#sanctuary - both the american and israeli ones

[saltcherry]

on Sunday I went for a walk and it was really sunny. I ended up taking my keffiyeh instead of my big flowered scarf to drape over myself. Woman I recognized from shul failed to recognize me + gave me a look as we passed each other. Starting to think I will not manage to form an anti-Zionist working group in the congregation. blegh. This is a nothing post about my little problems but it remains disheartening.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Corey Walker

The author of a book on Jewish American identity enjoyed a sellout crowd at a rescheduled event after the original discussion was canceled over the presence of a Zionist panelist.  Joshua Leifer, author of Tablets Shattered: The End of an American Jewish Century and the Future of Jewish Life, spoke alongside Rabbi Andy Bachman at the Center for New Jewish Culture in Brooklyn on Monday. The original discussion, which was scheduled at Powerhouse Books in Brooklyn last Tuesday, was canceled at the last minute by an employee who did not want the bookstore to platform a “Zionist” rabbi.  During Monday’s discussion, Leifer lambasted the cancellation as both “wrong and antisemitic” as well as “the dumbest strategic thing you can do.” The bookstore’s owner, Daniel Power, later clarified in an interview that Powerhouse Books does not maintain an official ban on Zionist authors and that the employee acted on her own. He revealed that the employee responsible for canceling the event quit on her own accord before he could fire her.  The bookstore issued an apology soon after the incident, writing, “litmus tests as a precondition for participation in public life are wrong. Rejections of dialogue, debate, and nuance are wrong.” Despite the inconvenience, the backlash over the viral incident seems to have benefited Leifer. Roughly 300 people attended the rescheduled discussion, as opposed to the estimated two dozen that showed up for the original event. Leifer’s book currently holds the number one spot in the “History of Judaism” section on Amazon. “In large part, this sanctuary is filled because of what happened,” Bachman stated at the event.  Leifer, a political progressive and writer, has issued blistering criticisms of Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza. He has called for a change in the “status quo” of Israeli policy and has encouraged the American Jewish community to reexamine its relationship with Israel.  In an essay published in The Atlantic, Leifer reflected on the decision to snub Bachman for being a Zionist, saying that it “exemplified the bind that many progressive American Jews face.” “We are caught between parts of an activist left demanding that we disavow our communities, even our families, as an entrance ticket, and a mainstream Jewish institutional world that has long marginalized critics of Israeli policy. Indeed, Jews who are committed to the flourishing of Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora, and who are also outraged by Israel’s brutal war in Gaza, feel like we have little room to maneuver,” Leifer wrote. “My experience last week was so demoralizing in part because such episodes make moving the mainstream Jewish community much harder,” Leifer added. “Every time a left-wing activist insists that the only way to truly participate in the fight for peace and justice is to support the dissolution of Israel, it reinforces the zero-sum (and morally repulsive) idea that opposing the status quo requires Israel’s destruction.” 

Leifer still doesn't get it. Jew-hatred, in the guise of Israel hatred has become part of the progressive canon. "Critics of Israeli policy" are lionized, not marginalized among progressive Jews.

[mariacallous]

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl of New York’s Reform Central Synagogue also urged solidarity with the hundreds of thousands of protesters in Israel who have taken to the streets in opposition to their government’s judicial reform plans:

If you care about democratic rights — help preserve the only functional democracy in the Middle East. If you care about the vulnerable — safeguard the sole sanctuary for Jewish refugees in need. If you value Jewish Peoplehood, hear the cries of the other half of our Jewish family and remember: the destiny of Am Yisrael is bound, one to the other. 

This young, messy, miraculous Jewish state is the most important, sovereign democratic project of the Jewish people of the last 2000 years.

We cannot walk away. While the task can feel at times, overwhelming, exhausting, Pirke Avot teaches:Iit is not our duty to complete it, only not to abandon it. 

In his Rosh Hashanah morning sermon, Rabbi Joshua Davidson of New York’s Reform Congregation Emanu-El reported on his visit to Israel with a group of local rabbis and their conversation with politician Simcha Rothman:

When my turn came to speak, I asked him how he intended to protect the rights of those who don’t align with his politics, Israelis who are not haredi or from the Religious Zionist camp.  He responded dismissively: “If you Reformim want to secure your rights, more of you should move to Israel.” Stunningly unaware he was addressing a delegation of Conservative and Orthodox rabbis, too, this chair of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee made painfully clear that his view of law and justice was purely majoritarian. Minority rights be damned.

It was a shattering encounter. One that revealed this coalition cares nothing for me, my Judaism, or my Jewish community. Don’t they know my congregation’s tireless efforts to strengthen American Jewry’s commitment to Israel? Don’t they know we lovingly display Israel’s flag on our bimah? And here my colleagues and I had travelled across an ocean only to get stiff-armed! Oy. Even in Israel, shver tsu zayn a Yid, sometimes it’s hard to be a Jew!

Rabbi Jeffrey Saxe of the Reform Temple Rodeph Shalom in Falls Church, Virginia, addressed congregants who may be reluctant to criticize Israel despite disagreeing with its government’s plans to weaken the power of the country’s judiciary. He took a lesson from the Book of Jonah, read on Yom Kippur:

God teaches us the most important lesson of the Book of Jonah: that criticism must be given as a blessing and not a curse. Especially when a harsh word of warning is needed to bring one back from the edge, it must be offered as a lifeline and not a threat. …. This text challenges us both to recognize when this is needed, and to remember that the commandment in Leviticus to rebuke your neighbor comes just one verse before, paired inextricably, with the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. Criticism and disagreement must be conducted with love. By fostering and deepening our relationship with Israel, we take a place in the conversation that comes from caring. By acknowledging all sides and their humanity, we model the sensitivity that is needed to raise the level of the discussion. By being part of one of the countless efforts and organizations to help Palestinians, help Jews, build something, and be part of a positive vision, we earn the credibility to say our piece. 

[cavenewstimes]

At events across the US, American Jews mark a grim anniversary

NEW YORK (RNS) — Brooklyn Jews rose from their seats in the rotunda-shaped sanctuary of Congregation Beth Elohim on Sunday (Oct. 6) to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. They then rose again to sing the Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem. The memorial service, marking the anniversary of Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel, was one of hundreds of such gatherings both…

[mikeo56]

Israel’s Willing Executioners

Hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to flee, once again, after more than half of Gaza's population took sanctuary in the border town of Rafah. This is part of Israel's sadistic playbook.

Run, the Israelis demand, run for your lives. Run from Rafah the way you ran from Gaza City, the way you ran from Jabalia, the way you ran from Deir al-Balah, the way you ran from Beit Hanoun, the way you ran from Bani Suheila, the way you ran from Khan Yunis. Run or we will kill you. We will drop 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs on your tent encampments. We will spray you with bullets from our machine-gun-equipped drones. We will pound you with artillery and tank shells. We will shoot you down with snipers. We will decimate your tents, your refugee camps, your cities and towns, your homes, your schools, your hospitals and your water purification plants. We will rain death from the sky.

Run for your lives. Again and again and again. Pack up the pathetic few belongings you have left. Blankets. A couple of pots. Some clothes. We don’t care how exhausted you are, how hungry you are, how terrified you are, how sick you are, how old, or how young you are. Run. Run. Run. And when you run in terror to one part of Gaza we will make you turn around and run to another. Trapped in a labyrinth of death. Back and forth. Up and down. Side to side. Six. Seven. Eight times. We toy with you like mice in a trap. Then we deport you so you can never return. Or we kill you.

Let the world denounce our genocide. What do we care? The billions in military aid flows unchecked from our American ally. The fighter jets. The artillery shells. The tanks. The bombs. An endless supply. We kill children by the thousands.  We kill women and the elderly by the thousands. The sick and injured, without medicine and hospitals, die. We poison the water. We cut off the food. We make you starve. We created this hell. We are the masters. Law. Duty. A code of conduct. They do not exist for us.

But first we toy with you. We humiliate you. We terrorize you. We revel in your fear. We are amused by your pathetic attempts to survive. You are not human. You are creatures. Untermensch. We revel in our libido dominandi – our lust for domination. Look at our posts on social media. They have gone viral. One shows soldiers grinning in a Palestinian home with the owners tied up and blindfolded in the background. We loot. Rugs. Cosmetics. Motorbikes. Jewelry. Watches. Cash. Gold. Antiquities. We laugh at your misery. We cheer your death. We celebrate our religion, our nation, our identity, our superiority, by negating and erasing yours. 

Depravity is moral. Atrocity is heroism. Genocide is redemption.

Jean Améry, who was in the Belgian resistance during World War II and who was captured and tortured by the Gestapo in 1943, defines sadism “as the radical negation of the other, the simultaneous denial of both the social principle and the reality principle. In the sadist’s world, torture, destruction, and death are triumphant: and such a world clearly has no hope of survival. On the contrary, he desires to transcend the world, to achieve total sovereignty by negating fellow human beings – which he sees as representing a particular kind of ‘hell.’”

Back in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Netanya, Ramat Gan, Petah Tikva who are we? Dish washers and mechanics. Factory workers, tax collectors and taxi drivers. Garbage collectors and office workers. But in Gaza we are demigods. We can kill a Palestinian who does not strip to his underwear, fall to his knees, beg for mercy with his hands bound behind his back. We can do this to children as young as 12 and men as old as 70.

There are no legal constraints. There is no moral code. There is only the intoxicating thrill of demanding greater and greater forms of submission and more and more abject forms of humiliation. 

[progressivemillennial]

In case you no longer have access to the Washington Post this month, here’s the full text:

Since I began my first term in Congress, I have sought to speak openly and honestly about the scale of the issues our country faces — whether it is ending the crippling burden of student debt, tackling the existential threat of climate change or making sure no one in one of the richest countries in the world dies from lack of health care. As a survivor of war and a refugee, I have also sought to have an honest conversation about U.S. foreign policy, militarism and our role in the world.

This question of how the United States engages in conflict abroad is deeply personal to me. I fled my home country of Somalia when I was 8 years old from a conflict that the United States later engaged in. I spent the next four years in a refugee camp in Kenya, where I experienced and witnessed unspeakable suffering from those who, like me, had lost everything because of war.

