Dissident Veteran For Peace

As the Jewish state continues to rain bombs, missiles, artillery rounds, white phosphorus, and bullets down upon the people of Gaza, Palestinians are expressing and calling for unity and that includes unity with "the Hamas government -- the only democratically elected government in the entire Arab world." And all over the world people of conscience are answering that call and expressing their solidarity with the Islamic Resistance Movement, better known as Hamas.

Writing from Gaza (5 Jan 09), Safa Joudeh says:

Israel has come into our homes, is fighting us in our streets and is expressing its brutality against us in full force. ...

All Palestinian factions have united and are out facing the enemy, using all of their military capabilities that they collectively have. Although these capabilities are incomparable to the military strength exerted by Israel, yet it has made us more certain than ever that Palestinians will fight to the very end to protect their own. It has shown us that resistance, courage and love are an integral part of the Palestinian identity that will never change despite all the hardships we endure. It has given us a moral boost, which comes at a time when we need it most.

The Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades of The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the al-Quds Brigades of the Islamic Jihad movement, The Izzedin al-Qassam brigades of Hamas, the Salah al-Din Brigades of the Popular Resistance Committees, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fatah have all come together as one united front and at a high, almost affirmed risk of peril, are out protecting our streets and our homes, ready to die if that means preventing the death of one more helpless child. We are united and we have accepted our fate recurrently, but the people of Gaza -- almost 80 percent of them refugees -- will not be massacred and displaced yet again by people from the outside guided by tyranny and greed.

The New York Times reports (5 Jan 09) that the support extends to the West Bank, which is in the grip of the traitorous Fatah faction:

In a series of interviews, people here [in Nablus] said they were enraged by the photographs and television images of the Palestinian dead in Hamas-controlled Gaza, which they consider part of themselves.

They said that support for Hamas would grow as this conflict went on, and that they were intimidated by the Palestinian security forces of Mr. Abbas and his appointed prime minister, Salam Fayyad — forces subsidized by the United States and trained by Jordan — which have cracked down on a series of demonstrations and banned the showing of the Hamas flag. ...

On Monday afternoon, for example, a march of several hundred students from Birzeit University outside Ramallah toward the nearby Atarot checkpoint was broken up by Palestinian security forces wielding clubs. The students wanted to confront Israeli soldiers at Atarot, and the security forces wanted to prevent the confrontation.

Last Friday, security forces broke up larger demonstrations in Hebron and Ramallah, arresting Hamas supporters, confiscating Hamas flags and ripping up placards with pro-Hamas slogans. For the first time in memory, the Palestinian police used tear gas against their own people.

The Jerusalem Post, covering the same story (5 Jan 09), reports:

The Palestinian Authority Police has proven capable of quelling violent protests and maintaining law and order in the West Bank during Israel's military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, Israeli security officials said Sunday.

"The Palestinian police have succeeded in dealing with the demonstrations in the West Bank over the last week," Judea and Samaria Police spokesman Ch.-Supt. Danny Poleg said.

The PA police, which recently received training from the Americans, had largely been able to contain violent protests in Palestinian-controlled cities, so they didn't spill over into Israeli-controlled areas, Poleg said."They are under the same high alert as we are," he said.

On the instructions of PA President Mahmoud Abbas,the Fatah-controlled security forces have banned pro-Hamas demonstrations.

Hamas supporters in the West Bank said the PA's security forces threatened to arrest them if they raised Hamas flags or chanted slogans in favor of the Islamist movement. ...

"Our security forces have instructions to use an iron fist against anyone who incites and expresses support for Hamas," the [senior PA official in Ramallah] official said.

In "The West Bank: We're all Hamas now - supporters of Fatah unite behind enemy," Ben Lynfield writes (9 Jan 09) in The Independent (UK):

Palestinian Authority security forces are keeping a tight lid on protests, preventing confrontations with Israeli troops and arresting anyone raising Hamas banners at rallies. But displays of identification with the beleaguered Gazans are everywhere. Nine-year-old green-kerchiefed girl Scouts, their foreheads marked with the word Gaza in red ink, were among those who marched through the main al-Manara square in a protest. They held up pictures of bandaged toddlers, and dozens of demonstrators chanted, "With blood and spirit, we will redeem you, O Gaza".

