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thethief1996 · 5 months

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I can't stop thinking about the news out of Palestine. Israel is sieging al Shifa hospital. Videos of people's limbs being severed off are haunting (graphic video tw). The hospital has ran out of fuel and 39 babies in incubators are fending for their lives by themselves, because Israel has stationed snipers around the hospital and is shooting all medical crew that walks into their sight.

First, the narrative was Israel would never bomb hospitals. Now, the hospitals are Hamas bases. Then, we respect journalists. Now, we have a fucking kill list of journalists because they are Hamas collaborators. First, we are not letting fuel in until the hostages are released. Now, we are not accepting the hostages back because that would stop our ground invasion and let Hamas win. And I could go on about every single lie they're making up. If you look up "Hamas rape" on google, the first link leads to Times of Israel saying Israel has found no forensic evidence of sexual violence, and only one eyewitness testimony out of 3.5k people attending the rave. If you Google "Hamas beheaded babies" the top links say they have no evidence for the claim besides word of mouth from extremist soldiers. Israeli extremists think about the ugliest goriest scene they can make out in their sick heads, tell that to a international journalist and they run away with it like it's gospel.

And children are being killed in the name of these lies. Thousands are being displaced in images that remind me of the pictures of Tantura 75 years ago, with their hands up so the tanks don't shoot them. Amputees are leaving the hospitals in wheelchairs hours after their surgeries because they are being shot at. Elders who survived the Nakba on 48 are having to walk towards Southern Gaza on foot (imagine walking from one end of your city to the other on foot), displaced again. People are cheering for the haunting images of white phosphorus bombs being dropped over Gaza. Gazan workers who were arrested in the West Bank are being thrust back into the bombings wearing numbered labels.

This is not normal. We are seeing the early stages of the settler colonial genocide of an indigenous population. Native leaders who have visited Gaza say its refugee camps look eerily like reservations. We can stop this. For the first time we are able to see wide scale accounts from the hands of the people suffering the genocide, and Israel is so scared of it they have cut all communications in Gaza.

This is our litmus test. I think we have never seen more clearly, with Palestine, Armenia, Congo and Sudan how colonialism has made our world a rotten place to live in.

The South African apartheid collapsed due to boycotts. We have to do everything in our power to stop Israel's hegemony. Even talking to a group of friends about Palestine changes the status quo. There's no world where we can live peacefully if Israel accomplishes their goals.

Keep yourself updated and share Palestinian voices. Muna El-Kurd said every tweet is like a treasure to them, because their voices are repressed on social media and even on this very app. Make it your action item to share something about the Palestinian plight everyday. Here are some resources:

Al Jazeera, Anadolu Agency, Mondoweiss

Boycott Divest Sanction Movement

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing protests and direct action against weapons factories across the US

Mohammed El-Kurd (twitter / instagram)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Motaz Azaiza (instagram) - reporting directly from Gaza.

Hind Khudary - reporting directly from Gaza. Her husband and daughter moved South to run from the tanks but she stayed behind to record the genocide. The least we can do is not let her calls fall on deaf ears.

You can participate in boycotts wherever you are in the world, through BDS guidelines. Don't be overwhelmed by gigantic boycott lists. BDS explicitly targets only a few brands which have bigger impact. You can stop consuming from as many brands as you want, though, and by all means feel free to give a 1 star review to McDonalds, Papa John, Pizza Hut, Burger King and Starbucks. Right now, they are focusing on boycotting the following:

Carrefour, HP, Puma, Sabra, Sodastream, Ahava cosmetics, Israeli fruits and vegetables

Push for a cultural boycott - pressure your favorite artist to speak out on Palestine and cancel any upcoming performances on occupied territory (Lorde cancelled her gig in Israel because of this. It works.)

If you can, participate in direct action or donate.

Palestine Action works to shut down Israeli weapons factories in the UK and USA, and have successfully shut down one of their firms in London.Some of the activists are going on trial and are calling for mobilizing on court.

Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing direct actions to stop the shipping of wars to Israel. Follow them.

Educate yourself. Read into Palestinian history and the occupation. You can't common sense people out of decades of propaganda. If your arguments crumble when a zionist brings up the "disengagement of Gaza", you have to learn more.

Read Decolonize Palestine. They have 15 minute reads that concisely explain the occupation (and its colonial roots) and debunk popular myths, including pinkwashing.

Read on Palestine. Here's an amazing masterpost.

Verso Book Club is giving out free books on Palestine (I personally downloaded Ten Myths about Israel by Ilan Pappe. If you still believe in the two states solution, this book by an Israeli professor debunks it).