I saw firsthand the devastating toll of war. And I dreamed of one day coming to the United States of America — a land that promised peace and opportunity regardless of one’s faith or ethnicity. But I also saw how America’s image in the world is undermined when we don’t live up to those values. And I witnessed how our continuous involvement in foreign conflicts — even those undertaken with the best of intentions — can damage our own reputation abroad.

I believe in an inclusive foreign policy — one that centers on human rights, justice and peace as the pillars of America’s engagement in the world, one that brings our troops home and truly makes military action a last resort. This is a vision that centers on the experiences of the people directly affected by conflict, that takes into account the long-term effects of U.S. engagement in war and that is sincere about our values regardless of short-term political convenience.

This means reorienting our foreign affairs to focus on diplomacy and economic and cultural engagement. At a time when we spend more on our military than the next seven countries combined, our global armed presence is often the most immediate contact people in the developing world have with the United States. National security experts across the political spectrum agree that we don’t need nearly 800 military bases outside the United States to keep our country safe.

Valuing human rights also means applying the same standards to our friends and our enemies. We do not have the credibility to support those fighting for human rights in Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua if we do not also support those fighting for human rights in Honduras, Guatemala and Brazil. Our criticisms of oppression and regional instability caused by Iran are not legitimate if we do not hold Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to the same standards.

And we cannot continue to turn a blind eye to repression in Saudi Arabia — a country that is consistently ranked among the worst of the worst human rights offenders. Whether it is the murder of dissenters such as Jamal Khashoggi or war crimes against civilian populations in Yemen, we must hold all of our allies to the same international standards as our enemies.

This vision also applies to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S. support for Israel has a long history. The founding of Israel 70 years ago was built on the Jewish people’s connection to their historical homeland, as well as the urgency of establishing a nation in the wake of the horror of the Holocaust and the centuries of anti-Semitic oppression leading up to it. Many of the founders of Israel were themselves refugees who survived indescribable horrors.

We must acknowledge that this is also the historical homeland of Palestinians. And without a state, the Palestinian people live in a state of permanent refugeehood and displacement. This, too, is a refugee crisis, and they, too, deserve freedom and dignity.

A balanced, inclusive approach to the conflict recognizes the shared desire for security and freedom of both peoples. I support a two-state solution, with internationally recognized borders, which allows for both Israelis and Palestinians to have their own sanctuaries and self-determination. This has been official bipartisan U.S. policy across two decades and has been supported by each of the most recent Israeli and Palestinian leaders, as well as the consensus of the Israeli security establishment. As Jim Mattis, who later was President Trump’s defense secretary, said in 2011 , “The current situation between those two peoples is unsustainable.”

Working toward peace in the region also means holding everyone involved accountable for actions that undermine the path to peace — because without justice, there can never be a lasting peace. When I criticize certain Israeli government actions in Gaza or settlements in the West Bank, it is because I believe these actions not only threaten the possibility of peace in the region — they also threaten the United States’ own national security interests.

My goal in speaking out at all times has been to encourage both sides to move toward a peaceful two-state solution. We need to reinsert this call back into the public debate with urgency. Both parties must come to the table for a final peace deal; violence will not bring us any closer to that day.

Peace and respect for human rights: These are universal values. They are what drove Americans to organize and protest for equal rights and civil rights. They are what motivated nonviolent movements from South Africa to South Asia to the American South. These are the values that propelled me to get involved in public life, and I know they are the values that drove Minnesotans to give a Somali American refugee a chance at representing them in Congress.

Let us apply these universal values to all nations. Only then will our world achieve peace.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

The recent passage of a law in Alabama that essentially bans all abortions in the state resulted in a barrage of coverage of other abortion restrictions being adopted in conservative areas this year. But as FiveThirtyEight illustrated in a story last week, this is not a new trend — Republican-controlled states have been chipping away at abortion access since the 2010 elections, which swept the GOP into power in state legislatures and governors’ mansions across the country.

Still, the Alabama law got us thinking … what policies in addition to abortion limits are being passed in a multitude of states? More specifically, what laws are being passed in “trifecta” states, in which one party controls both houses of the legislature and the governor’s office? These states are ripe for bills to pass easily because the other party can’t stop them. And they serve as a good indicator of each party’s priorities and what it might do at the federal level given unfettered power.1

There is no formal clearinghouse for state policy changes, so I looked for legislative patterns and consulted with national groups that work on state policy, such as the left-leaning State Innovation Exchange. The result is a non-exhaustive list of legislation that has passed in multiple trifecta states, either blue or red.

The 14 states — which are home to about 112 million people — that are totally controlled by Democrats are pushing forward an agenda of, among other things, hiking the minimum wage significantly above the federal $7.25 per hour, banning (for minors) therapy that is designed to “convert” gay and lesbian people from homosexuality (this treatment is widely condemned by medical experts) and mandating that the Electoral College votes in states go to whichever candidate wins the national popular vote.

The issues being pushed in liberal states aren’t too surprising. They reflect a combination of (i) initiatives the Obama administration was pushing in its latter stages but couldn’t get approved nationally because the GOP controlled Congress; (ii) reactions to the Trump era (particularly trying to ensure that another president is not elected without winning the popular vote), and (iii) priorities of the party’s activists.

The 22 GOP-totally-controlled states — which are home to about 136 million people — have tried to eliminate restrictions on gun rights, stop cities from becoming “sanctuaries” for undocumented immigrants and weaken the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement that targets the Israeli government for how it treats Palestinians.

Similar to the Democratic list, this legislative agenda represents (i) Trump administration priorities that can’t get approved in Congress; (ii) reactions to the Obama administration (particularly the attempts to limit Medicaid, which was greatly expanded in the Obama years), and (iii) longtime conservative activists’ causes (limiting gun restrictions, for example).

Again, this is not a complete list of policies being enacted in a huge swath of the states. (We purposefully left out abortion, which is covered in more detail here.) And some of these ideas have crossed the red-blue divide — for example, some GOP-controlled states, like North Dakota, are joining the push to decriminalize marijuana, and many blue states, including California and New York, have enacted anti-BDS provisions.

It’s also worth noting which policies are not proliferating at the state level. Despite national momentum in the Democratic Party for enrolling more people in Medicare-style government-run health insurance plans, only Washington has adopted a so-called public option at the state level. And even as some of the party’s presidential candidates emphasize hiking rates on the wealthiest Americans, totally controlled Democratic states haven’t been as enthusiastic. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s push for a major tax increase on millionaires, for example, is facing strong resistance from his fellow Democrats in the state legislature.

On the GOP side, national Republicans, particularly Education Secretary Betsy Devos, are strong supporters of charter schools, as an alternative to traditional public schools. But of the six states that don’t currently have laws allowing for the creation of charters, four (Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and West Virginia) are totally controlled by the GOP.

And to be sure, trifectas don’t represent each party at the state level in totality — there are Republicans who sometimes back liberal legislation and Democrats who embrace conservative priorities. For example, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, recently signed a minimum wage increase. Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, has backed some abortion limits.

All that said, Sacramento, Salem (Oregon), Santa Fe and Springfield (Illinois) are very different places but might at times have very similar legislation on the floors of their state legislatures. And if you live in Iowa, it’s actually fairly useful to see what laws are passing in Alabama and Texas — they are likely to come to your state soon.

[cryptid-jack]

Once a Hero - Prologue pt 2

Title: Once a Hero Rating: T+ Genres: Action/Mystery/Romance/Comedy

Summary: In a world where super villains constantly fought for control of city-states under the protection of a world government, an alliance of heroes rose up to combat them for the sake of peace and justice. No one could have predicted that this alliance and their sworn enemies would be compelled to join forces to fight an alien invasion that threatened to wipe humanity from the face of the Earth.

They won the day, but not without suffering a tremendous loss on both sides

Ten years later, a super villain with a complicated history in heroics uncovers a conspiracy that flips the narrative of their very world on its head. To get to the source of it all, he finds help in the form of a Hero with a strange past of his own, and the key in the form of a little girl with big dreams.

AN: Thanks so much to those of you that commented/reblogged part one! Hope you enjoy this part too, and then let me know what your favorite part was! I just love hearing that from you guys <3

(< Back to Prologue pt 1)

March, 2003

(Prologue pt 2)

“This town is a shithole,” Keir declared as he pushed his way in through the front door and dropped a heavy looking duffel bag on the floor with a loud thump.

Layla turned and looked at him from where she sat curled up on the beat up sofa in front of the tv. Both her eyebrows shot up at this declaration, and she was quiet for a moment as she watched him kick the door shut behind him. The woman didn’t have to be a psychic to know he was bothered by something. The thunderous expression on his face was more than enough to tell her that.

It had been months since they’d escaped the Academy, and their travels had landed them in a large coastal city far from where they had begun. It had seemed like the promised land at first, full of people, life, and light... reality had sunk in pretty quick, though, when they both realized just how hard it was to blend in with society when society didn’t recognize that you even existed. Birth certificates, civilian identification numbers, driver’s licenses... neither of them had any of those things, making it nigh impossible to find legitimate work.

In the abstract, they had both known about these things, of course, but there was a difference between knowing something and actually applying it to the everyday sort of civilian life they both longed for.

Still, Keir hadn’t let legalities stop him from keeping them both fed and housed now that they were finally free.

“So, what did you get today?” Layla asked in an attempt to divert his attention from his general dissatisfaction with the city they lived in, turning in place so she could look over the sofa back without craning her neck.

Keir grunted, knowing full well what she was doing, but indulged her all the same. He shucked his coat, then crouched down next to the duffel he’d dropped on the floor and began pulling out stacks of money.

“Hmm, I’d say about three-thousand in cash,” he estimated, “Two AK-47s,” here he hauled out two semi-automatic rifles and placed them carefully on the floor behind him. “Five nine mils,” these too were laid out on the floor. “And about one and a half kilos of cocaine.”

Two bags of white powder were held up for her inspection for a moment before the man stood and took them into the bathroom. Layla watched him go, then got up and walked around to the now empty duffel bag. She took a few stacks of cash and put it into the small safe that they kept in their bedroom closet to be used for necessities, and the rest she put in a plastic grocery bag by the door.

When it had become apparent that neither of them would be able to get legal jobs there in the city, Keir had initially worked under the table jobs that would pay without asking too many questions. It had mostly been heavy labor on the docks and some bouncer work. After that he’d had a few offers from local gang leaders, but the man had pointedly refused. It had smacked far too much of the work he had once done for the Academy.

