#A Palestinian worker. march of love

[cavalierzee]

Heroic Palestinian Paramedics

These Hero Palestinian paramedics were carriers of The World’s Moral Compass, then executed in cold blood by ISraeli soldiers with full US backing in another cowardly attack on all humanity. Celebrate their heroism with increased solidarity for a Free Palestine. Dr. Mads Here they are, through the eyes of the people who loved them: Know their Names: The Gaza Red Crescent paramedics Israel attacked https://aje.io/ts3ai5

The quiet one: Ashraf Abu Labda With his glasses and serious face, Ashraf was always a reassuring presence for his colleagues. The 32-year-old medic had started volunteering with the PRCS in 2021. He quickly integrated into the PRCS community, making sure that all his colleagues had a meal for iftar during Ramadan. He would either cook it himself at the Red Crescent centre or bring some of his family’s food from home to share. In September 2023, he got married, and one month later, Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza. When he was killed, he left behind his wife and their two-month-old baby girl, Wiam.

The family man: Ezzeddin Shaath Ezzeddin was 51 when Israeli soldiers killed him, and a father to six children. The dedicated family man had a great sense of humour, but the war on Gaza stripped that away from him as he gradually stopped laughing. He joined the PRCS in 2000, and four years later, he married Nivine, with whom he had four boys and two girls. At work, he remained a sort of caregiver, making sure his colleagues got at least a little rest every night and something to eat. His motto about rescue work was: “If it is written, we’ll make it back [from a mission], and if we don’t make it back, that’s our destiny,” his colleague Ibrahim Abu al-Kass told Al Jazeera.

The miracle worker: Mohamed Bahloul A seven-year veteran of the Red Crescent, 36-year-old Mohamed loved his work, as any of his colleagues would tell you. During crises, he would stay at the Red Crescent centre, only going home to see his wife and six children once a week. His children ranged in age from three months to 11 years old at the time Israel killed Mohamed. Bereaved and confused, the children are clinging to the thought that their father died on a humanitarian mission, making him a “martyr”. His colleagues remember him for just figuring things out, Abu al-Kass said. If ever Mohamed heard of a family that was being displaced and needed help, he would make it happen. Since he himself couldn’t use ambulances to move people’s belongings, he would sweet-talk his family and friends until he found transport and shelter for those who were displaced.

The rescuers: Mustafa Khafaga and Mohamed al-Heila Mustafa was 50 with a 15-year-old son, and Mohamed was 23 and single, but when they got together, their antics were legendary. “One rainy day, those two were walking along when they saw an elderly woman trying to cross the road, but it was too wet and slippery,” Abu al-Kass said. “So they looked at each other. One said: ‘So, are we partners or what? No matter what the mission is?’ and the other said: ‘Of course we are!’” They went and got a chair and brought it up to the woman, asked her to sit down, and then lifted the chair and walked her carefully across the road, beaming the entire time. “They were carrying her like she was a bride,” Abu al-Kass continued. The elated woman was laughing and cheering, he added, and sent loving prayers after her two rescuers.

The photographer: Raed el-Sharif Raed, 25, loved taking pictures. Silly ones, serious ones, casual ones, posed ones. And he hoped that one day the world would see his images and he would be able to convey the suffering of his people through his work. He began volunteering with the PRCS in 2018, when he was 18, during the Great March of Return protests. Israel killed 214 protesters, including 46 children, during these demonstrations, and injured 36,100, including nearly 8,800 children. The youngest out of five siblings, Raed wasn’t married yet, although his family had been hoping he could get married after the war. But that didn’t happen. Raed’s father recounts a harrowing nine-day wait to find out what happened to his youngest child, fighting to hold back the certainty that he had been executed along with his colleagues.

The good grandson: Refaat Radwa Twenty-four-year-old Refaat was a gentle soul, Abu al-Kass told Al Jazeera. “He especially made sure to help any elderly woman he came across. If he saw such a woman standing in line to collect her medicine from the hospital pharmacy, he would ask her to sit down and go fetch the medicines for her. “It was like he sought out the prayers these gentle women would say for him when he helped them. He would bring them what they needed, then would bid them farewell so tenderly that anyone watching would think she was his grandmother.”

The daring one: Saleh Muammar Saleh, 42, liked to help. On that, everyone agrees. His brother Hussein told Al Jazeera that Saleh also loved his work, rushing back as soon as he recovered from surgery in 2024. Last February, Hussein explained, Saleh had been on a mission to help wounded people when Israeli forces had opened fire on the medics, despite having been informed that they would be there. Saleh was badly injured in the shoulder and chest, and ended up having to spend time in hospital for surgery and recovery, after which he went straight back to work. That was his bravery, Abu al-Kass commented. “He was dedicated to helping, and used to say that wherever people were crying out for help, that’s where we should be, to respond to them.”

MISSING:

The child whisperer: Assaad al-Nassasra Assaad always showed endless patience for negotiating with kids, Abu al-Kass said. Whenever he saw children playing in the street, he would get to wheeling and dealing, offering them candy to get off the road and go play somewhere safe. The kids quickly figured him out, though, and would be playing in the street again the next time, giggling and saying: “We tricked you!” But Assaad never minded, and simply kept handing over sweets. His body wasn’t among those found when an international mission went to search for the missing emergency workers. He was captured, bound and taken away, according to the one surviving witness, Munther Abed. The 47-year-old father of six last spoke to his family the evening he disappeared, telling them he was on his way to PRCS headquarters to have iftar with his colleagues, according to his son Mohamed. When they tried to call him around suhoor time, he didn’t respond, and they found out from headquarters that nobody could reach him or the other emergency workers. He had always warned his family that whenever he headed out on a mission, he may not make it back, his son said. But as Assaad continued his rescue work for PRCS, they had always tried to avoid thinking about that.

Refaat Radwan recorded his last mission and his own final breaths. He was filming from the third ambulance in a convoy, which included a fire truck, that had gone out to find a Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulance that had lost contact with its base. All the vehicles in the convoy were clearly marked, with emergency lights flashing. In the video, the crew members see the missing ambulance by the side of the road and approach, muttering prayers for their colleagues’ safety. Then a voice says: “They’re scattered on the ground! Look, look!” and Refaat runs out of his ambulance with other medics to check on the fallen aid workers. Then the sound of bullets rings out as Israeli soldiers shoot at uniformed medics who were running to assist the medics they had already killed. Refaat was hit. In his final moments, he prayed and called repeatedly to his mother to forgive him - for choosing the path of a paramedic, putting himself in harm’s way. Israeli soldiers killed eight PRCS workers that night, as well as six workers from the Palestinian Civil Defence who had gone out on the same mission. A ninth paramedic, Assaad al-Nassasra, was captured.

Dr. Mads Gilbert

[darkmaga-returns]

By Palestine Chronicle Staff

UNRWA also announced that the death toll of UNRWA staff killed in Gaza has surpassed 300. Israel’s ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip has destroyed 92 percent of Palestinian homes in the enclave, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday.

“Families in Gaza face unimaginable devastation. According to the Protection Cluster, 92% of homes have been damaged or destroyed, countless people have been displaced multiple times, and shelter is scarce,” UNRWA said.

The UN agency reiterated its call for the siege to be lifted.

Death Toll of UNRWA Workers UNRWA’s Commissioner General, Philippe Lazzarini, also on Monday, announced that the death toll of UNRWA staff killed in Gaza has surpassed 300.

“Throughout this war, one of the most dreadful updates I regularly receive is the death toll on UNRWA staff. Today, that death toll has surpassed the gruesome milestone of 300,” Lazzarini stated on X.

“The vast majority of staff were killed by the Israeli Army with their children & loved ones: whole families wiped out. Several were killed in the line of duty while serving their communities,” he added.

The UNRWA spokesperson said those killed “were mostly UN health workers & teachers, supporting their communities.”

Impunity and Accountability “Nothing justifies these killings. Impunity will lead to more killing. Those responsible must be held accountable,” Lazzarini added.

Since March 2, Israel has kept Gaza crossings closed to food, medical, and humanitarian aid, deepening an already severe humanitarian crisis in the enclave, according to government, human rights, and international reports.

On Sunday, the Israeli army began a broad ground offensive in the besieged territory.

Staggering Death Toll Since Israel’s reneging on the ceasefire on March 18, it has killed and wounded thousands of Palestinians throughout the Gaza Strip through a bloody and ongoing aerial bombardment.

On October 7, 2023, following a Palestinian Resistance operation in southern Israel, the Israeli military launched a genocidal war against the Palestinians, killing over 52,000, wounding more than 118,000, with over 14,000 still missing.

[catdotjpeg]

Protesters acting in solidarity with Palestine interrupted the New York City Pride March on Sunday afternoon, blocking a float from a major LGBTQ+ organization as it made its way down the West Village’s Christopher Street. The action started at around 2:30 p.m. one block from the Stonewall Inn, when activists unfurled a banner that read “No Queer Liberation Without Palestinian Liberation,” distributed leaflets, and sat down in front of the float representing the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) to block it from proceeding, according to a report from Gay City News.

Footage of the action was shared on social media by the group Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), a “coalition of media, cultural, and academic workers who are committed to the horizon of liberation for the Palestinian people,” according to the group’s website. One video shows the protesters unfurling the banner and throwing red paint on the truck pulling HRC’s float as people in HRC shirts run out to intervene. Protestors sat on the parade route with a Palestinian flag and a banner reading “Palestine will be free” in red, black, and green. Another video shows New York Police Department officers arresting protestors as the crowd chants “Shame, shame!”