Call your representatives. The Labour Party in the UK had an emergency meeting after several councilors threatened to resign if they didn't condemn Israeli war crimes. Calling to show your complaints works, even more if you live in a country that funds genocide.

FOR PEOPLE IN THE USA: USCPR has developed this toolkit for calls, here's a document that autosends emails to your representatives and here's a toolkit by Ceasefire in Gaza NOW!

FOR PEOPLE IN EUROPE: Here's a toolkit by Voices in Europe for Peace targeting the European Parliament and one specific for almost all countries in Europe, including Germany, Ireland, Poland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Greece, Norway, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Austria, Belgium Romania and Ukraine

FOR PEOPLE IN THE UK: Friends of Al-Aqsa UK and Palestine Solidarity UK have made toolkits for calls and emails

FOR PEOPLE IN AUSTRALIA: Here's a toolkit by Stand With Palestine

FOR PEOPLE IN CANADA: Here's a toolkit by Indepent Jewish Voices for Canada

Join a protest. Here's a constantly updating list of protests:

Global calendar

Another global calendar (go to the instragram of the organizers to confirm your protest)

USA calendar

Australia calendar

Feel free to add more.

#free palestine #free gaza #save gaza #gaza under attack

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serious2020 · 3 months

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#terrorism #racial profiling #culture #violence #protest #ICJ hearing of South African case against Israel #South Africa #Palestine #Gaza #The West Bank in Palestine #War on Palestinians #genocide #murder #Hamas

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palipunk · 4 months

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Israeli Caterpillar bulldozers are so symbolic of settler violence and brutality towards Palestinians; they are literal death machines. D9 bulldozers are sold by Caterpillar Inc., based in the US, and are equipped with armor and can be fitted with machine guns and grenade launchers. The nickname for these machines in Israel is "Doobi" - meaning teddy bear.

In 2004, Human Rights Watch called on Caterpillar to suspend bulldozer sales to Israel because of their use in the demolition of Palestinian property and infrastructure. Caterpillar makes military specifications for the D9 and sells them to Israel as weapons under the U.S Foreign Military Sales program, upon arrival, they are armored by Israel Industries Ltd. Before Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, D9s were used to demolish over 2,500 Palestinian homes in Gaza, most being in Rafah where the Israeli Government tried to expand a "buffer zone" along the border with Egypt. This was almost 20 years ago.

During these demolitions within Gaza, Rachel Corrie, an American activist who had been protesting against these home demolitions across the occupied territories, was buried with dirt by an Israeli bulldozer and repeatedly run over. Israeli military sources blamed her and the other activists who were protesting the demolitions, the IDF investigations found themselves not to blame, and no charges were brought for her murder (In the aftermath of her death, Israeli soldiers made fun of her through Facebook communities called "Rachel Corrie Pancakes and Fun", so no justice, the IOF murdered her and then laughed about it).

A federal lawsuit was filed against (which was later dismissed) Caterpillar on behalf of Rachel Corrie's parents and four Palestinian families that had members who were either killed or injured by these bulldozers trying to demolish their homes (including children). The CCR's lawsuit was "on behalf of these families charges Caterpillar, Inc. with aiding and abetting war crimes and other serious human rights violations on the grounds that the company provided bulldozers to the Israeli military knowing they would be used unlawfully to demolish homes and endanger civilians in Palestine. "

And again in 2018, more human rights groups condemned international construction firms (Caterpillar, JCB, and Liugong) for their roles in the destruction of Palestinian villages - Khan al-Ahmar was a small bedouin village in the West Bank that was planned to be razed and bulldozed for a new road for Israeli settlements, but due to international outcry, postponed the eviction. However, in Sur Baher, several Palestinian homes were demolished by bulldozers after a long legal battle that ruled in favor of the IOF. Israel often uses the guise of 'security' as a justification for these demolitions, but ultimately they are used to make way for settlements.

Massafer Yatta is another Palestinian village that has been under threat of Israeli demolitions for years now and was greenlit for destruction. Bulldozers crushed the village's school and destroyed the homes of 121 families in the area. The Palestinians who had their homes crushed by the bulldozers were forced to live in caves (which they were forbidden to even renovate), it is a decision between leaving their land and community or trying to build a new home that will be demolished by Israelis.

Palestinians throughout the West Bank know that the arrival of a bulldozer means the same thing time and time again: "You have 24 hours to flee, or we will shoot you." There are countless towns/villages/communities that have faced demolitions by the IOF throughout the decades of Israel's existence, I couldn't even begin to name all of them here.