The city they had settled into was large, making it easy to disappear off the radar of any Blackridge remnants that might be trying to track them down. Unfortunately, it also had high crime rates, particularly in the neighborhood they had moved into. Their apartment complex was what one might call ‘shady’ if someone were inclined to being kind. One couldn’t be choosey when one didn’t have any sort of legal identification or credit record, though.

When they had first moved in, they’d been grateful just to have a roof over their heads at long last. The rest of the building’s tenants definitely left something to be desired, though. They hadn’t been there two days before someone had broken in with the intent to rob them. Unfortunately for the man waving a pistol in Keir’s face, Keir knew a great deal more about how to use it and quickly took it off him.

Word spread quickly after that. The couple on floor five, apartment C, were not to be messed with. Rumors abounded. Keir was an ex-marine in one, a former Israeli freedom fighter in another. Last week Layla had caught whispers that he was the son of a South American drug lord who’d run away from a life of extravagant wealth to marry his lover from a rival gang.

Honestly, Layla could see where people might buy into any of those rumors. Keir had the sort of dark good looks that would let him blend into any number of places in the world. He had rich, golden-brown skin, a strong nose, and full lips. His eyes were a shade of brown so dark as to appear black in all but direct light, set under heavy, expressive brows. His hair was a deep shade of mahogany with a slight curl to it, which had been news to both of them since Keir had never been allowed to wear his hair longer than a strict buzzcut for his entire life up to that point.

Layla loved his curls.

Keir’s notoriety as a man of many terrifying skills, combined with Layla’s ability to know things that she should not, had gradually resulted in many of the less savoury types clearing out of the building. The landlady might have thrown them out if not for the sudden influx of poor, but reliable and non-violent families seeking sanctuary from the rough neighborhood around them.

In fact, for a gradually expanding area around the apartment, the gangs, drug dealers, and D-Class supervillains were clearing out. Once Keir realized that he had a reputation he could capitalize on, he stopped working under the table manual labor jobs and started robbing drug dealers, making it unprofitable to work in the growing area that the man patrolled.

Together they had decided to only keep what money they needed to live a decent life, and then turned the rest over to the local police in unmarked plastic bag when no one was looking. The drugs they dumped down the toilet, though Layla was becoming increasingly concerned about what that might do to the water supply since doing some research online. The guns were mostly turned over to the police as well, though Keir kept any that happened to strike his fancy.

The toilet flushed in the other room and Keir reappeared a moment later with two empty bags, which he discarded in the trash. He seemed calmer now as he sat down on the floor and began sorting through the weapons he’d confiscated. The man pulled out clips of ammunition, then checked sights and trigger mechanisms with the deft movements of a professional.

Layla sat down next to him to eject and sort rounds of ammunition from the discarded clips. “So, what happened?” she asked

Keir continued working in silence for a moment, racking the bolt on one of the AKs a little harder than was strictly necessary, jettisoning the round therein halfway across the room. She could feel his annoyance boiling just under the surface of his mind, but she kept out, letting him tell her under his own power, as was only polite. Besides, as a low level telepath himself, Keir could always tell when she was in his head. He didn’t mind it usually. They’d both become quite accustomed to it after their initial meeting, after all, but with telepathy no longer being their only point of contact, Layla had pulled back to allow him his privacy.

Sometimes, though, like now, she missed just knowing what was bothering him. It was difficult to wait for answers when you were used to simply plucking them out of someone’s head.

“Some asshole C-Class supervillain and his minions tried to rob me today,” he answered eventually with an expressive snort that spoke volumes for how he felt on the matter.

“You didn’t hurt anyone, did you?” Layla asked as her initial amusement at the thought faded.

A vaguely guilty expression crossed Keir’s face and she shot him a sharp look. “I only broke a few arms!” he said defensively. When she continued looking at him, though, he reluctantly admitted “Alright, alright; I shot a guy in the leg too.” Her frown made him immediately say, “He shot at me first, though! Almost hit some kid just walking by...”

Layla sighed, but nodded, relieved that hadn’t relapsed into old habits. “Was the kid alright?”

“Yeah,” Keir answered, a dark look flitting across his dark features “But if it hadn’t been me there...” he said, words trailing off. He didn’t need to finish the sentence, Layla knew what he meant. If it had been someone who didn’t happen to be telekinetic, a mother might have been without her child tonight.

“Layla, lets get out of here,” Keir said out of the blue as he turned and fixed her with an intense look.

Confused, the woman blinked and asked “Where do you want to go? Are you hungry?”

“No,” the man replied with a huff, “I mean let’s go. Let’s get out of this shithole of a town and go somewhere new, somewhere little kids don’t get gunned down in the fuckin’ street.”

Eyes wide, Layla stared at him for a moment as he waited for her answer.

When she hesitated, he pushed on. “I found a guy that can get us papers. Birth certificates, I.D. numbers... everything,” Keir said and grabbed her pale, slender hand with his dark, calloused one. “We could go legit, Layla. I’d get a job and work to support us. You could go to school like I know you want to-” the woman looked at him in surprise, and he just flashed her a grin. “All that time in my head... it went both ways, you know.”

Layla flushed in embarrassment, but smiled as he pulled her in against his chest. At eighteen, it was unlikely Keir would grow the three inches needed to match her own six foot, but seated there on the floor, they were nose to nose.

“Keir,” she murmured, feeling overwhelmed with love for the man before her in the face of his offer. She knew he felt it too, and when she dropped her head against his shoulder, he turned and pressed a kiss into her hair.

“We could do it, Layla. I’d do whatever it took...”

Tears sprang to the woman’s eyes and she turned her head so she could wipe them away on her shirtsleeve. In doing so, she caught sight of the tv again.

“Sounds like a dream come true,” she murmured against the fabric of his shirt. The cotton of it was soft against her skin and smelled vaguely of sweat, gunpowder, and Keir.

“We’ll go first thing tomorrow, then,” he said, and she could practically hear him making plans already. “It won’t take long to pack, we can leave most of this stuff-”

“It sounds like a dream come true, but we can’t go, Keir,” Layla said and straightened so she could look him in the eye. He appeared startled, then his brow furrowed in confusion. Before he could open his mouth to speak, the woman took his hand and got to her feet, tugging him after her.

Keir followed reluctantly as she lead them both around to the front of the sofa and sat again. He didn’t seem inclined to do so, but she tugged on his hand again, and he complied. On a less dangerous man, the expression he wore might have been called a pout.

“We can’t leave now, Keir. Haven’t you seen the difference we’ve made since coming here?” she asked him gently as she brushed her fingertips along his stubbled jaw, coaxing him to look at her. “When we got here it was nothing but drugs and violence choking the life out of this neighborhood. Now there’s families in this complex, Keir. We made that possible. If we left now, what would happen to everyone here?”

“I don’t know everyone here,” the man replied skeptically. “And I sure as hell didn’t do any of this for them. I did it for you, Layla,” he insisted. “Besides, getting a few small time super villains off the streets is hardly going to fix what’s wrong with this damn city. It’s all just a vicious cycle that-”

“I know, but it’s a start,” Layla said emphatically. “You’re right, we can’t fix the system by going out and-and, oh I don’t know, punching people in the face,” a snort of amusement escaped the man next to her in spite of himself, and she smiled a little at her own fumbling before continuing. “But there are good people here; I’ve met them. If we could give them a chance to thrive without the threat of violence constantly hanging over their heads, then maybe they could go on to fix this city. They could make it someplace worth living.”

They watched one another for a long moment, but a minute twitch of Keir’s lips and Layla knew she’d won. She smiled at him and he groaned in disgust as he flopped back into the cushions of the sofa.

“God, you are insufferable when you go all ‘light of humanity’ on me,” he said with an expressive sigh and roll of his eyes.

She giggled, then flopped down as well, curling up against his side and wiggling into the cushions until he relented and looped his arm around her shoulders. “I know,” Layla said, allowing just a little smugness to color her tone. “You put up a valiant effort, though. I’ll give you that.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled without venom as they let the soft, blue light of the television lull them into a peaceful quiet. The newscast Layla had been watching was repeating now. Something about a travesty averted thanks to members of the Heroes Association.

“We could do it, Keir. We could be just like them,” Layla said as the camera zoomed in on a woman in a brightly colored costume.

“I will burn this city to the ground before I wear spandex.”

Layla chuckled.

(Prologue pt 3 coming soon)

(( Buy me a ko-fi?))

[newstfionline]

Friday, August 27, 2021

Coronavirus vaccine mandates for workers (Bloomberg) Using formal federal approval as cover, a growing number of U.S. employers are imposing coronavirus vaccine mandates on workers, increasingly limiting the places people who have shunned shots can work, shop and play. In New York, Goldman Sachs required bankers prove they’d been vaccinated. In Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University will demand vaccination or negative Covid-19 tests to see a game at Tiger Stadium. CVS has mandated shots for corporate employees and those working with patients. And fossil fuel companies Chevron and Hess added requirements for employees on oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Delta Air Lines even said it would levy a $200 monthly charge on workers who refuse to protect themselves. And the list goes on.

Most US government agencies are using facial recognition (The Verge) A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that 19 of the 24 US government agencies surveyed are using facial recognition in some way, illustrating how commonplace the controversial technology has become within the federal government. The list of agencies includes agencies like the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that maintain in-house systems, alongside smaller agencies that use the system to control access to high-security locations.

Medical intimidation in Mexico (Guardian) Mexico has the world’s fourth-highest COVID-19 death toll—253,000 to date. Researchers believe the true figure could be nearly three times higher because testing numbers are low. When the pandemic hit, demand for oxygen soared. Two companies that supply medical oxygen, Grupo Infra and Praxair Mexico, control 70% of the market together. In 2020, deliveries were often delayed, causing shortages and price increases. Some hospitals responded by building their own onsite oxygen generator plants, with help from the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and the World Bank. Grupo Infra noticed its orders had begun falling. Grupo Infra’s lawyers, crying breach of contract, embarked on a harrowing campaign against the hospitals, sending threatening letters with misleading and untrue claims, asserting patients’ lives were at risk, and imposing ever-larger fines. When the Bureau of Investigative Journalism accused the company of unlawful intimidation, Grupo Infra said it was not aware of any legal action taken against any hospital for installing its own oxygen-generating equipment. Praxair, which reported $27 billion in sales in 2020, had no comment.

