The Dangerously Appealing Style of the Far Right

The Forty-Eighth Newsletter (2023)

by Vijay Prashad / November 30th, 2023

Emilio Pettoruti (Argentina), Arlequín (‘Harlequin’), 1928.

Before he won Argentina’s presidential election on 19 November, Javier Milei circulated a video of himself in front of a series of white boards. Pasted on one board were the names of various state institutions, such as the ministries of health, education, women and gender diversities, public works, and culture, all recognised as typical elements of any modern state project. Walking along the board, Milei ripped off the names of these and other ministries while crying afuera! (‘out!’) and declaring that if elected president, he would abolish them. Milei vowed not only to shrink the state but to ‘blow up’ the system, often appearing at campaign events with a chainsaw in hand.

The reaction to Milei’s viral video and other such stunts was as polarised as the Argentinian electorate. Half of the population thought that Milei’s agenda was madness, the sign of a far right out of touch with reality and rationality. The other half thought that Milei displayed precisely the kind of boldness required to transform a country mired in poverty and skyrocketing inflation. Milei did not just win the election; he won it handily, defeating the outgoing government’s finance minister, Sergio Massa, whose stale, centrist promises of stability did not sit well with a population that has lived with instability for decades.

Milei’s proposals to solve the downward spiral of the Argentinian economy are not unique, nor are they practical. Dollarisating the economy, privatisating state functions, and suppressing workers’ organisations are pillars of the neoliberal austerity agenda that has plagued the world for the past several decades. To debate Milei on this or that policy misses the point behind the ascendancy of the far right across the world. It is not what they say they will do to solve the world’s actual problems that matters so much as how they say it. In other words, for politicians like Milei (or Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and former US President Donald Trump), it is not their policy proposals that are attractive, but their style – the style of the far right. People like Milei promise to take the country’s institutions by the throat and make them cough up solutions. Their boldness sends a frisson through society, a jolt that masquerades as a plan for the future.

Fátima Pecci Carou (Argentina), Evita Ninja, 2020.

There was a time when the general mood of the international middle class centred on guaranteeing convenience: they hated the inconvenience of being stuck in traffic jams and queues, of being unable to get their children into the school of their choice, and of being unable to buy – even if by credit – the consumption goods that made them feel culturally superior to each other and to the working class. If the middle class was not inconvenienced, then that class – which shapes the electorate of most liberal democracies – would be content with promises of stability. But when the entire system convulses with inconveniences of one kind or another – such as inflation, the rate of which was 142.7% in Argentina at the start of the elections in October – then the assurance of stability holds little weight. The political forces of the centre, such as of Milei’s opponent, are trapped in a habit of speaking about stability while their country burns. They promise little more than incremental destruction. In this context, timidity is not always attractive to the middle class, let alone to workers and peasants, who require a bold vision rather than a fixation on mild cost-of-living increases alongside taxation holidays for big businesses.

This timidity is not merely about the character of the political force that seizes the moment. If that were the case, then merely shouting louder should win the centre-left and left votes. Rather, it reflects the increasing timidity of the centre-left and its political platform, deflated by the immense stresses and strains that have damaged society at the neurological level. The precariousness of employment, the state’s retreat from providing care for its people, the privatisation of leisure, the individualisation of education, and other strains have, together, produced overwhelming social problems (not to mention the impact of the climate catastrophe and brutal wars). The political horizon of large sections of the centre-left has been reduced to merely managing this decaying civilisation (as our latest dossier, What Can We Expect from the New Progressive Wave in Latin America?, points out). The persistent failure of governments to solve the problems of society has made politics itself foreign to large sections of the public.

Two generations of people have been raised in the world of austerity, sold falsehoods by technocratic experts who promise to improve their social condition through neoliberal economic growth. Why should they believe any expert who now cautions against the economic cannibalism promoted by the far right? Besides, the erosion of education systems and the reduction of the mass media into a gladiatorial contest have meant that there are few avenues for serious public discussion about the troubles facing our societies and the solutions needed to address them. Anything can be promised, anything can be implemented, and even when neoliberal agendas create catastrophic outcomes – as with Modi’s demonetisation scheme in India – they are touted as successes and their leaders are celebrated.

Neoliberalism has increased not only the precariousness of the global majority, but also sentiments of anti-intellectualism (the death of the expert and expertise) and anti-democratisation (the death of serious, democratic public education and discussion). In this context, Milei’s triumph is less about him than it is a product of a broader social process, one that is not exclusive to Argentina but holds true around the world.

Raquel Forner (Argentina), Mujeres del Mundo (‘Women of the World’), 1938.

Pillars of neoliberalism such as the privatisation and commodification of state functions created the social conditions for the rise of twin problems: corruption and crime. The deregulation of private enterprise and the privatisation of state functions have deepened the nexus between the political class and the capitalist class. Granting state contracts to private enterprises and cutting back on regulations, for instance, has provided immense avenues for bribes, kickbacks, and transfer payments to proliferate. Simultaneously, the increased precarity of life and the evisceration of social welfare increased the volume of petty crime, including through the drug trade (as demonstrated by a Tricontinental research project on the war on drugs and imperialism’s addictions, which will bear fruit soon).

The far right has fixated on these problems not in an effort to address the roots of the problem, but to achieve two results:

1. By attacking the corruption of state officials but not of capitalist enterprises, the far right has been able to further delegitimise the state’s role as a guarantor of social rights.
2. Using the general social malaise around petty crime, the far right has used every instrument of the state – which they otherwise decry – to attack the communities of the poor, garrison them under the guise of crime prevention, and rob them of any self-representation. This attack is extended against anyone who gives voice to the working class and the poor, from journalists to human rights defenders, from left politicians to local leaders.

The far right’s misleading representation and weaponisation of corruption and crime has placed the left at a deep disadvantage. On these issues, the far right has an intimate relationship with old social democracy and traditional liberalism, who generally accept the content of the far-right agenda, objecting only to their brash approach. This leaves the left with few political allies when it comes to these core battles, forcing it to defend the state form despite the corruption that has become endemic to it through neoliberal policy. Meanwhile, the left must continue to defend working-class communities from state repression, despite the real problems of crime and insecurity that confront the working class due to the collapse of employment and social welfare. The dominant debate is framed around the surface-level realities of corruption and crime and is not permitted to probe deeper into the neoliberal roots of these problems.

Diana Dowek (Argentina), Las madres (‘The Mothers’), 1983.