In cases of public infrastructure, bulldozers were used to crush the main water pipelines of Al-Auja. The iof forced their way into the village and welded-shut the sole pipeline which supplies water to more than 1,200 people and used a bulldozer to crush it beneath the land. This is part of a larger history of Israeli oppression, specifically in regard to stolen water, which is supplied to Israeli settlements (it also forces Palestinians to buy water directly from Israel).

Outside of home and public infrastructure demolitions, the military bulldozers are also used in Israeli raids. In August this year (2023), the IOF raided Nablus in the Balata refugee camp, accompanied by a military bulldozer that destroyed several homes. I can't even pick a date for raids in Jenin refugee camp, which has been raided continuously this year and years before, but Israeli bulldozers have been filmed tearing up streets in Jenin and leaving them in rubble, making the roads unusable.

The Armenian quarter is not safe from settler encroachment either, as demolitions in the West Bank continue, real estate companies have sent in settlers and bulldozers to steal land belonging to Armenian Church property and Several Armenian families. Settler attacks have continued on the Armenian community and Palestinian Armenians have been getting arrested for defending themselves from these mobs.

And now, we have not only gotten the confirmation that these D9s will be used in Gaza but images, testimonies, and videos of them being used on Gazan homes and infrastructure. They are also being used to crush Palestinians to death just as Rachel Corrie had been in 2004, just as those Palestinian families had been in 2002-2004, and (extreme trigger warning for mutilation of a corpse) videos are circulating of Israelis flattening already deceased Palestinians with bulldozers out of pure contempt for us. Almost 20 years since Israel demolished thousands of homes in Gaza (not even including the genocidal bombings campaigns and the blockade Israel has placed on Gaza for years), now they're back destroying anything in their path.

I will repeat: these bulldozers are death machines and are designed to be so. Caterpillar is complicit, the US is complicit, and both are actively benefiting from the mass murder and displacement of Palestinians. Keep your eyes on Gaza but also remember the Armenian Quarter and the West Bank, all of Palestine is under threat of demolitions.

#palestine #free palestine #if this is jumbled im sorry i should been asleep five hours ago

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kaalbela · 5 months

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A Palestinian couple celebrate after their wedding ceremony as part of a protest against Israel’s separation wall. Photographed by Muhammed Muheisen on July 14, 2006 at the village of Bil'in, near the West Bank town of Ramallah. © Keystone SDA.

#muhammed muheisen #palestine #free palestine #ph #street photography #we stand with palestine #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #palestine protest #fake-lancelot very kindly found the date and place it was taken #thanks!

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withbriefthanksgiving · 6 months

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The director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the UN (UN OHCHR), Craig Mokhiber, has resigned in a letter dated 28 October 2023

the resignation letter can be found embedded in this tweet by Rami Atari (@.Raminho) dated 31 October 2023.

The letters are here:

Transcription:

United Nations | Nations Unies

HEADQUARTERS I SIEGE I NEW YORK, NY 10017

28 October 2023

Dear High Commissioner,

This will be my last official communication to you as Director of the New York Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

I write at a moment of great anguish for the world, including for many of our colleagues. Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the Organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.

I also worked in these halls through the genocides against the Tutsis, Bosnian Muslims, the Yazidi, and the Rohingya. In each case, when the dust settled on the horrors that had been perpetrated against defenseless civilian populations, it became painfully clear that we had failed in our duty to meet the imperatives of prevention of mass atrocites, of protection of the vulnerable, and of accountability for perpetrators. And so it has been with successive waves of murder and persecution against the Palestinians throughout the entire life of the UN.

High Commissioner, we are failing again.

As a human rights lawyer with more than three decades of experience in the field, I know well that the concept of genocide has often been subject to political abuse. But the current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people, rooted in an ethno-nationalist settler colonial ideology, in continuation of decades of their systematic persecution and purging, based entirely upon their status as Arabs, and coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate. In Gaza, civilian homes, schools, churches, mosques, and medical institutions are wantonly attacked as thousands of civilians are massacred. In the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, homes are seized and reassigned based entirely on race, and violent settler pogroms are accompanied by Israeli military units. Across the land, Apartheid rules.

This is a text-book case of genocide. The European, ethno-nationalist, settler colonial project in Palestine has entered its final phase, toward the expedited destruction of the last remnants of indigenous Palestinian life in Palestine. What's more, the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, and much of Europe, are wholly complicit in the horrific assault. Not only are these governments refusing to meet their treaty obligations "to ensure respect" for the Geneva Conventions, but they are in fact actively arming the assault, providing economic and intelligence support, and giving political and diplomatic cover for Israel's atrocities.