In a statement provided to Them, the group specifically called out pinkwashing, noting as an example a now-infamous November image shared by Israel’s official Instagram account showing an Israeli soldier standing amid the rubble in Gaza holding a rainbow flag scrawled with the words “In the name of love.” The caption read “The first ever pride flag raised in Gaza 🏳️‍🌈.” “But who among us felt anything other than abject shame when the rainbow flag was raised, purportedly ‘in the name of love,’ over a razed Palestinian neighborhood in January?,” the statement reads.“We refuse the identitarian navel-gazing that would tether us to such violent spectacles and their authors.” It continues, “There is no version of this where we pat ourselves on the back for fighting back, and then go back to ‘yes queen, glitter in the streets, corporate pride but watermelon stickers’ as we boots the house down fifth avenue behind our complicit ‘human rights’ organizations, hand in blood-stained hand with weapons manufacturers and the rainbow capitalists who use the language of our liberation to buy us into their military industrial hellscape while their lobbyists work against us behind closed doors.” A representative for WAWOG told Them that Sunday's protest was carried out by a group formed within WAWOG and comprising both WAWOG members and comrades. On the social media site X, the group wrote that HRC was targeted for its ties to arms manufacturers. Northrop Grumman, an arms manufacturer, is listed as a “platinum partner” of the HRC on its own donor website, alongside names of corporations such as Apple, Amazon, and Google.

[...]

When asked for comment, HRC directed Them to the organization's statement “Humanitarian Crisis in the Middle East,” last updated June 1.

“HRC’s mission is focused on advancing the civil rights of LGBTQ+ people in the United States and around the globe. Given our expertise, HRC’s work outside of the U.S. is focused on issues with a unique impact on the LGBTQ+ community, including the proliferation of anti-LGBTQ+ laws and policies around the globe," the statements reads in part.

According to Gay City News, onlookers joined chants of “Free, free Palestine,” as well as “Shut it down.” Some people on the HRC float joined in the chants, as well, per Gay City’s report. Police, some wearing rainbow NYPD insignia, zip-tied protesters’ wrists and denied journalists access to the protest to capture images of the arrests, Gay City wrote. The parade, which took place on the final day of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, was the latest example of pro-Palestine protesters using pride festivities to demand solidarity with people in Palestine. Earlier this month, protesters brought messages of solidarity to major cities across the United States, including Boston and Philadelphia. Disclosure: While not an active WAWOG member, this journalist signed an October 2023 statement from WAWOG voicing solidarity with people in Gaza.

-- From "Protestors Disrupted NYC Pride in Solidarity With Gaza, Blocking HRC's Float" by Mathew Rodriguez, 1 Jul 2024

[whyshedisappeared]

Dear World: I Don't Care

by Avi Lewis

I don’t care that you sympathize with Hamas

I know you wouldn’t tolerate any of the things they did to us if they would’ve done it to you

I don’t care that you’re outraged by Israel’s response to the massacre more than the massacre itself

I know you would do everything to eliminate such pure evil if you experienced it yourself

I don’t care that this doesn’t fit neatly into your carefully constructed narrative of ‘Israel as aggressor’ and ‘Palestinian as victim’

The truth hurts sometimes, but hey, don’t let facts get in the way of your feelings

I don’t care if you think we are at fault, that we had it coming, that Hamas’ actions’ didn’t occur in a vacuum (or to deny they ever happened)

If you feel that the poster of a kidnapped child hurts your cause, maybe yours is a lost cause

I don’t care about your calls for a premature ceasefire, about your demand that we provide them with electricity, that we stop fighting for ‘humanitarian reasons’

What of a humanitarian gesture to release our 230+ hostages – elderly, children, babies – snatched from their cribs?

I don’t care that you’ve rallied for Palestine as part of your march for LGBTQ rights, trans rights, workers rights, socialism, climate change, intersectionality, Black Lives Matter, fighting Islamaphobia and ‘all forms of racism’

Your gullibility would be laughable if it wasn’t so hypocritical. None of those things exist under Hamas

I don’t care that you ‘love Jewish people – just hate Israel’, that you have some friends that are Jewish, that maybe you’re ethnically Jewish yourself – and therefore you’re entitled to levy every libel in the playbook against us

Words matter. They lead to actions. When a lie is repeated often enough it’s accepted as truth. You are laying the groundwork for more attacks against us

I don’t care that you wave the flag of ‘human rights’, that you’ve become overnight experts in international law, that you shout fancy slogans you don’t understand such as proportionality, occupation and apartheid

Your humanity is selective. In your mind, human rights don’t apply to us because we are undeserving. You didn’t speak up when our women and children were horribly assaulted

I don’t care if you think we are colonialists, imperialists and settlers and that we should just go back to where we came from

We are back to where we came from

I don’t care if you believe in a one state solution, a two state solution, a federation, an internationalized Jerusalem or any other theory drawn up in your ivory tower

We won’t readily hold out our necks and endanger our lives in order to satisfy your thought experiments and placate your conscience from afar

I don’t care if you consider yourself anti-Zionist but not antisemitic

We’ve seen enough Jews around the world attacked over the last 3 weeks under the guise of ‘anti-Zionism’

I don’t care that you think we are too powerful, too technologically advanced, too sophisticated

If we didn’t build ourselves up to this point we’d get eaten alive by Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Iran and Palestinian terrorism

I don’t care that you blame us for 1948 refugees, for the fact that they have no state, for the keys that they wave in their fantasy of ‘right of return’

Three weeks ago we got a glimpse of what that ‘return’ looks like and what it means for our children

I don’t care if you think we aren’t real Jews, that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism, that Jews are a religion and not a nationality and so we deserve no state

Your denials have zero impact on the strength of our ideals and the self-affirmation of our identity

I don’t care that you accuse us of flaunting the myriad of UN resolutions, inquiries and statements

They reflect more on the institutional decay of the UN than on us

I don’t care about your media coverage, the lies, the equivocation, the acceptance of Hamas talking points and statistics

You echo chamber is just a another weapon in their strategic arsenal

I don’t care that you accused us of bombing the Al Ahli hospital

It was only a matter of time before you found a symbol for Israel’s wickedness. The subsequent retractions were a fig leaf once the truth emerged that Islamic Jihad was responsible and that the hospital is still standing

I don’t care that you see us as a criminal state, a terror state, usurpers, baby killers, Christ killers, Khaybar Jews or any other depravity that exists in your mind

Your libels lay the groundwork for our dehumanization. Rings a bell. We will fight it

I don’t care that you’ve inverted the truth by accusing us of genocide

If positions were reversed and Hamas held the power we do now, you’d see what a genocide looks like

I don’t care that you’re angry, boiling and outraged

I don’t care that you’re glued to your TV screens and Telegram channels

I don’t care that you’re mad

I don’t care if you’re out on the street, waving your flag and chanting your slogans

We won’t die silently the way you want us to

For the first time in 2,000 years we are organized, we are motivated and we will defend ourselves

We fight for light over darkness

Morality over evil

Not that it matters to you – but we will stick to the rules and hold the high moral ground not because you expect it from us, but because they are a value for us

We will do so ethically and thoughtfully, for we are the People of the Book

Our power and strength are our necessity, because the alternative for us is:

Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Pittsburgh, Toulouse, Farhud, Hebron, Birkenau, Belzec, Babi Yar, Kristalnacht, Kielce and Kishinev

Do you think for a moment that we would return to that reality just to make you feel a little better?

You are deeply mistaken…

World,

For so, so long, I really, deeply cared

I cared about fitting in

I cared about what you think

I cared about being a model citizen

I cared about setting a personal example of how a tiny people in a tough neighborhood could still be a Light unto the Nations

How the world’s oldest minority – now a majority here – could treat its own internal minorities par excellence amidst the complicated and messy reality of ethnic conflict

How we could painfully dismember parts of our homeland and offer them on the platter of peace to Palestinians that want neither peace nor some parts (they want all of it)

How we could dazzle you with USB sticks, drip irrigation, operating system kernels, Nobel Prize winners, swallowable medical cameras, deep tech, quantum mechanics, generative AI and cures for disease

But now I’m finally accepting that you don’t care

You never did

You don’t see and you don’t hear

And because I cared about what you think so much, that so deeply hurts

But you don’t have my best interests at heart

You take issue with my base identity, with what I represent

Don’t expect me to wait for your approval this time

It doesn’t matter what I do, you’re not going to change

It doesn’t matter how I act, because your issue is with who I am

Now I’m going to block out your noise, and do what it takes to win this war

Today

Finally

I no longer care

[laurelrusswurm]

Open letter to RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme

Dear Commissioner Duheme:

Why have you not publicly announced your investigation into those Canadians and Canadian organizations who have participated in Israel’s genocide under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program?

Where is the RCMP hotline?

Where is the dedicated RCMP webpage?

Where are the RCMP media interviews denouncing such breaches of Canadian Law?

Where are the RCMP questionnaires soliciting witness testimony from those trying to flee Israel, and/or the families that have not been able to get their loved ones out of danger?

You have done so much for the Ukrainians.

Why have you done so little for the besieged Palestinian civilians? Why isn’t the RCMP providing the same level of assistance to the victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza?

