. And killing of innocent people is prohibited in the Ten Commandments (Torah): 'Thou shalt not kill' (Exod. 20:13; also Deut. 5:17). Jewish law views the shedding of innocent blood very seriously, and lists murder as one of three sins (along with idolatry and sexual immorality), that fall under the category of yehareg ve'al ya'avor - meaning "One should let himself be killed rather than violate it."According to Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague: ‘Jewish law forbids the killing of innocent people, even in the course of a legitimate military engagement.’ PM Netanyahu admits “ Israel stands alone.” Do the people of Israel feel confident of PM Netanyahu’s leadership towards peacemaking and global harmony? When egoistic transgressors challenge the sanctity and limits of the Laws of God, they become an object of punishment from God and that is how many powerful nations were destroyed in history. Lessons of History are ignored and how America Has Lost Humanity If the global institutions were not defunct, the 2.5 million civilians should have been protected by the UNO and leading powers as the Charter makes them obligated in conflict zones. Mass graves of medical professionals, and innocent civilians targeted at gunpoint are discovered from three hospitals in Gaza but Western intellect does not call for accountability of the aggressors. What if the Arab-Muslim world had armed forces and honest leaders to protect the people of Gaza? The American-Israeli collaborative war on Gaza and its immediate consequences made the Western world and all of its institutions shamefully redundant in the 21st century global norms of civility, human rights, freedom, justice, and safety of civilians - whereas crimes against humanity are captured in obscure impulses and indecision and deliberate inaction by the UNO and the Security Council. Mike Whitney (“Genocide in Gaza: King Bibi’s Land Grab” Global Research: 5/10/2024), quotes author Lawrence Davidson to answer some of the critical questions by showing how the transplanting of mainly

European Jews to Palestine created “cultural and ‘racial’ incubators for an ‘us (superior) vs. them (inferior)’” which is fairly common among settler populations. Here’s more: The founders of modern Zionism were both Jews and Europeans and (as such) had acquired the West’s cultural sense of superiority in relation to non-Europeans…..This sense of superiority would play an important role when a deal (the Balfour Declaration) (in which), the British would… help create a “Jewish national home” in Palestine……in other European colonies, where large numbers of Europeans resided, the era following World War II saw their eventual evacuation as power shifted over to the natives….Unfortunately, in the case of Palestine, this process of de-colonization never occurred…..And, from the Zionist standpoint, this entire process has worked remarkably well. Today all but a handful of Israeli Jews dislike and fear the people they conquered and displaced. They wish they would go away. And, when their resistance gets just a bit too much to bear, they are now quite willing to see them put out of the way…. Like Israel, Palestine is a nation, a human culture, and its entire natural visibility is obliterated by Israeli war machines. The animals have no bombs, no guns, and bullets to kill each other and do not reflect on the imperatives of life. We, human beings, are supposed to be intelligent and responsible species on this Earth. At the edge of reason, the notion of evil leads to the realization that evil and the tyranny of war must be stopped by all means, and those responsible for bombing the innocents, genocide, and crimes against humanity must be held accountable to restore the vision of a sustainable moral and intellectual humanity. Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in international affairs-global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and is the author of several publications including the latest: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution. Germany, 12/2019.

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