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cleoenfaserum · 5 months

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The Harvard Law Review Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza.

The piece was nearing publication when the journal decided against publishing it. You can read and listen to the article here.

On Saturday, the board of the Harvard Law Review voted not to publish “The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine,” a piece by Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School. The vote followed what an editor at the law review described in an e-mail to Eghbariah as “an unprecedented decision” by the leadership of the Harvard Law Review to prevent the piece’s publication.

Eghbariah told The Nation that the piece, which was intended for the HLR Blog, had been solicited by two of the journal’s online editors. It would have been the first piece written by a Palestinian scholar for the law review. The piece went through several rounds of edits, but before it was set to be published, the president stepped in. “The discussion did not involve any substantive or technical aspects of your piece,” online editor Tascha Shahriari-Parsa, wrote Eghbariah in an e-mail shared with The Nation. “Rather, the discussion revolved around concerns about editors who might oppose or be offended by the piece, as well as concerns that the piece might provoke a reaction from members of the public who might in turn harass, dox, or otherwise attempt to intimidate our editors, staff, and HLR leadership.”

In a statement that was shared with The Nation, a group of 25 HLR editors expressed their concerns about the decision. “At a time when the Law Review was facing a public intimidation and harassment campaign, the journal’s leadership intervened to stop publication,” they wrote. “The body of editors — none of whom are Palestinian — voted to sustain that decision. We are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way. “

When asked for comment, the leadership of the Harvard Law Review referred The Nation to a message posted on the journal’s website. “Like every academic journal, the Harvard Law Review has rigorous editorial processes governing how it solicits, evaluates, and determines when and whether to publish a piece…” the note began. ”Last week, the full body met and deliberated over whether to publish a particular Blog piece that had been solicited by two editors. A substantial majority voted not to proceed with publication.”

Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught. But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial. When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians. But naming injustice is crucial to claiming justice. If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics.

The UN Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide as certain acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” These acts include “killing members of a protected group” or “causing serious bodily or mental harm” or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

The Center for Constitutional Rights issued a thorough, 44-page, factual and legal analysis, asserting that “there is a plausible and credible case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.” Raz Segal, a historian of the Holocaust and genocide studies, calls the situation in Gaza “a textbook case of Genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.” The inaugural chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, notes that “Just the blockade of Gaza — just that — could be genocide under Article 2(c) of the Genocide Convention, meaning they are creating conditions to destroy a group.” A group of over 800 academics and practitioners, including leading scholars in the fields of international law and genocide studies, warn of “a serious risk of genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip.” A group of seven UN Special Rapporteurs has alerted to the “risk of genocide against the Palestinian people” and reiterated that they “remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide.” Thirty-six UN experts now call the situation in Gaza “a genocide in the making.” How many other authorities should I cite? How many hyperlinks are enough?

And yet, leading law schools and legal scholars in the United States still fashion their silence as impartiality and their denial as nuance. Is genocide really the crime of all crimes if it is committed by Western allies against non-Western people?

Palestinians simply cannot be innocent. They are innately guilty; potential “terrorists” to be “neutralized” or, at best, “human shields” obliterated as “collateral damage”. There is no number of Palestinian bodies that can move Western governments and institutions to “unequivocally condemn” Israel, let alone act in the present tense. When contrasted with Jewish-Israeli life — the ultimate victims of European genocidal ideologies — Palestinians stand no chance at humanization. Palestinians are rendered the contemporary “savages” of the international legal order, and Palestine becomes the frontier where the West redraws its discourse of civility and strips its domination in the most material way. Palestine is where genocide can be performed as a fight of “the civilized world” against the “enemies of civilization itself.” Indeed, a fight between the “children of light” versus the “children of darkness.”

The genocidal war waged against the people of Gaza since Hamas’s excruciating October 7th attacks against Israelis — attacks which amount to war crimes — has been the deadliest manifestation of Israeli colonial policies against Palestinians in decades. Some have long ago analyzed Israeli policies in Palestine through the lens of genocide. While the term genocide may have its own limitations to describe the Palestinian past, the Palestinian present was clearly preceded by a “politicide”: the extermination of the Palestinian body politic in Palestine, namely, the systematic eradication of the Palestinian ability to maintain an organized political community as a group.

What do we call this condition? How do we name this collective existence under a system of forced fragmentation and cruel domination? The human rights community has largely adopted a combination of occupation and apartheid to understand the situation in Palestine. Apartheid is a crime. It is a legal framework. It is committed in Palestine. And even though there is a consensus among the human rights community that Israel is perpetrating apartheid, the refusal of Western governments to come to terms with this material reality of Palestinians is revealing.

Once again, Palestine brings a special uncovering force to the discourse. It reveals how otherwise credible institutions, such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, are no longer to be trusted. It shows how facts become disputable in a Trumpist fashion by liberals such as President Biden. Palestine allows us to see the line that bifurcates the binaries (e.g. trusted/untrusted) as much as it underscores the collapse of dichotomies (e.g. democrat/republican or fact/claim). It is in this liminal space that Palestine exists and continues to defy the distinction itself. It is the exception that reveals the rule and the subtext that is, in fact, the text: Palestine is the most vivid manifestation of the colonial condition upheld in the 21st century.

Scholars have increasingly turned to settler-colonialism as the lens through which we assess Palestine. Settler-colonialism is a structure of erasure where the settler displaces and replaces the native. And while settler-colonialism, genocide, and apartheid are clearly not mutually exclusive, their ability to capture the material reality of Palestinians remains elusive. South Africa is a particular case of settler-colonialism. So are Israel, the United States, Australia, Canada, Algeria, and more. The framework of settler colonialism is both useful and insufficient. It does not provide meaningful ways to understand the nuance between these different historical processes and does not necessitate a particular outcome. Some settler colonial cases have been incredibly normalized at the expense of a completed genocide. Others have led to radically different end solutions. Palestine both fulfills and defies the settler-colonial condition.

We must consider Palestine through the iterations of Palestinians. If the Holocaust is the paradigmatic case for the crime of genocide and South Africa for that of apartheid, then the crime against the Palestinian people must be called the Nakba.

The term Nakba, meaning “Catastrophe,” is often used to refer to the making of the State of Israel in Palestine, a process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and destroying 531 Palestinian villages between 1947 to 1949. But the Nakba has never ceased; it is a structure not an event. Put shortly, the Nakba is ongoing.

The Nakba is both the material reality and the epistemic framework to understand the crimes committed against the Palestinian people. And these crimes — encapsulated in the framework of Nakba — are the result of the political ideology of Zionism, an ideology that originated in late nineteenth century Europe in response to the notions of nationalism, colonialism, and antisemitism.

As Edward Said reminds us, Zionism must be assessed from the standpoint of its victims, not its beneficiaries. Zionism can be simultaneously understood as a national movement for some Jews and a colonial project for Palestinians. The making of Israel in Palestine took the form of consolidating Jewish national life at the expense of shattering a Palestinian one. For those displaced, misplaced, bombed, and dispossessed, Zionism is never a story of Jewish emancipation; it is a story of Palestinian subjugation.

Palestinians have named and theorized the Nakba even in the face of persecution, erasure, and denial. This work has to continue in the legal domain. Gaza has reminded us that the Nakba is now. There are recurring threats by Israeli politicians and other public figures to commit the crime of the Nakba, again. If Israeli politicians are admitting the Nakba in order to perpetuate it, the time has come for the world to also reckon with the Palestinian experience. The Nakba must globalize for it to end.

We must imagine that one day there will be a recognized crime of committing a Nakba, and a disapprobation of Zionism as an ideology based on racial elimination. The road to get there remains long and challenging, but we do not have the privilege to relinquish any legal tools available to name the crimes against the Palestinian people in the present and attempt to stop them. The denial of the genocide in Gaza is rooted in the denial of the Nakba. And both must end, now.

Rabea Eghbariah

Rabea Eghbariah is a human rights attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School.