Palestinians are being bombed and buried under the rubble of their homes.

Palestinians sheltering in schools have been blown up.

Palestinians are being burned to death in tents in refugee camps.

Palestinians are being starved, and then shot when trying to get humanitarian aid to feed their families?

Palestinians have been forced to evacuate of Gaza hospitals, sometimes leaving premature babies to die alone.

Palestinian medical professionals and their patients have had their hands ziptied and been bulldozed into mass graves in hospital courtyards.

Palestinian toddlers have been targeted and shot in both the chest and the head according to MSF doctors trying to save them.

In March of 2024 the UN determined that more children had been killed in Gaza in less than 6 months than all the children killed in four years of conflict in the rest of the world.

The International Court of Justice has ruled Israel's occupation of Gaza illegal.

Unlike Ukrainians, the people of Palestine have no air force, or air defence, nor do they have an army or navy with which to defend themselves from Israel's sophisticated aerial bombers, fighter jets, naval vessels, army tanks, artillery, and killer drones.

Palestinian Hospitals, Ambulances and medical workers are being targeted, and killed Palestinian Journalists are being targeted and killed.

Humanitarian Aid Workers are being targeted and killed.

Foreign media are locked out of Palestine, and yet there are many Canadians volunteering in the IDF, killing Palestinian civilians as part of the Israeli military attack. Canadians like me are helpless as we watch the dehumanization and massacre of innocent Palestinians, often recording their own Genocide in real time.

Why does the RCMP have such a poor track record of applying Canadian law when it comes to Isreal? Is Israel somehow above International Law? What happened to the formal legal complaint concerning individual Canadians violating the Foreign Enlistment Act by inducing Canadians to join the Israeli military?

I know I am disturbed at the thought Canadians participating in the carnage will be returning home and worse, disregarding Canadian Law because they will feel the same impunity for antisocial behavior here that they had enjoyed in the Middle East.

As Canada's premier law enforcement Agency, the RCMP must apply the law. Period.

The RCMP should not bow to political pressure or bullying from foreign countries or special interest groups. Nor should the RCMP's ties with the IDF influence the service's enforcement of Canadian Law. Having seen many videos of IDF soldiers routinely mistreating the innocent Indigenous population of Palestine, and learning Canadian law enforcement agencies send their members to be "trained" in Israel, perhaps such "training" has influenced RCMP scandals in which innocent civilians and Indigenous people have been similarly mistreated.

Canadian politicians claimed our nation is a Rule of Law country. But failure to enforce Canadian laws when it comes to friends like Israel undermines the credibility of both the Government of Canada and the RCMP.

Why should Canadians respect (much less follow) Canadian Law if the RCMP fails to enforce it?

There are no good reasons-- only disturbing possible reasons -- for RCMP's failure to investigate and enforcing Israel's violations of Canada’s War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Act with the same vigor the RCMP has employed in respect of similar breaches of International Law in respect of Russian activity in the Ukraine. This is not a good look for a nation that prides itself for its diversity.

Especially when civilians in Gaza are enduring an active genocide.

If none of the above is of concern to the RCMP, perhaps the prospect of being charged with complicity for failure to enforce appropriate Canadian Humanitarian Laws at the International Court of Justice and/or the International Criminal Court should be of concern. As a Canadian citizen, I must insist your agency should do its job.

Sincerely, Laurel L Russwurm

_________________________________________________ My letter began with the the letter sponsored by Just Peace Activists and the Canadian Foreign Policy Institute on the Action Network's The RCMP must investigate Israeli War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity letter campaign. They've provided a form letter (at the link below) which participants can send as is, or add to or edit as I a have. I encourage you to click the link below and send your own letter. In a democracy, even as poor a democracy as ours, we must hold our institutions accountable.

Free Palestine! https://actionnetwork.org/letters/rcmp-investigates-israeli-crimes-demand-they-apply-law

[manversus]

In what has become a growing weekly phenomenon, thousands of people took to the streets in cities across the United States on Saturday to protest against President Donald Trump’s widening crackdowns on immigrants, government institutions, and political dissent, particularly targeting pro-Palestinian voices.

Chanting slogans such as “Love not hate, that’s what makes America great,” “When immigrants’ rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back,” and “Fire Trump,” demonstrators marched through major urban centres, demanding an end to what they describe as authoritarian and discriminatory policies.

In San Francisco, protesters marched from the Embarcadero waterfront to City Hall via Market Street, stopping outside X headquarters to raise their fists in defiance.

“I’ve been coming out for protests every weekend since January, starting with the Tesla dealership,” said Jerry Fusco, a local tech worker. “It’s astounding to me that there’s still support for Trump - but that’s what you have in a cult.”

The demonstrations represented a wide array of causes. Protesters held signs defending national parks, affordable healthcare, immigrant rights, and international students. They also rallied around individuals such as deported Salvadoran Andry Romero and Columbia University Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil.

The Trump administration has recently intensified crackdowns on international students. A judge ruled on Friday that Khalil could be deported, despite facing no criminal charges. According to Inside Higher Ed, as of 12 April, more than 170 U.S. colleges and universities had identified over 950 international students and recent graduates who had their residency status changed by the State Department.

In front of City Hall, the protest took a celebratory turn as a truck leading the march played music, prompting spontaneous dancing. “Bring back joy,” the crowd chanted as the atmosphere shifted from rage to resilience.

Lauryn McIntire, a basketball coach wearing a keffiyeh and holding a sign reading “Resist,” said she was there to stand for Gaza, Sudan, the Congo, and oppressed communities across the U.S. “Right now, America is funding a genocide in Gaza. I’m standing up for people under tyranny,” she said.

She added: “Every time I go to these protests, I see people learning how to live again. I really believe the energy of this country needs to be switched from hate to love — urgently.”

[unhingedkorean]

Korean Protest Songs (in solidarity with Palestine)

In the spirit of solidarity for Palestine, I would like to offer two Korean songs dedicated for the martyrs of violent oppression. (From our own government... but we inherited our fight from the liberationists that fought against Japanese colonization.) I can only provide English translations, but I hope this effectively conveys the solidarity I have for Palestinians.

The free world demands free Palestine.

Marching for Our Beloved

This song was originally created for two of the victims of Gwangju Uprising Massacre. It is also sung at most leftist protests in South Korea. Other countries have translated and sang this song for their protests, e. g. 2016 China Airlines strike, Hong Kong protests, Myanmar Spring Revolution.

1982 original recording

the words said in the beginning before the song begins:

우리가 죽음을 이기고 합쳐지듯이 남녘땅과 북녘땅이 합쳐지소서 just as we defeat death and become united may the southern land and the northern land be united

a newer version by labor activist and musician Choi Do-eun

The lyrics are as follows. The versions vary a little because it was primarily spread underground due to government censorship, but the gist is the same.

사랑도 명예도 이름도 남김없이 한평생 나가자던 뜨거운 맹세 동지는 간데없고 깃발만 나부껴 새날이 올 때까지 흔들리지 말자 세월은 흘러가도 산천은 안다 깨어나서 외치는 끝없는 함성 앞서서 가나니 산 자여 따르라 앞서서 가나니 산 자여 따르라

And my own English translation with some poetic liberties:

no love, no honor, no name to leave behind a burning oath to keep going forward our entire lives comrade is nowhere to be seen, only the flag flutters let us not waver until the new day comes the time will pass by, but the mountains and the rivers know the endless roar of the awoken lead the way and the living will follow lead the way and the living will follow

Song of Wildfire

This is a tribute to a labor acitivist who died from torture by intelligence agency

밤새 내렸던 빗물에 젖어 어느새 들판에 초록빛의 노래 추운 겨울에 눈보라 치면 들불로 타오른 해방의 노래 타다 꺼지면 이몸 마저도 재가 되도록 붉게 타오르리라 이땅의 민중 민주의 그 날은 눈물과 피의 꽃이 만발하리라 캄캄한 어둠의 질곡 속에 불꽃으로 타오르라 타다 꺼지면 이몸 마저도 재가 되도록 붉게 타오르리라 먼훗날 노동 해방의 그 날은 반동의 피로 붉게 도색하리라 해방의 찬란한 길목에서 불꽃으로 타오르라 먼훗날 노동 해방의 그 날은 반동의 피로 붉게 도색하리라 해방의 찬란한 길목에서 불꽃으로 타오르라 해방의 찬란한 길목에서 불꽃으로 타오르라

my English translation with some poetic liberties:

wet from the rainfall all night already a green song on the grass field in the cold winter when the blizzard hits a song of liberation ablaze in wildfire if the fire goes out, even this body will burn up red into ashes on the day of people's democracy on this land the flowers of tears and blood will blossom everywhere in the turmoil of darkness, burn up into flames if the fire goes out, even this body will burn up red into ashes the day of workers' liberation will be painted red with the blood of the reactionaries be the flame that blazes the glorious path to freedom on the day of workers' liberation will be painted red with the blood of the reactionaries be the flame that blazes the glorious path to freedom be the flame that blazes the glorious path to freedom

[donjuaninhell]

Goddamn this is a good essay, and it's grappling with a question that's been on my mind frequently since Oct. 7th: what the fuck is wrong with Israelis?