Volker Turk, High Commissioner for Human Rights Palais Wilson, Geneva

In concert with this, western corporate media, increasingly captured and state-adjacent, are in open breach of Article 20 of the ICCPR, continuously dehumanizing Palestinians to facilitate the genocide, and broadcasting propaganda for war and advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility, and violence. US-based social media companies are suppressing the voices of human rights defenders while amplifying pro-Israel propaganda. Israel lobby online-trolls and GONGOS are harassing and smearing human rights defenders, and western universities and employers are collaborating with them to punish those who dare to speak out against the atrocities. In the wake of this genocide, there must be an accounting for these actors as well, just as there was for radio Mules Collins in Rwanda.

In such circumstances, the demands on our organization for principled and effective action are greater than ever. But we phave not met the challenge. The protective enforcement power Security Council has again been blocked by US intransigence, the SG [UN Secretary General] is under assault for the mildest of protestations, and our human rights mechanisms are under sustained slanderous attack by an organized, online impunity network.

Decades of distraction by the illusory and largely disingenuous promises of Oslo have diverted the Organization from its core duty to defend international law, international human rights, and the Charter itself. The mantra of the "two-state solution" has become an open joke in the corridors of the UN, both for its utter impossibility in fact, and for its total failure to account for the inalienable human rights of the Palestinian people. The so-called "Quartet" has become nothing more than a fig leaf for inaction and for subservience to a brutal status quo. The (US-scripted) deference to "agreements between the parties themselves" (in place of international law) was always a transparent slight-of-hand, designed to reinforce the power of Israel over the rights of the occupied and dispossessed Palestinians.

High Commissioner, I came to this Organization first in the 1980s, because I found in it a principled, norm-based institution that was squarely on the side of human rights, including in cases where the powerful US, UK, and Europe were not on our side. While my own government, its subsidiarity institutions, and much of the US media were still supporting or justifying South African apartheid, Israeli oppression, and Central American death squads, the UN was standing up for the oppressed peoples of those lands. We had international law on our side. We had human rights on our side. We had principle on our side. Our authority was rooted in our integrity. But no more.

In recent decades, key parts of the UN have surrendered to the power of the US, and to fear of the Israel Lobby, to abandon these principles, and to retreat from international law itself. We have lost a lot in this abandonment, not least our own global credibility. But the Palestinian people have sustained the biggest losses as a result of our failures. It is a stunning historic irony that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in the same year that the Nakba was perpetrated against the Palestinian people. As we commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the UDHR, we would do well to abandon the old cliché that the UDHR was born out of the atrocities that proceeded it, and to admit that it was born alongside one of the most atrocious genocides of the 20th Century, that of the destruction of Palestine. In some sense, the framers were promising human rights to everyone, except the Palestinian people. And let us remember as well, that the UN itself carries the original sin of helping to facilitate the dispossession of the Palestinian people by ratifying the European settler colonial project that seized Palestinian land and turned it over to the colonists. We have much for which to atone.

But the path to atonement is clear. We have much to learn from the principled stance taken in cities around the world in recent days, as masses of people stand up against the genocide, even at risk of beatings and arrest. Palestinians and their allies, human rights defenders of every stripe, Christian and Muslim organizations, and progressive Jewish voices saying "not in our name", are all leading the way. All we have to do is to follow them.

Yesterday, just a few blocks from here, New York's Grand Central Station was completely taken over by thousands of Jewish human rights defenders standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people and demanding an end to Israeli tyranny (many risking arrest, in the process). In doing so, they stripped away in an instant the Israeli hasbara propaganda point (and old antisemitic trope) that Israel somehow represents the Jewish people. It does not. And, as such, Israel is solely responsible for its crimes. On this point, it bears repeating, in spite of Israel lobby smears to the contrary, that criticism of Israel's human rights violations is not antisemitic, any more than criticism of Saudi violations is Islamophobic, criticism of Myanmar violations is anti-Buddhist, or criticism of Indian violations is anti-Hindu. When they seek to silence us with smears, we must raise our voice, not lower it. I trust you will agree, High Commissioner, that this is what speaking truth to power is all about.

But I also find hope in those parts of the UN that have refused to compromise the Organization's human rights principles in spite of enormous pressures to do so. Our independent special rapporteurs, commissions of enquiry, and treaty body experts, alongside most of our staff, have continued to stand up for the human rights of the Palestinian people, even as other parts of the UN (even at the highest levels) have shamefully bowed their heads to power. As the custodians of the human rights norms and standards, OHCHR. has a particular duty to defend those standards. Our job, I believe, is to make our voice heard, from the Secretary-General to the newest UN recruit, and horizontally across the wider UN system, incisting that the human rights of the Palestinian people are not up for debate, negotiation, or compromise anywhere under the blue flag.

