It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Monday, July 06, 2020
CULTURAL GENOCIDE
Israel Must Question Itself Over Bid To Erase Arab Identity – OpEd July 6, 2020 Arab News
By Arab News
By Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib*
The streets of Tel Aviv have seen a series of recent protests aimed at stopping a project by the municipality. The project in Jaffa consists of excavating historic Muslim graves in order to build a homeless shelter for Jewish Israelis. It is part of a plan by the right-wing Israeli government to erase Arab heritage. Most importantly, it represents a blunder in attempts to encourage peaceful coexistence between Jews and Palestinians in Israel.
The Netanyahu government is pushing the Arab community into a corner by denying its rights and constantly attacking its heritage. It is emboldened by the Donald Trump White House, which basically rubber stamps all of Netanyahu’s wishes and whims, from unilaterally declaring Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel to acknowledging the annexation of the Golan Heights and proposing giving Israel a large swath of land in the heart of the West Bank, making a Palestinian state an impossibility. Though efforts to change street names have been going on for a while, they have accelerated recently. Netanyahu wants to seize the opportunity of having Trump in office and would like to set a precedent that will be difficult to reverse.
Jaffa’s contested Al-Isaaf cemetery, located next to the Ottoman clock tower, covers only 800 square meters. However, the Israeli authorities have made concerted efforts to remove the graves in a sign of defiance to the Palestinian community.
In 2018, the Israeli antiquity authorities excavated the area and found the 18th century cemetery. After the discovery, the authorities were urged to stop the excavation. In October of the same year, the Muslim community renovated the graves, reburied the bodies and added tombstones, only for them to be demolished shortly after by the municipality. Last year, the community appealed to the courts in a bid to stop the demolitions and end the project. However, a January ruling fell in favor of the municipality. Last month, the municipality, accompanied by soldiers, started the process of demolishing the cemetery. This sparked protests by the Palestinian community. Muslims and Christians alike gathered in rejection of the decision, forcing an Israeli court to halt the work until a hearing on July 22.
A delegation representing the Greek Orthodox Church visited the cemetery, with Bishop Atalla Hana saying: “Our roots run deep in this land and any assault on an Islamic cemetery is also an assault on a Christian cemetery.” The protesters were also joined by Jewish activists, including Rabbi Eliyahu Kaufman. He issued a statement in which he called on peace and human right activists to join the protest and show solidarity with the Arab community in order to preserve the cemetery.
The Jaffa project comes as part of a larger plan by the Netanyahu government to erase Israel’s Arabic history. It is an attempt to Judaize Jaffa and erase its Islamic heritage. It is an attempt to finish off Jaffa as a city and make it part of Tel Aviv. According to Arab Member of the Knesset Sami Abu Shehadeh, the issue of Al-Isaaf extends beyond the premises. Following the 1948 Nakba, Israel confiscated sacred Islamic places such as cemeteries and mosques, as well as commercial shops. Israel deals with the land and buildings it has confiscated as its own property. The issue is not whether it can afford to or has the space to relocate the project; rather it is that Israel does not want to create a precedent that would open the door for the Arab community to make more claims in historic Palestine.
Abu Shehadeh says Al-Isaaf is not the first cemetery that has been turned into a real estate project. Abdel Nabi cemetery was destroyed to make way for the Hilton Tel Aviv hotel and the authorities used the cemetery of Moanes to build an extension for Tel Aviv University. The problem is that Israel’s governments, especially since Netanyahu came to power, look at Arab citizens as enemies, viewing any claims to their heritage as an infringement on the Jewish identity of the land that, from their perspective, extends over the entirety of historic Palestine. Therefore, Palestinian citizens of Israel can never expect justice or equality in a system that does not accept them as Arabs or as Palestinians. They use the courts for technical issues, but the courts do not acknowledge their claims to the land as indigenous people — hence, they can never seriously use the system as a source of justice.
The Al-Isaaf issue is more than a reflection of the struggle between Muslims and Jews or Arabs and Israelis. It is a reflection of the struggle between people who believe in coexistence and people who want to eliminate the other. More than being a danger for the Palestinian community in Israel and its heritage, it is a danger to Israel’s leaders themselves, who one day will have to look in a mirror and ask themselves: Who are we? The other question is: Can we go on like this?
The world is witnessing a revolution that many have described as the end of the post-colonial era. People are demanding equality. The world will no longer accept Netanyahu’s apartheid style of government. Though the actions of the Israeli government are horrendous and do not signal any attempts at peace, the support offered by the Israeli Jews who refused such actions represent a ray of hope that change is possible inside Israel. The country’s policymakers should look at the changes in the world and see them from a pragmatic point of view. It is better for them to change now and relinquish their efforts to subjugate the Palestinian community inside Israel and in Palestine than be forced to do so by the international community sometime in the near future. Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She holds a PhD in politics from the University of Exeter and is an affiliated scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
Israel Must Question Itself Over Bid To Erase Arab Identity – OpEd Arab News
Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).