[...]In Israel, where a majority opposes a ceasefire and supports starving Gaza, this content is, on the whole, incredibly well-received. It offers the folks back home an image of fortified dominance, the illusion of control. In March 2024, the liberal Zionist daily Haaretz detailed, in a report titled, “We’re Not Only Here to Fuck Hamas,” how battlefield imagery has flooded online dating profiles in Israel. Beyond its sexual currency, this content, like the torture of Palestinians aired on mainstream Israeli television, functions as entertainment. Telegram channels sharing graphic images of dead or dying Palestinians—and foreign aid workers—have amassed hundreds of thousands of subscribers. The image of the shrunken corpse of a nine-year-old Palestinian boy with cerebral palsy, starved to death by Israel, appeared on one feed as part of a movie poster that included the boy’s severely cachectic face alongside a picture of E.T. in his bicycle basket, riding into the night sky. The film would be called, “A.H.M.E.T.” The boy’s actual name was Yazan; his mother called him Yazouna.

[...] The pervasive sadism cannot be explained away as the behavior of soldiers at war, adapted to the needs of a new generation whose social media-addiction compels them to document their cruelty. The tendencies to revel and deny coexist, not just within the population but within the same person. Near the border with Egypt, a settler, there to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, tells a journalist that (a) the Palestinians are not starving, and (b) they will continue to receive no food (i.e. starve) until the hostages are released. These justifications are not for him; he throws them at a wall, and the listener is free to see what sticks. People ask what’s wrong with the Israelis because, I suspect, they find the depravity difficult to believe, let alone comprehend. Attempts to ascribe motive are met with visceral revulsion, an affront to something fundamental and big, like morality. I wonder how a person gets here. And I know our responsibility is not to find a way to psychologically accommodate it, but rather to work to stop it. Still, with every snuff video I find myself back at that same question. In strictly political terms I can appreciate the clarity it allows. Watching these soldiers, I do not feel concern, or anything at all, for them. Instead, the feeling is that of looking at a person, and where you expect recognition you find its inverse—a stunned alienation.

The cruelty itself, on display in videos like the one taken from the vantage point of Israeli soldiers driving their tank over the “I Love Gaza” sign (that greets visitors entering Gaza through the Rafah crossing), is somehow less disturbing than that it is presented with naked glee—no trace of the sober air that marks a person “doing what needs to be done” or an awareness that the rest of the world might not welcome overt, genocidal sadism as enthusiastically as the average Israeli. It’s like they can’t see us seeing them. Or maybe they don’t care. Attempts to explain Israeli behavior often reach for the biomedical. Surely this cannot be willed, they think, and so it must be pathological. In medicine, when a patient is unable to grasp their condition—as when a person experiencing hallucinations does not recognize them as such—we say they lack insight. Because we encounter the Israelis’ smug cruelty most acutely through individuals—be they government officials, soldiers, or formerly-known-as-Twitter warriors—it is easy to perceive it as an individuated “settler psychosis.” Psychosis replaces politics and history; it obscures how societies arrive at ideologies, reinforce and transmit them over time; and how dehumanization is preceded, constructed, and justified, so that it can be rendered with intention.

[...]

To sustain the Zionist project, the Machiavellian clarity common among Zionist leadership required ideological integration into the population. Among the more idealist kibbutzim members who’d arrived to cultivate the land in the 1940s and construct a socialist utopia, some struggled to reconcile their politics with the reality they were recruited to establish. My grandfather’s village Salha (spelled Saliha by the British and their colonial inheritors) was settled in 1949, soon after it had been ethnically cleansed through a massacre that killed an eleventh of its inhabitants and drove the rest to Lebanon, after which they were barred return and shot at if they attempted to. Part of the land was renamed Avivim; the rest, Yi’ron. A member of kibbutz Yi’ron wrote in the second issue of their newsletter: "The facts are that men, women, old people and babies were murdered, villages were destroyed and burned, without justification. . . . There will only be atonement when those guilty of murder will be judged and when the houses and lands of the people of Saliha will be returned to them . . . but who but us, sitting upon skulls and ruins and eating from the “abandoned land,” who but us knows that none of this will ever come to pass? . . . What a horrific contradiction! We, who “uphold brotherhood of nations and faith in man,” will we be silent and will try to find atonement for that great crime, in ourselves?" While this moral dilemma was by no means common—none of the issues he raised were revisited in subsequent newsletters—that it was raised at all suggests the settlers knew. Of course they knew...

[...]

Looking at Israelis looking at Palestinians, it is easier to imagine they cannot see than to consider what it means for them to know. We psychologize, in some ways, to avoid having to. Settler psychosis, sick society, these people are not in their right minds—these are descriptive terms that reflect our inability to make sense, within a particular ethical or moral frame, of what we see; they do not interrogate etiology. The illness, given its prevalence, must be colonization: through contagion or side effect, the brutality of colonialism folds back on the colonizer. The occupation exacts a price on its enforcers. Missing is historical time, through which we see that the problem starts with the decision to colonize. A post on X, by a doctor, advises us to avoid “dehumanizing” Israelis. She suggests we instead consider their behavior to reflect a complex trauma response to entrapment in cyclical violence. But alienation is only possible because we already perceive the actor as a human being. The language of illness confuses morality with mental status and diffuses blame. It erases volition, without which there is neither escape nor responsibility. Understanding Zionism as a product and function of people does not quite show us the door. That is why, I think, the world met the actions of Aaron Bushnell, the active-duty U.S. Air Force member who lit himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in D.C., with something like a burst of recognition: under the snarled weight of seemingly inescapable structural pull, here was a person stepping forward, disentangling their agency at a cost exaggerated to try to map the gravity of refusing to do so. The last time an Israeli self-immolated for geopolitical reasons was in 2005, in protest of the “evacuation” order from Gaza. One cannot erase what they do not see. Ari Shavit’s great-grandfather knew, Lord Balfour knew, Ben Gurion knew, the people in the kibbutzim knew, and every soldier in Gaza knows. And the people back home, they know too. In the years since 1917 or 1948 or 1982, Zionism has become increasingly difficult to maintain, and requires a certain insularity—sustained by the United States—that appears, if rooted in a less curated selection of facts and causal links, like insanity. For Israelis, this is self-preservation. Peering into the Zionist project, what we see is what Zionism requires.

I've cut out large chunks there in the middle, please go and read the full article on The Baffler website, it's fantastic.

[t-jfh]

Displaced Palestinians waited to receive donated food on Tuesday, the second day of Ramadan.

(Photo: Haitham Imad / EPA, via Shutterstock)

Workers transport sacks of humanitarian aid at the distribution center of the United Nations agency that cares for Palestinians, in Rafah, earlier this month.

(Photo: Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

Cooking gas is so scarce that the air is acrid with smoke from fires burning salvaged wood and chopped up furniture.

(Photo: Said Khatib / Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

A woman takes care of a wounded man outside Rafah’s largest hospital. Medics say supplies are low and many types of medical care have stopped.

(Photo: Said Khatib / Agence France-Presse — Getty Images)

‘Everything Is Difficult’: The Struggle for Life’s Basics in Rafah

Most of Gaza’s population fled to the southern territory of Rafah, hoping to escape the war. As they hunt for food and shelter, a potential Israeli invasion has added to their fears.

By Bilal Shbair and Ben Hubbard

The New York Times- March 14, 2024

•

•

Gaza has been the deadliest conflict for children in modern times.

(Photo: Reuters / Ibraheem Abu Mustafa)

Children are bearing the brunt of the horrors in Gaza. How can this go on?

The horrors of Gaza are almost unspeakable. As difficult as all this is to read and to watch, it's important the world does not look away.

Rarely, if ever, have so many children been killed, injured or orphaned as quickly as Israel is doing so in Gaza right now.

"The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child," says UNICEF's James Elder. "And day after day, that brutal reality is reinforced."

UNICEF has compiled a range of statistics from Gaza. It says that a Palestinian child is killed every 15 minutes. Thousands more are missing under rubble.

One of every 10 children killed in Gaza did not make their first birthday. More than 1,000 children have lost one or both legs. Save the Children estimates that more than 10 children a day are losing one or both legs. Those having limbs amputated are having it done without anaesthetic.

On the testimony of a range of credible agencies, this is the deadliest conflict for children in modern times.

By global affairs editor John Lyons in Jerusalem

ABC News - 12 February 2024

•

•

Hiba Abu Sadeq has been living in a tent shelter with her family since last month.

(Photo: ABC News)

Hiba's walk to find food and water takes her past rubble from air strikes. (Photo: ABC News)

Every morning, 12-year-old Hiba wakes up in Gaza. She tries to keep herself and her family alive for another day

Hiba Abu Sadeq is like many other pre-teens. The 12-year-old loves her friends, learning at school and fashion.

But now she doesn't know if her friends are dead or alive, there is no school, and she has worn the same clothes for weeks.

The young girl has had her way of life ripped apart by the Israel-Gaza war.

By Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn in Jerusalem and ABC staff in Gaza

ABC News - 21 January 2024

•

•

COMMUNITY WARNING - GRAPHIC CONTENT: The following ABC News article, ‘A devastating new term has emerged in Gaza's hospitals: WCNSF - Wounded Child, No Surviving Family’, contains graphic pictures and descriptions of war that some viewers may find distressing.

Dareen is just one of many orphans in Gaza hospitals known by the term WCNSF.