What, then, would a UN-norm-based position look like? For what would we work if we were true to our rhetorical admonitions about human rights and equality for all, accountability for perpetrators, redress for victims, protection of the vulnerable, and empowerment for rights-holders, all under the rule of law? The answer, I believe, is simple—if we have the clarity to see beyond the propagandistic smokescreens that distort the vision of justice to which we are sworn, the courage to abandon fear and deference to powerful states, and the will to truly take up the banner of human rights and peace. To be sure, this is a long-term project and a steep climb. But we must begin now or surrender to unspeakable horror. I see ten essential points:

Legitimate action: First, we in the UN must abandon the failed (and largely disingenuous) Oslo paradigm, its illusory two-state solution, its impotent and complicit Quartet, and its subjugation of international law to the dictates of presumed political expediency. Our positions must be unapologetically based on international human rights and international law.

Clarity of Vision: We must stop the pretense that this is simply a conflict over land or religion between two warring parties and admit the reality of the situation in which a disproportionately powerful state is colonizing, persecuting, and dispossessing an indigenous population on the basis of their ethnicity.

One State based on human rights: We must support the establishment of a single, democratic, secular state in all of historic Palestine, with equal rights for Christians, Muslims, and Jews, and, therefore, the dicmantling of the deeply racist, settler-colonial project and an end to apartheid across the land.

Fighting Apartheid: We must redirect all UN efforts and resources to the struggle against apartheid, just as we did for South Africa in the 1970s, 80s, and early 90s.

Return and Compensation: We must reaffirm and insist on the right to return and full compensation for all Palestinians and their families currently living in the occupied territories, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and in the diaspora across the globe.

Truth and Justice: We must call for a transitional justice process, making full use of decades of accumulated UN investigations, enquiries, and reports, to document the truth, and to ensure accountability for all perpetrators, redress for all victims, and remedies for documented injustices.

Protection: We must press for the deployment of a well-resourced and strongly mandated UN protection force with a sustained mandate to protect civilians from the river to the sea.

Disarmament: We must advocate for the removal and destruction of Israel's massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, lest the conflict lead to the total destruction of the region and, possibly, beyond.

Mediation: We must recognize that the US and other western powers are in fact not credible mediators, but rather actual parties to the conflict who are complicit with Israel in the violation of Palestinian rights, and we must engage them as such.

Solidarity: We must open our doors (and the doors of the SG) wide to the legions of Palestinian, Israeli, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian human rights defenders who are standing in solidarity with the people of Palestine and their human rights and stop the unconstrained flow of Israel lobbyists to the offices of UN leaders, where they advocate for continued war, persecution, apartheid, and impunity, and smear our human rights defenders for their principled defense of Palestinian rights.

This will take years to achieve, and western powers will fight us every step of the way, so we must be steadfast. In the immediate term, we must work for an immediate ceasefire and an end to the longstanding siege on Gaza, stand up against the ethnic cleansing of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank (and elsewhere), document the genocidal assault in Gaza, help to bring massive humanitarian aid and reconstruction to the Palestinians, take care of our traumatized colleagues and their families, and fight like hell for a principled approach in the UN's political offices.

The UN's failure in Palestine thus far is not a reason for us to withdraw. Rather it should give us the courage to abandon the failed paradigm of the past, and fully embrace a more principled course. Let us, as OHCHR, boldly and proudly join the anti-apartheid movement that is growing all around the world, adding our logo to the banner of equality and human rights for the Palestinian people. The world is watching. We will all be accountable for where we stood at this crucial moment in history. Let us stand on the side of justice.

I thank you, High Commissioner, Volker, for hearing this final appeal from my desk. I will leave the Office in a few days for the last time, after more than three decades of service. But please do not hesitate to reach out if I can be of assistance in the future.

Sincerely,

Craig Mokhiber

End of transcription.

Emphasis (bolding) is my own. I have added links, where relevant, to explanations of concepts the former Director refers to.

#Israel #Palestine #October 2023 #28 October 2023 #United Nations #Described #Long post #I’ll add more links to the things he is talking about later

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probablyasocialecologist · 10 months

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And so it makes sense that these are now the places where fascism grows; that’s what these places were designed for. The suburbs were invented as a reactionary tool against the women’s liberation and civil rights movements. The US government, in concert with banks, landowners, and home builders, created a way to try and stop all that, by separating people into single homes, removing public spaces, and ensuring that every neighborhood was segregated via redlining. The suburbs would keep white women at home, and would keep white men at work to afford that home. These were explicit goals of the designers: “No man who owns his house and lot can be a Communist,” said the creator of Levittown, the model suburb. “He has too much to do.” The reason Target has become the locus of today’s particular right-wing backlash is the same reason countless viral TikToks attempt to convince women that they’re at risk of being kidnapped every time they’re in a parking lot. It’s the reason why true crime is one of the most popular podcast genres in America, and why many refuse to travel without a gun by their side and shoot people if they set foot on their driveway.