UNITED FRONT Israel TV: Hamas, Fatah cooperation against deal of the century a 'dangerous development'July 4, 2020
The national and Islamic forces and factions in Gaza, including Hamas and Fatah, reach an agreement on a unified national plan of action to confront the US' 'deal of the century' and Israel's annexation plans on June 28, 2020 [Mohammad Asad / Middle East Monitor]
July 4, 2020
The ongoing cooperation between the two Palestinian rival groups, Hamas and Fatah, to topple the US deal of the century and Israel’s annexation is a “dangerous development”, Israeli Channel 12 reported on Friday.
Channel 12 disclosed that such a possibility was expected, but Israeli security did not expect that it would happen in such a short time-frame, adding: “It is a dangerous development because of the very short time they needed to reach this unity which surprised the Israeli security services.”
On Thursday, Deputy Hamas Chief Saleh Al-Arouri appeared with Senior Fatah Leader Jebril Al-Rajoub in a joint press conference, declaring their unity against the deal of the century and the Israeli annexation plan.
“The press conference is not important, but what is happening on the ground is very important, mainly the detention of Hamas members by the Palestinian Authority (PA),” Al Watan Voice reported the Israeli channel stating.
Meanwhile, former Israeli Communication Minister Ayoob Kara stated that the Hamas and Fatah cooperation “raises concerns” as Fatah’s leader confirmed that his movement would let Hamas work in Gaza, Israeli Channel 7 reported.
Rajoub announced in the press conference that he was “confident about Hamas’ intentions,” noting that the Palestinians have been waiting for this conference to be the starting point of national unity.
The Black Lives Matter movement’s stand with Palestinians has a history
July 1, 2020
A protestor holds up a "Palestine 4 Black Lives" placard at the Black Lives Matter protests in London, UK on 7 June 2020 [Lauren Lewis/Middle East Monitor]
It is common to think of Black Lives Matter as a single group when it isn’t; it is a movement. Indeed, it is a movement for Black liberation which first erupted in response to police brutality in 2014, following the killing of two African Americans: Mike Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in New York City.
The demonstrations which followed those two killings drew on the social media hashtag #BlackLivesMatter which had originated the year before, with the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the murder of Black teen Trayvon Martin in Florida.
In 2014 and 2015, Black Lives Matter became a national phenomenon in the US, with demonstrations all over the country. Solidarity protests then began to spread around the world. This global expansion has taken on a new dimension with the latest major wave of protests after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers in May.
Black people in the centres of former European colonial powers – London, Paris and Brussels – have taken to the streets. Along with their friends and supporters, they have protested against police violence, structural racism and the legacy of imperialism.
Although Black Lives Matter is a movement rather than a single organisation, there are also specific groups which call themselves “Black Lives Matter”, or some variation thereof. This can sometimes be a little confusing.
The group called Black Lives Matter UK was launched in 2016 and first came to national attention in September of that year with the disruption of London City Airport. They tweeted that the “climate crisis is a racist crisis.” Seven out of ten of the countries most affected by climate change are in sub-Saharan Africa, the protesters pointed out.
The movement has always had a strong internationalist dimension. This is not a break with history but is very much in the tradition of the Black liberation struggle, which saw Malcolm X stand against Zionism, and Black Panther Party leaders express their solidarity with Palestinian resistance fighters.
Last weekend, BLM UK continued in this tradition by posting a series of tweets condemning the Israeli annexation plan for the West Bank and demanding the right to criticise Zionism. “British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler-colonial pursuits,” the group said.
As Israel moves forward with the annexation of the West Bank, and mainstream British politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism, and Israel’s settler colonial pursuits, we loudly and clearly stand beside our Palestinian comrades.
FREE PALESTINE. — #BlackLivesMatterUK (@ukblm) June 28, 2020
The pro-Israel lobby then proved BLM UK’s point, by trying to gag them. They were smeared as anti-Semitic for saying that criticism of Zionism gets you smeared.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews called the tweet an “anti-Semitic trope” and attacked BLM UK as “a supposedly anti-racist organisation”. Members of the Jewish Labour Movement’s leadership smeared them as a “fake” group which was engaging in a “hurtful fantasy”.
However, in stark contrast to the cowardly backsliding of left-wing Labour Party MPs and media outriders, BLM UK did not back down in the face of such dirty slanders. Instead, the group posted a powerful tweet which included a quote from Angela Davis.
One more time for those at the back.
From the British Black Panthers to Black Lives Matter, solidarity and learning from Palestinians in the fight against systemic racism has always been part of our shared struggle, and shared strength. pic.twitter.com/DlwBydqqNe — #BlackLivesMatterUK (@ukblm) June 28, 2020
In 2016, the Movement for Black Lives in the US endorsed BDS, the movement for a boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. The group went even further, condemning US complicity “in the genocide taking place against the Palestinian people” and describing Israel as “an apartheid state”.