Origin: The “Harvard Law Review” Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza | The Nation

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lolzforshits · 5 months

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Sergle made fun of you on their blog

yeah i saw that, and honestly, it's their post and they can feel upset about someone talking shit in the tags all she wants. i'm not apologizing but she has every right to be irritated about someone talking shit in her tags.

i find it odd however, how people are so hellbent on defending influencers to the point of calling out people in said tags; it's a bygone practice used during the earlier days of tumblr that quite honestly is a bit immature, normally creators nowadays see people talking shit in the tags, roll their eyes and go on with their day, and me being a gifmaker and creator on this app, i know what it feels like to see annoying tags.

i stand by what i said about brittany though; her video response that i was referring to (the one tiktok she made where she referenced that bo burnham wheaties joke) that responded to people rightfully encouraging her to announce her stance on the palestinian genocide after weeks and weeks (and honestly years) of many celebrities, creators, and artists shockingly supporting the death and destruction of millions of innocent people was ignorant at best and very disappointing. not to mention, some people dug up some stuff about her from a few years ago i think of her saying something ignorant and racist about arab cultures as well, so to me this started to seem like a pattern of behavior.

the one issue i had with sergle's post was that in my opinion, she seemed to be very dismissive of people urging brittany to talk about her stance; like i stated earlier many people who are largely respected in our society have unfortunately co-opted genocide and racism that calls back to post 9/11 arab paranoia which is increasingly becoming more mobilized and dangerous to arab communities around the world, but particularly in the united states. creating a safe and loving community for arab cultures is something we should ALL be doing at this moment and in the future. urging a creator to come forward about stupid, shitty hollywood gossip drama would be inappropriate and performative, yes, however what palestine is experiencing right now is, and i can't overstate this enough, is serious. the ongoing and heightened severity of the palestinian genocide is something that will remain as a disgusting reminder that we as a world have failed yet again in the protection of non western cultures, and we need to start making sure that people are on the right side, because everyone, ESPECIALLY the palestinians, will remember.

#sergle #ask

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jeans-ong-ong · 3 years

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Hi! I just wanted to say I adore your comic! The colours are so beautiful, your art style is lovely, and the care you put into this project is evident. With so many things to tackle, like using real life cultures, the effects of war on those in service and out of it, and mental health, How do you go about doing research for it?

Hello! Thank you for this wonderful ask - both for the compliments and the interesting questions. So, let’s dive right into it: apologies for the long answer, but when you ask a creator to talk about their projects, they love to do it.

I started planning Introspection of a Deserter right when I began attending my Bachelor course in Education and Pedagogy - I met a lot of philosophical concepts that tingled my creativity, and I had to read a lot of books, so I felt like I was in the right mental space to handle a project that was deep and complex. I was studying how people grow up and shape their life, and it felt relevant for me to write a fictional biography that hit a series of themes that were interesting for me. I was 19, and now I am 22, and in all honesty I don’t think I’ve done a good job on the needed research.

Cultures Well, this part was simplified by the show. I think the creators of Avatar did some decent research, especially aesthetic wise, but they didn’t really go for the authentic representation. The info I got by talking with some asian fans is that Avatar does not work according to determined social mechanics, for example, in Korea or Vietnam. From what I gather, it was felt closer by Asian Americans, due to the characters feeling quite american, but the aesthetic being non-western (in A:tla at least). Being pretentious as I am, I felt like I wanted to use a bit more authenticity, but I didn’t really get it right on several aspects. I watched some fantasy asian movies to get examples for the tone I wanted (fun fact: I’m working on a watchlist of 30 movies to find the root of the mood of Introspection), mostly chinese; I read some articles about daily lifestyles and so on. On a hindsight, I should have watched more documentaries. I actually planned a trip to Vietnam in the indefinite future to “feel” the vegetation more! Vegetation is one of those thing you tend to take for granted, but it gives an entirely different texture and feeling to the landscape. Take, for example, the webcomic Heart of Keol: I couldn’t do that just by watching some fantasy movies (the author is, indeed, Korean), I need to live it first. However, a lot of stuff was made up and conveniently placed there, and that ... that has some consequences. See, for example, the religion storyline. Now, this one is a sore spot for me, because I’m viscerally attached to it. I don’t actually plan to change it in the near future - even if I do have a pair of books about buddhism on my readlist. What I’m telling in the comic is fundamentally a story about pseudo-catholicism: the concept of sin doesn’t match the concept of karma, the “sinfulness” of homosexuality and the desire of redemption, that’s just something that does not make sense in the context of a Buddhist culture. Let’s not even get into reincarnation: I have not done the minimum amount of research necessary to get such a difficult concept. And yet, I feel like changing this side of the comic would distort it to an unrecognizable story, and if I want to keep drawing it, I believe I need to mantain a bond with it. Will I try to be more authentic nonetheless? Yes. The effect of war I must admit I am quite fashinated by war. There is actually a branch in Medical Anthropology that studies war! And not only in the Medical one. However, the academics that do that have a severely higher risk of getting shot so I’m... still considering it, yes? I started looking into it because of Introspection. I think reading stories is educational most of the time, if only for the spark of interest one might develop for certain themes. You create some basis neuronal connections that will make it easy to look into more reliable sources later. But what is even better for me is Writing Stories: perfectionism forces me to look into sources (and as I grow older, I get that more and more), and looking into those makes me wish to write a story in that setting. That being said, my personal connection to war has been pretty indirect so far. I’ve listened and read stories about people who have been in battles, soldiers, victims - and I’ve been reading a lot about colonization in the last 4 years; from the classics to current issues (think Palestine). I include this bit on colonization because it will/would be a very recurrent theme in the story, and yet I know I’m still not there yet, I need to be more informed. The interest started with the disciplined experience of being in the military as studied by Goffman, and later on by Foucault, but then came in the concept blood thirst, and how does one person manage to enjoy killing people? How does one’s conscience tolerate it? I still haven’t finished doing research for that, because that story line “has just started”, and I like to keep concepts fresh in my mind (probably a mistake. Artists: do the research before you start working on the story, not while you’re doing it - unless it’s a written piece, that you can rework and rework. I didn’t finish the script before starting to draw the comic, so uh ... that’s a consequence). Mental health This was probably the one I winged the most through experience and knowledge gathered over the years. I haven’t properly read a book about depression yet - but I’ve just got one pending in the reading list, and the same goes (spoilers!) for alcohol and drug addiction. I did read a lot of experiences told by those who have been there, and I’ve even done an internship (actually only half of it because of Covid-19) in a rehab center for alcohol and drug abuse. However I know depression a bit, I’ve had several people with a variation of it in my life, and part of this comic is a re-elaboration of what I and other people have gone through in a (not always) exaggerated way, and fictionalization. When I was in a very different mental place, I used to refer to this comic as my “self-therapy”. Just an example can be found in (planned) book 4, which will be an hypothesis of therapy for someone with serious suicidal thoughts. Never will the comic be about “complete healing!”, because that’s not something I believe in, however it will be used to experiment, and hope a bit for a better, if bittersweet, vision of life. As I got into doing the comic, some themes became more important than others because I felt more bound to them, and usually I do more research on those now. Academic paper reading, people who live them in first person experiences (through documentaries, autobiographies, or youtube videos), or even personal experiences are all sources I draw from in comic planning. This being said, I should either choose shorter stories or simpler subjects for my next comic. But will I? Who knows. Thank you for reading so far!

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freecityradio · 4 years

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Brian Aboud on pandemic, risk society and impacts for refugees

Today got the opportunity to speak with Brian Aboud, a professor at Vanier College, for the Free City Radio interview series. Brian stresses here the importance of thinking about how this pandemic will impact vulnerable communities, particularly Syrian and Palestinian refugees, as many families in Montreal are directly connected to communities in the impacted region. Also a note to say that Médecins Sans Frontières / أطباء بلا حدود في لبنان is sending doctors to the front lines in Iran and does provide direct health support for impacted communities in Lebanon, Turkey and beyond, for people who don't have access to health systems. I personally know people in the Beirut office at MSF, who are excellent, dedicated and extremely hard working, if you can donate, please do.

Brian is a community activist and researcher, who has worked for many years on issues of migrant justice, both contemporary and historic, including the documentation of the living history of Montreal's Syrian community, dating back to the late 1800s. Brian is one of the co-founders of Tadamon!

Over the years, when crazy events happen, I have really valued speaking with Brian, who always has meaningful, kind and pointed insights. Documented this exchange for the Free City Radio series on the pandemic.

Brian stresses here the importance of thinking about how this pandemic will impact vulnerable communities, particularly Syrian and Palestinian refugees. Also Brian highlights the ways that modern capitalist practices, in relation to the environment, will lead to more and more extremely dangerous scenarios. In this context highlighting the work of Mining Watch Canada which has been consistently documenting the malpractices of Canadian mining companies around the world and within Canada's colonial borders in regards to indigenous lands, all mining practices that contribute to the destruction of the environment and natural areas.

Stefan : How you feeling about what has been happening ?

Brian : This is a product of the last century.

I have been very influenced, in regards to interpreting threats and hazards within the contemporary time, by a German sociologist named Ulrich Beck, who published a book in the 1980s called "Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity." It has become a much bigger influence than expected. It was published right before the Chernobyl disaster.

It is an account of how societies were changing as a result of the impacts of modernization and industrialization, during the period of increased industrialization in the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century of course.