When the election results came in from Argentina, I asked our colleagues in Buenos Aires and La Plata to send me some songs that capture the current mood. Meanwhile, I buried myself in Argentinian poetry of loss and defeat, mostly the work of Juana Bignozzi (1937–2015). However, this was not the mood they wanted to put forward in this newsletter. They wanted something robust, something that reflects the boldness with which the left must respond to our current moment. This mood is captured by the rapper Trueno (b. 2002) and the singer Víctor Heredia (b. 1947), crossing generations and genres to produce the moving song Tierra Zanta (‘Sacred Earth’) and an equally moving video. And so, from Argentina:

I came into the world to defend my land.
I am the peaceful saviour in this war.
I will die fighting, firm as a Venezuelan.
I am Atacama, Guaraní, Coya, Barí, and Tucáno.
If they want to throw the country at me, we’ll lift it up.

We Indians built empires with our hands.
Do you hate the future? I come with my brothers and sisters
from different parents, but we don’t stay apart.
I am the fire of the Caribbean and a Peruvian warrior.
I thank Brazil for the air that we breathe.

Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win.
But it is not in vain to die for the land that I love.
And if outsiders ask what my name is,
my name is ‘Latin’ and my surname is ‘America’.

 

A New Mood in the World Will Put an End to the Global Monroe Doctrine

The Forty-Seventh Newsletter (2023)

by Vijay Prashad / November 28th, 2023

Tagreed Darghouth (Lebanon), from the series The Tree Within, a Palestinian Olive Tree, 2018.

Every day since 7 October has felt like an International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, with hundreds of thousands gathering in Istanbul, a million in Jakarta, and then yet another million across Africa and Latin America to demand an end to the brutal attack being carried out by Israel (with the collusion of the United States). It is impossible to keep up with the scale and frequency of the protests, which are in turn pushing political parties and governments to clarify their stances on Israel’s attack on Palestine. These mass demonstrations have generated three kinds of outcomes:

1. They have drawn a new generation not only into pro-Palestine activity, but into anti-war – if not anti-imperialist – consciousness.
2. They have drawn in a new section of activists, particularly trade unionists, who have been inspired to stop the shipment of goods to and from Israel (including in places such as Europe and India, where the governments have supported Israel’s attacks).
3. They have generated a political process to challenge the hypocrisy of the Western-led ‘rules-based international order’ to demand that the International Criminal Court indict Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli government officials.

No war in recent years – not even the ‘shock and awe’ campaign used by the United States against Iraq in 2003 – has been as ruthless in its use of force. Most horrifying is the reality that civilians, penned in by the Israeli occupation, have no escape from the heavy bombardment. Nearly half (at least 5,800) of the more than 14,000 civilians that have been murdered are children. No amount of Israeli propaganda has been able to convince billions of people around the world that this violence is a righteous rejoinder for the 7 October attack. Visuals from Gaza show the disproportionate and asymmetrical nature of Israel’s violence over the past seventy-five years.

Vincent De Pio (Philippines), Back to the Future, 2012

A new mood has taken root amongst billions of people in the Global South and been mirrored by millions in the Global North who no longer take the attitudes of US leaders and their Western allies at face value. A new study by the European Council of Foreign Relations shows that ‘much of the rest of the world wants the war in Ukraine to stop as soon as possible, even if it means Kyiv losing territory. And very few people – even in Europe – would take Washington’s side if a war erupted between the US and China over Taiwan’. The council suggests that this is due to the ‘loss of faith in the West to order the world’. More precisely, most of the world is no longer willing to be bullied by the West (as South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor put it). Over the last 200 years, the US government’s Monroe Doctrine has been instrumental in justifying this type of bullying. To better understand the significance of this key policy in upholding US dominance over the world order, the rest of this newsletter features briefing no. 11 from No Cold War, It Is Time to Bury the Monroe Doctrine.

n 1823, James Monroe, then president of the United States, told the US Congress that his government would stand against European interference in the Americas. What Monroe meant was that Washington would, from then on, treat Latin America and the Caribbean as its ‘backyard’, grounded by a policy known as the Monroe Doctrine.

Over the past 200 years, the US has operated in the Americas along this grain, exemplified by the more than 100 military interventions against countries in the region. Since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US and its Global North allies have attempted to expand this policy into a Global Monroe Doctrine, most destructively in Western Asia.

Stivenson Magloire (Haiti), Divided Spirit, 1989.

The Violence of the Monroe Doctrine

Two decades before Monroe’s proclamation, the world’s first anti-colonial revolution took place in Haiti. The 1804 Haitian Revolution posed a serious threat to the plantation economies of the Americas, which relied upon enslaved labour from Africa, and so the US led a process to suffocate it and prevent it from spreading. Through US military interventions across Latin America and the Caribbean, the Monroe Doctrine prevented the rise of national self-determination and defended plantation slavery and the power of the oligarchies.

Nonetheless, the spirit and promise of the Haitian Revolution could not be extinguished, and in 1959 it was reignited by the Cuban Revolution, which in turn inspired revolutionary struggles across the world and, most importantly, in the so-called backyard of the United States. Once again, the US initiated a cycle of violence to destroy Cuba’s revolutionary example, prevent it from inspiring others, and overthrow any government in the region that tried to exercise its sovereignty.

Together, US and Latin American oligarchies launched several campaigns, such as Operation Condor, to violently suppress the left through assassinations, incarcerations, torture, and regime change. These efforts culminated in a series of coups against left-wing forces in the Dominican Republic (1965), Chile (1973), Uruguay (1973), Argentina (1976), and El Salvador (1980). The military governments that were subsequently installed quashed the sovereignty agenda and imposed a neoliberal project in its place. Latin America and the Caribbean became fertile ground for economic policies that benefitted US-led transnational monopolies. Washington co-opted large sections of the region’s bourgeoisie, selling them the illusion that national development would come alongside the growth of US power.

Oswaldo Vigas (Venezuela), Duende Rojo (‘Red Elf’), 1979.

Progressive Waves

Despite this repression, waves of popular movements continued to shape the region’s political culture. During the 1980s and 1990s, these movements toppled the military dictatorships put in place by Operation Condor and then inaugurated a cycle of progressive governments inspired by the Cuban and Nicaraguan revolutions and propelled forward by the electoral victory of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela in 1998. The US response to this progressive upsurge was yet again driven by the Monroe Doctrine as it sought to secure the interests of private property above the needs of the masses. This counterrevolution has employed three main instruments:

1.  Coups. Since 2000, the US has attempted to conduct ‘traditional’ military coups d’état on at least twenty-seven occasions, with some of these attempts succeeding, such as in Honduras (2009), while many others were defeated, as in Venezuela (2002).

2. Hybrid Wars. In addition to the military coup, the US has also developed a series of tactics to overwhelm countries that are attempting to build sovereignty, such as information warfare, lawfare, diplomatic warfare, and electoral interference. This hybrid war strategy includes manufacturing impeachment scandals (for example, against Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo in 2012) and ‘anti-corruption’ measures (such as against Argentina’s Cristina Kirchner in 2021). In Brazil, the US worked with the Brazilian right wing to manipulate an anti-corruption platform to impeach then President Dilma Rousseff in 2016 and imprison former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in 2018, leading to the election of far-right Jair Bolsonaro in 2018.