No wonder, then, that Israel and its lobby considers Black Lives Matter to be a major “strategic threat” to their apartheid regime which oppresses the Palestinians. By lashing out in such an underhanded and censorious fashion, though, Israel and the pro-Israel lobby are only making more enemies and creating more long term problems for themselves. They are sticking their fingers in the increasing number of holes in the dam. All obfuscation aside, at the end of the day, they are arguing against equality for all people in the land of Palestine, and yet still claim that Israel is a democracy.
As Ali Abunimah explained recently, “Zionism is the belief that Palestinians can and must be expelled from their homeland so that settlers can take their place. Zionism is the belief that Palestinian refugees cannot return to their homeland, to the towns and villages from which they were expelled, solely and exclusively because they’re not Jewish.”
That is why it is such an outrage when pro-Israel lobby groups like the Jewish Labour Movement want to crush all dissent when the topic under discussion is Zionism, and when despicable individuals like John Mann want any critical reference to Zionism to be “outlawed” in British political life. They do this because Zionism is indefensible on its own terms and cannot stand up under the close scrutiny of open and free debate. Its proponents are thus reverting increasingly to closing down such debate. Their efforts are underhand and distinctly undemocratic. Very much like Zionism, in fact.
Portrait of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed black man who was killed after a police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, is painted on Israel’s separation wall in the West Bank town of Bethlehem on 8 June, 2020 [Wisam Hashlamoun/Anadolu Agency] The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them.
Protests Started Over A Month Ago, But The Fight For Black Lives Rages On
It's been over a month since Black Lives Matter protests started after the police killed George Floyd in May. Since then, protesters in Minneapolis were able to push the city council to disband the police department and begin to reimagine what their security systems will look like. But the protests — and the actions that have come out of them — are not isolated to the city where George Floyd was suffocated and killed: Across America, protesters have continued to demand that officials defund and abolish police forces and change the country's systemised racism altogether.
But one month of civil unrest later and it doesn't seem that the movement to take action is slowing down by any means. On Monday 29th June, Democrats in Congress proposed legislation that aims to end excessive use of force by police, and get rid of protections that shield police officers who are accused of misconduct from being prosecuted.
While laws that protect police officers have already been undone in places like New York, a federal law would be an expansive intervention in the way policing works across the country. In cities like Portland and Minneapolis, student-led campaigns have pushed public school boards to cut ties with the police and take officers out of schools. For Portland schools, that means freeing up $1 million (£850,000) to be used on much-needed social services and more.
Despite individual wins and federal policy proposals, protesters and organisers in most cities are still fighting for officials to take real action around the main demand from protesters:defunding police departments and reallocating the funds to underfunded services like education and housing.
In Seattle, New York, Baltimore, Portland, and elsewhere, budgets remain in the high millions and billions even after cuts that might seem substantial at first glance. In Seattle, for example, protesters rejected a recent proposal by Mayor Jenny Durkan to cut the police budget by $20 million, which would only be a 5% reduction in funding. And in Los Angeles, council members approved a budget cut of $150 million to LAPD's $1 billion (£800m), still a small slash.
Advocates are also asking for real change, rather than symbolic gestures. While officials like DC Mayor Muriel Bowser and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio have named plazas in honour of Black Lives Matter and had “BLACK LIVES MATTER” murals and words painted on streets, activists have said and shown that they want much more than PR stunts that don’t provide any material change. Still, the ever-growing size of the movement has continued to ignite people's passion to keep protesting and organising for real justice. ADVERTISEMENT
Most recently, protests have taken the form of staged sit-ins at government buildings in response to moves for reforms and adjusted budgets rather than defunding plans. In New York, protesters have camped out at City Hall, waging Occupy City Hall for more than a week, in an attempt to pressure de Blasio and other officials in charge of the budget to cut NYPD funds by at least $1 billion (£850m), and reallocate it to social services.
On top of cutting the police budget, the #DefundNYPD campaign also demanded the city not increase NYPD budget lines in 2021, that no new policing-related initiatives are created, and more budget transparency. On the day of the budget vote, June 30, those occupying City Hall in Manhattan stayed the whole night watching the budget meeting from screens outside, with many disappointed in the budget outcome that failed to cut the $1 billion (£850m) demanded, provided $13 million to the NYPD (£10m) for "Special Expense," and further defunded necessary services like healthcare, affordable housing, and more.
"The City Council failed New Yorkers today. Instead of shrinking policing, the Council moved cops from the NYPD to other agencies, refused to institute a hiring freeze on police and failed to take meaningful steps to shrink the NYPD’s massive and abusive presence in our communities," Communities United for Police Reform said in a statement released on 1st July after the budget vote. "We will continue to fight for true justice for our communities, and for a budget that provides New Yorkers with the resources and services that we deserve.”