(Photo: ABC News)

Dr Khalil al-Degra says when they can't find families for children who come to the hospital, they are marked as unidentified.

(Photo: ABC News)

This grandmother was able to locate her grandson after turning up to a hospital and searching for lost babies. (Photo: ABC News)

A devastating new term has emerged in Gaza's hospitals: WCNSF - Wounded Child, No Surviving Family

Inside Gaza's overwhelmed hospital system, an influx of injured children arriving alone without any family has prompted doctors to coin a new term: WCNSF.

The heartbreaking label stands for Wounded Child, No Surviving Family and means the child is the sole surviving member of their family.

Eleven-year-old Dareen was given the term when she was rushed to hospital alone and unconscious after an explosion where she was staying.

By Middle East correspondent Allyson Horn and ABC staff in Gaza

ABC News - 6 December 2023

•

[riverdamien]

Coming Out Day--Oct. 11,2023

October 11, 2023

"So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone, and a new being is there to see. It is all God's work". .2 Corinth.5:17."

Celebrated annually on October 11th, this day commemorates the journey of self-discovery and the courage it takes to openly embrace one’s sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression. This observance traces its roots back to 1988, when Jean O’Leary and Dr. Robert Eichberg chose this date to coincide with the first anniversary of the National March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. National Coming Out Day now stands as a beacon of support and acknowledgement for those who have bravely shared their authentic selves with the world. It is also a reminder that many individuals within LGBTQIA+ communities face ongoing challenges in the journey towards self-expression.

Recently the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom said: "A man is a man, a woman is a woman," Uganda have made being queer illegal and thousands have been executed, and in our country politicians are saying anti-gay comments.

I have known countless men and women, of all ages who lived in the pain of rejection, isolation,  and struggling with their sexual orientation; I have been lucky I came to San Francisco, or I would have never found myself, and would have been a  lousy minister; I remember one fifteen year old who committed suicide in front of me, and many others who died from suicide--all because of their struggle with "coming out". "Coming out" is a very painful process, like giving birth to a new life. It took me years with much therapy  to feel comfortable with myself.

In God's family there are no outsiders. All are insiders.  Black and white, rich and poor, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, questioning, brown, yellow, Jews, Palestinian, Roman Catholics, Independent Catholics, Buddhist, Hindus, Indian--all belong..

National Coming Out Day is a day in which all of us can come out and say that all of us are equal, and that LGBTQ individuals are simply human beings who are a part of the kaleidoscope of life.

The Trevor Project is supporting Queer Youth, and are finding that Transgenders are suffering more than ever before. We are walking "Forty Miles" this month, and have raised $420.00 so far. We invite you to join us on this hike in spirit by donating or walking!

Please send money to: (Mark it with our name Temenos Catholic Worker or you may send to us as well and we will add to our donation at end of month):

The Trevor Project

PO Box 69232

West Hollywood, CA 90069 US

2126958650

Deo Gratis! Thanks be to God!

===========================

Fr. River Damien Sims, sfw, D.Min., D.S.T.

P.O. Box 642656

San Francisco, CA 94164

www.temenos.org

415-305-2124

=================================

Let Love Ache

Father, give me the courage to keep on loving.

when others keep on hurting.

help me to live an achy love, a gritty,

persistent and emptying love;

a love that’s not afraid to flow toward the other

who has little left to offer in return.

And may I tread faithfully with heaven

through the unfinished work that surrounds me.

Commoners_Communion

Strahan Coleman

[dungeonqueering]

2021 Be Like

JANUARY

Bean Dad

Storming the Capitol

Impeachment 2

Reality Shifting Draco Malfoy Murder

Parler Hacked

Sea shanties are BACK BAY BEEEEEE

Inauguration outfits

BERNIE'S MITTENS

Militant Vegan Lady Tries to Bully Children and Gordon Ramsey

Executive Orders

Reddit Kills Hedgfunds with GameStonks

Politician openly believes California Wildfires were started by Jewish Space Lasers and somehow isn't removed from office for blatant antisemitism

Lady Dimitrescu,,, lady.... Tall

FEBRUARY

EEBY DEEBY

The Queen doing monarch shit on the DL

India Treating Farmers Very Badly

I promise I'm not a cat lawyer video

Trump Acquitted even though 57 / 100 voted against him.

Texas has no power, Cruz flies to Cancun for a vacay while ppl die

Rush Limbaugh dies, crab rave

WE LANDED PERSERVERANCE BAY BEE

Daft Punk retired. :(

Texas Freezes Over, Cruz goes to Florida this time.

March

Texas lifts mask requirements

Biden bombs Syria instead of helping people.

Dems pass the $1400 stimulus. No republicans support it, they could have included anything in that bill and the GOP couldn't have stopped them. They CHOSE to make it less.

Harry and Meghan on Oprah drag the royal family

NFTs enable art theft

Stimmy Time

The Pope says Catholics can get the J&J vaccine only if it's the only one available (it has stem cells)

Anti-asian hate crimes in Georgia

EverGiven runs aground in Suez Canal

CALL ME BY YOUR NAME (Montero)

Shrimp Tails in Cinnamon Toast Crunch

EverGiven freed six days later.

April

Prince Phillip dies, crab rave

Mars Helicopter Ingenuity

ON 4/20 THEY CONVICT DEREK CHAUVIN ON ALL COUNTS FOR MURDERING GEORGE FLOYD

May

This is the May

Israel somehow being EVEN WORSE to Palestine.

An oil pipeline company's financial systems are attacked, so they can't properly charge customers. They shut off the pipeline rather than risk anyone getting free gas. People put gas in plastic bags.

Israel now attacking news organizations.

CDC lifts mask recommendation foolishly.

Legendary children's author Eric Carle passes away.

June

Pride Discourse AGAIN

Annakin and Padme meme

Batman isn't allowed to eat pussy because "Heroes don't do that"

People are surprised the FNAF guy is a republican

Derek Chauvin sentenced to 22.5 years

John McAfee dies in a Mexican prison, where he was for tax evasion. It looks mildly sus, but Crab Rave.

Britney Spears fights her Conservatorship

July

TSR is back and they're transphobes

Britney Spears loses her fight. :(

Bill Cosby released from jail.

The Olympics are being HELLA racist. Banning swim caps for natural Black hair, banning two Black women for their natural testosterone levels, and banning one Black woman (who may very well be the fastest woman ever) because she smoked weed one time (in a place it's legal) to deal with the fact that an interviewer told her her mom had just passed away.

Ocean is literally on fire because a pipe broke.

Oh btw Israel is still doing human rights violations and denying vaccinations to Palestinians.

Catholic run Canadian and american residential schools found to have hundreds of bodies each of indigenous children taken from their parents to be indoctrinated into white society. As of July 2, 1505 at 7 out of 504 schools.

Right wing protests in Cuba

Olympic anti-sex beds

Popeye the Sailor, Nonbinary Icon??

Steam Deck (100k pre-orders)

Lmao Tumblr thinks we'll pay for premium content. Cute. Love that for them.

Australia hires furry artist to draw furries to promote the Olympics.

Texas puts $10,000 bounty on anyone who helps anyone get an abortion.

Chuck Tingle got DMCA'd for music on Twitter

Cleveland changes baseball team name to not be so racist

Jeff Bezos goes to space and, unfortunately, survives

Blizzard employees (and Activision employees, Blizzard's parent company) threaten to walk after it's revealed that, unsurprisingly, the company treats women like shit up to and including a culture of assault.

Frito-Lay workers end 20 day strike with inches gained.

August

Delta Variant of Covid is 'as contagious as chickenpox'. Mildly vaccine resistant, but still mostly affecting the unvaxxed.

Chrischan arrested on... Look, don't worry about it. Don't look it up. She did a very bad crime, leave it at that.

Idris Elba is gonna play Knuckles?

QAnon guy murders his family

Federal board of education decides to enforce masks in all public schools for '21-'22 school year.

Britney Spears' dad is gonna step down from her conservatorship maybe?

Taliban starts taking over Afghanistan

Places are probably going to shut back down due to Delta Variant not being taken seriously.

Governor Cuomo of New York steps down over sexual harassment allegations. (Fuck him)

OnlyFans getting rid of porn.

OnlyFans backs down obvi

Hurricane

By Talos this can't be happening

September

The Supreme Court refuses to see case about Texas abortion bounty.

ABBA releases new music

Ford Germany makes gay trucks

There Are Many Benefits To Being A Marine Biologist

Steve from Blue's Clues gives us all closure.

Suez canal blocked again (but only for a few hours)

Bongcloud chess move

MET Gala outfits, discourse (unfortunately)

Lil Nas X's first album, Montero

Nicki Minaj's Cousin's Friend's Balls

Epik, far right web hosting service, hacked. Embarrassingly weak security.

Gabby Petito goes missing, found dead.

Elvira comes out, has had a girlfriend for 19 years.

Chris Pratt cast as Mario for some godforsaken reason

Grimes and Elon Musk break up

China bans cryptocurrency

DnD 5.5e announced

Britney Spears' dad removed from her conservatorship, it's now run by an accountant chosen by Britney

"I can't believe you've done this." Taken down from YouTube after 14 years. Owner disputes. Denied. Heavy social media backlash gets them to manually re-allow it.

October

Grimes does stuff for attention I guess.

Facebook goes down briefly.

Squid Game

Dawn's Kidney Donation

Twitch breached massively.