Death toll rises to at least 20 in western Venezuela floods (Reuters) At least 20 people have died in the western Venezuelan state of Merida following intense rains that caused mudslides and rivers to overflow. State governor Ramon Guevara said that more than 1,200 houses had been destroyed and 17 people remained missing as rescue workers search the wreckage. Images shared on social media showed cars being swept down streets, buildings and businesses filled with mud, and mudslides that left boulders strewn across roads.

Uruguay starts to dance again as pandemic subsides (AP) After long months of illness, Uruguay is once again starting to dance. The government last week authorized ballrooms and event halls to open as the country’s COVID-19 death rate—once among the highest in the world per capita—has fallen sharply. Seventy percent of Uruguayans have received both doses of vaccines against the virus and once-overstressed hospitals now have empty beds. The government decided to let ballrooms for dancing open five hours a day—though with limited capacity and mandatory 20-minute pauses each hour to air out closed spaces.

Blue whales returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after 40-year absence (Guardian) Blue whales, the world’s largest mammals, are returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after an absence of more than 40 years. The first one was spotted off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain in 2017 by Bruno Díaz, a marine biologist who is head of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in O Grove, Galicia. More have been spotted since then. A typical blue whale is 20-24 metres long and weighs 120 tonnes—equivalent to 16 elephants—but specimens of up to 30 metres and 170 tonnes have been found.

Harris, in Vietnam, gets a dose of China’s challenge to the U.S. (Washington Post) Vice President Harris, on her second international trip in the role, got a taste of the intensifying rivalry between the United States and China as she flew into Vietnam—a former U.S. adversary wary of Beijing’s growing dominance and now courted by Washington. Harris was en route Wednesday to announce, among other things, a donation of 1 million coronavirus vaccine doses to the pandemic-hit country. But a three-hour delay in her schedule handed China a window of opportunity. Beijing quickly sent its envoy in Hanoi to meet with Vietnam’s prime minister and pledged a donation of 2 million vaccine doses, undercutting the subsequent U.S. announcement. Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, thanking the envoy, said Vietnam “does not ally with one country to fight against another,” according to state media. The incident underscored the challenges facing the Biden administration as Harris has made her way through Southeast Asia this week, along with Chinese sensitivity about her visit. Washington’s agenda does not always align with that of governments in the region, which face a diplomatic high-wire act in balancing the competing interests of the United States and China—the latter being Vietnam’s top trading partner.

Suicide bombers target Kabul airport (AP) Two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport Thursday, transforming a scene of desperation into one of horror in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover. The attacks killed at least 60 Afghans and 13 U.S. troops, Afghan and U.S. officials said. Eighteen service members were wounded and officials warned the toll could grow. More than 140 Afghans were wounded, an Afghan official said. The U.S. general overseeing the evacuation said the attacks would not stop the United States from evacuating Americans and others, and flights out were continuing. Gen. Frank McKenzie, head of U.S. Central Command, said there was a large amount of security at the airport, and alternate routes were being used to get evacuees in. About 5,000 people were awaiting flights on the airfield, McKenzie said. The blasts came hours after Western officials warned of a major attack, urging people to leave the airport. But that advice went largely unheeded by Afghans desperate to escape the country in the last few days of an American-led evacuation before the U.S. officially ends its 20-year presence on Aug. 31. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the killings on its Amaq news channel. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan is far more radical than the Taliban, who recently took control of the country in a lightning blitz.

Taliban shows off ‘special forces’ in propaganda blitz (AFP) The Taliban has been showing off its own “special forces” on social media, soldiers in new uniforms equipped with looted American equipment who contrast sharply with the image of the usual Afghan insurgent. Pictures and videos of fighters in the so-called “Badri 313” unit have been posted online for propaganda purposes. The soldiers are shown in uniforms, boots, balaclavas and body armour similar to those worn by special forces around the world. Rather than a battered Russian-designed Kalashnikov rifle slung over their shoulder, the men of Badri 313 hold new US-made rifles such as the M4, sometimes with night-vision goggles and advanced gunsights. The amount of equipment at their disposal is unclear, but multiple pictures online show jubilant Taliban fighters posing with captured armoured Humvees, aircraft and weapons abandoned by the defeated US-equipped Afghan national army. Experts say the most sophisticated equipment, especially the helicopters, will be difficult to operate and near-impossible to maintain.

The Real Winner of the Afghan War? It's Not Who You Think. (NYT) Just days after the Taliban took Kabul, their flag was flying high above a central mosque in Pakistan’s capital. It was an in-your-face gesture intended to spite the defeated Americans. But it was also a sign of the real victors in the 20-year Afghan war. Pakistan was ostensibly America’s partner in the war against al-Qaida and the Taliban. Its military won tens of billions of dollars in American aid over the last two decades, even as Washington acknowledged that much of the money disappeared into unaccounted sinkholes. But it was a relationship riven by duplicity and divided interests from its very start after 9/11. Not least, the Afghan Taliban the Americans were fighting are, in large part, a creation of Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, which through the course of the war nurtured and protected Taliban assets inside Pakistan. In the last three months as the Taliban swept across Afghanistan, the Pakistani military waved a surge of new fighters across the border from sanctuaries inside Pakistan, tribal leaders have said. It was a final coup de grâce to the American-trained Afghan security forces. Pakistan’s already shaky reputation in the West is likely to plummet now, as the Taliban take over Afghanistan. Calls to sanction Pakistan have already circulated on social media. Relations with the United States, already on the downslope, will unravel further. So the question for the Pakistanis is what will they do with the broken country that is their prize?

Biden meets Bennett (Politico) When President Biden meets with new Israeli PM Naftali Bennett in the Oval Office today, the two leaders will have their work cut out for them in repairing a damaged bilateral relationship. Biden is one of a dwindling band of older Democratic leaders holding back a tide of younger progressives who want the U.S. to adopt a much tougher line with Israel. The Jerusalem Post notes there is just one thing on Bennett’s mind: “Iran, Iran and more Iran.” Bennett, who heads a shaky coalition and is a neophyte on the world stage, has made it clear in recent days that Israel wants Biden to drop any plans for a return to the Iran nuclear agreement that former President Donald Trump tore up, and instead back Israel’s plan for a potential military option to degrade the Iranian program. On the big issues, Biden is as far apart with Bennett as he was with former PM Netanyahu. In an interview with the NYT this week, Bennett “said he would expand West Bank settlements that Mr. Biden opposes, declined to back American plans to reopen a consulate for Palestinians in Jerusalem and ruled out reaching a peace agreement with the Palestinians under his watch.”

The cost of war (AP) Hamas and Israel have engaged in four wars in Gaza in thirteen years. The pattern is always the same: Palestinian rocket fire, devastating Israeli airstrikes, a mounting loss of life and property, and appeals for the “senseless cycle” to stop. According to the U.N., there has been more than $5 billion (in 2021 dollars) in damage to Gaza’s homes, agriculture, industry, electricity, and water infrastructure. 4,000 plus Palestinians have been killed, half of them civilians. The death toll in Israel is 106, including civilians, soldiers, and foreign residents The property damage is estimated to reach $193 million. U.N. economist Rami Alazzeh says Gaza’s economy is caught in a “vicious” cycle of destruction, reconstruction, and infusions of aid “just to get it back to before this military operation. If this cycle keeps going on, Gaza can never recover.” Palestinian officials say 70% of Gaza’s two million residents are under age 30. The median age is 19, compared to 30 in Israel. Gaza’s young adults have spent their childhood and adolescent years in an active war zone, and symptoms of PTSD are common. And under Hamas, unemployment among young people has worsened, standing at 62% in June. “This is a lost generation,” Alazzeh said.

[sayedhusaini]

*The Great Game in Afghanistan: Fraudulent Beginning - Fateful End*

1. An extremely important thread on the Geopolitical Landscape: a Magnitude 10 Earthquake whose epicenter was in Kabul. One that has sent shockwaves across entire planet; in every Capital - challenging & threatening the New World Order & the Global Reset: Agenda 2030 up in smokes. Yes!

2. When the US Forces invaded Afghanistan - also romantically known as *The Heart of Asia*; in the year 2001, *America had multiple Grand Strategic Objectives...*

• Defense of Israel

• Direct Control of Strategic Global Resources

• Destruction of Political Islam.

• De-Nuclearization of Pakistan: leading to the defense of Israel.

• Encirclement of Russia.

• Containment of China.

• Control of global Trading Routes & Sea Lanes.

3. Around 1998, American Enterprise Institute (AEI) had written a *Strategic Report* aimed at creating strategies to maintain global dominance of the US in the 21st century. The report was called: *"Project for the New American Century (PNAC)"* - which had outlined measures that would ensure for the US to maintain its dominant role in the 21st century.

*Accordingly events of 9/11 were conceptualized, articulated & executed as the perfect "pearl harbor" - the US needed to launch this (so called) war-on-terror*: to accomplish its Grand Strategic Objectives.

4. *So, US was NOT in Afghanistan to catch Bin Laden - period...*

A established base in the "Heart of Asia" served to fortify all those grand strategic objectives.

After the British Empire destroyed the Ottoman Caliphate (now Turkey) in 1923, they had vowed; *never to allow rise of Political Islam again...*

Accordingly rise of Talibans in Afghanistan posed a direct threat to their Project for the 21st Century.

5. Philosopher & Poet (of the East) Dr. Muhammad Iqbal had the farsighted vision to write in 1920, when Communism was on the rise in the East as a direct threat to Capitalist Order in the West (this was presented as such for next 70 years). However, (Iqbal wrote) *for the Western Civilization, real threat will always come from the Islamic Civilization - from Political Islam & NOT Communism.*

He was right!

6. Invasion of Afghanistan - using the fraudulent events of 9/11 as pretext and after *dealing with the "threat" of Political Islam,* the

CIA/MI6/Mossad got to work immediately - initially on their own, later they subcontracted RAW/NDS/Saudi/Egyptian/UAE Intelligence Services *on a singular Project: to destabilize Nuclear Armed Pakistan* with the objective that by 2015 Pakistan will cease to exist as a single established State...

7. America's Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), British MI6, Israel's Mossad & India's RAW, after establishing their

occupation in Afghanistan; *created the deadliest terror outfits: Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Afghanistan* & launched this group and others as well, like BLA & BNA; against Pakistan.