In Philadelphia, protesters have similarly asked city officials to reallocate police budgets into community services, homeless services, and libraries by holding a sit-in at the Municipal Services Building. This came as a last-ditch effort after weeks of protests achieved only a 4.3% reduction in the Philadelphia Police Department’s proposed 2021 budget.
Philadelphia has already proposed cutting the city's $19 million (£15.2m) increase to the police budget to $14 million (£11.2m). But according to Flan Park, an organiser in Philadelphia, this falls far short of what organisers demanded. Park said that allies called for at minimum, a $120 million (£96m) reduction to PPD — an amount equivalent to the total increase to police operating budgets since the current mayor began his first term in office, while other coalition organisations called for things like a 50% reduction and immediate abolition of the police department.
“Groups like Philly for Real Justice, Black Lives Matter Philly, and Black and Brown Workers Cooperative have been organising around the connections between police brutality and economic injustice toward Black Philadelphians for years before this summer," Flan says. "Their leadership has been pushing these issues for a long time. I don’t think that even a flat or no increase budget for the PPD would have happened this summer without years of groundwork coming to fruition as people rapidly mobilised. But this fight far from finished.”
The protests and demands won’t be dying down anytime soon. Over the last month, there have been protests in every state in America, with protests in major cities spanning Seattle to New York continuing each day since May 29. What started as individual protests to call for justice for those killed by police — including George Floyd, Tony McDade, and Breonna Taylor — has quickly shifted into a nationwide movement to fundamentally end policing and transform communities.
Kandace Montgomery, an organiser with MPD150 in Minneapolis, who has been pushing to defund the police for years, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that this moment feels different from the early days of Black Lives Matter, as more people are joining the cause. “Folks in a very decentralised way are mobilising to the streets to demand justice. Organisers have been clear on this forever, but the general public is more clear that we need to eradicate systemic racism and abolish the police, and that is what feels different now.”
How Black Lives Matter fits into the long history of American radicalism
“Any movement that goes to the root of things is radical.”
Community organizations and activists demanding police accountability gathered for a rally and march at the clock in Grand Central Terminal on August 8, 2019, to commemorate the five-year anniversary of Mike Brown’s death by Ferguson Police officer Darren Wilson. Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images
Black Lives Matter was created in 2013 by three Black women — Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi — in response to the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman. Over the last seven years, it has evolved into something much bigger: a broad multiethnic liberation movement focused on criminal justice reform, racist policing, and adjacent causes.
During the course of this shift, the movement has not only expanded but become more radical in its demands for equality across the board. And yet, surprisingly, this has increased, rather than diminished, its appeal.
BLM had little support across the country as recently as 2017. But it has become steadily more popular, and in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, its popularity has surged to the point that it’s now supported by a majority of Americans. By any measure, that suggests BLM is succeeding — culturally and politically.
But how should we think of Black Lives Matter as a historical phenomenon? Is it the sort of radical social movement we’ve seen before in this country? Or is it something new, something different, without any precursors?
To get some answers, I reached out to Michael Kazin, a professor of history and American social movements at Georgetown University and also the co-editor of Dissent magazine. We discussed how BLM fits into the long tradition of American radicalism, what its proponents can learn from previous eras, and why he thinks BLM is both a political and a cultural struggle.
A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows. Sean Illing
As someone who studies the history of social movements in America, how do you view this moment? Michael Kazin
It’s a remarkable moment in some ways, because we have a very unpopular right-wing president and a set of popular social movements on the left. Which is surprising, because usually social movements on the left get more popular when you have a liberal or progressive president in office. This is what happened in the ’30s and ’60s, for example. I think we might be witnessing the end of a conservative era. Sean Illing
What does the end of a conservative era mean? Michael Kazin
Well, we’ve had Democratic presidents in this era, Clinton and Obama, but the guiding ideas of the time have been conservative ideas about government and labor and race. And now that could be changing in a very radical way.
If Democrats are able to win the presidency and tip both houses of Congress, then you could see another major vault to the left in American history, the kind of vault we saw during Reconstruction and during the progressive eras in the ’30s and ’60s and early ’70s. But all of this energy doesn’t always translate to big legislative revolutions. For laws to pass, it’ll take a combination of left-wing social movements and politicians who are willing to accommodate those movements in important ways. Sean Illing
The Black Lives Matter movement is at the forefront of this leftward push. Do you consider BLM a radical social movement, or does it just seem that way to those who are more invested in the current order? Michael Kazin
Like all large social movements, it has its radical aspects and its more reformist aspects. That was true of the labor movement in the ’30s, which had a lot of communists and socialists in it. It was true of Reconstruction too, in which you had more radical Republicans like Thaddeus Stevens, who wanted to confiscate the land of anybody who had fought for the Confederacy and give it to African Americans, to freed slaves. We saw it in the ’60s as well, when the Black Freedom Movement had its reformist side pushing for integration of institutions and the Voter Rights Act, Civil Rights Act, and you had the Black Panthers and other Black Power groups who wanted one big revolution.