3. Economic Sanctions. The use of illegal, unilateral coercive measures – including economic sanctions and blockades – are a key instrument of the Monroe Doctrine. The US has employed such instruments for decades (since 1960 in the case of Cuba) and expanded their use in the twenty-first century against countries such as Venezuela. The Latin American Strategic Geopolitics Centre (CELAG) showed that US sanctions against Venezuela led to the loss of more than three million jobs from 2013 to 2017 while the Centre for Economic and Policy Research found that sanctions have reduced the public’s caloric intake and increased disease and mortality, killing 40,000 people in a single year while endangering the lives of 300,000 others.

Maya Weishof (Brazil), Between Talks and Myths, 2022.

End the Monroe Doctrine

US attempts to undermine progressive politics in Latin America, underpinned by the Monroe Doctrine, have not been entirely successful. The return of left-wing governments to power in Bolivia, Brazil, and Honduras after US-backed right-wing regimes illustrates this failure. Another sign is the resilience of the Cuban and Venezuelan revolutions. To date, while efforts to expand the Monroe Doctrine around the world have caused immense destruction, they have failed to install stable client regimes, as we saw with the defeat of US projects in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nonetheless, Washington remains undeterred and has shifted its focus to the Asia-Pacific to confront China.

Two hundred years ago, the forces of Simón Bolívar trounced the Spanish Empire in the 1821 Battle of Carabobo and opened a period of independence for Latin America. Two years later, in 1823, the US government announced its Monroe Doctrine. The dialectic between Carabobo and Monroe continues to shape our world, the memory of Bolívar instilled in the hope of and struggle for a more just society.

Sheena Rose (Barbados), Agony, 2022.

Today, the ugliness of the war on Gaza suffocates our consciousness. Em Berry, a poet from Aotearoa, New Zealand, wrote a beautiful poem on the name Gaza and the atrocities being inflicted upon its people by apartheid Israel:

This morning I learned
The English word gauze
(finely woven medical cloth)
comes from the Arabic word غزة or Ghazza
because Gazans have been skilled weavers for centuries

I wondered then

how many of our wounds
have been dressed
because of them

and how many of theirs
have been left open
because of us

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. Prashad is the author of twenty-five books, including The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World and The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South. Read other articles by Vijay, or visit Vijay's website.

Battle for the Minds

The Religious Politic and the New Atheists

by Dan Lieberman / November 30th, 2023

During the first decade of the 21st century, a battle between the Religious Right and the New Atheists emerged. Both were gaining strength from charismatic leaders, able to articulate their beliefs and accumulate followers. Energized by George W. Bush’s faith-based presidency, the Religious Right, the most politically active of organized religions, attempted to direct local and national legislation to its social conservative agenda. With most voters crowded towards the center of the political spectrum, the Religious Right maintained control of a solid bloc of “swing” votes by which its minority hoped to control the majority.

The organizing efforts of religious extremes, which indoctrinated adherents to political beliefs and provided dubious information to advance causes, provoked a New Atheism. The New Atheists regarded organized religion as a threat to world peace and to the health and welfare of planet Earth. If issues were resolved by religious rather than by rational concepts, the nation would be hostage to Dominionism, an interpretation of a Genesis doctrine that leads Fundamentalists to believe they are commanded to dominate the political process. To the New Atheists, all organized religions, and especially the Religious Right, were leading America into an abyss. They boldly proclaimed, “It is time for atheists to come out of the closet and combat religious tyranny and its destructiveness.”

The New Atheists had only spokespersons. The Religious Right had leaders, finances, and organizations. How effective could spokespersons be against well-equipped organizations? Not very effective, but the New Atheists were saved from displaying their deficiencies. Replacement of the Bush administration with the Obama administration diminished the political activity of The Religious Right; the New Atheists became an intellectual exercise, the fate of all atheist movements in the United States.

In the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump recognized he could not be elected without support from the Evangelical Protestants and his catering to the heirs of the Moral Majority enabled him to win the election. Trump’s victory re-energized the Religious Right, made it more nationalist, and invited elements that were prone to violence. (Note: The term Religious Right is used here to characterize the summation of all devoted who entertain a far-right political philosophy.) The Trump and Religious Right arrangement is responsible for a polarized America, for reversing decades of social advancements, for debasing democracy, for allowing scriptures to make decisions on education, and for skewing America in a cloudy direction. America faces a trend to theocratic shading and to the end of separation of church and state. To some extent, this has already happened, with the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), in alliance with Christian Zionists, pushing U.S. foreign policy into favoring the wants of Zionist Jews.

The Religious Political Alignment

The following table shows the distribution of Faiths. Evangelicals, the denomination that is most led by scripture, represent the highest percentage of church-going Americans.

The next figure shows the voting patterns for each religious denomination.

White evangelicals, the largest religious denomination, voted as the most solid bloc and for Donald Trump. Black Protestants favored Biden as a solid bloc, but their bloc is 25% percent of the size of the Evangelical bloc. A large portion of the unaffiliated, almost equal in size to the Evangelicals, voted for Biden, which places the extremes of religious persuasion close to the extremes of political persuasion. One major difference ─ the Evangelicals have complementary organizations and tens of millions of obedient followers; the non-affiliated have disparate organizations and each person follows his/her own beliefs.

The voting pattern does not tell the whole story. Nearly 88 percent of members of Congress identify as Christian, compared with only 63 percent of U.S. adults overall. The Republican congressional delegation is 99 percent Christian. Jewish members also make up a larger share of Congress than they do of the population (6% vs. 2%). Unlike Evangelical politicos, Jewish members of Congress do not decide on social and domestic issues in accordance with interpretations from the Old Testament, and, similar to Evangelicals, almost all use their Jewish roots to shape a foreign policy that favors Israel.

The Evangelicals are not unique in adjusting their social and political beliefs to scripture teaching; a portion of the Mormon, Catholic, and Protestant denominations is similarly guided and together they constitute the Religious Right.

The religious conservative organizations persuade multitudes to favor their direction on vital issues. A tax-free status increases contributions and adds to finances for political activities.

The Vital Issues

Extreme religious leaders proclaim the need for Dominionism to avoid a loss of choices. From conception to death, a soulless government denies them choices. They are pushed to fight for stability, for freedom, for their social conservatism, and for the issues that define their existence

·         Abortion is a never-ending issue that unites many religious groups. These groups promote local laws to inhibit abortion. They have managed to get Supreme Court judges to reverse the Roe vs. Wade decision.