The Daily News of Egypt reports (29 Dec 09): "On Monday between 4,000–5,000 demonstrators carrying Hamas flags chanted 'We are all Hamas' ..." The display of a sign saying "We are Hamas" on the streets of London has set the teeth of quislings and Zionists alike to gnashing. In Vancouver, BC, a Zionist spying on anti-Israel protests "was shocked," shocked, I tell you, at what happened there. Adam Carroll of the Canada-Israel Committee says:

I've probably gone to more anti-Israel protests than most anti-Israel protesters, because I go to them for my job just to keep tabs on what's happening, ... I don't think I've ever been to one as radical and as vicious as the one I went to yesterday. There was a bile in the air that I'd never, never seen before. There's always been "Free, free Palestine" and some of the more benign chants, but "Viva, viva intifada", you know, and those sorts of armed resistance calls, no. Those are new. For me, anyway. And hearing individuals chanting "We are all Hamas" and things along those lines was a bit unsettling.

I'll bet it was unsettling, Adam, that people momentarily threw off the mental shackles to make solidarity with the popular, democratic resistance movement known as Hamas, even though it has been incessantly drilled into our heads that Hamas are "terrorists"--Koran-toting (gasp!) terrorists at that. Maybe, we'll wake up and realize the real problem is the Jewish and Christian terrorists and their enablers and they kill a lot more people.

See also:

• On Fatah's treachery, "Hamas gaining sympathy as onslaught continues" by Khalid Amayreh on the web site of The Palestinian Information Center.
• "We must adjust our distorted image of Hamas" in The Times (UK)
• "Hamas Flag Flies in Berlin"
  

Labels: anti-war movement, critical thinking, Hamas, Palestine, resistance, solidarity

In recognition of International Hijab Solidarity Day I am posting a resolution adopted by the Huron Valley Greens of Ann Arbor, Michigan last year.

HURON VALLEY GREENS
a local chapter of the Green Party of Michigan
548 S. Main St., Ann Arbor, MI 48104
http://www.hvgreens.org ph. (734) 663-3555

Resolution on the Hijab and Solidarity with Muslims

Adopted by consensus at the regular business meeting of the Huron Valley Greens on September 24, 2007, and amended on October 3, 2007, by direction of the local Coordinating Committee.

WHEREAS on September 8, 2007, a person identifying her/himself as Ann Arbor City Council member Joan Lowenstein posted comments on a popular local blog, Arborupdate. This person characterized the hijab–the traditional Muslim headscarf–worn in solidarity with Muslims by a non-Muslim "as a Halloween costume since she is not a Muslim" and later declared "If I were a Muslim woman who wore the hijab out of respect for the religion and a sense of spritituality [sic], I would be offended by a non-Muslim who used it as a daily costume for purely political reasons"; and,

WHEREAS in 1993, after windows in Jewish homes displaying menorahs were broken, thousands of Christian residents of Billings, Montana, placed paper menorahs in the windows of their homes in solidarity with Jews and those menorahs were not Halloween decorations; and,

WHEREAS in October 2001–in the wake of 9/11 and after the US government summarily rounded up thousands of Muslims and Arabs and many Arabs and Muslims were the targets of hate crimes–students, including at Wayne State University and the University of Michigan, and others donned the hijab as part of a worldwide "Scarves for Solidarity" event; and,

WHEREAS, in 2004, after the French government banned the wearing of hijabs and other religious articles in public schools, which law Human Rights Watch criticized as falling "disproportionately on Muslim girls, and thus violat[ing] antidiscrimination provisions of international human rights law," the Assembly for the Protection of Hijab proclaimed September 5th as International Hijab Solidarity Day; and,