So you see this dynamic in every mass social movement. It’s hard to say what will become of BLM. You’ve got the different aspects to it. People can unite around some moderate demands like passing laws that will handcuff the police in terms of their capacity to use violence. The more radical aspects, like abolishing the police altogether, go much further. And there are conversations about reparations and restructuring the economy to ensure not just equal opportunities but equal outcomes.
As the movement gets larger, you’ll see more differences within it. But no single one of those manifestations will define the movement as a whole. Sean Illing
What makes a “radical” movement radical? Is it more about the nature of the demands? Or how those demands are perceived by the power structure? Michael Kazin
That’s a very good question. The power structure, of course, often perceives any movement that wants to change the fundamentals of how the country operates as radical. Martin Luther King Jr. was perceived to be a radical — and I think he was. But the demands he was making publicly, until the end of his life, really weren’t that radical. He simply wanted the 14th and 15th Amendments to be applied to Black people.
Any movement that goes to the root of things is radical. An anti-capitalism movement is radical. A movement which calls for reparations for African Americans is radical. There’s a radical ethics that diagnoses something wrong about the basic organization of society and seeks to undo that wrong, and conservative figures in power have always viewed these efforts as existential threats.
The New Deal was perceived as radically socialist by a lot of people in business and in the power structure, but in retrospect it was really just reformist. Sean Illing
The shifting perception of these movements is fascinating to me, especially in this moment. In the case of Black Lives Matter, it’s remarkable to see just how popular it has become. In the last two weeks alone, I believe, support for BLM has increased as much as it has in the last two years.
What does that signal to you? Michael Kazin
It signals that racial attitudes in America, which began to change after World War II and then took a big step forward in the 1960s with the success of the Black Freedom Movement and the Civil Rights Act, have really evolved. This has been a very long and hard road, with moments of backlash along the way, but this is what you’d expect because racism is so deeply woven into that fabric of American history and culture. Obviously, the horrific killing of George Floyd was a catalyst, but I think we’re seeing the results of young people coming of age and being much more open to racial equality than previous generations. Sean Illing
And BLM, whatever one thinks of it, strikes me as the continuation of some of the most successful social movements in American history. Michael Kazin
I think that’s right, and two of those movements, the Abolitionist movement and the Black Freedom Movement, were also organized around the demands of equality for African-Americans. Of course, you could say this is all part of one long movement, but it had various phases to it. I think what we’re seeing now is very much part of the Black Freedom Movement, which has had its ups and downs throughout its history. But the thread tying all of it together has always been the push for fundamental equality at every level of society and in every major institution.
What’s interesting about BLM is that it could be a catalyst to a reform movement in the same way the labor movement in the ’30s was essential to moving the Democratic Party to the left. A lot of people don’t know this, but it was really in the ’30s that the Democrats began to move away from Jim Crow. It took a long time, obviously, but that’s when it started, and it was because labor was interracial and labor was crucial to the success of the Democrats in the ’30s and ’40s. Sean Illing
How were these previous movements greeted when they emerged? I ask because the goals seem, in retrospect, so sensible and obvious, but I imagine at the time they were seen as extremist and threatening. Michael Kazin
Definitely. The great Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci talked about how social movements can change the common sense of society. What we all take to be normal or moral in society can change pretty quickly, and it changes because of the force and success of social movements. Black Lives Matter has been enormously successful in this respect. Any movement pushing for this level of change will be opposed by people who don’t support those changes — that’s just an axiom of politics. What’s astonishing about this movement is that it’s not provoking more backlash — at least not yet. Sean Illing
Well, I wonder about the “not yet” part. I worry about movements like Black Lives Matter or “abolish the police” becoming so sprawling and disjointed that they lose their focus, or get overwhelmed by revolutionary spasms that may undercut the key goals.
Are there important lessons from the past on this front? Michael Kazin
I was a New Leftist in the late ’60s. I was one of those people who went too far. I think I undermined some of my goals, even though in the end we were successful in winning our main demands, which were to fight for racial equality and an end to the Vietnam War. But along the way I did some stupid things.
I think one big lesson is that mass lawbreaking undermines a movement. As MLK used to say, you want the other side to be seen as the violent side, you want the other side reacting to your civil disobedience, to your respect for order. You don’t want to be seen as running amok without leadership, without discipline, because you’re trying to bring about change and people are scared of change. You don’t want people to be scared of you at the same time they’re scared of change. That’s one lesson.