[...]

It is of course true that these mass hysterias are part of an organized right-wing movement that is attacking human rights across the country—through legislation banning abortion, gender-affirming care, and books, and making it illegal for educators to teach American history accurately. But the shape this movement has taken is not coincidental; it is in fact the product of the unique shape of public life in America, or lack thereof. Suburbanites do not have town squares in which to protest. They do not have streets to march down. Target has become the closest thing many have to a public forum. We often hear that urban areas are more liberal and suburban ones more conservative, and we’re often told that this is because of race. That may be partly true, though cities are whiter than ever and suburbs more diverse than ever. Instead, it may be that suburbanism itself, as an ideology, breeds reactionary thinking and turns Americans into people constantly scared of a Big Bad Other. The suburban doctrine dictates that public space be limited, and conflict-free where it exists; that private space serve only as a place of commodity exchange; that surveillance, hyper-individualism, and constant vigilance are good and normal and keep people safe. It is an ideology that extends beyond the suburbs; it infects everything. Even cities, as Sarah Schulman writes in The Gentrification of the Mind, have become places where people expect convenience and calmness over culture and community. What is a life of living in a surveilled and amenity-filled high-rise and ordering all your food and objects from the Internet to your door if not a suburban life? To make matters worse, the people who have adopted this mindset do not see it as an ideology, but as the normal and right state of the world; they, as Schulman writes, “look in the mirror and think it’s a window.” So when anything, even a gay T-shirt, disrupts their view, they become scared.

#lgbt #fascism #usa #suburbia

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roach-works · 4 months

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im finding this really hard to articulate but it's absolutely infuriating to see the level of government power and pressure that can be applied against "antisemitism" when what "antisemitism" means is 'not approving of how the USA props up israel to further its military objectives in the middle east', while every year since 2015 in america has gotten scarier and more dangerous for the jews who actually live here and are citizens.

like it's been year after year of rising hate crimes, temples bombed and burned, women and men attacked on the streets, harassed online, and our elected officials mouth vague platitudes at hannukah about it. dozens of pundits make serious cash money saying that the holocaust never happened. conspiracy theories about child trafficking and one world bank are now just commonly accepted as fact. and we were told that there wasn't any more that anyone could actually do about any of this. because free speech. because freedom of religion. because everyone has a right to their opinions.

but for israel, for the IDF, suddenly the cops can start making arrests? the same cops that protected proud boys all this time at their rallies are hustling to shut down crowds protesting palestinian genocide. suddenly politicians are getting in real trouble and staffers are getting fired and online there's waves of accounts getting deleted. suddenly antisemitism is driving a whole lot of action!

but none of the machinery of empire was ever used to actually protect jews. none of it was for us at all. america has proved itself deeply and profoundly indifferent to our lives and our voices. the only thing that actually matters here is the material usefulness of israel as a proxy state.

there's your "antisemitism".

#im very tired and angry

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nsomniacsdream · 2 years

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I have a hard time talking about American law enforcement, because I have ptsd (like a therapist told me this and everything) from my own experiences with cops and because it's so balls quaking insane.

Like, a cop in the United States can pull you over for any reason. Which is a nice way of saying no reason, because literally anything can be used after the fact as justification. A cop can say its cuz you looked at him, or didnt look at him, or it looked like you were holding something, or looked like you were driving too perfectly for it to be natural. It's insane.

There are apparently no circumstances where a cop can't just kill you. The line the courts have applied is "reasonably believed" you were a threat, but that's such a nebulous nothing limit that people get shot for reaching for their license, having their phone in their hand, you're running away with no weapon, not being able to follow conflicting commands, like anything. And cops are almost never charged, because every court is going to believe he could "reasonably believe" he was threatened. Fuck, if you give me enough time, I can make any situation seem juuuuust plausibly threatening enough to pass that bar. It's insane.

A cop can just rob you. Like tell you to give him your wallet, take all the cash out, and just walk away with it. Exactly like you would imagine getting robbed in an alley would go, except no one can help. And he doesn't even have to hide it, he just drops it in a box at the station and they put it in their bank account. It's legal. You can't prove it wasn't drug money. I can't prove any money wasn't at some point drug money. It's insane.

