Burkina Faso Gives France 1 Month to Leave

African Stream January 25, 2023 African Stream Admin, Africa, Archives

Editor’s Note: African Stream produced the following video report.

 

 

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Palestine Refugees 1948 hanini.org
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‘Previously Unknown Massacres’: Why Is Israel Allowed to Own Palestinian History?

Ramzy Baroud December 28, 2021 Ramzy Baroud Admin, Archives, West Asia
Palestine Refugees 1948 hanini.org
Palestinian refugees in 1948 / credit: hanini.org

Haaretz’s investigative report—‘Classified Docs Reveal Massacres of Palestinians in ’48—and What Israeli Leaders Knew’—is a must-read. It should be particularly read by any person who considers himself a ‘Zionist’ and also by people who, for whatever reason, support Israel, anywhere in the world.

“In the village of Al-Dawayima (…), troops of the 8th Brigade massacred about 100 people,” Haaretz reported, though the number of the Palestinian victims later grew to 120. One of the soldiers who witnessed that horrific event testified before a government committee in November 1948: “There was no battle and no resistance. The first conquerors killed 80 to 100 Arab men, women and children. The children were killed by smashing their skulls with sticks. There wasn’t a house without people killed in it.”

The Haaretz report of nearly 5,000 words was filled with such painful details, stories of Palestinian elders who could not flee the Zionist invasion and ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine (1947-48), who were lined up against various walls and massacred; of an older woman being shot point-blank with four bullets; of other elders who were crammed inside a home and shelled by a tank and hand grenades; of many Palestinian women raped, and other devastating stories. 

Quite often, historians refer to the way that Palestine was ethnically cleansed from its native inhabitants by making this typical assertion regarding Palestinian refugees: “… those who fled or were expelled from their homes.” The reference to the word “fled” has been exploited by supporters of Israel, by making the claim that Palestinians left Palestine on their own accord. 

It was also Haaretz that, in May 2013, reported on how Israel’s founding father and first Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, had fabricated that very history to protect Israel’s image. Document number GL-18/17028, which was found in the Israeli military archive, demonstrated how the story of the fleeing Palestinians—supposedly at the behest of Arab governments—was invented by the Israelis themselves. 

Sadly, as Haaretz’s latest revelations prove, Palestinians who chose to stay, due to their disability, age or illness were not spared, and were massacred in the most horrifying way imaginable.

But something else struck me about the report: the constant emphasis by delusional Israeli leaders, then, that those who carried out the numerous grisly murders were but a few and that they hardly represent the conduct of an entire army. Note that the ‘army’ in reference here are Zionist militias, some of whom operated under the title of ‘gang’.

Moreover, much emphasis was attached to the concept of ‘morality’, for example, “Israel’s moral foundations” which, according to those early ‘ethical Zionists’, were jeopardized by the misconduct of a few soldiers. 

“In my opinion, all our moral foundations have been undermined and we need to look for ways to curb these instincts,” Haim-Mosh Shapira, then-Minister of Immigration and Health, was reported by Haaretz as saying during a meeting of the government committee. 

Shapira, who represented the voice of reason and ethics in Israel at the time, was not contending with Israel’s right to be established on the ruins of colonized—and eventually destroyed —Palestine. He was not questioning the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians or the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands during the Nakba, either. Instead, he was referencing and protesting the excesses of violence which followed the Nakba, now that the future of Israel and the destruction of Palestine were assured. 

This branch of ‘humanistic’ Zionism, that of selective and self-serving morality, continues to exist to this day. As odd as this may seem, the editorial line of Haaretz itself is the perfect manifestation of this supposed Zionist dichotomy. 

Needless to say, very few Israelis, if any, have been held accountable for the crimes of the past. 73 years later, Palestinian victims continue to cry out for a justice that continues to be deferred. 

One might find this conclusion a bit harsh. Zionist or not, one may protest that, at least, Haaretz has exposed these massacres and the culpability of the Israeli leadership. Such assumptions, however, are highly misleading.

Generation after generation of Palestinians, along with many Palestinian historians—and even some Israelis—have already known of most of these massacres. In its report, for example, Haaretz refers to “previously unknown massacres”, which include Reineh, Meron (Mirun) and Al-Burj. The assumption here is that these massacres were ‘unknown’—read unacknowledged by the Israelis themselves. Since Haaretz’s editorial line is driven by Israel’s own misconstrued historical narrative, the killings and destruction of these villages simply never happened—until an Israeli researcher acknowledged their existence. 

Walid Khalidi, one of Palestine’s most authoritative historians, has been aware, along with many others, of these massacres for decades. In his seminal book, ‘All That Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948’, Khalidi speaks of Al-Burj, of which the only claim to existence is now “one crumbled house (…) on the hilltop.”

In reference to Meron (Mirun), the Palestinian historian discusses what remains of the village in detail and precision: “While the Arab section of the village was demolished, several rooms and stone walls still stand. One of the walls has a rectangular door-like opening and another has an arched entrance”.

This is not the first time when an Israeli admission of guilt, though always conditional, has been considered the very validation of Palestinian victimization. In other words, every Palestinian claim of Israeli misconduct, though it may be verified or even filmed on camera, remains in question until an Israeli newspaper, politician or historian acknowledges its validity. 