Another lesson is the importance of building alliances. One of the reasons why I keep saying that leftists should support Biden and ally with Pelosi and Chuck Schumer this year is that we have to get as many Democrats as possible elected because only then will there be the political space to go further than they would like to go. There are limits to what a movement can create on its own. Eventually, you’ve got to get laws passed, and a movement can’t pass laws by itself. Sean Illing
Is it better to view BLM or “abolish the police” less as political projects and more as cultural movements that shift the zeitgeist and therefore pave the way for political changes in the future? Michael Kazin
It’s a great question, and I think it’s both for me. As I said before, it’s obviously helped to change the attitudes of a lot of white Americans and that’s a cultural change in consciousness. Without that change in consciousness, we can’t get real political changes because there would be too much resistance to them, and politicians are averse to doing things which are unpopular.
So it’s important to demand immediate change but also wise to not expect it to happen that fast. These things take a long time. If activists don’t have a longterm strategy, they’re going to fail. This isn’t easy, of course. On the one hand, you want movements to build on a sense of urgency when outrage happens, the way it did with George Floyd and with other Black Americans killed by the police. But at the same time, you can’t let that sense of urgency impede you from organizing for the long-term. Sean Illing
My sense is that we’re still very much in the beginning of whatever this is, and so there’s a lot of symbolic activism and a lot of enthusiasm but not necessarily a clear strategy for seizing power. What do you think a movement like this can do to channel all this energy and goodwill into enduring, concrete changes? Michael Kazin
I think it has to find ways to work with other movements on the left. The change these activists seek is one of economic equity as well as an end to racist treatment by the cops. That was true for the Black movement in Fredrick Douglass’s day as well as the freedom movement led, in part, by MLK in the 1960s. The fight to have the power over how the police treat you is necessarily a fight to gain more power and resources on the job, in one’s neighborhood, and in education. But Black people can’t win that fight by themselves. It will take allies from other races and a demand for universal programs in health care, the environment, housing, etc. — and interracial institutions like labor and, yes, the Democratic
AMERICA FIRST IS A KKK SLOGAN The Logo On Trump's "America First Tee" Looks A Lot Like A Nazi Emblem This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Trump’s campaign has promoted imagery rooted in anti-Semitism.
By Johanna Silver Published on 7/2/2020
President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is selling a T-shirt with a logo that many have condemned for its striking resemblance to Nazi imagery.
The “America First Tee” is available for $30 on the apparel section of Trump’s re-election campaign website, along with the description “Show your support for re-electing President Donald J. Trump! Let everyone know who you are voting for in 2020.”
“We finally have a President that puts AMERICA first,” the description continues.
Many people and groups, including a progressive Jewish organization and The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump Republican PAC, were quick to flag the shirt’s logo. The imagery features an eagle with outspread wings holding a circular American flag in its talons, baring a stark resemblance to the national insignia of Nazi Germany.
The President of the United States is campaigning for reelection with a Nazi symbol. Again.
On the left: an official Trump/Pence “America First” tee. On the right; the Iron Eagle, the official symbol of the Nazi party. ⁰It’s not an accident. Bigotry is their entire brand. pic.twitter.com/mSOBxwf7Wa— Bend the Arc: Jewish Action (@jewishaction) July 1, 2020
”America First” as a phrase has its roots in 1920s Klan history, but also in a 1930s pro-Nazi movement in America promoted by Charles Lindbergh.
Trump’s website is selling a tee shirt with the phrase on a graphic disturbingly similar to a Nazi symbol. pic.twitter.com/LCIZLeMLqk— Man With a Dog In the City (@meerkatrodeo) July 2, 2020
This isn’t the first time in recent weeks that Trump’s campaign has promoted imagery rooted in anti-Semitism.
In June 2020, Facebook deactivated dozens of ads from President Trump’s reelection campaign against antifa and “far-left groups," that included a symbol that Nazis used in concentration camps to designate political prisoners.
In May, President Trump praised prominent anti-Semite Henry Ford for his “good bloodlines” during a visit to a Ford motor plant in Michigan, which many Jewish groups immediately condemned.
Trump has a history of making anti-Semitic remarks himself, as well as comments about eugenics. He infamously praised neo-Nazi protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017 as “very fine people,” discussing a “Unite the Right” rally in which a young woman named Heather Heyer was killed when a driver purposely plowed into a group of counter-protesters.
Other items for sale in Trump’s campaign shop include a “Defend The Police” T-shirt. A graphic on the shirt crosses out the word “defund,” which protesters across America have chanted in the streets in recent months. Another shirt bares the text “#YouAintBlack - Joe Biden,” referencing presumptive Democratic rival Biden’s comments in May to Charlamagne tha God about voting for him versus Trump on radio show “The Breakfast Club.” Biden later apologized for the remarks.