If a cop just walks in your front door and says "I'm here to kill you and your entire family" YOU ARE GOING TO PRISON IF YOU STOP HIM. There is no positive defense for assaulting a police officer in the United States, and doubly so if you kill him. You have effectively no defense against a homicidal cop, which happens same as any other job. Unless for some reason you have cameras all thru your house and clearly caught the audio of him saying that he's there just to kill you, you have zero chance of not going to prison, probably for life. And that's assuming you aren't killed "resisting arrest" while being taken into custody. It is a crime, in this country, for you to defend yourself under any circumstances if the person you're defending yourself from is a cop. That's insane.

You don't have civil rights if a cop says so. You have the right to have a gun, right? A lot of states have open carry. A cop can shoot you if he sees you have a gun. Doesn't matter if you have a license and everything. So you effectively don't have the right to bear arms if a cop can shoot you for exercising it. You have the right to protest. Unless a cop tells you to stop. He doesn't need a real reason to tell you to stop. And if you don't stop, you can be arrested or shot. So you don't really have the right to protest, do you? A cop cant just search your car or house, right? Unless he claims he heard something, or smelled something, neither of which can be proven. So a cop can search whatever he wants, as long as he pretends there was a "reason". So you dont have protection from unreasonable search and seizure, do you? These are no longer rights- they're things the cops allow.. for now. But legally, those rights have already been found to not actually be rights, because any random cop can decide to take that right from you, for any reason. It's insane.

These aren't like crazy things that I'm just making up, these aren't some weird twisted way I'm looking at something, these are all very real things that we all just.. ignore? Police abolitionists and the media bring these things up all the time, and the overwhelming response to it is: so what? Don't break the law and it won't matter. Blue lives matter. More police funding. Cops should have tanks. It's insane. And I always feel like im just rambling and sound insane when I say this kind of stuff because if you wrote a book and had the dystopian government doing the stuff that the police in this country do every single day, those same people who "back the blue" would line up to say stuff like "*Books government* wouldnt have a chance before us real americans stopped them" on twitter and not even get a hint of the irony.

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thethief1996 · 6 months

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Israel has cut water, electricity and food to Palestinians in Gaza. They are buying 10.000 M16 rifles and plan to distribute to civilian settlers in the West Bank to hunt down Palestinians. They're bombing the only way out of Gaza through Egypt, after telling refugees to flee through it, and have threatened the Egyptian government in case they let aid trucks pass through. Entire families, generations, are being wiped out and left to wander the streets hoping they don't get bombed.

Palestinians are using their last minutes of battery to let the world know about their genocide and are being met with a wall of "What about Hamas? What about the beheaded babies? Killing children on either side is bad!" even though the propaganda claims have been debunked over and over again. How cruel is it to ask somebody to condemn themselves before their last words? Or before grieving the loss of their entire families? When there's no such disclaimer to Israelis even though their government has shown over and over genocidal intent? Like who are you even trying to appease? What will your wishy washy statement do against decades of zionist thought infiltrating evangelical and Jewish stablishmemts?

Take action. Israel will fall back if public opinion turns its tide. The UK fell back on its bloody decision to cut aid to Palestine under public scrutiny. The USAmerican empire spends $3.8 billion dollars annually solely on this proxy war while its people suffer under a progressively military regime as well. News outlets are canceling last minute on Palestinian speakers while letting Israelis tell lies unchecked. Palestinian refugees are being targeted in ICE establishments and mosques are already being hounded by the FBI. France and Germany have banned pro-Palestine protests, while Netherlands and the UK have placed restrictions . You have the chance to stop this from turning into repeat of the Iraq war.

I want to do something but there's hardly anything for me to do from Brasil besides spreading the word and not letting these testimonies fall on deaf ears. I'm asking you to do this same ant work from wherever you are.

Follow:

Eye On Palestine (instagram / twitter)

Mohammed El-Kurd (instagram / twitter)

Decolonize Palestine (website with a chronological explanation of the occupation and debunking myths)

Muhammad Shehada (twitter)

Plestia Alaqad (directly from Gaza. Many of her videos are interrupted by bombs)

If there's a protest in your city, please attend. Here's an international calendar of events:

Friday, October 13

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (US) – Fri Oct. 13, 3 pm, UNM Bookstore, University of New Mexico. Organized by Southwest Coalition for Palestine.

BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA (US) – Fri Oct 13, 6 pm, Sproul Hall (Vigil), University of California Berkeley. Organized by Bears for Palestine.

DOUAIS, FRANCE – Fri Oct 13, 6:30 pm, Place de’Armes.

GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN – Fri Oct 13, 5:30 pm, Brunnsparken. Organized by Palestinska samordningsgruppen Gothenburg.