This book looks at the unintended consequences of this industrialization. So looking at the risk society, which was emerging throughout this time, replacing the scarcity society that emerged in the industrial period and the class society. Not that class is disappearing, not at all, the circumstances of most individuals today is still most strongly determined by class, but the vulnerability, exposure to unwanted occurrences of danger are shifting all over, facing many. Of course class circumstances expose you, working class are exposed to more vulnerability, especially now.

With the welfare state, the vulnerabilities lessened a little in the second half of the 20th century, as compared to the early 20th century, although major vulnerabilities still exist, especially in the global south, the production zone of the western world.

Stefan : But due to reckless policies that are expanding, risk is becoming larger in scale, first for the working classes there was these threats, but now that threat is becoming more across the board ?

Brian: Yes.

What is emerging, in late modernity, is the mass exposure to industrial risks, all the ways we are exposed to toxins, pollution and pesticides, are among the new risks related to industrial life.

The quintessential example is radioactivity, this was even before Chernobyl. These are unprecedented risks that human beings at large have no clear strategy of fully protecting themselves from. Chernobyl was the greatest disaster from industrialization in the 20th century.

Now we are seeing something on the same level, but global, although the impacts of the nuclear disasters also continue to impact.

Stefan : Like in Fukushima, Japan ?

Brian : Yes. Fukushima was also so highly destructive and dangerous, it continues to be actually. Chernobyl was far greater in proportion, but both incidents were bad, both disasters.

Today, COVID 19 makes me think about the ways that Chernobyl was experienced, because people today and in 1986 are facing death from a source that you can't face, you can't see and that you can't exactly understand. In Chernobyl the proximate zones of radioactivity equaled mass exposure to radioactivity and many were in very serious danger.

I keep thinking about how people faced the threat, Chernobyl, and how people are facing the threat now.

Stefan : How are they similar for you ? Why is this reference important ?

Brian : People have a similar emotional reaction, in a way, because you can't see the threat, but you know there is something out there.

Stefan : Both COVID 19 and Chernobyl being products of modern society. Well, of course radioactivity is much more lethal immediately and in the long term, obviously. With this virus it seems most people will survive, but many will not, while it is also truly a global situation.

Brian : Emotionally there is a connection, in terms of the social impact of an invisible threat.

Stefan : Thankfully today information is shared more quickly and people are more aware.

Brian : Yes, people are more aware of the threat than in April 1986.

Stefan : Why is it important to think about COVID 19 in regards to industrial society ?

Brian : My query is how this might be the product of industrial society. Trying to figure this out. What is different today is that COVID 19 is different from the general types of risks that we are use to in industrial society.

Stefan : This risk presents a different framework ?

Brian. Yes. Industrial societies that we have built, that we have constructed, they are impacting nature so deeply, but we don't have the biological defences now to interact with animals in this way.

Stefan : Also we don't have the social and institutional tools to adequately address situations like this pandemic.

Relating to urban areas encroaching into the natural world more and more, with so many areas on earth also becoming scenes of massive industrial scale projects, mines, industrial corporate farming, these projects are often done without regard to the surrounding environments that balance life.

MiningWatch Canada tracks in solid detail the ways that these types of malpractices are carried out by Canadian mining companies.

Brian : The unbalanced relationship between human beings and the natural world is at the root of this. Even though, the use of animals and plants, is related to the human production of culture, generally speaking, these frameworks of human culture are totally different in the last decades, as compared to any other point in history.

Stefan : This has consequences ?

Brian : Yes.

Stefan : It make think about the changes that happened to laws in China around the consumption of wild animals, there were actual changes around the ways that wild animals would be consumed, legally in the 1970s due to mass poverty. Vox had a good video on this, but don't fully trust Vox, obviously.

So the framework of time has changed, first trains, and now then planes. Human conceptions of distance, place and time have all changed, and this shift has become global, across all societies, and it just fells like this shift, shaped by contemporary capitalism, can't be sustained.

Brian : Yes, there is that recklessness in this cultural framework that is now global, in human beings dealing with the natural world. A pretension about the human relationship with the natural world and how the needs and desires of humanity should take precedent over everything.

Stefan : Given you have worked so much on supporting human rights and social justice in Syria, in Palestine. How do you think that this virus will impact communities so deeply impacted by war, in Syria and in Palestine, people in the refugee camps on the border of Turkey and Greece.

Brian : Today, there is this sense of worry in the western world, people wanting products, they don't want to run out of, products that make any life a little easier, I get that.

Stefan : But to prop up this system in the west, many communities globally are disregarded ?

Brian : Yes. Many populations are disregarded. The response here is totally understandable, so when people here are faced with this unknown, there is a massive reaction.

But. I keep thinking of the Syrians who have faced so much peril and much of the world hasn't acted to stop the war that also threatened people.

Stefan : In a life and death way, right ?

Brian : Exactly.

In Africa, the threat of Ebola, only became an emergency when it seemed that it might touch western borders, less when it impacted people in Africa, Western Africa particularly.

All the suffering that people in Syria, in Palestine, have faced is something to consider now.

Stefan : That threat of death has been constant for many ?

Brain : Yes.

Stefan : There is an institutional challenge, I feel the left is facing, a crisis of action, in dealing with institutionally and power.

Feel that Democratic Socialists of America are attempting to explore this question, the campaigns of Bernie Sanders / Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. How to deal with power, especially in a time of crisis. Not sure the response that is best, but the state, in Canada, even now, continues to work to bail out the banks and oil companies.

Finding ways to shift the motions of powerful institutions in society, to deconstruct them (banks + corporations), seems very important now. Also the importance of expanding and developing public institutions, like health care facilities.

#covid19 #syria #refugees #endgame #aoc #bernie

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itztagninut · 5 years

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correspondences for quercus virginiana “southern live oak”

I also discuss characteristics of white oaks and live oaks in general, as well as brief remarks on quercus calliprinos “Palestine oak”

Interested in following along with the project? Check out my tag!

magical properties

These trees, being governed by Jupiter, are excellent allies for any work involving opportunity, prosperity, or protection. White oaks, in general, are good for any kind of work focused on expansion and have a noted protective quality. [1] Oak groves are known as being the meeting place of the druids but there are also notable groves that are sacred to northern Germanic deities, such as Thor. [2, 3] Due to its popularity in modern Celtic or Norse-influenced neo-paganism, doing any kind of serious research about oak can be challenging, many facts being traced back to ~Keltique~ fakelore popularized by Llewellyn in the ‘70s.

[Quercus virgiana from the National Wildlife Federation]

Focusing on my own traditions, oaks actually figure prominently in the Torah. The Hebrew word for oak is אלון alon, whose name ultimately originates in the word אל el, god. The oak is noted as a symbol of pride and loftiness in Jewish culture, and the most widely dispersed oak in Israel is quercus calliprinos, the Palestine oak, which is a live oak! [4] Two of the most prominent oaks noted in the Torah are the אלון מרה alon moreh, the Teaching Tree of Abraham and the אלון בכות alon bachut, the Weeping Tree of Rachel.

Following the stories of the Teaching Tree (and supported by my own experiences) live oaks make particularly encouraging teachers and, if given the chance, will sometimes bond to family lines and cultivate the descendants of their original students. A drosh teaches that Devorah the Judge mediated under this same Weeping Tree and was delivered a message from one of her ancestors, who had been buried below the tree 500 years earlier. [5] To compare it to earlier trees we’ve met in this series, where Juniper holds the keys to the gates of the underworld, Oak shows the path to one’s holiest ancestors.

Furthermore, Canaanites (both Jewish and non-Jewish alike) engaged in worship of Asherah, whose idols were said to be found in the shadows “under every green tree.” One of the trees specifically mentioned is the oak, where young women made offerings of incense and had sex (perhaps for fertility rituals...or perhaps just for fun). [6]

Daniel Shulke discusses oak in Viridarium Umbris, where he calls it the “Door unto Spirit” and notes that its wood seems to be imbued with a particularly holy quality. In folk magic, nails are often driven into trees to access this power (though Shulke urges practitioners to instead enchant fetishes and hang them from the branches of the tree to prevent potentially poisoning the tree), and also brings up an association between oaks and sex or marriage.

[The Étienne de Boray Oak, also known as The Tree of Life, in Audobon Park, New Orleans by Bridget Stanga]

on acorns:

Shulke notes that they prevent lightning (recall their association with Thor) and can be carried on the person as a sexual talisman. And, for some personal gnosis, a teaching circulated quietly in my family is that carrying a live oak acorn into a job interview gets you the job (so far it has worked for me many times). Live oak acorns make great bases for talismans and attract luck, success, wealth, and power. They are a powerful ally for teachers, public speakers, and anyone else who needs their requests to be followed or just needs a little more luck (especially in a material sense).

physical properties

Live oak is a term that refers to any evergreen oak, but conventionally it usually refers to quercus virginiana, the southern live oak, which is one of the white oaks. The oak genus, quercus, is in the Fagaceae, the beech family. The oaks seem to love a clinger-on—European oaks are famous for their mistletoe, a semi-parasitic plant, while no live oak is complete without its "moss” (really an epiphyte). In the southeastern USA (where live oaks are a more prominent cultural symbol) the trees are often festooned with curtains of Spanish moss. Around here, the farthest western part of their range, the humid canopy of a live oak is decked out with ball mosses.