CAPITALISM HITS HOME WITH DR. HARRIET FRAAD GEORGE FLOYD AND THE ERUPTION OF AMERICAN RAGE
On this part 1 of 2, America is a powder keg waiting to explode from 50 years of a class war in which we became the most unequal nation in the developed world. Our money equipped and paid the "public servants" who murdered George Floyd with depraved indifference. As a people, Americans have experienced our political leaders depraved indifference to our suffering as the rich got richer and all others felt the official knee in our necks. The old American dream was available to whites only. Now it has died. It was only a matter of time until the pain at privation for all exploded. George Floyd's murder stood for it all. We now have a moment to make class change. We cannot let this moment be used for a bit of police reform that allows capitalist class/race/gender exploitation to continue.
On this part 2 of 2, Dr. Fraad continues her discussion of the murder of George Floyd at the hands of "public servants." She argues that Americans have experienced our political leaders depraved indifference to our suffering as the rich got richer and all others felt the official knee in our necks. We now have a moment to make class change. We cannot let this moment be used for a bit of police reform that allows capitalist class/race/gender exploitation to continue.
Truck Showing Trump 'Death Clock' For Coronavirus Circles White House On July 4th The sign showed a running estimate of over 77,000 coronavirus deaths that could have been avoided had Trump acted earlier. By Josephine Harvey, HuffPost US
A billboard truck showing the “Trump Death Clock” did laps around Washington, D.C., on Saturday, bearing a stark reminder of the number of deaths that might’ve been prevented had President Donald Trump taken earlier action to mitigate the coronavirus crisis.
As Trump pushed ahead with July 4th celebrations that brought crowds to the National Mall and White House South Lawn ― despite concerns that doing so would further the spread of coronavirus ― the truck circled through the capital. On the side of the truck was a running estimate of over 77,000 deaths that could have been avoided had social distancing measures been implemented on March 9, a week earlier than the White House acted.
The names of COVID-19 victims were also read over a loudspeaker, according to a press release from Death Clock co-sponsor Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group.
We've sent the @TrumpDeathClock to Trump's front doorstep during his reckless July 4th celebrations.
Experts have concluded that at least 77,000 of 132,000 US coronavirus deaths can be directly attributed to the president's incompetent COVID response.https://t.co/0OTgR83qyf— Public Citizen (@Public_Citizen) July 4, 2020
“Trump’s cruelty, casual indifference to the loss of human life and utter incompetence have combined to kill tens of thousands of Americans,” Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, said in a press release.
“From the failure to act early to stop the pandemic to the refusal to implement mitigation guidelines and make personal protective equipment widely available, from the stunning dismissal of the importance of mask-wearing to his failure to take action to ensure a vaccine is available as soon as possible to everyone on the planet, Trump has worsened ― and continues to worsen ― the pandemic,” Weissman added.
The Death Clock billboard first appeared in New York City’s Times Square in May and has since been displayed in a number of cities across the country, including most recently in Tulsa, Oklahoma, ahead of Trump’s June 20 rally.
As a second wave of infections has surged around the U.S., Trump has continued to downplay the pandemic and host events for thousands of supporters.
To date, more than 2.8 million coronavirus cases have been recorded in the U.S., according to Johns Hopkins University’s running tally. There have also been nearly 130,000 deaths.
Heat waves have become more frequent and intense in most of the world since 1950s: study
The study comes as parts of the US face record heat over the holiday weekend
Heat waves are increasing in intensity and frequency in most parts of the world since the 1950s, a new study has found.
Published on Friday in the journal Nature Communications, researchers found over the past 70 years, the total number of heat wave days worldwide was increasing and that all heat waves were getting longer.
“The time for inaction is over,” Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, the study's lead author who works at the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Climate Extremes, told The Guardian. “The dramatic region-by-region change in heat waves we have witnessed, and the rapid increase in the number of these events, are unequivocal indicators that global heating is with us and accelerating.”
Last week, parts of London were hit with record-breaking warmth. Scientists are increasingly alarmed about very high temperatures in the Arctic. A July 4th heat wave is set to pummel a huge swath of the United States, according to meteorologists. Heat waves have become more frequent and intense over the last 70 years, a new study reveals. (AP Photo/Michael Probst)
“The first half of July looks to have well-above-normal temperatures, at pretty high probabilities, beginning around the Fourth of July or slightly before,” Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, told NBC News.
The blast of heat could create a “ring of fire” pattern, in which storms circulating the edges of the heat dome spawn powerful thunderstorms, particularly over the northern Plains, Gottschalk told the network.
According to The Guardian, the most severe heat wave to hit the Mediterranean was in the summer of 2003, when it is believed that there were 70,000 deaths in Europe due to extreme heat. That season also led to billions of dollars in damage to forests and agriculture.
Palestinians file ICC complaint against Trump, Kushner and Netanyahu over annexation
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP TALKS WITH ISRAEL PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU AND JARED KUSHNER IN JERUSALEM, MAY 22, 2017. (PHOTO: KOBI GIDEON/GPO) A prominent Canadian human rights lawyer has submitted a request to the International Criminal Court ICC to investigate senior U.S. and Israeli officials for alleged war crimes committed against the Palestinian people.