·         Religious extremists require the inclusion of teaching creationism along with evolution.

·         Foreign policy initiatives of the Religious Right are driven by ultra-patriotism and U.S. exceptionalism, by the causal potency of God in selecting America for an exceptional position that the rest of the world must admire, emulate, and not contradict. The Middle East Conflict has excited the Christian Fundamentalists as if it were a God driven plan to fulfill biblical prophecies. Their support for Israel exceeds Jewish support for Israel and their voting potential deters the U.S. Congress from an honest debate on the issue.

·         Stem cell research violates most religious beliefs in conception. Religious groups argue for laws preventing the use of fetuses for stem cell research.

·         Islam infuriates Christian Fundamentalists. An obsessive hatred for Islam drives Christian Fundamentalists to attitudes that portend a clash of civilizations

·         LGBT Rights is another initiative that arouses the full fury of the conservative religions. Their interpretations of scriptures guide an agenda that essentially views LBGT rights as a disturbance to social order.

The New Religious Right

Previously prominent leaders of the Religious Right — Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, Pat Robertson, chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network, and former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed Jr. have disappeared from the political scene. Another breed of less effective but active leaders has replaced these powerful spokespersons.

Jerry Falwell Jr. could not successfully follow his father’s achievements. Mutual charges of corruption, sexual misconduct, and questionable financial dealings between Falwell Jr, and Liberty University officials have debilitated the Moral Majority.

After James C. Dobson, once considered the most influential of Religious Right leaders, left his Focus on the Family (FOF), the organization continued to do what it implies; focus on self-defined family values but severely reduced its attention to political activities. Have a question on relationships, marriage, entertainment, parenting, social issues, life challenges, or faith ─ FOF has an answer, a biblical answer. People for the American Way describes FOF as:

…anti-choice, anti-gay, and against sex education curricula that are not strictly abstinence-only. Local schoolbook censors frequently use Focus on the Family’s material when challenging a book or curriculum in the public schools. FOF also focuses on religion in public schools, encouraging Christian teachers to establish prayer groups in schools.

Family Research Council and its leader, Tony Perkins, are the most prominent in the Religious Right.

The peripatetic Dr. James Dobson also founded the Family Research Council (FRC) as a lobbying group for his Focus on Family. Tony Perkins, a two-term Louisiana state representative and a candidate for the United States Senate in 2002, became its supervisor in 2003, and greatly increased FRC lobbying activities and its promotion of socially conservative views. FRC’s website defines its organization as:

Championing marriage and family as the foundation of civilization, the seedbed of virtue, and the wellspring of society. FRC shapes public debate and formulates public policy that values human life and upholds the institutions of marriage and the family. Believing that God is the author of life, liberty, and the family, FRC promotes the Judeo-Christian worldview as the basis for a just, free, and stable society.

The Family Research Council claims 455,000 members and has two publications and several newsletters. Washington Watch Weekly is a 30-minute radio talk show that features Tony Perkins. As a 501(c) research and education organization, FRC is prohibited from endorsing any candidate for public office. Its legislative action arm, FRC Action, “produces voter guides for the presidential race as well as other select legislative races.”

FRC’s sponsorship of the Pray Vote Stand Summit to Champion Faith and Freedom Values, held on September 15-17 at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C., which also celebrated FRC’s 40th anniversary, demonstrated its political influence. Summit speakers included presidential candidates Donald J. Trump, Mike Pence, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Sen. Tim Scott, and Vivek Ramaswamy. Other notable speakers include Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears, Dr. Ben Carson, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.), Rep. Mark Green (R-Tenn.),  Os Guinness, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Riley Gaines, and many more.

Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and Rev. John C. Hagee
Founded by Texas evangelist Rev. John C. Hagee, pastor of the 22,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, CUFI provides “a national association through which every pro-Israel church, para-church organization, ministry or individual in America can speak and act with one voice in support of Israel in matters related to Biblical issues.” CUFI claims a staggering 10 million members, almost as many Jews who support Israel, and when Israel faces a crisis, they “immediately take action and rally support across America, be it in the pulpits across the country, media outlets, our nation’s college campuses, or Capitol Hill.”

The Rev. John C. Hagee, who loves apartheid Israel, has made several remarks that are offensive to Jews. Bruce Wilson, a Dec 6, 2017 Contributor to the Huff Post, exposed Hagee’s remarks.

“God sent Adolf Hitler to help Jews reach the promised land,” the pastor claimed in a 1999 sermon…In a March 23, 2003 sermon broadcast internationally, Hagee claimed European Rothschild bankers, along with David Rockefeller, controlled the U.S. economy through the Federal Reserve…In his March 23, 2003 sermon, Hagee predicted that Jewish financiers were behind a satanic Illuminati plot, based in Europe, that would bring the Antichrist to power. This Antichrist, who in a prior sermon Hagee had predicted would be both partially Jewish and homosexual, would according to Hagee slaughter up to 1/3 of the world’s population and “make Hitler look like a choirboy”

By refusing to condemn Hagee’s anti-Jewish stance Jewish groups, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), show their lack of credibility.

Patriot Mobile

A new kid on the block is a small Texas cellphone provider that warns of rampant “wokeness” and “sexually explicit books” in schools and urges leadership changes. The Oct. 5, 2022, New York Times describes “How a Christian Cellphone Company Became a Rising Force in Texas Politics.”

All 11 candidates backed by the company, Patriot Mobile, won their races across four school districts, including the one in Grapevine, Texas, a conservative town where the company is based and where highly rated schools are the main draw for families. In August, the board approved new policies limiting support for transgender students, clamping down on books deemed inappropriate and putting in place new rules that made it possible to be elected to the school board even without a majority of votes.

The company’s efforts have been seen as a model by Republican candidates and conservative activists, who have sought to harness parental anger over public schools as a means of holding onto suburban areas, a fight that could determine the future of the country’s largest red state.

The Religious Politic

Most of the American presidents have been deists. Many of them have feigned attachment to religions, and their records show the hypocrisy. George W. Bush touted the Bible, but it is doubtful that the higher authority was pleased with him.

Evangelists took credit for electing Bush in the 2004 election and exit polls confirm their declaration. The Evangelists came out in full force in Ohio, and the “Buckeye” state’s 20 electoral votes tipped the election to Bush. The religious conservatives showed they can be the most reliable Republicans, similar to African Americans for the Democrats. Nevertheless, most of them are issue-oriented, distrustful of government, and dubiously contend that fabricated laws intrude upon their lives. Initially, the Religious Right had little success with its social conservative agenda; that has changed to some small steps and one giant step.

·         A 6-3 Supreme Court majority has ruled that public schools generally “cannot bar their employees from conducting a ‘private’ and ‘personal’ religious expression while on the job.