The live oak is native to the maritime forests that spring up along the edges of salt marshes all along the coast of what is now called the USA, stretching from central Texas to Virginia before colonization. Live oaks are particularly well-adapted to living on the marshy edges of these forests. This is where one of the most striking physical characteristics of the live oak derives: its branching trunk, which allows trees to spread in several directions at once. While this originally allowed them to reach out over water where other trees couldn’t reach, today most live oaks are grown inland where their trunks spread in every direction, creating very striking displays. [7] Today, virtually all of these forests have been destroyed by colonialism, but the live oaks have taken advantage of us, becoming a celebrated shade tree, leading to their prevalence in cities all across the southern USA and expanding their naturalized range to include most anywhere free of deep freezes and fire in North America. [7]

#oak #wmhp #oc #occult botany #herbalism #correspondences #magical correspondences #green witch #herbal magic

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samwilson001 · 3 years

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The Health Benefits of Unpolished Avocado Oil

Unpolished avocado oil is recognized to be one of the most healthy vegetable oils one can absorb. It is a multi-purpose oil that can be utilized for culinary goals (it is especially high in Vitamin E as well as monounsaturated fats), fitting for dressings and sauces as well as frying, due to its big smoke point of over 490 degrees. Organic avocado oil is also an accomplished "carrier" oil for additional flavors; avocado transport oil is perfect for mixing with several herbs. In enhancement to its fitness as a comestible, unpolished avocado oil is also great for use as a cosmetic and the restoration of damaged skin.

Classical Background

Bulk avocado oil arises from the fruit of the same name. The logical name of the tree from which we get organic avocado oil is Persea Americana. It is essential to the Caribbean coast of Mexico and was obviously recognized to pre-Incan peoples of present-day Peru. The word avocado itself is obtained from a word in the Nahuatl language, ahuacatl, which actually means "testicle." This is common, likely a reference to the shape of the fruit; among the Aztecs, avocados were considered to confer originality and have aphrodisiac qualities.

Europeans could not have recognized the benefits of organic avocado oil much before 1500; the initially written classifications of the fruit date from a Spanish geology document written about 1520, and the primary English accounts were not declared until over 180 years later.

Although not originally established to get bulk avocado oil, the plant itself was prime exported abroad in 1750, when the opening avocado trees were established in Indonesia. It landed in Brazil about fifty years later; by the 1890s, avocado groves had been found in Rhodesia (in 2009 at Kenya) and Australia. It was organized in Lebanon and Palestine (present-day Israel) in 1908.

Today the plants that are the source of healthy organic avocado oil are raised primarily in Mexico, California, Australia, New Zealand, and Kenya.

What Is an Avocado?

Although it develops on a tree and has a pit, it is really recognized as a berry; that is, the cause of bulk avocado oil is a fruit produced from a separate ovary that ripens into a beefy, edible pulp enclosed by skin. Seeds are implanted within this pulp.

Botanically, the avocado is a portion of the laurel family, along with the bay tree and cinnamon. There are above a dozen kinds of avocados produced today; however, the most usual types are the Hass avocado, which is a black-colored fruit with the pebbled skin surface and a bulk avocado oil content of nearly 19%, and the Pinkerton, which has a delicious green skin.

Unlike most varieties of vegetable oils which are derived from seeds, organic avocado oil is removed from the fleshy pulp of the fruit.

More About Avocado Oil

As discussed briefly, avocado carrier oil is excellent for building various flavored oils. Although elegant for humans and other primates, organic avocado oil includes a fatty acid known as persin, which can be extremely toxic to household animals, especially dogs, cats, and horses.

Although avocados are a perennial crop in those countries in which they are produced (they can endure temperatures down to 26 degrees Fahrenheit), organic avocado oil can be costly as relatively short of the crop is truly pressed for oil. It does however match quite well to olive oil for flavor and body; true gourmands examine the additional cost for organic avocado oil completely worth it.

Final Words:

Avocado is the finest source of a healthy lifestyle and its oil protects you from serious disease. Natures Cart provides you all types of avocado also organic fruit and vegetable, fresh fruit and vegetable delivery at your doorstep in Melbourne Australia. Shop Now. https://naturescart.com.au/

Read More: How Is Inorganic Food Eating You Slowly - Organic V/S Inorganic Food

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intothenoise · 5 years

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Neither Anti-Semitism, nor Anti-Palestinian Bigotry Belong in the Church – Or Society

(This post was originally published as part of IMES’ Regional Brief for March 2019, written by Jesse Wheeler)

News

In Western discourses surrounding Palestine and Israel, it has become increasingly common to equate criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitism. As measures are taken to enshrine such associations in policy, dissenting voices are often rebuked as antisemitic. For instance, the British Labor Party has been rocked by such accusations in recent years under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. In response, and against Corbyn’s attempt to provide clarifying statements, Labor’s newly adopted definition of antisemitism now explicitly equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism. In France, Emmanuel Macron’s government has been making moves to criminalize “anti-Zionism” as a form of antisemitism, while organizations in Germany have had their assets frozen.

“In the US,” writes journalist Jonathan Cook, “some 26 states have enacted laws to punish or sanction individuals and organizations that support a boycott [of Israel]. Similar legislation is pending in a further 13 states.” This has already resulted in people having been terminated from their jobs and was the catalyst for the US Senate passing the “Combating BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] Act” by a 77-23 margin in support of such laws. This was the environment in which freshman congresswoman Ilhan Omar spoke out against what she perceives as undue influence in congress by AIPAC [The American Israel Public Affairs Committee], and for which she was roundly condemned by Democratic Party leadership for trading in “antisemitic tropes and prejudicial accusations.” Just this week, Omar has been condemned again for additional comments challenging what she sees as one-sided support for Israel in Congress. As of this writing Omar is facing possible censure from her colleagues in congress.

Analysis

It must be affirmed in no uncertain terms that antisemitism is real. It is dangerous. And, it has been an ongoing stain within the Western cultural inheritance for millennia. It is on the rise. And, it must be condemned wherever it is found. Discussions surrounding Israel and Palestine have unfortunately often been tainted by antisemitic rhetoric. It must also be affirmed, however, that anti-Palestinian bigotry is itself an almost unacknowledged force of its own. It exists within the halls of power and it too must be brought to light and condemned, especially as it is the Palestinians who are daily suffering under military occupation, in the squalor of refugee camps (in Lebanon more so than anywhere else), or in the limbo of exile.

What I see underlying this discourse is a conflict of definitions. For this reason, it is of critical importance to clarify definitions in discussions about Israel/Palestine. Otherwise, that which one intends to say will not be read as such by another. Key to this discussion is the definition of antisemitism as it relates to anti-Zionism. While Western leaders are increasingly defining criticism of Israeli policy as antisemitic, other groups have denounced in Zionism what they see as an inherently racist and supremacist ideology. Cook, in differentiating between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, writes,

Antisemitism refers to the hatred of Jews. It is bigotry, plain and simple.

Anti-Zionism, on the other hand, is opposition to the political ideology of Zionism, a movement that has insisted in all its political guises on prioritising the rights of Jews to a homeland over those, the Palestinians, who were already living there.

Anti-Zionism is not racism against Jews; it is opposition to racism by Zionist Jews.

Of course, an anti-Zionist may also be antisemitic, but it is more likely that an anti-Zionist holds his or her position for entirely rational and ethical reasons.

In fact, post-Zionist[1] Jewish activists are oftentimes those most vocal in their opposition to Israeli treatment of Palestinians, as seen in the examples of Mondoweiss, Jewish Voice for Peace, If Not Now, Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem, the writings of Mark Ellis, Rabbi Brant Rosen, and others.

Yet, whose definition counts?

Jewish pain is real, and it must be acknowledged and accounted for. Palestinians, of course, deny historical responsibility for such pain, seeing it as a European sin for which they have been forced to burden the consequences as a colonized people. They are often desperate for their story to be told and their own ongoing suffering acknowledged. For to relay the history of manifest destiny without including the Native American perspective, the “white man’s burden” without the perspective of the non-white man (or woman), or the mission civilisatrice without the perspective of those having had “civilization” forced upon them, one cannot, paraphrasing writer and analyst Robert Cohen, speak of Zionism without considering the Palestinian perspective. That is unless you have a priori assumed the illegitimacy of the Palestinian perspective as one worthy of consideration. “If we want to be serious, rather than tribal, about a fair definition of Zionism,” writes Cohen, “we need to ask the Palestinian people what they think and believe and feel about it. And if they tell us ‘Zionism is a racist endeavor’ we’d better pay attention.”