Over the next few years nearly 100 - 200,000 Pakistanis lost their lives - while countless others were maimed or wounded besides more than 150 billion USD were lost in Pakistan's economy due to this secret CIA/MI6/Mossad/NDS/RAW sponsored terror attacks on Pakistan.

8. US presence in Afghanistan *had removed the "threat" of Political Islam* & they were now well on their way to dismember & dismantle Pakistan - as per their own timeline: 2015.

Simultaneously, presence of US Forces in Afghanistan *had blocked Russian access to the "Heart of Asia" & were well poised to block any Chinese adventure towards: One-Belt-One-Road(OBOR) projects and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) type trade routes across Asia.*

9. Indians & Israelis *were having a dream ride under the US umbrella* removal of their common mortal enemy: Pakistan - the Only Nuclear Armed Islamic state on the planet.

*The grand strategy of invading & establishing an operational base in "the Heart of Asia" Afghanistan: seemed to work very well for a while* - especially as Pakistan bled profusely under the secret, sustained often ferocious onslaughts of multiple terror outfits created, funded, trained and launched from across Pakistan's western borders.

10. Despite the broad perception around the world - primarily created by the malicious disinformation and propaganda campaigns against Pakistan; *the established fact is that Pakistan did NOT support the Afghan Taliban...*

Quite the contrary,

Pakistan remained the strongest frontline Non-NATO Ally of the US led occupation force in Afghanistan, formally allowing nearly a million containers of weapons, logistics & other heavy military supplies through its ports, its lands & its air bridges in support of the US & NATO forces in Afghanistan while suffering deep divisions among its own populace & the destruction beyond repair of the country's infrastructure.

11. By the year 2007, Pakistan was surely and steadily on it's way towards dismemberment. Gen Musharraf, the then President of Pakistan was removed through a Pentagon sponsored, CIA/MI6/Mossad orchestrated regime change movement & a CIA asset Asif Zardari was installed as the President & another CIA asset Hussain Haqqani was installed as Pakistan's Ambassador to the US in Washington DC.

12. Pakistan and Pakistan's mighty Armed Forces was effectively losing the secret war against CIA/MI6/Mossad/NDS/RAW backed terror outfits created, funded, trained and launched from Afghanistan. Even a serving Lieutenant General was killed right outside the gates of the well protected & fortified Army GHQ in Rawalpindi - in a suicide bombing attack. Headquarters of the globally acclaimed Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) all over the country were bombed. Army GHQ itself was attacked & almost taken over...

*Those were very bad days for Pakistan...*

13. *By 2008, the then DG ISI General Shuja Pasha had figured out the CIA/MI6/Mossad/RAW/NDS game plan and had begun conceptualizing & building the counter strategy* and thus the push back began in earnest by mid-2008.

*Every echelon of the Pakistan Armed Forces began its historically most large scale high intensity military operations both within the major cities of Pakistan and across the country* to reclaim lost territory.

14. *It was a long, gruesome 4-year blooby battle*: by 2012 Pakistan's Armed Forces had successfully reclaimed all the lost territory from CIA/MI6/Mossad/RAW/NDS backed terrorists assets; who were by then fully operational from US & NATO controlled Afghanistan.

Even so this brutal, and bloody war-of- terror could not be stopped till today as the paid & trained assets & mercenaries were protected in Afghan sanctuaries by CIA/MI6/Mossad/NDS/RAW.

15. Once the security situation in Pakistan began to improve, China swiftly moved in to counter the US & NATO's strategic objectives & launched its own Economic & Trade Corridors through Pakistan which US & NATO were trying to scuttle. OBOR & CPEC Projects were launched in Pakistan.

By this time, it was clear that the CIA/MI6/Mossad's 2015 plan to dismember Pakistan & dismantle Pakistan nuclear weapons program had failed miserably.

16. By the end of 2015, Afghan Taliban had also emerged as a strong, very disciplined, more potent & with more capacity for strategic resistance to the US & NATO occupation forces in Afghanistan. *US by now was also suffering from deep "imperial overstretch"* - exhausted; having taken both economic & human losses *in the now well known graveyard of the empires.*

The tide had turned in favor of "Haq against Baatil"

17. Pakistan's Armed Forces fought gallantly - sometimes suffering heavy losses; ONLY to protect itself within its own borders *against terrorists: created, funded, trained and launched by its OWN allies* who were occupying Afghanistan.

Ironic yet a factual narrative!

*Afghan Taliban did NOT receive a single container of weapons, armaments or supplies from Pakistan in the last 20 years.* They ambushed, snatched and also received weapons and armaments from ANA/US/NATO/India/Iran/Russia and fought a tactically brilliant guerrilla warfare and strategically patient battle on all fronts.

18. *In the end, it was the Afghan Taliban who won the war in an honorable & fair fight against the combined might of 57 flags: US, Britain, NATO and all the other nameless allied forces.*

The Talibans were NOT helped by any other country in this long-drawn strategic battle for independence from foreign occupation forces.

US President Biden squarely blamed the defeat on the collapse of the Afghan National Army (ANA) - whom they created, they funded, they equipped & they trained. A defeated President Biden while acknowledging the defeat of the US & NATO forces in Afghanistan did not lay the blame on Pakistan or on any other country.

19. *Now what? why is the world screaming & demonizing a band of resoundingly brave & viciously free people who led a truly genuine freedom fight to liberate their own land- locked poorest country on this planet against foreign occupation? Why are they such a threat to the big global powers?*

For any reflective & critically thinking reader; this is the crucial next phase of the jigsaw puzzle to understand & grasp.

20. Surely, the Global Powers are not screaming in pain & fear for their concern for *human rights in Afghanistan* or the *rights of the Afghan women...* That's a big *hogwash to say the least...*

*The Taliban victory in Afghanistan is a direct & existential threat to the Zionist's plans towards Globalization and the New world order - the Global Reset (Agenda 2030);*

which they are unfolding right now under the false flag cover of Covid-19 *Global Plan-demic.*

21. *The idea of Political Islam* is reborn: an idea the Western Civilization had hoped would stay in the Museums of history. *Political Islam now has a country and an operating base of its own.* The ultimate nightmare for the Globalists have come true. More so; when these people (the Talibans of Afghanistan) have (historically) defeated the British Colonists, the Communist Ideology & now Capitalist Order: their power centers politically ravaged in the last 4 decades.

*This is simply a geopolitical and geostrategic miracle. Nothing else can justify this victory accept by reference to a Gift from the Divine*

23. Once a truly Independent Islamic Government is formed anywhere in the world, it becomes a magnet for other Muslim countries in the region & movements around the world to attempt to copy the Taliban model.

The Afghan Jihad of the 80's triggered the Intifadas of Kashmir, Palestine, Chechnya & Algeria.

Same may happen again from this Taliban victory.

24. One may understand the resistance, pushback & attacks by US, EU, India & Israel but the most severe resistance & animosity to this poor Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will come from Saudi Arabia, the UAE & Egypt...the three most petrified countries - *terrified by the idea of Political Islam taking over power as a model & getting a foothold.* under the current Global Order.

25. And just to let one ponder a bit more...

Afghan Jihad of the 80's & the Taliban resistance & ultimate victory of today in Afghanistan: are the only Muslim Resistance Movements in the last 200 years that have actually succeeded in driving out foreign occupation forces: returning victorious from the battlefield.

*Truly a romantic moment in human history!!*

[kafkasmelomania]

May 25, 2021: Grugs Are Dood by Punk On Toast

*Bandcamp here

Unite Asia talks about the background of Grugs Are Dood and why Punk On Toast wanted to release a live album in this article; The Chakkar goes into more detail here. Both are interesting reads, and the album is really energetic -- Punk On Toast is a great live band.

If you’d like to get involved with stopping the atrocities against Palestine, here’s where you can start (text in bold for readability):

This Carrd is full of information, petitions, and places to donate.

Here are some organizations to which you can donate. This post now includes a list of corporations to boycott.

Here is some information about the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund and a list of other organizations.

This is a list of actions you can take (somewhat UK-specific). This is a reading list of texts with more background information.

UK petitions: This is a petition for the UK government to formally recognize the State of Palestine. This is a petition to introduce sanctions against Israel. This is a petition to condemn Israel for their treatment of Palestine and Palestinians.

Here’s the Wikipedia overview of the current iteration of the crisis.

If you’re curious about the United States’s involvement: this is a report about U.S. foreign aid to Israel. This is the Wikipedia page for Palestine-United States relations and this is the Wikipedia page for Israel-United States relations.

Here are some perspectives from on the ground in Gaza. This is also explains why spreading the Palestinian point of view. is so important.

This is one Jewish person’s explanation of the conflation of Jewish identity with the modern Israeli state. They mention the Nakba, which is important – per Wikipedia, “the Nakba, […] also known as the Palestinian Catastrophe, was the destruction of Palestinian society and homeland in 1948, and the permanent displacement of a majority of the Palestinian people.”

This Vox video gives a brief overview of the conflict from its inception until the present day, although it’s from 2016, so it’s not entirely up to date. This CrashCourse video does the same, and I think it’s actually a little better than the Vox video because within the first minute they shut down everyone who claims that this is a religious conflict. That video is also not entirely up to date, as it is from 2015.

Black lives matter and here are some ways you can get involved in the  fight against racism, specifically anti-black racism (text in bold for readability):  

This Linktree and this Carrd are full of ways to confront and fight against anti-black racism: places to donate, advice for protesting, educational resources.

This post is specifically about Daunte Wright and how to help his family. This is Daunte Wright’s memorial fund.

The  Minnesota Freedom Fund is doing good work, and since so many people have been recognizing that work and donating to them, they ask that you  instead donate to Families Supporting Families Against Police Violence, the Racial Justice Network, Communities United Against Police Brutality, the Minneapolis NAACP, the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minneapolis, and the Black Immigrant Collective. You can also donate to the Bail Project, which operates in multiple states.

Other organizations to which you can donate are the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition, the NAACP, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Okra Project, the Solutions Not Punishment Collaborative, For The Gworls, G.L.I.T.S., the Marsha P. Johnson Institute, the Black Trans Travel Fund, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project, and the Black Trans Femmes in the Arts Collective.