·         Bills before the Texas legislature allow schools to hire chaplains and require the displaying of posters in every public school classroom that lists a version of the Ten Commandments.

·         Book banning has become a national sport, and the Religious Right seeks the most medals. PEN America, a nonprofit advocacy group, reports that 1,586 books were banned in 2022; “33% of the banned books included  LGBTQ themes, while 22% “directly address issues of race and racism.” Christian nationalists, led by political leaders, such as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seek to ban books, especially those that teach about Critical Race Theory.

·         The Supreme Court overruling of Roe vs. Wade, the most major reversal of a social issue, highlights the strength of the contemporary Religious Right.

Conclusion

Polls show that more than half of Republicans believe the country should be a strictly Christian nation, either adhering to the ideals of Christian nationalism (21%) or sympathizing with those views (33%). The Christian nationalists displayed their agenda when eight  Senators who voted against Biden’s certification for president were identified as falling “squarely in the ranks of Christian Nationalists.” Newly elected House leader, Mike Johnson, is prominent among the 147 Republicans who objected to Biden’s certification. Johnson is quoted as saying, “Someone asked me today in the media, ‘People are curious, what does Mike Johnson think about any issue?’ Well, go pick up a Bible off your shelf and read it. That’s my worldview.”

The U.S. has the most devout population of all the wealthy Western democracies and suffers from a higher number of social problems — incarcerations, opioid deaths, drug addiction, crime, mass killings, racial conflict, and economic inequality. Some sociologists have argued that there is a link between relatively high levels of income inequality in the U.S. and continued high levels of religious persuasion.

Is there a relation between having the largest percentage of church-going citizens and increased social problems? Looked at from another perspective, we can conclude that religious institutions are not fulfilling a duty to develop peace-loving, moral, and obedient citizens, The Christians who support the amoral, devil-worshipping, provocative, “never turn the other cheek,”  and self-centered Donald Trump are not following the teachings of Jesus Christ. The same Christian community rejected Jimmy Carter, the born-again, most moral and religious of all American presidents.

President Carter put moral aspects high in his agenda, “appealing for racial equality, lamenting economic disparity and making human rights concerns integral to American foreign policy.” He won some issues but never won acceptance from white co-religionists.

Legislation in a democracy follows the times, is carefully prepared from scientific and academic knowledge, and considers the needs of all the people. In county, state, and federal government, the Religious Right defies the democratic concept of government, preparing legislation that goes against the times, is prepared from dogma and scripture, and considers the needs of those with an atavistic agenda. More attention has to be given to combatting the religious-political alignment, more resources have to be utilized to diminish its influence, and more action has to be instituted to halt its corrosion of American society.

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com. He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.

Can US Threats Prevent a Wider War in the Middle East?

by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies / November 30th, 2023

Protesters wave Palestinian, Lebanese, and Hezbollah flags and hold a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during a Palestine solidarity rally in Lebanon. (Credit: GETTY IMAGES)

While Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has been frantically shuttling around the Middle East trying to stop the Israeli conflict in Gaza from exploding into a regional war, the United States has also sent two aircraft carrier strike groups, a Marine Expeditionary Unit and 1,200 extra troops to the Middle East as a “deterrent.” In plain language, the United States is threatening to attack any forces that come to the defense of the Palestinians from other countries in the region, reassuring Israel that it can keep killing with impunity in Gaza.

But if Israel persists in this genocidal war, U.S. threats may be impotent to prevent others from intervening. From Lebanon to Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Iran, the possibilities of the conflict spreading are enormous. Even Algeria says it is ready to fight for a free Palestine, based on a unanimous vote in its parliament on November 1st.

Middle Eastern governments and their people already see the United States as a party to Israel’s massacre in Gaza. So any direct U.S. military action will be seen as an escalation on the side of Israel and is more likely to provoke further escalation than to deter it.

The United States already faces this predicament in Iraq. Despite years of Iraqi demands for the removal of U.S. forces, at least 2,500 U.S. troops remain at Al-Asad Airbase in western Anbar province, Al-Harir Airbase, north of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, and another small base at the airport in Erbil.  There are also “several hundred” NATO troops, including Americans, advising Iraqi forces in NATO Mission Iraq (NMI), based near Baghdad.

For many years, U.S. forces in Iraq have been mired in a low-grade war against the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) that Iraq formed to fight ISIS, mainly from Shia militias. Despite their links to Iran, the armed groups Kata’ib Hezbollah, Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and other PMFs have often ignored Iranian calls to de-escalate attacks on U.S. forces. These Iraqi groups do not respect Iran Quds Force leader General Esmail Qaani as highly as they did General Soleimani, so Soleimani’s  assassination by the United States in 2020 has further reduced Iran’s ability to restrain the militias in Iraq.

After a year-long truce between U.S. and Iraqi forces, the Israeli war on Gaza has triggered a new escalation of this conflict in both Iraq and Syria. Some militias rebranded themselves as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and began attacking U.S. bases on October 17. After 32 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq, 34 more in Syria and 3 U.S. airstrikes in Syria, U.S. forces conducted airstrikes against two Kata’ib Hezbollah bases in Iraq, one in Anbar province and one in Jurf Al-Nasr, south of Baghdad, on November 21, killing at least nine militiamen.

The U.S. airstrikes prompted a furious response from the Iraqi government spokesman Bassam al-Awadi. “We vehemently condemn the attack on Jurf Al-Nasr, executed without the knowledge of government agencies,” al-Awadi said. “This action is a blatant violation of sovereignty and an attempt to destabilize the security situation… The recent incident represents a clear violation of the coalition’s mission to combat Daesh (ISIS) on Iraqi soil. We call on all parties to avoid unilateral actions and to respect Iraq’s sovereignty…”

As the Iraqi government feared, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq responded to the U.S. airstrikes with two attacks on Al-Harir airbase on November 22 and several more on November 23rd. They attacked Al-Asad airbase with several drones, launched another drone attack on the U.S. base at Erbil airport, and their allies in Syria attacked two U.S. bases across the border in northeastern Syria.

Short of a ceasefire in Gaza or a full U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and Syria, there is no decisive action the U.S. can take that would put a stop to these attacks. So the level of violence in Iraq and Syria is likely to keep rising as long as the war on Gaza continues.

Another formidable and experienced military force opposing Israel and the United States is the Houthi army in Yemen. On November 14, Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi government in Yemen, asked neighboring countries to open a corridor through their territory for his army to go and fight Israel in Gaza.

The Houthi Deputy Information Secretary Nasreddin Amer told Newsweek that if they had a way to enter Palestine, they would not hesitate to join the fight against Israel, ”We have fighters numbering hundreds of thousands who are brave, tough, trained and experienced in fighting,” Amer said. “They have a very strong belief, and their dream in life is to fight the Zionists and the Americans.”