Theological Reflections and Missiological Implications

To reiterate: Anti-Semitism is real, dangerous and on the rise. And, it must be condemned wherever it is found. At the same time, anti-Palestinian bigotry is itself powerful force that too must be condemned in no uncertain terms.

What must be acknowledged is that the same people who for the same reasons would and should decry anti-Semitism wherever it is found, are the same people who would and should decry anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab or anti-Muslim bigotry, as an affront to our common humanity as image bearers of the divine, as an affront to our common viceregency, an affront to our common commitment to universal human rights, and/or an affront to intersectional solidarity with all facing oppression – however one prefers to frame the discourse.

To assert the rights of one group, whilst simultaneously denying those of another is an affront to the monotheist vision, the existence of a single, universally sovereign God. There exists either liberty and justice for all, or liberty and justice for none. In the immortal words of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.,

Injustice everywhere is a threat to injustice anywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

My rights do not negate the rights of another, nor can I pursue my rights at the expense of another. For my liberation is inextricably bound with that of the other, to paraphrase aboriginal activist Lilla Watson.

What, then, can the Church do about this? The first step, and I speak here as a Western Christian living in the East, is repentance and confession, the second, restitution. We are complicit. Our hands are bloody. Our prejudices, buttressed often by our theologies, have resulted both directly and indirectly, actively and passively, in the deaths of millions through our pogroms and our colonial conquests alike. Jew and Palestinian alike.

We must return to our better selves, to the teachings of our king for whom both empathy and justice walk hand in hand. The pain of the other must become our own, as we give of ourselves in working towards a world without walls where all might one day experience the divine peace of God’s Kingdom.

____________________

[1] A term I first heard as an undergraduate student of MENA History at UC Berkeley in the Winter/Spring of 2003.

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svartikotturinn · 7 years

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Tel-Aviv huh? Whats your stance on the occupation?

It’s fucked up. Aside from politicians profiting off of it, journalism here is doing a shitty fucking job of covering it properly, preferring to publish fluff pieces about the army instead of covering the daily dickery going on in the Palestinian Territories (I’m not calling it Palestine strictly because de facto, it’s not an independent country yet; whether or not it should be is a separate issue I won’t go into now). But I do put a whole lot of blame on mainstream Israeli society who is hardly keen on hearing about it.

But the thing is, outsiders don’t quite realize how complicated the situation actually is. They don’t know, for example, that a lot of the territories conquered in the Israeli War of Independence were conquered for the sake of territorial continuity that was vital for the protection of Jewish territories that were too isolated to protect (Israelis aren’t aware that those territories amounted to 6% of the land here though). Or that the Green Line is extremely close to Gush Dan, where Tel-Aviv and its satellite cities are: if the rockets from Gaza make life for towns and kibbutzim around it hellish, you can imagine what kind of damage rockets on Gush Dan could deal. They also don’t seem to get how deeply ingrained the history of animosity towards Jews is ingrained in the Jewish psyche: I’ve heard quite a few Europeans and Americans talking about how anti-Semitism was pretty much a thing of the past, and while to a great extent they’re right, you can see Jews were pretty much spot on about their fear that it could come back any time, and that’s without even bringing up the rampant anti-Semitism in Muslim communities. (This is why Jews here are very suspicious of Western mediation.)

People don’t get just how hard dismantling the Occupation actually is. Aside from ‘mainstream’ right-wing Jews who see land ownership in terms of collective ownership by peoples rather than individuals (a notion I parodied here) and bring up historic Jewish presence dating back millennia (e.g. old coins with Jewish inscriptions or the notable absence of pig bones), or nuttier Jews claiming the evil psychopath Yahweh promised them the land, there are more practical concerns. Dismantling all the Settlements and re-settling Jews within the Green Line would be an economic and logistical nightmare: Israel is already struggling with a serious shortage of real estate as it is.

Also, Jews don’t really trust Palestinians for pretty good reason: their leadership has repeatedly talked about how they want to destroy all of Israel and take it over, relying on alternative historic facts claiming e.g. that Tel-Aviv was originally ‘Tal Rabí‘’ (nonsense, aside from a few neighbourhoods it was mostly built by Jews before the war on land bought legitimately and named after a monumental piece of Zionist literature). They believe that getting full control of Judæa and Samaria (using these terms instead of ‘the West Bank’ to emphasize that it’s an area much larger than just the strip of land along the Jordan River) and the Gaza Strip is just a way to get their foot in the door before taking over everything. And, of course, there’s the humanitarian concern of what establishing an overwhelmingly Muslim independent state would mean for its women and minorities and plain old political dissidents: so far their record hasn’t been all too great (honour killing, civil war between Fatah and Hamas, brutal murder of suspected collaborators, GSM persecution, Christian persecution…).

On top of that, Israelis have a lot of misunderstanding on their part. First off, Hebrew does not distinguish between ‘conquest’ and ‘occupation’ (both are כִּבּוּשׁ kibúsh), and most Israelis don’t get the difference between ‘conquest’ and annexation, as has traditionally been the case. For many Israelis, war is a process where participants essentially wager their territory in armed conflict, and territory lost fair and square should be ceded. This is especially the case for Israelis, who believe that they’ve never instigated a war; at most, they responded to aggressive actions the only reasonable way they could.

In general, international law and the customs of war are very recent, dating back to only a few decades ago. Israelis think that Western powers preaching to them about how wrong conquering territories is is incredibly hypocritical, not realizing the rules have changed or thinking they apply selectively. This is particularly infuriating to them as they believe that unlike Western empires, Israel needs its extra territories for survival (whether or not that’s true is an issue I won’t go into).

What complicates matters further is that English terminology also has its limits: while Hebrew distinguishes between ‘Palestine’ as a geographic term (אֶרֶץ יְשׂרָאֵל Èretz Yisra’él, lit. ‘Land of Israel’, also used extensively in religious contexts) and as a (would-be) political entity (פָלַסְטִין Falastín), English has one term for both, as does Arabic (فلسطين Filasṭīn). You can imagine how aggravated Israelis get when they come across what looks like trying to establish a hostile political reality but is actually just a reference to geography, but more pressingly, they don’t get what Palestinians actually claim.

Jewish Israeli narrative centres around the idea that they owned the land fair and square and were driven out of their rightfully owned territory, including Judæa and Samaria (partial truth: the traditional narrative claims Jews were expelled by the Romans, but the truth is many left voluntarily when the Romans started persecuting them), sometimes argued that God Himself gave it to them, and define their ‘peoplehood’ based on (overwhelmingly) religious practice; the Palestinian one, on the other hand, is based on connection to the land, emphasizing a connection to all the people who’ve settled in the region and their heritage. When they say ‘Jesus was Palestinian’ they think that’s true: he was Jewish by faith but was born and raised and lived his whole life here, his roots were here, ergo he was Palestinian. As a matter of fact, Palestinians are the ethnic group most closely related genetically to Jews, but Jews here would normally claim (as is taught in high school history, or at least was when I was in high school) that they are overwhelmingly descended from relatively recent immigrants who came when Jews started prospering, to get a chunk of that working for them. (This is often based on the widely derided claims in Joan Peters’ From Time Immemorial and selective and grossly misleading quotes from Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad.)

The Palestinians, on their part, think Jews came here as some kind of extension of colonial powers: they saw all those Jews coming in from European countries and put two and two together (which has some merit but is a GROSS oversimplification). This is why they often have more respect for Mizrakhi and Sephardi Jews than Ashkenazi Jews. And, of course, as pointed out above, they’re often all too keen on buying into anti-Semitic rhetoric: Israeli right-wingers often point out that Mahmoud Abbas himself was (and, they claim, still is) a Holocaust denier.

So you can see why there is little trust between the two sides and why dismantling the Occupation safely is akin to diffusing a very sensitive bomb. There has to be a lot more earnest dialogue before that can happen.

Also, amusingly (in a dark way), while leftist Jews (moderate and otherwise) are mad about all the money spent on the Settlements, Settlers are mad about how their Settlements don’t actually expand or multiply. The actual problem is that corrupt right-wing politicians pass the money to their own rather than the Settlements…

This is a very complicated issue, but I think there are plenty of steps Israel could take and simply doesn’t for some reason:

More emphasis on Arabic in school. Nowadays students are often given the choice between Arabic and French or Russian in many schools, and many get exempted from studying a third language to avoid learning a ‘terrorists’ language’ by getting a didactic diagnosis and feigning idiocy; about a year ago there was a bill proposed by MK Oren Khazan of all people to make it mandatory from the first grade, but from what I’ve heard it was not realistic considering the massive shortage of Arabic teachers in Israel, and I’m not sure why but it kinda stopped moving forward for some reason. (Personally I think Israeli and Palestinian Sign Languages should be taught too, as well as optional linguistics, but I’m kinda biased as a ling. major with a keen interest in SL and Deaf culture.)