Even bigger breach than the Panama papers shows what we already been knew. Pandora Papers.

Dave Chappelle actively a transphobe. People somehow forgot about his bigotry from, like, 2 years ago.

Alec Baldwin kills a cinematographer in an accident involving a gun firing blanks. Proper safety checks weren't done because of non-union being hired by the producer... Alec Baldwin.

Margaret Atwood makes a bunch of transphobic posts.

Brian Laundrie's remains found in Florida.

Kat Von D's anti-vax Nazi ass moving to Indiana

Facebook changing their name to Meta, Mark Zuckerberg shelf Barbecue sauce.

Marilyn Manson converting back to Christianity thanks to Justin Bieber and Kanye West???? Probably to deflect from him being outed as a sex pest tbqh

November

Zillow algorithm buys too many houses, record losses for the company, fires 25% of staff.

Turns out Meta is already a company and FB failed to buy the rights, so Meta is doing legal action against FB.

The IRS to start requiring NFTs report transactions over $10,000 just like they do for cash. Crypto Bros freak out

Travis Scott concert gets people killed (not of COVID)

Mercedes Lackey thinks trans people don't belong in fantasy

Brittney is free!!

Kyle Rittenhouse trial.

The Queen's New Phase

Kyle Rittenhouse ruled not guilty despite going to a place specifically hoping for violence.

Hillary Clinton-Kin fanfiction on the NYT Best Sellers

John Deere Strike doubles their raises among other successes

NFT Pirate Bay Funged the Tokens

Omicron Variant.

December

Ponder the Orb

Gen Zers on Reddit use algorithms and effort to crash Kellogg's website with bogus job applications , thereby preventing scabs from applying.

Ben Shapiro's sister tries to slut shame Madonna by comparing her to Nancy Reagan. Turns out Nancy Reagan was PROLIFIC at oral sex while working in Hollywood. Trending #throatgoat #superhead

Kellogg trying to hire scabs going VERY BADLY

Giant Tornado kills factory workers forced to keep working at 3AM directly in the path of the tornado despite the company knowing the dangers

Anne Rice died, AO3 goes wild

Kellogg strike ends, workers get a pretty good deal!!

Tumblr censors stuff in a very bad way.

Betty White dies. :(

[commissions4aid-international]

ID:

A collection of screenshots displaying examples of corporate pride.

1: The amazon home page with a rainbow banner that says “Celebrate Pride”.

2: Chart titled “These Pride sponsors have donated the most to politicians pushing anti-LGBTQ+ bills”. In descending order, the sponsors are Toyota, AT&T, Comcast, Amazon, FedEx, State Farm, General Motors, Budweiser, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and Jack Daniel’s (Brown-Forman).

3: Headline that says “How Google and Amazon help Israel sustain its apartheid”.

4: Google page that says “in Belonging / This year, we’re supporting LGBTQ+ communities with commitments to help fund and celebrate inclusive spaces that foster belonging for all.”

5: Headline that says “How Google advances the Zionist colonization of Palestine”. Below that it says “Software engineers at Google and Amazon have objected to providing services to the Israeli government because of the harm it would bring to Palestinians, yet these companies are already contributing to Israel’s colonial project in many ways.”

6: Headline that says “Starbucks parters celebrate Pride at events across U.S.”

7: Headline that says “Starbucks Pride decorations removed because of new policy, US workers say”. Below that it says “The company claims there have been no corporate policy changes and stated its ‘unwavering support’ of the LGBTQ+ community”.

8: Text in French that roughly translates to “Aggressive in his business, this visionary of homemade coffee, is also a man of action who thinks big for Israel, and works for it. His titles of glory speak for him: in 1998, he was honored by the ‘Jerusalem Fund of Aish Ha Torah’, which chairs the Israeli arms show, and received the ‘Israel 50th Anniversary Friend of Zion Tribute Award’ for services to the Zionist state and for its key role in promoting a close alliance between the United States and Israel.”

9: Text that says “Howard Shultz is the largest private owner of Starbucks shares and is a staunch zionist who invests heavily in Israels economy including a recent $1.7 Billion investment in cybersecurity startup Wiz.”

10: 2 2017 tweets from @/McDonalds_DMV. The first tweet says “For # Pride2017 we'll be marching in the DC @ CapitalPride Parade because # LovinisLovin! Come see us this Saturday!” and has an image of 2 people holding hands, overlaid with the McDonald’s logo and a rainbow filter. The second tweet says “We're celebrating # Pride2017 with our exclusive fry box! Available starting today at select restaurants” and has an image of a rainbow fries box.

11: Digital image of a McDonald’s box of fries. The fries are rainbow.

12: BDS infographic titled “Act Now Against These Companies Profiting from the Genocide of the Palestinian People”. It has 4 categories. Category 1 is titled “Consumer boycott targets:” and contains Axa, Puma, Carrefour, HP, Chevron, Caltex, Re/Max, Ahava, Texaco, Siemens, Sodastream, and Israeli produce. Category 2 is titled “Divestment and exclusion targets:” and contains Elbit Systems, CAF, Volvo, CAT, Barclays, JCB, Intel, HD Hyundai, Chevron, TKH Security, and HikVision. Category 3 is titled “Pressure targets:” and contains Google, Amazon, Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia, Disney, and Teva. Category 4 is titled “Organic boycott targets:” and contains McDonald’s, Domino’s Pizza, Papa John’s, Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Wix.

13: Link to Primark that says “Shop Pride Clothing | Pride Outfits 2024”.

14: Rainbow image that says “Happy pride month / Love always wins. / # Sheinpride2020”.

15: Zara page that says “Zara / More color, more pride” in rainbow and has a photo of happy-looking people in Zara pride clothing.

16: Headline in French that roughly translates to “Zara, Primark, Decathlon.. About 40 European brands use the forced labor of Uighurs / The forced labor of Uighurs in China continues, including within companies”.

17: Headline that says “'Substantial volume' of clothing tied to Uyghur forced labour entering EU, says study / Calls for legislation after dozens of brands identified as being at risk of sourcing materials linked to China's transfer programmes”.

18: Text that says “How Shein and Temu get around US labor laws that ban products made with forced labor”.

19: Text that says: Not so fashionable forced labor clothing brands / Through garment supply chains, the entire fashion industry, including products sold by Western brands, is potentially tainted. We are calling on leading brands and retailers to ensure that they are not supporting or benefiting from this pervasive and extensive system of forced labor. You can write directly to Nike, Uniqlo, and Zara. These are three of the world's biggest clothing brands by revenue, and each comes from a different region of the world: North America, Asia, and Europe, respectively. Nike, Uniqlo, and Zara, like almost all companies, claim to prohibit forced labor in their supply chains, yet offer no credible explanation as to how they can do this considering their links to a region where all goods are likely to be tainted by forced labor.”

/End ID

As we enter pride month again,

let's remember that capitalism will never benefit queer people, as it is a system that will always prioritize profit over people.

Let's remember that corporate pride isn't real pride, that companies literally just see us as consumers and nothing more, that they don't care about our rights.

Let's support small buisnesses, small content creators, small writers and artists and musicians who make really queer and really good stuff, and who stand up against injustice.

Let's continue to boycott big brands for our palestinian, uyghur and congolese brothers and sisters.

Let our humanity guide us instead of the need to buy and fall into the capitalist trap of thinking that someone belongs more because they can buy more.

Please, boycott corporate pride and choose decolonisation this month.

None of us is free until we all are.

[eretzyisrael]

But What About the Palestinians?

This morning I received a robo-call from the Rehovot city government to tell me that, as a senior citizen, if I had trouble getting an appointment for my Coronavirus vaccination, they would help me, and here is how to contact them. I remembered that some months ago I got a call from a human social worker employed by the city, who wanted to know how I was, how we were getting our food (this was during our first full lockdown), did we have local family to help us out, and so on.

I’ve had my differences with the city from time to time, but I am really impressed by this. They are using our tax money (Israelis pay local taxes based on the size of their homes and other factors) to provide services to the citizens! I realized how little I’ve come to expect from government, so this seemed like a big deal to me. But it’s still remarkable that they have programs in place to help those of us who are no longer “productive citizens” in an economic sense.

And then there is the vaccination program itself. The State of Israel paid a premium price for vaccines, and set up a system to distribute them. The logistics are complicated because the Pfizer vaccine, the first to arrive here, must be kept at -70 degrees C (-94 F) and then used within several hours of being warmed. As of Tuesday, 1,700,000 Israelis had received their first vaccination, including my wife and me.

We went to the designated location, where the four HMOs that all Israelis belong to had set up stations to give vaccinations; waited only a few minutes in an open area, and received our shots (for those who speak British, “jabs”). Information was immediately entered into the nationwide computer networks of the HMOs, and our appointments for the second dose set. This was much more efficient than anything I have ever experienced in any bureaucratic setting either here or in the US, even in the IDF.

Of course Bibi is taking credit for the whole thing, as our next expensive, unnecessary election approaches. But in truth he does deserve credit for making the deals with the pharmaceutical corporations that got us large quantities of vaccine early, even while the HMOs put together the system which is expected to vaccinate the entire population by the end of March.

So this morning I have a feeling that this country cares about me, and about the rest of its citizens. The institutions like the national and local governments and the HMOs are doing their jobs, at least in this connection. They government has not done so well in managing the lockdowns, especially the last, partial one, which seems to have hurt small businesses badly while doing little to slow the spread of the virus. There are plenty of other things to criticize, but still, I am proud of my country.