WHEREAS, in November 2006, scores of people in Fremont, California wore hijabs and turbans in solidarity with Muslim women and Sikh men about three weeks after a stranger walked up to Alia Ansari and shot her in the head, while she was walking with her three-year-old daughter in Fremont, for no apparent reason other than the fact that she was wearing hijab; and,

WHEREAS, in 2006, the Council on American-Islamic Relations received 143 complaints of civil rights violations against Muslims and triggered by the wearing of hijab; and,

WHEREAS, according to a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, just over half of all American Muslims are very or somewhat worried that Muslim women who wear the hijab will be treated poorly because it identifies them as Muslim; and,

WHEREAS, the offensive comments attributed to Council member Lowenstein demeaned and trivialized an act of solidarity in the context of a racist climate of fear against Arabs and Muslims created as part of President Bush's "War on Terror"; and,

WHEREAS, whether it is worn as an expression of cultural self-determination, political solidarity, or religious devotion the hijab is never a "Halloween costume"; and,

WHEREAS, characterizing the hijab as a "Halloween costume" is evidence of, at worst, bigotry and intolerance and, at best, insensitivity and ignorance.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Huron Valley Greens call upon Ann Arbor City Council member Lowenstein to state publicly whether she was the author of the remarks attributed to her on Arborupdate; and,

BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED that the Huron Valley Greens urge other concerned individuals and organizations to join us in this call and to consider filing a formal complaint with the Ann Arbor Human Rights Commission, whose duties include: "Investigate, study, hold hearings and make recommendations to city council regarding complaints from any class or group protected under the human rights ordinance."


See also:

• "Hijab: lifting the veil." Anarkismo.net. 7/18/2005.
• "Students rally to expose the appeal of the hijab." Jakarta Post. 09/05/2007.

Labels: Islam, religion, solidarity

Right: Choctaw Native Americans Gary and Dr Janie Whitedeer visit with students from Gaelscoil Cholmcille in Santry, Co Dublin.

In "Indians at home – Indians in Cornwall, Indians in Wales, Indians in Ireland," I talked about how the roots of Western colonialism are very old and how the techniques of colonialism were perfected centuries ago in Europe against Celtic people. Since I wrote that post last August, while going through my files, I found two noteworthy articles on the subject from Race & Class (Vol. 34 No. 4; 1993). They are "The training ground: Ireland, conquest and decolonisation" by Bill Rolston (pp. 13-24) and "Columbus in Ireland" by Milan Rai (pp. 25-34).

Rolston argues that as a consequence of Columbus' landfall in the Caribbean in 1492, Ireland experienced a "new era of imperialism with its expropriation of territory, racism and genocide" ("new" as in different from that of the last era). He says the "terrorist methods, derived and perfected in the conquest of Ireland, were then transported to the American colonies" along with "the ideology to justify confiscation and genocide." Even "the same personnel were involved in the conquest of Ireland and America." The second section of the article deals with the fate and role of Irish slaves shipped to the Caribbean. Rai covers much of the same ground but focuses more on tactics and outcomes in sections headed: "War by starvation," "Population decline," and "Settlement, dispossession and 'total war'."

Also, in my earlier post, in the "See also" section, I had a link on Choctaw aid in 1847 to Irish famine victims. I should say the mere word "famine" does not do justice in describing the deliberate "policy of extermination"--to quote the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Earl of Clarendon--pursued by the British. Any way, after talking with Peter L. yesterday about this subject, I learned from him that the Choctaw-Irish relationship is ongoing. Below are some links to articles on the subject.

• "Louisburgh welcomes Native American artists to lead Famine Walk." Mayo Advertiser (Ireland). 6/15/2007.
• "Remember the Famine? Gaelscoil pupils learn of Choctaw generosity." Independent (Ireland). 5/30/2007.
• Links to three other articles from the 1990s on the same subject here.

See also: Irish Holocaust

Labels: Empire, Indians, Ireland, solidarity, terrorism, White folks