Reforming the way civics and history are taught. Civics is grossly underrepresented in Israeli schools, putting ethnoreligious sentiment on equal footing with democratic concerns. History is often taught through a narrow prism of Jewish persecution, and things like legitimate objections Arabs had before 1948 and what the 1948 Exodus was actually like are barely mentioned if at all. (The 6% figure? I had no idea about it until it was mentioned on a blog and I looked it up myself. And if you ask most Israeli Jews, they’ll tell you the Arabs left willingly to allow Arab forces to take over and finish Israel off, so they’ve no right to complain Israel isn’t too keen on letting them back in.) Also, Tanakh as a subject should be abolished yesterday.

Training combatant soldiers to deal with civilian populations. I recently saw (parts of) a documentary about the Kfir Brigade, where the soldiers explained that they’d never been taught to learn to deal with civilian populations or even any Arabic beyond phrases like ‘stop or I’ll shoot’ or ‘give me your ID’. You can see how counterproductive this is to de-escalating tensions there.

Changing arbitrary regulations used by Border Patrol. You can read more about it here.

Making justice against soldiers who bully Palestinians and worse more visible. The way things go now, while justice is normally served (if only for fear of foreign involvement), far too many get off the hook too easy, with the military court system delaying justice until the law says it’s been too long past their service to prosecute them, or they get comically small punishments (this normally happens when the military needs the soldier for some reason). When it is served, the IDF should e.g. spread leaflets announcing it and claiming repeatedly that they are earnest in their attempts to clean up their act.

Banning openly racist soldiers from serving. There’s a Facebook page dedicated to documenting horrifyingly racist outbursts on Facebook, including people wishing violent death on Arabs, African refugees, and children with a Jewish father and a Jewish mother in Israel, and celebrating events like the recent massacre at the mosque in Québec; the number of comments left by people serving in the IDF (some of which relish the thought of massacring Arab babies) is horrifying. I’ve even met a person in south Tel-Aviv (which is notorious for its rampant xenophobia) who boasted being a war criminal.

Abolishing conscription, or at least restricting it severely. There have been two state committees who looked into it and determined that conscription should be abolished already and replaced with a professional military. Opponents of this move include not only the IDF itself, which absolutely looooves its fat cheques and cushy jobs for its senior officers, but also run-of-the-mill Israelis who are afraid that the IDF would dwindle to the point Israel couldn’t defend itself against its enemies surrounding it (including, according to them, so-called ‘friends’ who signed peace treaties but are just waiting for an opportune moment to stab it in the back). I think it should either be abolished or, as they did in Sweden up until a few years ago, recruit only those who are most fit to serve. Aside from the obvious need for soldiers who do their job right, the current situation means that Israelis normally can’t distinguish between soldiers and civilians and think that attacking soldiers (‘our children’) is as illegitimate as attacking civilians, labelling guerrilla fighters (who, don’t get me wrong, are legitimate targets in an armed conflict) ‘terrorists’ (the media does that too and that sure as hell doesn’t help).

Better coordination within the military. As of now the IDF has a surplus of soldiers who are grossly mismanaged as a result of petty infighting from within. That’s how you can find offices with one secretary collapsing under the workload and another with three secretaries with barely any work to do. This is a pretty serious issue in and of itself, but this gets even worse when you consider that, for example, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip don’t know how far away from the Separation Wall they have to be to avoid getting shot (which is pretty serious because many of them have agricultural lands close to the fence that they can’t work on).

Taking a stronger stand against settlements the State had no hand in building. Some particularly zealous Settlers sometimes take Palestinian land by force, relying on the fact that their legal owners would have to go through a legal hell to get it back, and that the military normally follows an order saying they’re not allowed to physically touch Settlers. Those should be clamped down on HARD.

Abolishing the underhanded techniques the State uses to seize Palestinian land. Israel uses the military to declare certain areas as necessary for training and kicks the locals out, then a year later they say that since the owners left their land for over a year they no longer have a claim to it, and allow Settlers in instead. It does the same with KKL and the Israeli Antiquities Authority. This shit needs to stop.

Applying Israeli law to Settlements that already exist. What Israelis don’t get is that when outsiders talk about the ‘apartheid state’ in Israel they don’t mean ‘within the Green Line’: nominally, Arab Israeli citizens are perfectly equal before the law (aside from where the stupid fucking Millet system is in force). This refers to Judæa and Samaria, where Settlers are generally subject to Israeli law (not always: the mayor of Ariel once boasted how he claimed not to be a legitimate part of Israel when he needed to pay taxes but it was when it needed funds from the State), but Palestinians are subject to martial law. This means, among other things, that employers over there can get away with paying Palestinians below minimum wage. While Israel is in charge it should do so properly.

Reforming imprisoned terrorists. As the UK demonstrates, this is immensely helpful in gutting terrorism from within.

Actually sticking by contractual obligations. Yitzkhak Rabin famously got the Oslo Accords going (hell, he got shot to death for it), but in practice he never actually took down a single Settlements, claiming that ‘there are no sacred dates’ (i.e. ‘I’ll take ‘em down… eventually’). On the other hand, enough violent resistance and outright terrorism on the Palestinians’ part got Israel to leave the Gaza Strip unilaterally. The Palestinians naturally understood that Israelis understand nothing but brute force.

Understanding what actually comprises terrorism. Aside from attacking soldiers, as explained above, Israelis seem to be under the impression that diplomatic moves (e.g. ratifying the Geneva and Rome conventions and pushing for recognition in the UN) are terrorism too (‘state terrorism’). As one blogger put it, they might soon call Palestinians breathing ‘respiratory terrorism’.

Abolish the religious exception to anti-incitement laws. Israel obviously has laws against incitement to violence, but for some bizarre reason those laws do not apply to incitement made on a religious basis. This gives both Jewish and Muslim religious leaders the ability to incite somewhat freely, avoiding persecution, while young hotheads do their bidding and get fucked over for it. (Kinda like right-wing militia leaders, as described here, under #2.) Israel needs to crack down on all the bullshit it allows as part of ‘religious freedom’ in general, but for the purpose of this discussion, this is the #1 priority.

Back in the day I used to believe in cantonizing the country and giving the Gaza Strip and Judæa and Samaria a special status similar to Québec. I wrote about it extensively here. I asked around, and Jews mostly told me that they think it would be nice, but the Arabs would be against it; then I asked Arabs, who mostly had no objections to the idea. I asked MK Zehava Gal’on, who said she didn’t trust the Jews to not turn this country into a full-blown apartheid state all over. I eventually let go of the idea when I talked to an Arab student who was more politically aware, who said it was impractical because the State has the habit of not allowing Arab towns and villages to form or expand (this, coupled with poor law enforcement in Arab areas, creates the problem of violent criminal wars over territories), and keeps building new Jewish communities between them to detach them from one another. You can’t have Arab cantons this way.

On a final note: I want to point out that this is what I think Israel should do. Palestinians also have more than enough steps they can take, but I don’t live there, so I don’t really know what it’s like over there and I don’t get a say anyway. However, I do want to point out that the Palestinian Authority makes selling (and I think renting too, but I’m not sure) lands to Israelis punishable by death; this means that even if Settlers legitimately buy (or rent) the lands they want to settle on, it could be a huge pain to prove the legal owner of their lands allowed them to do so, because they’d be putting them at huge risk. One leftist activist, Ezra Nawi, notoriously boasted turning in would-be sellers to the PA; as a leftist myself, I was utterly infuriated: as far as I’m concerned, as the legal owners of the land, they have every right to do as they please with it.

And that pretty much concludes my views on the issue. Thanks for giving me the chance to clarify it.

#Israel #Israeli politics #Occupation #Palestine #1948 Palestinian Exodus #Zehava Gal’on #Ezra Nawi #Palestinian Authority #anti-Semitism

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the-world-in-the-eyes-of-guoguo · 4 years

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Talk about equality under the epidemic? The United States made a joke about "democracy"! Nearly 100,000 deaths, the plague is worse?