Transporting hundreds of thousands of Yemeni soldiers to fight in Gaza would be nearly impossible unless Saudi Arabia opened the way. That seems highly unlikely, but Iran or another ally could help to transport a smaller number by air or sea to join the fight.

The Houthis have been waging an asymmetric war against Saudi-led invaders for many years, and they have developed weapons and tactics that they could bring to bear against Israel. Soon after al-Houthi’s statement, Yemeni forces in the Red Sea boarded a ship owned, via shell companies, by Israeli billionaire Abraham Ungar. The ship, which was on its way from Istanbul to India, was detained in a Yemeni port.

The Houthis have also launched a series of drones and missiles towards Israel. While many members of Congress try to portray the Houthis as simply puppets of Iran, the Houthis are actually an independent, unpredictable force that other actors in the region cannot control.

Even NATO ally Türkiye is finding it difficult to remain a bystander, given the widespread public support for Palestine. President Erdogan of Türkiye was among the first international leaders to speak out strongly against the Israeli war on Gaza, explicitly calling it a massacre and saying that it amounted to genocide.

Turkish civil society groups are spearheading a campaign to send humanitarian aid to Gaza on cargo ships, braving a possible confrontation like the one that occurred in 2010 when the Israelis attacked the Freedom Flotilla, killing 10 people aboard the Mavi Marmara.

On the Lebanese border, Israel and Hezbollah have conducted daily exchanges of fire since October 7, killing 97 combatants and 15 civilians in Lebanon and 9 soldiers and 3 civilians in Israel. Some 46,000 Lebanese civilians and 65,000 Israelis have been displaced from the border area. Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant warned on November 11, “What we’re doing in Gaza, we can also do in Beirut.”

How will Hezbollah react if Israel resumes its brutal massacre in Gaza after the brief pause is over or if Israel expands the massacre to the West Bank, where it has already killed at least 237 more Palestinians since October 7?

In a speech on November 3, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah held back from declaring a new war on Israel, but warned that “all options are on the table” if Israel does not end its war on Gaza.

As Israel prepared to pause its bombing on November 23, Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian held meetings in Qatar, first with Nasrallah and Lebanese officials, and then with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

In a public statement, Amirabdollahian said, “the continuation of the ceasefire can prevent further expansion of the scope of the war. In the meeting with the leaders of the resistance, I found out that if Israel’s war crimes and genocide continue, a tougher and more complicated scenario of the resistance will be implemented.”

Amirabdollahian already warned on October 16 that, “The leaders of the resistance will not allow the Zionist regime to do whatever it wants in Gaza and then go to other fronts of the resistance.”

In other words, if Iran and its allies believe that Israel really intends to continue its war on Gaza until it has removed Hamas from power, and then to turn its war machine loose on Lebanon or its other neighbors, they would prefer to fight a wider war now, forcing Israel to fight the Palestinians, Hezbollah and their allies at the same time, rather than waiting for Israel to attack them one by one.

Tragically, the White House is not listening. The next day, President Biden continued to back Israel’s vow to resume the destruction of Gaza after its “humanitarian pause,” saying that attempting to eliminate Hamas is “a legitimate objective.”

America’s unconditional support for Israel and endless supply of weapons have succeeded only in turning Israel into an out-of-control, genocidal, destabilizing force at the heart of a fragile region already shattered and traumatized by decades of U.S. war-making. The result is a country that refuses to recognize its own borders or those of its neighbors, and rejects any and all limits on its territorial ambitions and war crimes.

If Israel’s actions lead to a wider war, the U.S. will find itself with few allies ready to jump into the fray. Even if a regional conflict is avoided, the U.S. support for Israel has already created tremendous damage to the U.S. reputation in the region and beyond, and direct U.S. involvement in the war would leave it more isolated and impotent than its previous misadventures in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The United States can still avoid this fate by insisting on an immediate and permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. If Israel will not agree to that, the U.S. must back up this position with an immediate suspension of arms deliveries, military aid, Israeli access to U.S. weapons stockpiles in Israel and diplomatic support for Israel’s war on Palestine.

The priority of U.S. officials must be to stop Israel’s massacre, avoid a regional war, and get out of the way so that other nations can help negotiate a real solution to the occupation of Palestine.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books, November 2022. Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for PEACE, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq. Read other articles by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies.

The young men and the sea: Gaza's displaced take to the waves

Deir el-Balah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – With the rising of the sun, dozens of people flock to the Mediterranean beaches of the devastated Gaza Strip.


Issued on: 30/11/2023 - 
Palestinians flock to Deir el-Balah beach in the central Gaza Strip, taking advantage of a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas to bathe or fish © Mahmud Hams / AFP
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Some come out of necessity, to bathe or fish for food, while others simply hope to take advantage of a brief pause in fighting with a dip in the sea after nearly eight weeks of war between Israel and Hamas.

For Walid Sultan, fishing is at the core of his identity.

A self-described "fisherman from a family of fishermen", the 22-year-old fled his home in a fishing village in Beit Lahia, in the heavily bombed north of the Gaza Strip, moving south down the coast to Deir el-Balah.

No longer able to bear being away from the water, pacing in circles around the UN-run school where he has found shelter, he borrowed a friend's boat and went fishing.

"We go out to sea even if the Israeli navy vessels shoot over us, because we want to bring some fish back to our families and to sell for a little money," he said.

Even before the current war, the fifth in 15 years, Sultan's profession could be risky.

Under a strict blockade imposed when Hamas took power in Gaza, Israel sharply reduced the zone permitted for fishing off Gaza's coast, altering its size periodically to punish or reward Gaza's Islamist rulers.

Palestinian children help fishermen untangle nets on Deir el-Balah beach, during a truce in Gaza between Israel and Hamas 

© Mahmud Hams / AFP

Sometimes, the fishermen say, they would come under fire well inside the permitted limits.

For Wael Ahmed, 48, the current truce coming to an end has become an ever-present fear.

"We just want to get back to our lives, and for our kids to live in peace," he said.

Nearby, dozens of people swam, splashed and laughed.

Samia gathered her whole family and set off for the beach on Thursday. As the children enjoyed themselves nearby, the thirtysomething -- also from Beit Lahia -- got to work washing their clothes.

"Maybe the truce won't be extended," said Samia, who declined to give her last name, as she rushed to wash everything in a bucket of seawater.
'Life, death'

On October 7, Hamas fighters launched the deadliest attack in Israel's history, killing 1,200 people in cross-border raids, most of them civilians, Israeli officials say.

In response, Israel went to war against Hamas, relentlessly pounding the Gaza Strip for weeks with air strikes and a ground incursion that have killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, according to the territory's Hamas-run government.