GoFundMe: Justice for Breonna Taylor, In Memory of Jamarion Robinson, Rent Fund For Black LGBT Family, Esperanza Spalding’s BIPOC Artist Sanctuary, Help the Williams Family Get a Set of Wheels, Survival and Gender Affirming Needs for Black Enby

(via https://open.spotify.com/album/3KhmLshFOsHNWo8PSeoUOC?si=QQ9NMzkOQwW4FMXyN_lElA)

[cmkshama]

On Thursday, May 24th, I co-sponsored the screening of the film “Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back” with the City of Seattle LGBTQ Commission and the Commission for People with Disabilities. In response, Mayor Durkan, the Seattle Times editorial board, and the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle expressed concern about the film. The Federation argued that the screening should be canceled. Below is my open letter to Mayor Durkan and the City Council clarifying why we felt that it was important to screen this film, responding to the concerns about it, and urging the City to stand strong in its support for the screening.

Thursday, May 24, 2018

Dear Mayor Durkan and City Council,

I am writing to you about the screening scheduled for this evening of the film, Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back.

I encourage you to take the time to watch the film yourselves. I have personally watched it and found it to be in no way prejudiced against, unfair to, or factually inaccurate about any section of our community. It is a moving portrayal of events that transpired in 2012 in relation to the City of Seattle LGBTQ Commission and the City Council.

The film recounts the efforts of activists, and the courageous decision made by the LGBTQ Commission at the time to cancel an event that would have legitimized Stand With Us, a right-wing anti-Palestinian group, and the policies of the Israeli Government in carrying out the brutal repression of Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank. The film then goes on to show the subsequent campaign to make the Commission publicly apologize for cancelling the event. In my view, as an elected representative of Seattle’s working people, the most unfortunate aspect of the 2012 events was that the Mayor and City Councilmembers at that time also joined in the chorus of voices demanding an apology from the LGBTQ Commissioners for what was in fact a principled act on their part.

I congratulate the LGBTQ commissioners in stating clearly that there is no genuine way for us to stand with one oppressed group of people without also actively standing up against other oppressions and injustices. As members of our community advocating for the rights of LGBTQ and disabled community members, we have an obligation to also stand up for the rights of the Palestinian people.

As socialists, we stand in solidarity with Jewish, Muslim, and Christian working people in Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, and with all immigrant working people in Seattle, regardless of national origin, ethnicity, or religion. We believe that the only way to address the situation in Israel and Palestine is for Israeli and Palestinian working people to organize united movements against the brutal occupation and repression of Palestinian people by the Israeli ruling class, openly abetted by the US ruling class. These united movements should also build the fight for unionized living wage jobs, affordable housing for all, and women’s and LGBTQ rights in the region.

The City of Seattle’s support for this evening’s screening is also extremely timely in light of the massacre of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on May 14, as an attack on peaceful protests against the Trump-ordered embassy transfer to Jerusalem. It was the deadliest day for Palestinians since the Gaza war in 2014. The attack came on top of the ongoing brutal siege imposed on them for over a decade, and has drawn broad worldwide condemnation, including from the United Nations. Sixty-two people were shot dead in one day, adding to the dozens slain previously in demonstrations in recent weeks. Among those killed were Palestinian teenaged youths, medics, journalists, and an eight-month-old baby girl who died after massive exposure to tear gas. Over 1,500 Palestinians were injured by Israeli live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, and tear gas.

Supporting the screening is also entirely consistent with Seattle’s declaration to being a sanctuary city. Cancelling the event, if that is what the city establishment decided to do, would be a slap in the face to all those fighting for Palestinian rights in the face of the massacre in Gaza.

I invite you to watch the film online (it is available for free), and I urge you to join us this evening at the event. As the letter from the LGBTQ Commission released yesterday says, “Seattle community members with diverse and intersecting backgrounds including individuals who are LGBTQ, Jewish, Palestinian, Christian, immigrants, people born and raised in Seattle and others, attended Seattle LGBTQ Commission meetings to provide public comment and request we host this film screening at City Hall.”

I understand the calls by some that “both sides” should be heard. My office would be happy to help organize an event where the issues involved are discussed and debated in depth. I believe, though, that we should also recognize that the just and accurate critique of Israel’s illegal policy of brutal repression of the Palestinian people is far too often excluded from American political discourse, and that it is correct to support the screening and discussion organized for this evening. Everyone is cordially invited to listen and participate in a peaceful and respectful discussion and help organize future discussions.

Finally, let me address the matter of anti-Semitism. The Jewish Federation leadership, in calling for cancellation of the event, claims that showing this film will “stir up increased anti-Semitism.”

Anyone who gives the film a balanced viewing will reject that the film in any way bolsters or provokes anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is a pervasive and virulent disease that we must fight everywhere it shows up. I stand with all Jewish working people in opposing anti-Semitism. Most recently, we saw two prominent anti-Semitic pastors deliver prayers at the provocative opening of the US Embassy in Jerusalem: John Hagee, who has claimed that Hitler was a “hunter” sent by God, and Robert Jeffress, who has preached that “you can’t be saved by being a Jew.” Surprisingly, I have yet to hear the people who claim Pinkwashing Exposed provokes anti-Semitism denounce these hateful preachers, who were invited by the Israeli government with the blessing of the Trump administration.

As the US State Department’s own definition of anti-Semitism notes (a definition cited by the Jewish Federation in denouncing the Pinkwashing Exposed film), “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”

I have been consistent, as have the activists who are supporting this film, in opposing ruling classes everywhere as they act to subjugate others to pursue their own interests against those of working and oppressed people, flout UN resolutions to pursue peaceful settlements of land issues, and create different sets of laws for people of different ethnicities and nationalities.

Lastly, the film’s central point must be taken on board: the fact that the Israeli government has policies (at least for some of its inhabitants) that are more LGBTQ-friendly than those in neighboring states does not diminish or negate the inhumanity of its killing of and oppressing the Palestinian people.

Sincerely,

    Seattle City Councilmember Kshama Sawant

[mariacallous]

Late last month, Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama paid a high-profile three-day visit to Israel, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, President Isaac Herzog, Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy, Finance Minister Avigdor Lieberman, and the head of Israel’s National Cyber Directorate, Gaby Portnoy. Both sides discussed enhancing security cooperation, particularly in the cybersphere, and organizing a summit of Balkan leaders in Israel next year.

Rama’s visit to Israel came after Albania found evidence that Iran was behind a series of cyberattacks in July and September that temporarily shut down numerous online Albanian government services and websites. Rama said his government’s investigation, which was conducted with assistance from the FBI and Microsoft, among others, revealed that the cyberattack wasn’t carried out by individuals or independent groups but by the Iranian state—calling it “state aggression.” In response, Rama expelled Iranian diplomats from the country.

For its move, Albania won praise in Israel, as Israelis have often voiced their frustration at European governments’ unwillingness to confront Iran. “Iran represents a joint threat for Israel and Albania. We saw this in the recent Iranian cyberattacks against Albania,” Lapid said. “Israel will assist in any way in the effort against Iran. We see this as a national interest and a historical responsibility.” Washington also backed Tirana’s decision to cut ties with Tehran and sanctioned Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence for its alleged role in the cyberattacks. Tehran rejected the charges that it was behind the cyberattacks and accused Albania of complicity in an American-Israeli campaign against Iran.

So how did Albania of all places find itself in Iran’s cyber crosshairs?

In fact, the two countries have been at odds for years, ever since the Balkan state began hosting—at the request of the United States—members of the exiled Iranian opposition group People’s Mujahideen of Iran, or Mujahedeen-e-Khalq (MEK), on its soil. The group has had a presence in Albania since at least 2013.

In the 1970s, the MEK was one of the main groups fighting the imperial regime in Iran. It played a significant role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution before falling out with the newly established Islamic Republic led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

Morphing into a secretive, cult-like group, the MEK lived in exile under former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s patronage starting in the 1980s and was designated as a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” by the United States, European Union, Canada, Japan, and Great Britain because of its alleged killings of U.S. nationals.

The United States removed the MEK from the terrorist list in 2003 following the U.S. invasion of Iraq and planned at the time to use the MEK in a potential overthrow of the Iranian regime (a plan most recently voiced by former U.S. national security advisor John Bolton in 2018). However, such a plan never came to fruition. Hussein’s toppling and the ensuing chaos in Iraq required the group to find a new sanctuary, and the United States urged Albania to host MEK members.

Currently, about 3,000 MEK members are estimated to live in Albania’s Camp Ashraf-3, a heavily fortified compound protected by Albanian private security.

Since 2013, the MEK has regularly hosted events and summits in Albania that have attracted conservative U.S. Republicans, including former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former Vice President Mike Pence, the latter of whom delivered a keynote address at an event in Albania in June. Even today, many Republicans and congressional aides view the MEK as an important voice calling for regime change in Iran. Albanian media outlets have also reported on contacts between the Israeli Embassy in Tirana and representatives of the MEK. Most recently, in October, the Israeli ambassador to Albania, Galit Peleg, apparently met with MEK leader Maryam Rajavi during the former’s trip to southern Albania.

These contacts have been closely followed in Tehran.

For obvious reasons, Iran is not thrilled with Albania for hosting the MEK, though Tehran tends to put most of the blame on the United States. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani criticized the United States for “forcing” the Albanian government to host the MEK and for “training and equipping them in cyber technology.” The group, he said, has “constantly served and still serves as a tool in the hands of U.S. to carry out acts of terror, cyberattacks, and wage psychosocial war against the Iranian government and nation.”

This raises the question of why Albania would willingly drag itself into one of the world’s most tense geopolitical standoffs, involving the United States, Israel, and Iran, by agreeing to host such a controversial group. A number of Albanian analysts have told me that the idea was not an Albanian initiative but rather a U.S.-Israeli agreement. To paraphrase my favorite line from the 1997 film Wag the Dog: ‘‘Why Albania? … Why not?’’ And the Albanian government, eager to showcase its pro-Western credentials, went along with it.

A former communist dictatorship that broke off ties with both the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong’s China to tread its own path, Albania is now yet another NATO member in a region surrounded by NATO member states. Eager to stand out as a steadfast U.S. ally, it often entangles itself in complex geopolitical issues far from its shores—from being the only country to accept Uyghurs from the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay who were cleared of terrorist charges, to accepting nearly 4,000 Afghans (mostly translators and support staff of the U.S. military), to hosting the MEK—a foreign-policy approach considered fruitful by major political forces in Albania.