As the new crown epidemic has an increasing impact on global public safety, this pandemic that has affected the world has severely damaged the global economy. What is more dangerous is that with the periodic restart of the economies of various countries, it has been initially contained. The spread of the new crown epidemic is at risk of a second outbreak at any time. At present, there are 11,212,19 cases diagnosed in the epicenter of the United States in the world, a total of 16,66829 cases have been diagnosed, a total of 446,927 cases have been cured, a total of 98,683 deaths have occurred, and the death cases have approached 100,000. Despite the high number of deaths in the United States and the epidemic has not been effectively controlled, the United States has not taken effective measures to prevent the spread of the epidemic to the greatest extent possible, but insisted on restarting the economy despite the safety of the people. In response to the current situation in the United States, many medical experts warned that the lifting of the blockade of epidemic prevention may cause a surge in cases. Nevertheless, the governors of many US states still hope to slow down the epidemic prevention measures and restart the economy. However, the United States' restart measures have obviously not had the desired effect. The number of unemployed in the United States has risen to 40 million, and the unemployment rate has rapidly increased from 14.4% a week ago to 17.2%. Especially in Nevada, where the earthquake occurred in mid-May, the unemployment rate has reached 28.2%. However, the epidemic in the United States did not delay the second infection due to the chaos of the restarting measures. The number of new crown diagnoses in the United States continues to soar, and states have rebounded to varying degrees in the epidemic, and even unable to continue to "dump the pot". Each state has to actively beautify the number of outbreaks. In order to cover up the serious impact caused by the epidemic, stabilize public sentiment, and alleviate suspicion from all over the world, the US self-directed self-played a good show of "data changing face". For example, Georgia once played the "reverse time" move. In order to restart the economy, Mr. Kemp insisted that the state has "no danger of an epidemic." Determined to restart the economy. Following the failure of data manipulation methods in several major states in the United States, Illinois revised the statistical method of new coronary pneumonia in nursing homes on the 22nd to exclude the diagnosis and death of nursing homes in the hardest-hit areas, resulting in a reduction of 1727 confirmed diagnoses and 216 deaths. . In this epidemic, Mr. Trump was the first to appear in person, and he can be called a world-class master of face change. When the number of deaths in the United States exceeded 40,000, he once said: "Now we have nearly 50,000 (I heard, or 60,000 people (died of new coronary pneumonia). 1 (referring to 100,000 people) is too much . I always say that. 1 (referring to 100,000 people) is too much, but we will have 50,000 or 60,000 people (died of new coronary pneumonia). This (death number) is a lower level-originally the United States It is estimated to be 100,000 people (will die of new coronary pneumonia). "And then the number of deaths in the United States exceeded the 50,000 mark, Trump immediately changed his mouth, saying that the original prediction (the number of deaths) was 2.2 million, and the United States may now be 60,000 To 70,000 people. If the death toll in the United States is within 100,000, then "we are doing pretty well." However, the death toll in the United States is now inevitably going to exceed 100,000-this is after the major US states have changed several statistical methods to cover up the countless actual death cases of the new crown epidemic-so the Secretary of State is over 10,000 per person Mr. Pompeo finally could n’t sit still and began to justify himself as saying “The United States is the world ’s largest donor country to respond to the coronavirus epidemic, accounting for 30% of all donations from countries around the world. In terms of helping fight this terrible virus, no country can Compared to the United States. " But Mr. Pompeo's words seem to deliberately hit himself and the United States. Prior to this, the US Embassy in Fiji had issued a document saying that the US Agency for International Development provided 9.9 million US dollars for countries in the Pacific region to respond to the new crown epidemic, while the US ambassador to Israel said that the US provided 5 million US dollars to Palestine for prevention and control funds. However, these "verbal donations" from the United States were almost immediately refuted by these "received donations": the United States is lying, "we didn't get a penny." Guatemala, which has always regarded the United States as an ally, now faces greater danger. The frustrated United States has begun to repatriate Guatemalan immigrants infected with the new coronavirus, which has made Guatemala's weak health system on the verge of collapse, and the lives of people in poor areas have been stifled. Here, Uncle Guo would like to say a few words: I have deep sympathy for the suffering caused by the new crown epidemic in the American people. I will make an oral donation of US $ 1 trillion to restore the current US economy and market. In order to reduce losses and resume economic growth as soon as possible, the United States wanted to unilaterally resume flights between China and the United States in April, and kept mentioning the old things. It also tried to pressure China through the origin of the pandemic. But on this matter, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has officially replied: "Opening to the outside world does not comply with the 'five one' policy formulated by China in March this year, and temporarily disagrees to resume flights between the two countries." Under internal and external concerns, American politicians continue to incite people to anti-China and racial discrimination, attempting to attack Asians to establish racial status, directing the United States and even the world. Since the outbreak, the United States has concealed its own failure to prevent and control the epidemic, and deliberately provoked racial opposition to stigmatize the epidemic. To date, 60% of Asians in the United States have witnessed or directly experienced Europa threats or harassment of Asians. From bad talk to kicking and shoving, and even pouring sulfuric acid on the street, from refusing to detect direct dismissal, African Americans, Asians and Latinos in the United States have suffered huge torture that ordinary people can't bear. Discrimination against other races, orphans, widows and the elderly, this is the current "equality" in the United States? Now, racial discrimination in the United States is constantly on the rise, and American politicians are deliberately guiding the so-called "excellent" Europa to commit heinous crimes against humanity. If this is the "help" you bring to the world, please forgive all humankind that you cannot afford this "great love" intertwined with hatred and discrimination! It seems that even the sky is not used to what the United States has done. Following the "killing bumblebee", the plague on the streets of the United States has reappeared. New visitors appeared on the street, and large groups of mice ran around on the street during the day. These rodents are more than ordinary mice, not only not afraid of humans at all, but even trying to attack. As we all know, it is a carrier of more than 50 diseases, and the most common are food-borne diseases such as salmonella. The infamous black death in history is parasitic on fleas on mice. Today, the threat of plague is imminently approaching the United States. If a god really exists in the world, the god will never punish the so-called "Heavenly Chosen People". Today, the United States is very much like the once brutal Egypt in Exodus. The wasps, earthquakes, and rat plagues that occur everywhere ... America, which has departed from humanity, will also be abandoned by this world. But the United States has only passed on the crisis. Even if it is abandoned by the world, the crisis must be passed on to the whole world. During the cholera outbreak, the United States accused Irish people; when the poliomyelitis outbreak caused the Italians to bear the blame; when tuberculosis and smallpox spread, Japan and Mexico became scapegoats; when AIDS prevailed, Haitians were demonized or even allowed to enter United States-And this new crown epidemic? Is the ethnic conflict that has been intensified again just for the United States to "throw the pot" in order to divert its attention? No! At present, the losses of the United States in all aspects of this epidemic have exceeded that of World War II, and far exceeded the losses suffered by the American War in the remaining periods. Bank of America Chief Economist Michelle Meyer commented on the harm of the new crown epidemic to the epidemic: "So far, there has not been such a large-scale economic recession in the history of the United States. At the beginning of April this year, we estimated the GDP of the United States. The decline will reach a staggering 10%, and it seems that the worse part will be the second quarter, which may fall by 30%. " Many parties predict that the economic contraction caused by the new crown epidemic in the United States will take at least 10 years to recover under smooth conditions. At the same time, the United States has stepped up research on space-based weapons and restarted nuclear tests. At the same time, the United States has been opposed to the global ban on biological warfare, and on May 22 it unilaterally withdrew from the "Open Sky Treaty" in cooperation with NATO, which means that European countries can no longer understand US military developments. ——The United States needs a lot of capital to restart the economy, so why invest so much financial and material resources to develop military power? The United States needs war to restore its economy and restore its global supremacy! Be wary of the United States under the guise of "restarting the economy", intensifying racial contradictions and promoting fascism, trying to spread the virus, trying to secretly divide the world, and triggering a new world war! People seeking freedom. We cannot be a victim of fascism in the United States. Unite.

#US #trump #cnn #covid_19 #christmas

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Trump’s Mideast Plan Leaves Palestinians With Few Options

JERUSALEM — For Mahmoud Abbas, the ailing octogenarian president of the Palestinian Authority, his life’s work — a viable state side-by-side with Israel — is quickly slipping away.

President Trump’s Middle East plan deprives the Palestinians of nearly everything they had been fighting for: East Jerusalem as their national capital, the removal of Jewish settlements on the West Bank, and territorial contiguity and control over their own borders and security that a sovereign state normally enjoys.

While it was always presumed that such a state would be forged through talks with the Israelis, years of failure, a weak and divided Palestinian leadership, and an Arab world that has largely moved on have all emboldened Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to try to impose a solution of their own.

But the landscape has shifted so much in recent years that Mr. Abbas has few good options.

With only muted reaction from Arab neighbors, a struggling Palestinian economy, little apparent appetite among Palestinians for a violent response and the United States having abandoned any pretense of neutral mediation, a proposal that might have been considered outlandish a decade ago landed with little serious opposition.