A truce that went into effect nearly a week ago has largely silenced the guns on both sides, but unless an agreement is reached on an extension, it is due to expire on Friday morning.

The war has already displaced more than 1.7 million people in the Gaza Strip -- Samia and her family among them -- who now face acute shortages of food and drinking water, according to the United Nations.

Under the truce, the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza has increased, but the UN children's agency (UNICEF) has warned it is not nearly enough.

Samia said she spent the last week trying to stock up on food and cooking gas.

"We can barely find water to drink, so I have already washed my kids in the sea, and now I'm doing the laundry," Samia told AFP as she watched her daughter Noha playing on a tractor tyre from the corner of her eye.

Palestinian women hang out their laundry to dry on the beach in Deir el-Balah. They make do with seawater as drinking water is far too scare to use for washing.

 © Mahmud Hams / AFP

The Israeli military continues to warn fishermen, in Arabic-language videos posted online, that "it is forbidden to go into the sea".

On Thursday, the army said it had again fired warning shots at Palestinian boats accused of violating security restrictions.

Now, fishing from Deir al-Balah, Sultan says he has not ventured more than 10 nautical miles out.

Back home in Beit Lahia, "I had a fishing net, a boat, a motor -- everything was destroyed," he said.

Now "life has no more meaning. Life, death, it's the same."

© 2023 AFP

 

Israel’s Genocidal Antisemitism Against the Arab Civilians of Gaza

by Ralph Nader / November 23rd, 2023

“It should never have happened,” an elderly Holocaust survivor of a Nazi death camp told the New York Times. He was referring to the colossal failure on October 7, of Israel’s touted high-tech military and intelligence operations that opened the door to Hamas’ attack on Israeli soldiers and civilians. In many parliamentary countries, the government ministers who are responsible for this kind of failure would have immediately been forced to resign. Not so with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s ministers.

Instead, Netanyahu’s coalition of extremists, who know that the Israeli people are enraged about their government’s failure to defend the border, has unleashed a “unifying” genocidal war against every child, woman and man that comprise the 2.3 million population of Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no fuel, no water.… We are fighting human animals and will act accordingly” was the opening genocidal war cry from defense minister Yoav Gallant to defend the onslaught that massive military forces are implementing against the long-illegally blockaded Gazan population.

Israeli leaders declare that there are Hamas fighters possibly in and under every building in Gaza. Israel has long made computer models using their unprecedented surveillance technology (see Antony Loewenstein’s interview in the November/December 2023 issue of the Capitol Hill Citizen). Nothing and no one is off limits for the Israeli bombing.

Keep in mind that Israel is an ultra-modern military superpower, with hundreds of thousands of fighters on land, air and sea, going after the few thousand Hamas fighters who have limited supplies of rifles, grenade launchers and anti-tank weapons. Moreover, all of Israel’s supplies are being replenished daily from the U.S. stockpiles in Israel and new shipments arriving by sea, compliments of President Biden. The invasion is a “piece of cake” an experienced U.S. government official told reporter Sy Hersh.

Contradictions abound. First, Netanyahu has always referred to Hamas as a “terrorist organization.” Yet he told his own Likud party for years that his “strategy” to block a two-state solution was to “support and fund Hamas.” (See, the October 22, 2023 article by prominent journalist Roger Cohen in the New York Times).

If Netanyahu believes dropping over 20,000 bombs and missiles on the civilian infrastructure of this tiny crowded enclave and its people, nearly half of whom are children, is so restrained, why has he kept Western and Israeli journalists out of Gaza, other than a few recently embedded reporters restricted to their seats in Israeli armored vehicles? Why has he ordered four nightmarish total telecommunications and electricity blackouts, with excruciating consequences, over the whole Gaza Strip for as long as 30 hours at a time?

None of this or international laws matter to the prime minister whose top priority is to keep his job, with his coalition parties, as long as the invasion continues. And before an outraged majority in Israel ousts him from power for not defending their country on October 7 from some two thousand urban guerrilla fighters on a homicide/suicide mission.

As the slaughter of defenseless babies, children, mothers, fathers and grandparents in Gaza continues to drive the death, injury and disease toll to higher numbers each day, the observant world wonders what the Israeli government, which regularly blocks humanitarian aid, intends to do with Gaza and its destitute, homeless, starving, wounded, sick, dying and abandoned civilian Palestinians.

After all, Gaza has only so many hospitals, clinics, schools, apartment buildings, homes, water mains, ambulances, bakeries, markets, electricity networks, solar panels, shelters, refugee camps, mosques, churches, and the clearly marked remaining United Nations’ facilities left, to bomb to smithereens. Endless American tax dollars are funding the carnage. Israel has also killed over 50 journalists, including some of their families, in the past seven weeks – a record.

Why will it take months to clear out the tunnels? Not so, say military experts in urban warfare. Flooding the tunnels with water, gas, napalm and robotic explosives are quick and lethal and would be deployed were it not for the Israeli hostages.

In addition to the reality that all Gazans are now hostages, over 7,000 Palestinians are languishing in Israeli jails without charges. Many are youngsters and women who were abducted over the years to extort information and to control their extended families in Gaza and the West Bank. What’s holding up an exchange, as Israel did twice before in 2004 and 2011? Again, the Netanyahu coalition stays in power by postponing the pending official inquiries into their October 7 collapse, that Israelis are awaiting.

Meanwhile, the hapless Joe Biden dittoheaded the previously hapless presidential pleas for a two-state solution. The dominant politicians in Israel have always sought “a Greater Israel” using the phrase “from the river to the sea,” meaning all of Palestine. Year after year Israel has stolen more and more land and water from the twenty-two percent left of original Palestine, inhabited by five million Palestinians under oppressive military occupation.

With Congress overwhelmingly in Israel’s pocket, Israeli politicians laugh at proposals for a two-state solution by U.S. presidents. Recall when Obama was president, Netanyahu went around him and addressed a joint session of Congress whose members exhausted themselves with standing ovations – a brazen insult to a U.S. president, unheard of in U.S. diplomatic history!

Day after day, the surviving Palestinian families are trapped in what is widely called “an open-air prison” being pulverized by Israel and its aggressive co-belligerent, the Biden regime. A regime in Washington that urges Netanyahu to comply with “the laws of war,” while enabling Israel with more weapons and UN vetoes to violate daily “the laws of war” and the Genocide Convention. (See our October 24, 2023 Letter to President Joe Biden and the Declarations from genocide scholars William Schabas and other expert historians).

Consider the plight of these innocent civilians, caught in the deadly crossfire of F-16s, helicopter gunships, and thousands of precision 155mm artillery shells. Whether huddled in their homes and schools or fleeing to nowhere under Israeli orders, the IDF is still bombing them.