William Schabas, a professor of international law at Middlesex University in London, filed a lengthy Article 15 communication with the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor, or OTP on Tuesday asking for an investigation of the architects of the so-called “deal of the century,” also known as the Trump peace plan. The scheme would result in a nominally independent but effectively disjointed Palestinian “state” that would be established through land swaps with Israel and Israeli annexation. It would leave Palestinians cut off from each other in what some have called a “Swiss cheese state” and other have called “modern-day Bantustans.”The new complaint, filed on behalf of four Palestinians from the West Bank, names President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who was placed in charge of brokering the deal despite having no experience in foreign policy or the Middle East. The four Palestinians named in the filing are: Ahmad al-Khaldi, Gassan Khaled, Hasan M. Masan and Abderrahman F. Zaidan.
Palestine’s leaders and people have roundly rejected the U.S. plan. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called it the “slap of the century,” while chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat called it the “fraud of the century.”
“The threatened annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel is an international crime defined in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” Schabas said at a virtual press conference announcing the new filing. “It is intricately linked to the war crime of changing the population of an occupied territory.” Schabas added that ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda “needs to address this as part of her ongoing investigation, casting the net beyond the Israeli leaders to their partners and accomplices in Washington, including Trump, Pompeo and Kushner.”
Under Article 15 of the ICC Rome Statute, any person or organization can send information regarding alleged war crimes to the OTP. The ICC prosecutor then determines whether the situation warrants a formal investigation. The new Article 15 communication asserts that the proposed U.S. plan will lead to an increase in crimes which the OTP is currently investigating. The new complaint states there is credible evidence that Trump, Pompeo, Kushner and other senior U.S. officials are complicit in what could be war crimes under international law, including Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which states that an “occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own population into the territories it occupies.”
A PALESTINIAN BEDOUIN LEAVES AN AREA FENCED OFF BY ISRAELI SETTLERS IN THE WEST BANK VILLAGE OF TUBAS, NEAR THE JORDAN VALLEY, ON NOVEMBER 9, 2010. (PHOTO: WAGDI ESHTAYAH/APA IMAGES)Since illegally occupying the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip in Palestine and the Golan Heights in Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War, over 200 Jews-only settlements have been built in the West Bank. There are currently more than 600,000 Israelis living in these settlements, in which Arabs cannot reside or often even enter, and which are also illegal under international law.
Israeli settlers continue to illegally seize land, expel inhabitants and destroy their homes. Settlers sometimes attack and brutally murder Palestinians, including children, who stand in their way. Palestinian movement is restricted by Jews-only roads, ubiquitously oppressive Israeli military checkpoints and a separation barrier — known to Palestinians as the apartheid wall — that cuts Palestinians off from each other, their land and their livelihoods.
Prominent international critics have called the ongoing Zionist colonization of Palestine an act of ethnic cleansing and the exclusively Jewish settlements a form of apartheid.
Last December, after years of delays and backtracking, the OTP announced it would investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops against Palestinian civilians, including intentionally launching disproportionate attacks, willful killing and injury of Palestinians, intentionally attacking Red Cross and other medical personnel and facilities, unlawful transfer of Israeli civilians into illegally occupied Palestinian territory and construction and expansion of illegal Jewish-only settlements. In announcing its decision to investigate, ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she believed that “war crimes have been or are being committed in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.”
Netanyahu responded to the announcement by saying that the ICC “has no jurisdiction in this case” because the court “only has jurisdiction over petitions submitted by sovereign states,” and that “there has never been a Palestinian state.” Israel has not joined the ICC but the Palestinian Authority — which has limited autonomy under Israeli military occupation — is a member.
The Israeli government is pushing ahead with its own plan to annex up to 30 percent of the West Bank with or without coordinating with Washington. However, despite suggestions from Netanyahu that the imminent annexation would occur on July 1, the plan has apparently been delayed. “It seems unlikely to me that this will happen today,” Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told reporters on Wednesday.
Aside from the United States, most of the world opposes Israel’s annexation plan. A group of 47 experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council recently accused Israel of “profound human rights violations,” calling the annexation plan “a vision of 21st century apartheid.” Amnesty International condemned what it called Israel’s “cynical disregard for international law.” Last week, the Belgian parliament overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for punitive measures, including sanctions, against Israel if it annexes more of Palestine.
Meanwhile, President Trump continues to attack the ICC over its March decision to open an investigation into war crimes committed by all sides during the 19-year war in Afghanistan, including alleged torture, rape and other crimes by U.S. troops and intelligence agents. Last month, the Trump administration announced it would sanction ICC officials involved in probing U.S. crimes, imposing a travel ban on them and their families. The administration also said it would launch a counter-investigation into alleged ICC corruption.
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