But the response of the world media to Israel’s relative success in fighting the epidemic has been more hostile than anything I recall since the last time Israel was forced to defend herself against deadly rocket attacks from Gaza. “What about the Palestinians,” they screamed. Why aren’t we vaccinating them, too? “It’s because Israel is an apartheid state!”

The accusation is everywhere, in mainstream and social media, from the human rights organizations, and even from Jewish groups like J Street.

And it’s nonsense. First, Arab and Jewish Israelis, as well as Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are treated precisely the same. Second, the PA and Hamas are responsible under international law for vaccinating their citizens. The PA has said they have ordered vaccines from several manufacturers and are awaiting their arrival. Israel has promised to give surplus vaccine to the PA after our campaign is over. Israel’s public broadcaster KAN reports that Israel already gave the Palestinian Authority some 100 doses of the vaccine for “hardship cases” (probably the big shots in the PA). And the blogger Elder of Ziyon has debunked some of the accusations against Israel made by “human rights” NGOs here and here.

One of Israel’s greatest national concerns is the question of how it can become a better state, one that better performs the basic function of a state, to protect its citizens against man-made and natural dangers, and to provide economic and cultural opportunities for them. This is the purpose of our health care system, the IDF, and our Knesset, judicial system, central bank, and so forth. Although there is a certain amount of corruption it is incidental to the functioning of the overall state.

The vaccination project has been a positive force in our lives, illustrating that we need not always be passive and accept the blows that fall on us. And it shows that our big institutions (the HMOs are independent organizations, but closely controlled by the Health Ministry) can work smoothly when they have to.

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are entirely different. Although they have government ministries, a health-care system, and many other services, they do not exist to protect their people and enable them to fulfill their economic and cultural potential. They have two functions alone: to enrich those Palestinians who are “connected,” and to fight the war against Israel with which they are obsessed. Corruption is essential, not incidental. Funds that don’t go into the pockets of the rulers go to prepare for war or to pay the soldiers. Palestinians know this and hate their rulers, but there is little they can do because the dictatorships under which they live don’t hesitate to use force against them. And in many cases, they are also slaves to their obsessive hatred of Israel.

Palestinian governments continue to encourage, pay for, and perpetrate terrorism against Israel, while “ordinary Palestinians” throw rocks at cars containing Jews, a pastime that has caused several deaths and countless serious injuries. A few weeks ago, an “ordinary Palestinian” viciously beat an innocent woman to death. Right now the concern in Ramallah is not how to vaccinate millions of Palestinians, but rather how to ensure that terrorists will continue to get paid despite Israeli restrictions on Palestinian banks.

Israel struggles to be better. Palestinians struggle to be worse. And yet, which side do the media, the Jewish Left, and the human rights industry take?

*** Sheldon Adelson died on Tuesday. He was one of Israel’s greatest supporters. He loved this country, and contributed massive amounts of his own money to make it better and to help improve its relationship with the diaspora, including hundreds of millions of dollars to Birthright, which has probably done more to counteract the hate campaign against Israel in the universities than all other PR initiatives put together. He also gave large sums to AIPAC, the Friends of the Israel Defense Forces, Yad Vashem, and the Israeli-American Council. He and his Israeli-born wife, Miri, were the major donors to a new medical school at Ariel University. He donated several Magen David Adom ambulances and mobile ICU vehicles, including some that were armored to protect them against terrorist attacks. He started the free newspaper Israel Hayom (Israel Today), which is today the paper with the largest circulation in the country, shattering the almost total monopoly on news media in Israel held by the Left. His influence on Donald Trump was partly responsible for Trump’s pro-Israel policies.

Miri Adelson will certainly continue his philanthropy, but the Jewish people and the State of Israel have lost a friend who won’t easily be replaced. BDE.

Abu Yehuda

[newstfionline]

Thursday, February 25, 2021

COVID-19 cases falling (nearly) everywhere (Foreign Policy) New COVID-19 cases and deaths have dropped worldwide for the sixth consecutive week, according to figures compiled by the World Health Organization. The WHO recorded 2.4 million new cases last week, a drop of 11 percent compared to the previous week. The 66,000 deaths last week represented a 20 percent decline. Five out of the six WHO regions now show a consistent downward trend in new cases, although the trendline in the Eastern Mediterranean region remains flat due to continued case increases in Iran and Iraq.

Not to be sniffed at: Agony of post-COVID-19 loss of smell (AP) The doctor slid a miniature camera into the patient’s right nostril, making her whole nose glow red with its bright miniature light. “Tickles a bit, eh?” he asked as he rummaged around her nasal passages, the discomfort causing tears to well in her eyes and roll down her cheeks. The patient, Gabriella Forgione, wasn’t complaining. The 25-year-old pharmacy worker was happy to be prodded and poked at the hospital in Nice, in southern France, to advance her increasingly pressing quest to recover her sense of smell. Along with her sense of taste, it suddenly vanished when she fell ill with COVID-19 in November, and neither has returned. Being deprived of the pleasures of food and the scents of things that she loves are proving tough on her body and mind. Shorn of odors both good and bad, Forgione is losing weight and self-confidence. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Do I stink?’” she confessed. “Normally, I wear perfume and like for things to smell nice. Not being able to smell bothers me greatly.” A year into the coronavirus pandemic, doctors and researchers are still striving to better understand and treat the accompanying epidemic of COVID-19-related anosmia—loss of smell—draining much of the joy of life from an increasing number of sensorially frustrated longer-term sufferers like Forgione.

Biden to order sweeping review of U.S. supply chain weak spots (Washington Post) President Biden on Wednesday will formally order a 100-day government review of potential vulnerabilities in U.S. supply chains for critical items, including computer chips, medical gear, electric-vehicle batteries and specialized minerals. The directive comes as U.S. automakers are grappling with a severe shortage of semiconductors, essential ingredients in the high-tech entertainment and navigation systems that fill modern passenger vehicles. Biden’s executive order, which he is scheduled to sign this afternoon, also is aimed at avoiding a repeat of the shortages of personal protective gear such as masks and gloves experienced last year during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s order, which had been anticipated, represents the partial fulfillment of a campaign pledge. But mandating a government study will be the easy part. Extensively modifying U.S. supply lines and reducing the country’s dependence upon foreign suppliers—after decades of globalization—could prove difficult and costly.

U.S. seeks to return to U.N. human rights body (Reuters) The United States will seek election to the U.N. Human Rights Council later this year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, marking the Biden administration’s latest international re-engagement. Blinken, addressing the council by recorded video, said that President Joseph Biden’s administration would work to eliminate what he called the Geneva forum’s “disproportionate focus” on U.S. ally Israel. The council, set up in 2006, has a stand-alone item on the Palestinian territories on its agenda every session, the only issue with such treatment, which both Democratic and Republican administrations have opposed.

Freedom of speech the real issue in Spain (Washington Post) Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in some of Spain’s largest cities every night for a week, often clashing with police. In Barcelona on Saturday, authorities said they detained 38 people and recorded injuries among 13. The anger of the young protesters is centered on the arrest of a man who until recently was an obscure figure: Pablo Rivadulla, a rapper better known by his stage name, Pablo Hasél. But the demonstrations are about far more than one man’s arrest, speaking to growing concern inside and out of Spain about the effect of the country’s anti-terrorism laws and lèse-majesté statutes circumscribing the freedom of expression.

Covid inspires 1,200 new German words (The Guardian) From coronamüde (tired of Covid-19) to Coronafrisur (corona hairstyle), a German project is documenting the huge number of new words coined in the last year as the language races to keep up with lives radically changed by the pandemic. The list, compiled by the Leibniz Institute for the German Language, an organisation that documents German language in the past and present, already comprises more than 1,200 new German words—many more than the 200 seen in an average year. It includes feelings many can relate to, such as overzoomed (stressed by too many video calls), Coronaangst (when you have anxiety about the virus) and Impfneid (envy of those who have been vaccinated). Other new words reveal the often strange reality of life under restrictions: Kuschelkontakt (cuddle contact) for the specific person you meet for cuddles and Abstandsbier (distance beer) for when you drink with friends at a safe distance. The words also capture specific moments during the pandemic. For example, Balkonsänger (balcony singer) is someone who sings to people from their balcony, which was popular during the spring lockdown. Hamsteritis, referring to the urge to stockpile food, was also commonly used at the start of the crisis.

China uses patriotism test to sweep aside last outlet for Hong Kong democracy (Washington Post) Serving as a district councilor in Hong Kong means addressing everyday concerns such as pest control, traffic issues and helping elderly residents pay bills. One of the few perks of the modest office is having a say, alongside tycoons and Beijing loyalists, in choosing Hong Kong’s leader. On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s government announced that anyone running for these local positions will need to be a “patriot”—meaning they must swear loyalty not to their constituents but to Beijing and the Communist Party—as China moves to quash the territory’s last avenue of democracy. The changes, which are expected to be introduced to the legislature—where there is no viable opposition—next month and become law soon thereafter, will trigger the expulsion of several young pro-democracy councilors, even if they read the oath as instructed. Disqualified candidates will be barred from running in any elections for five years. With Tuesday’s announcement, the councils, the only fully democratic body in Hong Kong, fall in line with China’s broader reshaping of a city once known for its boisterous political culture as democratically chosen representatives are replaced with Beijing loyalists.