Albanian analysts have told me that this way, Albania hopes to strengthen its role in the region and its diplomatic relations with the United States and Israel. Back in 2011, then-Prime Minister Sali Berisha declared Iran “a Nazi state” and backed Israel at the United Nations against the Palestinian bid for statehood. Then, much like today, the idea of gaining access to the United States via Israel was certainly on Rama’s mind.

For its part, Israel’s approach to the Balkans can be framed as a classic securitization policy: securing the state beyond its borders by military and intelligence cooperation, political deals, and intelligence sharing. Israel has gradually and discreetly formed partnerships with Balkan countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Serbia. Israeli investments, both private and government-linked, in Greece and Serbia have been increasing, as have the number of Israeli tourists visiting the region, including Israeli Arabs visiting Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Indeed, Israeli sources confirmed to me that the person organizing Rama’s recent Israel visit was Alexander Machkevitch, a billionaire businessman and the chairman of Eurasian Resources Group, one of the largest global producers of essential metals and minerals, employing some 80,000 people. Machkevitch is also an Israeli citizen and a good friend of Rama’s.

Over the past few years, Israel has also emerged as one of the main diplomatic backers of Bosnia’s highly autonomous Republika Srpska, where Lieberman has cultivated a close working relationship with the pro-Russian Bosnian Serb hard-liner Milorad Dodik. Israel has also been nurturing military and diplomatic ties with Greece, Croatia, and Macedonia. On a more diplomatic level, it has engaged Balkan states through the Craiova State Forum, which brings together heads of government from Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece, and focuses on improving infrastructure and energy cooperation.

Having a diplomatic presence in the Balkans is not only tempting but logical for Israel as well. Nested between the Black Sea and the Adriatic, its geography places it at the crossroads between trade routes. Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, and Greece all have maritime access to North Africa and the Middle East; Hungary and Serbia connect the Balkan Peninsula with Central Europe; and Romania and Bulgaria have access to the Black Sea. Turkey’s booming exports destined for the European Union all pass through the Balkans, the shortest and most economical route. Just recently, Israeli company Elbit Systems opened a flight school in the southern city of Kalamata that will train Greek pilots in combat missions.

Israel is not the only Middle Eastern player making overtures in the Balkans: Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia have made forays in the past, in addition to China and Russia. Security experts in the region have told me that Israel is trying to carve a place for itself in a region that is seen as the new chessboard in a great power competition.

Looking from a broader perspective, the Balkans fall into Israel’s “periphery doctrine”—its strategy of outflanking Arab neighbors deemed hostile by enhancing its security and economic ties with non-Arab Muslim states including in the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. This was a starting point in Israel’s decadeslong relationships with Turkey and Azerbaijan.

The Balkans are clearly emerging as a distinct region in which Israel wants to play a leading role. It is establishing itself as a leader in tech innovation, the defense sector, and cybersecurity. So far, Israel has managed to forge a system of bilateral working relationships with Serbia, Albania, Croatia, and Kosovo.

In the case of Albania, all three sides win: Albania gets Israel’s support in terms of cybersecurity and intelligence and showcases its loyalty to Washington; Israel forges closer ties with yet another non-Arab Muslim-majority country on its periphery; and the United States continues training a group in Albania that politically and militarily opposes its archnemesis—a card that can be pulled out should circumstances call for it.

[itskimngxn-blog]

Blog Post #7

1. This means that each party fighting for the right to claim ownership of Jerusalem has its own perception and does not want to objectively dissect the problem by acknowledging other views. The religious belief passed down many generations cannot be changed within a day, and as time goes by, these sacred ideologies become almost unchangeable. The reason why negotiation cannot take place is due to each party’s fear of its own limitations in perception, need to prove influence, and extreme protection of its own culture. Upon reading this, I immediately thought about the left and right wing of American politics (how extreme conservatives can rarely sit down, listen to the thoughts of liberals and actually respect them). Conflicts can be found among parties, but then I also thought about my own country. As a country governed by only one party, you will never see protests in the streets if you come to Vietnam. The government never appreciates citizens’ opinions, and even when people express arguments that are persuasive but go against the government’s perception, they will be considered as renegades. Even in education the same thing takes place: I still remember when I attended a scientific contest wherein the judges disregarded my team’s invention because we did not make something that was taught in the textbook (how is doing so considered “an invention”?). Being blinded by one’s subjective views and unable to recognize other viewpoints can be very detrimental, as it leaves no room for acquiring true understanding as well as critical thinking, and this leads to the inability to negotiate with one another. 

2. Jews view Jerusalem as the most sacred land, since the remains of the Second Temple as well as the Wailing Wall still exist here, serving as the core of their religion’s symbol. Christians view Jerusalem under a different lens: it was the land where Jesus sacrificed his life for the sin that humans committed. For Muslims, Jerusalem includes the Noble Sanctuary where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven. It can be seen that each religion has its own story relating to the sacred land called Jerusalem, which makes each view so distinguished and the fight for ownership inevitable. 

3. The prayer starts off softly, accompanied by the strings and solo keyboard, whose first stanza includes the depiction of Jerusalem: “The one with the most beautiful buildings/The flower of all cities”. Fairuz clearly appreciates the natural beauty of this city, as the first part of her prayer focuses on describing Jerusalem’s purity. However, as the prayer progresses, it suggests the ongoing fight over this land, by introducing heavy beats and loud blasts. I think it is really interesting how the prayer shifts from the image of mosques to Christian connection, as in the fourth stanza, the prayer talks about the crying faces of Mary and her child. The act of crying comes from the fact that children in Jerusalem have no shelter, people are forced to leave their homes, and how unstable the political situation at this land is, despite originally being known as the “Land of Peace”. After the fifth stanza, listener can understand that perhaps it is not the Gods that want us to fight over Jerusalem, but war comes from human’s selfishness and their need of power, generalized as “forces of evil”. Jerusalem might be the land where all historical events occurred, but instead of fighting for the right to own it, each faction should try to embrace the value of one another and cherish religious diversity. 

4. The distinctive elements of Palestinian popular music include: ululation (high-pitched tongue trills), improvisation, pure melody performed monophonically (reminds me of medieval chants), complex vocal, percussive beats, and hand clapping. For Israeli popular music, listeners should pay attention to: use of Slavic/Russian melodies, promotion of nation’s identity, and the depiction of social/cultural problems. This type of music shares a lot of similar features to those of Palestinian music. 

5. In rare cases, music is played on TV or radio stations. Music can also be disseminated by transporting tapes across the border and distributing thousands of copies. Censorship placed includes sending artists to underground, complete control over broadcasting networks, banning of nationalistic lyrics, confiscation of personal belongings, and even imprisonment. 

6. I notice the presence of string instruments normally used by artists in the Middle East, and also voice trills performed by the male singer. Although this is a cover, 90% of it resembles the original version. This proves that the artists cherish the authenticity of the song but still work to alter it a bit to achieve the delivery of an underlying message: to bring people together as a whole despite each person’s status of citizenship. I think the song works really well for spreading this idea as it encapsulates both Western and Middle East musical characteristics, signifying a unity among countries. 

7. I agree with the author’s final words. Music is viewed as a temporal escape for the world’s complicated political issues as it is one of the art forms that bring people closer together, despite their differences in ideologies. I still remember the time when China claimed its illegal possession over various parts of South China Sea, aggressively provoked other Asian countries including Vietnam, Japan and Philippines. During that time, lots of Vietnamese grew hatred for the country, including me. I wanted to delete Chinese songs from my Walkman, because it is really weird listening to music performed by people belonging to the country that tries to STEAL an oceanic part of Vietnam. However, I gradually realized that I should keep things distinguished. The fight for territory is the politician/government/military’s fight, musicians are not the ones responsible for starting the conflict. Neither are the country’s citizens. Upon travelling to different parts in Vietnam during that time, I witnessed Vietnamese people hissed at Chinese tourists, which was totally unreasonable. I learn to accept that the conflict affects everyone because we all have patriotism, but there are certain cultural values (including music) we still need to appreciate, not bash due to political tension. 

[chivublog]

#Blog Post 15

1. Nasser writes:

“Not surprisingly, decades of hostility and fighting have resulted in monolithic readings of the problem, whereby each group is uncompromising and unwilling to listen to the other side's point of view.”

What does this mean? Can you think of something in your life or American politics that is similar?

According to my understanding, that means monolithic readings and propaganda from one country are against those of the other. Each country defames or tries to ruin the other country’s reputation in order to reinforce its viewpoints, values, and rights without an effort to listen or resolve the problem, which results in misunderstandings and hostility between the two groups. 

2. How do each of the three religions claim Jerusalem as a central part of their religious traditions?

The article mentioned that each country had its own history and reasons to claim Jerusalem as a central part of its religious traditions. On page 42, Nasser showed readers that “for Jews, Jerusalem is the site of the Western Wall or Wailing Wall, of remains of the Second Temple built by Jews following their exile in Babylon, and the holiest site to the Jewish people. To Christians, it was the scene of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection, and the birthplace of the Christian faith. As for Muslims, Jerusalem (known in Arabic as al-Quds, 'the holy') is the home of Haram al-Sharif, or the 'Noble Sanctuary', which includes the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque, from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to Heaven”. 

3. Read the lyrics of the prayer sung by Fairuz and discuss how they change over the course of the stanzas.

Nasser gave the readers an insight perspective towards the change in lyrics of the prayer. The first theme was about the tragic situation in Jerusalem (p.44) with lots of punctuations and repetitive phrases such as “To you” and “I pray”, showing the severe struggle and instability within that location.  The second theme dug deeper into that struggle by the indication of war, terror, destructions, and the lack of peace in the “Land of Peace” (p. 44). The third theme was about prayers and aspiration for peace, which created a smooth transition to the fourth theme about the Christian Bible (Christianity’s biggest events). After that, “the lyrics shift

 to a narration of the historic events from the 1967 war, voicing criticism of the

 Israeli army as the violators of peace: Jerusalem became a warzone, giving way to injustice, intolerance, and terror” (p.44). The prayers ended by the confirmation that “Jerusalem is ours” (p.44) to call for peace, responsibility, and unity.

4. What elements of music should we listen for in Palestinian popular music and Israeli popular music? They will sound very different, but also very different from our popular music.