Our insistence on the centrality of the Palestinian narrative becomes more urgent than ever, because marginalizing Palestinian history is a form of denial of that history altogether—the denial of the bloody past and the equally violent present. From a Palestinian point of view, the fate of Al-Burj is no different than that of Jenin; Mirun is no different than that of Beit Hanoun and Deir Yassin is no different than that of Rafah—in fact, the whole of Gaza. 

Reclaiming history is not an intellectual exercise; it is a necessity, yes, with intellectual and ethical repercussions, but political and legal, as well. Surely, Palestinians do not need to re-write their own history. It is already written. It is time that those who have paid far more attention to the Israeli narrative abandon such illusions and, for once, listen to Palestinian voices, because the truth of the victim is a wholly different story than that of the aggressor.

Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His forthcoming book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is ramzybaroud.net.

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Renewed Peace Movement Lauded As Protesters Marched in Washington, D.C., on 20th Anniversary of U.S. Invasion of Iraq

Julie Varughese March 21, 2023 Julie Varughese Admin, Americas, Archives
A demonstration took place March 18 in Washington, D.C., that coincided with the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq / credit: ANSWER Coalition
A demonstration took place March 18 in Washington, D.C., that coincided with the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq / credit: ANSWER Coalition

WASHINGTON, D.C.—An estimated couple of thousand of people to “several thousand” marched on March 18 in downtown Washington D.C., calling for an end to the U.S. imperialist project that they hold responsible for 20 years of a “War on Terror” on millions of people. The weekend marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

U.S. interference in the form of military invasions and other types of activities since 2001 have caused the global displacement of 38 million people and the death of at least 900,000 people, according to the Costs of War Project. Those are conservative estimates.

The demonstration aimed to link the lack of funding for people’s needs in the United States with the diversity of tactics the United States uses to perpetuate wars on people around the world.

“The proxy war in Ukraine has already taken hundreds of thousands of lives, plunged the world into crisis, and will cost the people of the U.S. at least $113 billion in public money,” Press TV reported. “Over the past year, Washington has supplied Ukraine with military equipment worth more than $50 billion, excluding other types of assistance worth tens of billions of dollars.

Rally speakers representing a diverse cross-cut of U.S. society, ranging from students and Filipino migrants, to internal U.S. colonies like African and Indigenous peoples, as well as Wikileaks Publisher Julian Assange’s brother, Gabriel Shipton, gathered in front of the White House for a 1 p.m. rally. Toward Freedom Board Secretary Jacqueline Luqman also spoke, which can be found here, here and here.

Then a mile-long march kicked off that stopped briefly at the Washington Post headquarters.

Activists spoke out against the newspaper—now owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos—because it spread information that helped build the U.S. government’s case for the invasion of Iraq. A U.S. Senate intelligence committee report later found the war was based on false information.

“Thousands of anti-war protesters stretched for blocks without a corporate camera in sight yesterday,” tweeted independent journalist Chuck Modi, who has documented protests in Washington, D.C. “In pre-cell phone age, you wouldn’t even know it happened.”

Activists on Saturday carried coffins wrapped in the flags of countries that the United States has either invaded over the past two decades or that the United States has helped fuel a conflict inside of through the shipment of arms and funds.

More than 200 organizations demonstrated against the United States funding and arming the war in Ukraine, and called for the United States to not interfere in peace negotiations. They also spoke out against a possible military conflict with China and decried the U.S./EU sanctions regime that prevents food, fuel and medicine from reaching one-third of the world’s population.

Plus, the call was raised to close U.S. military bases around the world and U.S. military commands, such as AFRICOM. Some estimates have ranged from as little as 800 bases to thousands of bases, according to U.S. military veteran and psychologist Monisha Rios. She claimed at the International Women’s Alliance conference, held March 4-5 in Washington, D.C., that activists have used a figure based on a calculation that undercounts U.S. military installations.

People leading the march held banners that read, “Remember Iraq: No More Wars Based on Lies” and “Fund People’s Needs, Not War.”

After the march, a teach-in was held at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, just a few blocks from the rally site. There, professor Noam Chomsky, as well as representatives from the U.S. colonies of Guam and Hawaii, gave remarks.

Activists like Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture of Philadelphia, a member of the Black Alliance for Peace, spoke out against the international wars as well as the domestic war on the people of the United States. That includes the most recent federal government move to eliminate Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to hungry families. “Roughly 60 percent of those households have children, and more than half include older people or adults with disabilities,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette‘s editorial board writes.

 

The protest was noted for how it was led by people who bear the brunt of U.S. imperialism.

“When the interests and positions of colonized people are respected, the turnout to mobilizations look different,” tweeted the Black Alliance for Peace, an anti-imperialist organization led by African people in the United States. “Perhaps the March 18 demonstrations signal a shift is taking place: That an anti-imperialist movement led by young African and other colonized peoples is rising.”

Many commented that a renewed movement for peace was emerging with this demonstration. About 11 million people protested the U.S. invasion of Iraq 20 years ago. An ANSWER Coalition representative did not reply to this reporter in time to confirm the number of marchers on March 18.

“Here we are again, 20 years later, because imperialism persists,” Black Agenda Report Executive Editor Margaret Kimberley told activist group Popular Resistance. “As long as that is true, the location of the war will change, the people waging the war will change, but we will still have wars. Our goal is to end imperialism.”

Besides in Washington, D.C., demonstrations were held in dozens of cities across the United States.

Julie Varughese is editor of Toward Freedom.