The Mekong River (Nikkei Asia) There are 60 million people who live along the lower Mekong River, and they were in for a rough surprise in early January when China drastically cut the discharge from the Jinghong Dam in Yunnan Province. The “tests”—which were slated to end January 24—entailed cutting the flow of the river from 1,900 cubic meters per second to just 1,000 cubic meters per second, but the final day of tests came and went and the volume is still down. That this occurred in the middle of the dry season was particularly rough for Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, countries that depend on the river. China has begun to draw international ire over their management of the river, which it has built 11 large dams on.

A Digital Firewall in Myanmar (NYT) The Myanmar soldiers descended before dawn on Feb. 1, bearing rifles and wire cutters. At gunpoint, they ordered technicians at telecom operators to switch off the internet. For good measure, the soldiers snipped wires without knowing what they were severing, according to an eyewitness and a person briefed on the events. The data center raids in Yangon and other cities in Myanmar were part of a coordinated strike in which the military seized power, locked up the country’s elected leaders and took most of its internet users offline. Since the coup, the military has repeatedly shut off the internet and cut access to major social media sites, isolating a country that had only in the past few years linked to the outside world. The military regime has also floated legislation that could criminalize the mildest opinions expressed online. So far, the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has depended on cruder forms of control to restrict the flow of information. But the army seems serious about setting up a digital fence to more aggressively filter what people see and do online. Such a comprehensive firewall may also exact a heavy price: The internet outages since the coup have paralyzed a struggling economy. Longer disruptions will damage local business interests and foreign investor confidence as well as the military’s own vast business interests.

Iraq’s struggling Christians hope for boost from pope visit (AP) Nasser Banyameen speaks about his hometown of Qaraqosh in the historical heartland of Iraqi Christianity with nostalgia. Before Islamic State group fighters swept through the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq. Before the militants shattered his sense of peace. Before panicked relatives and neighbors fled, some never to return. Iraq’s Christian communities in the area were dealt a severe blow when they were scattered by the IS onslaught in 2014, further shrinking the country’s already dwindling Christian population. Many hope their struggle to endure will get a boost from a historic visit by Pope Francis planned in March. Among the places on his itinerary is Qaraqosh, where this week Vatican and Iraqi flags fluttered from light poles, some adorned with the pope’s image. Francis’ visit, his first foreign trip since the coronavirus pandemic and the first ever by a pope to Iraq, is a sign that “You’re not alone,” said Monsignor Segundo Tejado Muñoz, the undersecretary of the Vatican’s development office. “There’s someone who is thinking of you, who is with you. And these signs are so important. So important.”

Syria’s economic woes (NYT) In a private meeting with pro-government journalists, President Bashar al-Assad was asked about Syria’s economic meltdown: the currency collapse that has gutted salaries, the skyrocketing prices for basic goods and the chronic shortages of fuel and bread. “I know,” he said, according to two people with knowledge of the discussion. “I know.” But he offered no concrete steps to stem the crisis beyond floating this idea: Television channels should cancel cooking shows so as not to taunt Syrians with images of unattainable food. As the 10-year anniversary of Syria’s civil war looms, Mr. al-Assad’s most immediate threats are not the rebel factions and foreign powers that still control large swaths of the country. Instead, it is the crushing economic crisis that has hobbled the reconstruction of destroyed cities, impoverished the population and left a growing number of Syrians struggling to get enough food. Food prices have more than doubled in the last year. The World Food Program warned this month that 60 percent of Syrians, or 12.4 million people, were at risk of going hungry, the highest number ever recorded.

The Deadliest Middle East Construction Project Since The Pyramids (The Guardian) On December 2, 2010, FIFA announced that Qatar would host the 2022 World Cup —- a first for a Middle East nation. Over the next ten years, thousands of migrant laborers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka came to Qatar to work on the elaborate preparations for the world’s biggest football tournament. Sadly, during that period at least 6,500 of those workers died, according to an analysis by the Guardian. The findings were compiled from government sources, and mean that an average of 12 migrant workers from the five South Asian nations have died each week since the announcement was made. The total death toll is significantly higher because the figures don’t include deaths from other countries like the Philippines and Kenya that send large numbers of workers to Qatar. Also not included are deaths occurring in the final months of 2020. More deaths have undoubtedly occurred since preparations for the 2022 tournament continue.

The value of housework (Foreign Policy) In a landmark ruling, a Beijing divorce court has ordered a man to pay his wife for five years of unpaid housework during their marriage. The award does not amount to much, roughly $1,100 dollars per year, but marks a new era in Chinese divorce law after the government introduced a new civil code. Under the new code, an aggrieved spouse is entitled to seek compensation if they shouldered more domestic responsibilities—with no prenuptial agreement necessary. The case follows a similar one in Argentina in 2019, when a divorce court ordered a husband to pay his wife of 27 years $179,000 in recognition of her unpaid domestic work. According to Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) figures, Chinese women spend roughly four hours per day on unpaid work—with their U.S. counterparts clocking in nearly the same amount. American men are closer to closing the gap than Chinese men, however. American men spending about 2.5 hours per day on unpaid labor, while Chinese men spend just 1.6 hours.

[crazycoke-addict]

Why Demi Lovato is problematic

First of all, I just wanna is that I actually did loved Demi Lovato, so I’m not a hater or made this thread out of pettiness. As I grew, I have realised that going to Israel isn’t only problematic thing she has done.

Demi Lovato talks about she’s a proud feminist but does she even know feminism means. In a cosmopolitan interview, demi says that she was feminism before it was cool. She went on to tweet “#womenagainstfeminism because I am not a victim”. 

The problem with this is Feminism has been around since the suffrage movement, so it’s not a trend but Demi is making it out like it is. Nobody is claiming the word feminism because it’s for everyone. She’s like those hipsters who says “I was a feminist before it was cool”.

I think Demi uses feminism when it only benefits to her and I’ll give you a few examples to back up my opinion. First being when Zendaya had a doll made for her in which the doll is wearing dreadlocks. However Demi decided to tweet to barbie asking them to do a curvy doll. 

Demi is right that there need to be curvy dolls for girls who aren’t skinny to feel good about themselves. But racial diversity is important. Not only was this Zendaya’s big moment, it was also important for the black community to see a doll wearing a natural hairstyle. The other example is the whole Taylor Swift and Taylor gets bring up two times by the way. When Kesha accused Dr Luke of sexual and emotional abuse, Taylor was one of the people whom support her in silent by donating her money to help her out with the trail against him. Well Demi Heard about it and was not happy about it. Demi went on this twitter that Taylor should’ve spoken out in public to show her support. Even though speaking out is a good thing, you still need to prove your serious about this physically and that’s what Taylor did.

Taylor made an essay explaining she never had any ownership to her own music and how big machine records sold her music to scooter braun. Demi was one of the people who defended Braun by replying to Todrick Hall’s Instagram post in which he states that Scooter Braun was evil.

Demi explains how Scooter Braun isn’t homophobic because he was nice to her but that’s not how it works. She also shouldn’t compare her experience to todrick hall’s experience. Demi is a Mexican descent bisexual but I don’t think she has experienced racism nor homophobia. Demi is all about feminism when it benefits her and when Taylor Swift is mentioned. In 2018, Demi was doing a Q&A on twitter and somebody asked her what was the funniest prank she ever made.

Demi quote tweeted by saying she hired a prostitute to surprise her friend Max, the prostitute grabbed Max’s area without permission in which he jumped in surprise.

Although max said that he thought it was funny. My problem with this is why would you post something like this. Whether or not,it was supposed to be a prank, it was still sexual assault overall. Demi even tried to justify her actions which makes it even worse. 

Most recent one is being her visiting Israel. Demi posted a picture explaining how she went to Israel for spiritual guidance and show she wanted to visit places that the bible mentions. 

Israel is the last place if you want to go to and even if you do make a post mentioning Israel, can you at least Palestine. There has been a war conflict going on between Israel and Palestine. Many believe that the two countries are fighting over a one piece land when that is actually false. It’s actually about the conflict over territory between a nation-State, Israel which is one of the world’s most powerful and well-funded militaries, And indigenous population of Palestinians that has been occupied, displaced and exiled for decades. (please read “Israel-Palestine conflict 101″ for more information). According to Human Rights watch, Israel forces fired tear gas towards Palestinian demonstrators near the fences separating Gaza demonstrators and Israel. Between March 30 and November 19, security forces killed 189 Palestinian demonstrators, including 31 children And 3 medical workers and wounded more than 5,800 with live fire. 

When people started calling Demi out and even tried to educate her. Demi got defensive to the point where she was being arrogant. She even said voiced her opinion about not choosing a side. 

This similar to when Selena Gomez was called out for not speaking out about black lives matter and Selena replied by saying she didn’t care about two sides. This is a problem because you need to care about both sides and you need to make sure you on the right side. Demi made an apology note by saying she didn’t knew about the history but it’s been alleged that she was paid $150K go to Israel. She has even turned off comments because people were mentioning Palestine, showing her ignorance side. she later took down the story too.

Demi seem to have a hard time realise that sometimes her actions can harm people. There has been a pattern than whenever she gets called out, she gets do defensive and has bring up irrelevant things to the conversation.