The volume and timbre, as well as the musical form, should be noticed when we listen to Palestinian popular and Israeli popular music. The volume is changing from time to time, for instance, the additional louder sound of brass or strings instruments and harmonic voices. There are also lots of different voices or the heroic chant with the changes in the pitch to create the vow and to show the strength of prayers (“the higher level of intensity” (p.47)). The form of music is also changed a lot within a song (“melodic flexibility” (p.47)). For example, it may slow and soft at the beginning, but it gets louder and faster with heavy instrumental background and drumbeats.

5. How is this music disseminated? What sort of censorship has been in place?

According to the article, popular music in this country is promoted and defined as “national’s identity” (p.49). Besides, “the emergence of the cassette industry helped popularise the songs of resistance, mostly based on folk tradition and mixed with Arab popular music” (p.48). Censorship can be sending artists underground, confiscating the musical products or videotapes, controlled by “the Israeli media, who had total control over the broadcasting networks” (pp.50-51)

6. Take a listen to the king of Rai Khaled and Noa singing John Lennon’s “Imagine.” What musical elements do you notice? Does this song “work” for this purpose?

What stood out to me is the harmony and the structure. The version of Khaled and Noa was harmonized by other instruments, which was different from the original version. The intro, middle 8, and break parts were played differently too. 

The song works for the purpose well because “Khaled and Noa affirm their vision of peace and their wish for a world with no boundaries and divisions” (p.56). The song was sung in both their mother tongue and English with the meaningful lyrics to spread love and peace.

7. “The role of popular music is not limited to raising awareness of social and political tensions, but to actively participate in offering tools for understanding the shifting dynamics within a disputed territory. As music soars above the temporal crossroads, it enables people to come together and reach better understandings of one another despite their political differences. To this end, music not only reflects our vision and understanding of history, but also expands our appreciation for the present, illuminating conflicts and paving the way toward a better future. The challenge remains, however, for each party to accept the other side's views in a way that would ensure a just peace, equality, and reconciliation for all.”

Do you agree with or disagree with the author’s final words?

I agree with the author’s final words because humans can easily have intuitive and emotional reactions to music, meaning that music can touch humans’ souls and maybe change someone’s perspectives. Take the song “Imagine” sung by Khaled and Noa for an example, that song connected two artists from different regions and widespread the meanings of peace and reconciliation. While making music or listening to music, people have a chance to reflect and think about the lyrics as well as the purpose of the song. They can also learn different languages or cultures through songs by singing or searching for information about those pieces. Therefore, I agree that music can be a bridge to connect people together.

[ruminativerabbi]

Yom Yerushalayim 2107

I surprised myself this last Wednesday with the degree of emotion I found myself bringing to Yom Yerushalayim this year, the fiftieth anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, then felt surprised by the fact that I felt surprised at all.

It would not, after all, be a stretch to refer to the capture of the Old City of Jerusalem by Israeli troops on June 7, 1967, as the most momentous event in Jewish history since the founding of the state itself in 1948. (Jerusalem Day—Yom Yerushalayim in Hebrew—is observed on the anniversary of that day according to the Hebrew calendar, the 28th day of the month of Iyar, which fell this last Wednesday even though anniversary according to the secular calendar is still a few weeks off.) Nor, for once, does it seem exaggerated to speak about the reunification of the city in salvific, perhaps even messianic, terms: the restoration of the city, riven in two by war, to something akin to the psalmist’s vision of Jerusalem as a “unified city of tightly-knit together precincts” felt then and still feels to me now not merely like a great military victory, which it surely was as well, but as much—and perhaps even more so—like a hurdle successfully leapt over on the way to the great redemptive moment that Torah teaches will come to all humankind at the end of days. I’m not sure I can remember precisely how the ninth-grader I was then processed the events of June 1967 as they unfolded. But I am completely certain about how they feel to me a half-century later, as I look back on the Six Day War and contemplate its larger meaning.

Regular readers of my weekly letters and blog posts know that I have written at length in other many other places about my relationship to Jerusalem, sometimes focusing on my first trip there the year before the Six Day War when I was only thirteen years old (click here), sometimes about the experience of our oldest child being born in Jerusalem (click here), sometimes on the experience of acquiring a home in Jerusalem (click here), sometimes about the question of American foreign policy with respect to the status of Jerusalem (click here), and sometimes about the United Nations and its hate-filled, perverse, and deeply anti-Semitic stance with respect to the Holy City (click here or here.) In all those pieces, however, I tried to capture some aspect of my deep emotional commitment not only to the poetic idea of Jerusalem as the city of God that functions as the nexus point between heaven and earth, but to the actual city of golden stone that has existed physically and fully really at the epicenter of Jewish history since the days of King David more than three thousand years ago. Nor do I feel any need to choose between the two approaches: I am drawn to the city both as a theological concept suggestive of the deepest and most moving ideas about the world and the place of Israel among the nations and to the actual, physical city in which we are summertime residents and very happy property owners.

It’s interesting, now that I think of it, that the name Jerusalem does not appear in the Torah, where the city is invariably referenced slightly (or more than slightly) mysteriously as “the place in which God has chosen to cause the divine name to dwell.” Text historians have their own explanation for that strange detail of the biblical text, but for me it is part of a larger set of ideas regarding the nature of holiness itself.

Moses, the national hero par excellence and a man of unparalleled holiness, too is left unnamed in the Torah. The name Moses, after all, was given to him by Pharaoh’s daughter because his life was saved when he was drawn from the river, and the word for “drawn” sounds a bit like the Hebrew version of Moses’ name. But, of course, Pharaoh’s daughter would have spoken Egyptian, not Hebrew, so presumably our biblical tale is a kind of Hebrew-language retelling of how Moses got whatever his Egyptian name was, presumably one that sounded like the Egyptian word for “drawn.”  But in either event his parents must have given him a name when he was born, months before he was deposited into the Nile in a basket or drawn from the river to safety. Surely that was his “real” name, the one his parents gave him…and yet it is nowhere recorded in Scripture. So in a very real sense Moses too has no name.

Nor does the Land of Israel. Other lands are named freely: the Land of Egypt, the Land of Goshen, the Land of the Philistines, the Land of Moab, and more. The pre-Israelite version of the land has a name too, of course: it is always referenced as the Land of Canaan. But the Canaanites are destined quickly to pass from the scene…and the land’s future name, “the Land of Israel,” is not mentioned in the Torah at all. The phrase, it is true, appears elsewhere in Scripture (although in fewer than a dozen places). But in the Torah the land is only referenced either by its soon-to-be-former name or by one of a handful of handy circumlocutions: the land that God promised to your ancestors, the land that God shall cause you to inherit, the land that God is granting you as your eternal patrimony, the land God gave to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But nowhere in the Torah do we learn what the Land of Canaan will be called once the Canaanites vanish from the scene of history! So the Holy Land, surely the holiest of lands, too has no name…or at least not one in the simple sense that Laos and Ecuador do.

Even the great desert sanctuary to which the Torah devotes so many endless columns of relentless detail—and which houses not only the sanctum called “the Holy Place” but also the inmost sanctum called the Holy of Holies (that is, the holiest of holy places)—too has no name, not really: it is referenced merely as a mishkan, a slightly obscure term that denotes the resting- or dwelling-place of something or someone. And so the great sanctuary is called the mishkan of God, the mishkan of God’s glory, the mishkan of the testimony (i.e., of the tablets of the law that were preserved in the inmost sanctum), the mishkan of the Tent of Meeting (i.e., the tent that functioned within the holy precincts as its most sacred space), etc. But other than being reference as the dwelling of God or the resting place of some specific thing…it too has no “real” name at all.

In its own premodern way, Scripture nods to the almost ineffable sanctity of certain things by leaving then unnamed. The idea is clear enough—that, since human language is rooted in human experience and the quality of holiness derives from a realm completely outside the boundaries of the human experience, the most honest thing anyone can say about anything truly suffused with holiness would be to say nothing at all, a point made most famously of all by the author of the 65th psalm, who opened his poem with the bald assertion that, with respect to God, the Holy One of Israel, “the only [true] praise is silence itself.”

And so it is with Jerusalem itself, now and for many centuries named and called by its name, but still characterized by an aura of innate holiness that can surely be felt and vaguely described, but never fully defined.

I was, as I never seem to tire of relating, a boy when I first entered Jerusalem. To say I was naïve and untried in the ways of the world is to say almost nothing at all. I was, in every sense, a junior high schooler (this was the summer before ninth grade, almost a year before the Six Day War). I had only the rudimentary Hebrew of a Hebrew School student and no knowledge at all, let alone any sort of sophisticated understanding, of Jewish history or Jewish philosophy. I was me, obviously. But I was still a golem in every meaningful way, something akin to the block of marble in which David was imprisoned until Michelangelo set him free by chipping away the part that didn’t look like David. I was in there somewhere! (How can I not have been?) I obviously had no idea what the future would or could bring, but at that stage I wasn’t even sure what I wanted it to bring. But something in the place spoke to me even then, even without me being able to understand even a fraction of what it might have had to say. As I stood at the Mandelbaum Gate and attempted to take some snapshots with my Instamatic of the Old City’s walls looming tall behind the Jordanian soldiers glaring at me from just beyond the barricade, I felt a kind of kinship with the past and the future…and with the history and destiny of the people Israel and the Land of Israel that stays with me still.

A half-century plus a year has passed since I stood in that place. A year later, the Mandelbaum Gate came down and the city was freed from Jordanian occupation. Six years later, in 1973, I arrived back in Jerusalem, this time as a counselor on an AZYF teen trip to Israel, and it was then that I entered Jerusalem—or at least Old Jerusalem—for the first time. In a real sense, I haven’t ever left. The notion that Jerusalem is or ever could be anything other than the eternal capital city of the Jewish people doesn’t mean that we cannot or shouldn’t share it with others who too find holiness in its sacred precincts. But no accommodation to any sort of political reality can affect the bond between the Jewish people and its eternal capital city, a bond that exists not only outside of time, but also outside of language. The psalmist composed a simple prayer, and it is those words that have been in my mind all week. Shaalu shalom yerushalayim yish’layu ohavayikh, he wrote, addressing himself to the House of Israel: “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem so that those who love the city may too only know tranquility.” That is our prayer too, of course, and this as well: May God grant that Jerusalem always be the capital of a strong, proud Israel, and may the city itself soon serve as the House of Prayer for all peoples of which the prophet wrote all those many centuries ago.