GREENSBORO, NC (US) – Fri Oct. 13, 4 pm, Wendover Village, 4203 W Wendover Ave, Greensboro, NC. Organized by Muslims for a Better NC.

LONDON, ENGLAND – Fri Oct 13, 5 pm, Keir Starmer’s Office, Crowndale Center, 218 Eversholt St, London. Organized by IJAN UK.

MEANJIN/BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA – Fri Oct 13, 6 pm, King George Square.

MIAMI, FL (US) – Fri Oct 13, 4:30 pm, Bayfront Park. Organized by Troika Kollectiv.

NAPOLI, ITALY – Fri Oct 13, 4:30 pm, Piazza Garibaldi, Napoli. Organized by GPI and Centro Culturale Handala Ali.

NGUNNAWAL/CANBERRA, AUSTRALIA – Fri Oct 13, 5:30 pm, Carema Place.

PERTH/BOORLOO, AUSTRALIA – Fri Oct. 13, 5:30 pm, Murray Street Hall, Boorloo/Perth. Organized by Friends of Palestine WA.

PORTLAND, OREGON (US) – Fri Oct 13, 3 pm, 1200-1220 SW 5th Ave, Portland.

PORT RICHEY, FL (US) – Fri Oct 13, 7:30 am, Route 19 and Ridge Road, Port Richey. Sponsored by: Florida Peace Action Network; Partners for Palestine; CADSI

PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – Friday, Oct. 13, 7 pm, UP Main Campus, DSA Building opposite Thuto. Organized by PSC UP.

WITSWATERSRAND UNIVERSITY (SOUTH AFRICA) – Fri Oct 13, 1 pm, Great Hall Piazza, Flag demonstration. Organized by Wits PSC.

Saturday, October 14

ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND – Sat, Oct. 14, 2 pm, St. Nichlas Square. Organized by Scottish PSC.

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – Sat Oct 14, 2 pm, Aotea Square, Queens St, 291-2997 Queen St. Organized by PSN Aotearoa.

DETROIT/DEARBORN, MICHIGAN (US) – Sat Oct 14, 2 pm, Ford Woods Park, 5700 Greenfield Road. Organized by SAFE, PYM, SJP, Handala Coalition, more.

DUNDEE, SCOTLAND – Sat, Oct. 14, 2 pm, Place TBA. Organized by Scottish PSC.

EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND – Sat, Oct 14, 2 pm, Princes Street at Foot of the Mound. Organized by Scottish PSC.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY – Sat Oct 14, 3 pm Hauptwache, Frankfurt am Main. Sponsored by Palestina eV, Migrantifa Rhein-Main and more.

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND – Sat. Oct 14, 2 pm, Buchanan Steps. Organized by Scottish PSC.

HOUSTON, TEXAS (US) – Sat Oct 14, 2 pm, City Hall, 901 Bagby St. Organizd by PYM, PAC, USPCN, SJP and more.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND – Sat Oc 14, 12 pm, Church St. Organized by FRFI.

LONDON, ENGLAND – Sat Oct 14, 12 pm, BBC Portland Place, London. Organized by a broad coalition.

MILANO, ITALY – Sat. Oct 14, 3:30 pm, Piazza San Babila. Organized by Young Palestinians of Italy, UDAP, Palestinian Community, Association of Palestinians.

ORLANDO, FLORIDA – Sat Oct 14, 3 pm, Lake Eola at Robinson and Eola, Orland. Organized by Florida Palestine Network.

TORINO, ITALY – Sat. Oct. 14, 3 pm, Piazza Crispi. Organized by Progetto Palestina.

VALPARAISO, CHILE – Sat Oct 14, 6 pm, Plaza Victoria, Valparaiso. Organized by Comite Chileno de Solidaridad con Palestina.

WASHINGTON, DC (US) – Sat Oct 14, 1 pm, Lafayette Square. Organized by AMP.

Sunday, October 15

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS – Sun Oct 15, 2 pm, March from Dam Square to Jonas Daniel Meijer plein.

NAARM/MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – Sun Oct 15, State Library Victoria.

TARDANYA/ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA – Sun Oct 15, 2 pm, Parliament House.

AUSTIN, TEXAS (US) – Sun Oct 15, 3 pm, Texas Capitol. Organized by PSC ATX.

GADIGAL/SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA – Sun Oct 15, 1 pm, Sydney Town Hall.

SANTIAGO, CHILE -Sun Oct 15, 11 am, Plaza Dignidad, Santiago. Organized by Comite Chileno de Solidaridad con Palestina.

#save palestine #free palestine #save gaza #save sheikh jarrah #save silwan #ask to tag

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