Palestinians cannot escape their blockaded prison. They cannot surrender because the Israeli army does not want to be responsible for prisoners of war. They cannot bury their dead, so their families’ corpses pile up, rotting in the sun being eaten by stray dogs.

They cannot even find water to drink, since Israel has destroyed the water infrastructure – another of its many war crimes.

For years under Israel’s occupation law, collection of rainwater with rainwater harvesting cisterns has not been permitted. Rain is considered the property of the Israeli authorities and Palestinians have been forbidden to gather rainwater!

The Israeli armed forces will soon control the entire Gaza Strip. Under international law, Israel would become responsible for the protection of the civilian population as well as the essential conditions for Palestinian safety and survival. Will they at last abide by just one international law? Or will they establish obstructive checkpoints to restrict humanitarian charities trying to save lives while Israel continues to push the Gazans into the desert or neighboring countries?

The Israeli operation precisely fits the Genocide Convention’s definition by “intentionally creating conditions of life calculated to physically destroy a racial, religious, ethnic, or national group in whole or in part.” Netanyahu’s regime further incriminates itself by defining the targets for annihilation as being between 21st-century progress and “the barbaric fanaticism of the Middle Ages” and a “struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness.”

See October 17, October 24, and November 17, 2023 Letters to President Biden on Israel/Gaza

Ralph Nader is a leading consumer advocate, the author of The Rebellious CEO: 12 Leaders Who Did It Right, among many other books, and a four-time candidate for US President. Read other articles by Ralph, or visit Ralph's website.

Toronto Police Arrest Palestine Activists, Should Target Heather Reisman

by Yves Engler / November 27th, 2023

Aggressive pre-dawn police raids on homes and charging individuals with hate crimes for posting social justice messages is legal overreach at best and “thought crimes” reflecting creeping fascism at worst.

Truth is Heather Reisman, not those putting up posters, is the one who should have been charged with breaking Canadian law.

Between 4:30 and 6 am Wednesday Toronto police raided the residences of seven individuals alleged to have been involved in putting posters and fake blood on an Indigo bookstore on November 10. According to a summary of the police operation posted by World Beyond War, eight or more officers participated in each raid. Police knocked and quickly burst through doors, often without properly identifying themselves. All residents in the houses were handcuffed, including some elderly family members and parents in view of their children. Doors were broken and the police confiscated laptops and cellphones, including some provided by employers. Some of those charged were kept handcuffed in the back of police cars for hours.

This large, coordinated, police operation was a response to political messages put on an Indigo storefront downtown. The posters were photos of the book store’s high-profile CEO Heather Reisman with the statement “Funding Genocide”. Store staff removed the posters and fake blood with little difficulty.

The political stunt was a response to Reisman and her billionaire husband donating around $100 million to a charity they established to assist non-Israelis join that country’s military. Those promoting Israel’s genocide in Gaza panicked. Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center CEO Michael Leavitt posted: “An absolutely appalling antisemitic attack in downtown Toronto, targeting Chapters Indigo and Jewish CEO Heather Reisman.” While the media largely echoed Leavitt’s perspective, a few outlets at least offered context on why Reisman was targeted.

In 2005 Reisman and her husband established the HESEG Foundation for Lone Soldiers “to recognize and honor the contribution of Lone Soldiers to Israel.” Heseg Foundation provides scholarships and other forms of support to Torontonians, New Yorkers and other non-Israelis (Lone Soldiers) who join the IDF. For the IDF high command — the Heseg board has included a handful of top military officials — “lone soldiers” are of value beyond their military capacities. Foreigners volunteering to fight for Israel are a powerful symbol to pressure/reassure Israelis weary of their country’s violent behaviour. At the first Heseg Foundation Grants Awards Ceremony in 2005 Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz said that “Encouraging and supporting young individuals from abroad” to become lone soldiers “directly supports the morale of the IDF”.

After the IDF killed 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza during operation Cast Lead in 2009 Heseg delivered $160,000 in gifts to IDF soldiers who took part in the violence.

More recently, Heseg has funded scholarships for members of the Duvdevan, an undercover commando unit known for disguising itself and blending in with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories to carry out operations. The Duvdevan scholarships are partly based on “excellence during army service”, which likely means kidnapping or killing Palestinians.

HESEG’s operations almost certainly violate Canada Revenue Agency rules for registered charities. CRA rules state that “increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Canada’s armed forces is charitable, but supporting the armed forces of another country is not.”

Despite CRA rules, Reisman and Schwartz have received tens of millions of dollars in tax credits for donations to their charity. This abuse of the public purse is far more dubious than placing posters on a storefront to raise awareness of a wealthy individual’s assistance to a murderous foreign military.

While the social cost of taxpayers illegally subsidizing Reisman’s charity are much greater than anything people putting up posters did, at least Toronto police can rightfully claim that they don’t have jurisdiction over a matter the CRA is responsible for. But HESEG’s role in inducing Canadians to join the Israeli military may violate Canada’s Foreign Enlistment Act, which the Toronto police should enforce. According to the act, “any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in that state is guilty of an offence.”

So, can we expect an upcoming early morning police raid on Heather Reisman’s Rosedale mansion handcuffing everyone, taking her personal devices and detaining her for inducing people to join a foreign military that has just killed 15,000 human beings in Gaza?

Only if Canada was indeed a state that upheld the rule of law, equally for all.

Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His latest book is Stand on Guard for Whom?: A People's History of the Canadian Military . Read other articles by Yves.

Sam Kerr's Matildas win Australia's top sports honour

Sydney (AFP) – Australia's women's football team won the country's highest sporting honour on Friday for causing a "seismic shift" in the national game with their World Cup exploits.

Issued on: 01/12/2023 -

Sam Kerr's Australia won the country's highest sporting honour 

© Izhar KHAN / AFP

The Sam Kerr-led Matildas captivated the country in their run to the semi-finals of the tournament on home soil this year, before being beaten by England.

The Sport Australia Hall of Fame, which hands out the Don Award, said what the team achieved was "groundbreaking". It was the furthest any Australian team had gone at a football World Cup.

"The Matildas caused a seismic sporting shift: transforming women's football, uniting the country, inspiring the next generation of hopefuls and further elevating women's sport with a long-deserved national profile," it said.

They beat out the men's cricket team, who won the World Test Championship, retained the Ashes and lifted the one-day World Cup last month.

The Matildas are only the third team to win the accolade -- named after legendary Australian cricketer Don Bradman -- since its inception in 1998.

The Australian women's cricket team in 2020 and the men's football team in 2006 were the others.

Last year's Don Award went to now-retired tennis great Ashleigh Barty.

© 2023 AFP