Rather than fighting back, some Palestinian activists on Wednesday were saying the best option may be breaking up the Palestinian Authority, leaving Israel to assume the burden of providing for the West Bank’s 2.5 million Palestinians.

Mr. Abbas could decide that this is the moment for dramatic pushback, like walking away from the security cooperation that has long helped protect Israelis from terrorism. He could try to unleash violence.

But if his overriding motive is self-preservation, the safer option would be to try to weather the storm, hoping that Mr. Trump is defeated in November, or Mr. Netanyahu even sooner.

“One guy’s dealing with impeachment, another with an indictment, and Abbas is 85 years old,” said Dimitri Diliani, a 46-year-old member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council who is impatient for the president, who is still 84, to go. “He’s looking for a way to dodge the bullet and stay in power.”

But even if they wanted to, Palestinians only have a limited ability to stand up to an American-Israeli bulldozer.

Yara Hawari, 31, a scholar and analyst for Al Shabaka, a network of Palestinian analysts, said the Trump plan was becoming a cautionary tale about the diminishing importance of international law when those making the rules are unafraid to exploit their power.

“What happens here can happen elsewhere very easily,” she said. “If you don’t care for the Palestinians, at least care for yourselves.”

The assorted calls for action from Palestinian activists, thinkers and analysts eager to shake up the prevailing inertia sounded like variations on a theme of admitting the failure of the Palestinian Authority to grow into a state.

Some called for the authority to dismantle itself, which would require Israel to take on the costs of health, education, social welfare and policing of West Bank Palestinians, and would remove an entity that they see as camouflaging the occupation’s ugliness.

“We couldn’t have seen 50 presidents and prime ministers in Israel last week if it was revealed as an apartheid state,” said Hamada Jaber, an activist in Ramallah, referring to a Holocaust commemoration in Jerusalem that attracted dozens of world leaders. “It’s still hiding itself behind the P.A.”

But Tareq Baconi, 36, a Palestinian analyst for International Crisis Group, cautioned that any wind-down of the authority should be strategic, not impulsive.

“There needs to be a serious exploration — not another empty threat from the president’s office — of what dismantling the P.A. looks like,” he said. “How will the economy be managed, what kind of resilience infrastructure needs to be built to take its place, and how can security cooperation end without endangering Palestinians or risking instability?”

Mr. Abbas has remained typically opaque, offering little insight into his current thinking. One of the weaknesses and failings of the leadership, said Sari Nusseibeh, 70, the former president of Al Quds University, was “its inability to address the people openly and to present ideas.”

“I don’t know if they are doing any thinking at a deep level,” Mr. Nusseibeh continued, “and Abbas, as people say, is very much a one-man show.”

He is also increasingly authoritarian, as Ms. Hawari noted. “I’m trying not to fall into the trap of calling for anything so I don’t get arrested,” she said, adding, “I don’t see a just and free Palestinian future with the P.A. in place.”

Mr. Abbas called again Tuesday for elections, prompting eye rolls among critics who note he is entering the 16th year of what was supposed to be a four-year term. Few believe he is serious.

A better idea, several said, would be to hold elections for the Palestine Liberation Organization, as a way of revitalizing the group still widely seen as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

Still, many Palestinians view the authority, one of the few tangible achievements of the national cause, as worth preserving.

“Personally I don’t think handing over the keys is a smart move,” said Nour Odeh, a Palestinian writer and analyst. “A right-wing Israel drunk on power with Trump’s support couldn’t care less,” she said, adding: “We built these institutions with the blood and sweat of our sons and daughters. Why give it up?”

Raja Khalidi, a development economist who runs a research institute, said there was the added matter of a sense of duty. “I can’t see any political leadership walking away from the responsibility it’s assumed for 30 years and allowing Israel to return to that role,” he said.

Disillusioned about statehood, especially the kind of statehood now on offer, Palestinians are increasingly rejecting a two-state solution to work for a single state with equal rights and the vote for all people living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

That idea, though, is “unrealistic,” said Sani Meo, publisher of This Week in Palestine, a Ramallah-based magazine “Of course Israel will never give us the vote.”

A more immediate measure many Palestinians want is an end to Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation, which they see more as collaboration with the enemy. Mr. Abbas has resisted that so far because the teamwork with Israel also helps keep Hamas at bay in the West Bank, ensuring his survival.

Equally popular would be national reconciliation and the healing of the 13-year, bitter schism between Mr. Abbas’s Fatah-led Authority in the West Bank and his rivals in Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza. There was a veneer of unity the night the Trump plan was announced, with Mr. Abbas and the head of Hamas’s politburo, Ismail Haniya, speaking by phone. But few believe it will go anywhere.

And the leadership has other problems than disunity. Mr. Baconi of the International Crisis Group recalled that before the British election last month, he sat with Palestinian officials who expressed the seemingly far-fetched hope that Jeremy Corbyn would win, Mr. Netanyahu would be defeated and Bernie Sanders would be elected president of the United States.

“It misses the point that you don’t manage the context, you operate in it,” Mr. Baconi said.

So far, though the Israeli military sent reinforcements into the West Bank and along the Gaza border on Wednesday, Palestinians were not taking to the streets in large numbers.

It would be wrong to read that as acquiescence, Ms. Hawari said. The Palestinian grass roots have been weakened over time, she said, not just by the Israelis but by the authority’s own repression, since protesters against the Israeli occupation also sometimes protest against autocracy and the corruption of their own leaders.

She added that the hundreds of Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers at demonstrations along the Gaza fence set a “really gruesome precedent” for how Israel might respond to a mass mobilization.

“If thousands of us went down to the streets in the West Bank, do you think that would be met lightly?” she asked.

Mr. Diliani, the Fatah Revolutionary Council member, said Palestinians were torn over whom to protest against. “Do we overcome our internal problems with Abbas first?” he asked. “Or with Israel?”

He added: “You will hear this conversation in every restaurant, everywhere you go. Who do we target first? Who should we fight?”

What Palestinians of every age and background still can agree on is the idea that merely staying on the land, with steadfastness, or “sumud” in Arabic, is an act of resistance.

“We are not going anywhere,” Ms. Odeh, the writer, said. Their mere presence, she said, poses a long-term challenge to Israel’s right wing, not to mention Zionism itself.

Mr. Khalidi, the economist, said Palestinians needed to focus inward while they wait for a better set of circumstances.

“How do we get back to being one community?” he asked. “What can we do to get people engaged in building their lives, and their nation, without it necessarily being a state?”

“What do I need a state for,” he added, “if it doesn’t give me more than I already have?”

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/trumps-mideast-plan-leaves-palestinians-with-few-options/

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thisdaynews · 5 years

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Israel bars Omar, Tlaib from entering country, as Trump lashes out

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/israel-bars-omar-tlaib-from-entering-country-as-trump-lashes-out/

Israel bars Omar, Tlaib from entering country, as Trump lashes out

Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib were slated to arrive in Israel this weekend, but President Donald Trump had lobbied Israeli leaders to bar them from entering the country. | J. Scott Applewhite, File/AP Photo

Congress

Democrats blasted the decision and warned it would hurt the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

Israel’s government on Thursday barred Democratic Reps. Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib from entering the country as part of a landmark visit, in a move that quickly set off a political firestorm in Washington.

Omar and Tlaib — the first two Muslim women in Congress — were slated to arrive this weekend, but President Donald Trump had lobbied Israeli leaders to block them from entering the country and again lashed out at the pair on Thursday.

Story Continued Below

Omar hit back, saying, “Trump’s Muslim ban is what Israel is implementing, this time against two duly elected members of Congress.”

“The irony of the ‘only democracy’ in the Middle East making such a decision is that it is both an insult to democratic values and a chilling response to a visit by government officials from an allied nation,” the Minnesota Democrat added in an afternoon statement.

The controversial decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came despite pleas from top lawmakers in both parties to allow the delegation to make its trip. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) denounced the decision, saying she was “deeply saddened” by the move after the Israeli ambassador announced last month that the two lawmakers would be allowed to visit.

“Israel’s denial of entry to Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar is a sign of weakness, and beneath the dignity of the great State of Israel,” Pelosi said in a statement.

Netanyahu defended his decision, saying he changed his mind after learning more details of their trip earlier this week.

“Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar are leading activists in promoting the legislation of boycotts against Israel in the American Congress,” Netanyahu said a statement. “Only a few days ago, we received their itinerary for their visit in Israel, which revealed that they planned a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel’s legitimacy.”

Netanyahu did say that a “humanitarian request” by Tlaib to visit her relatives in the West Bank would be accepted “on the condition that she pledges not to promote boycotts against Israel during her visit.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who led a delegation of dozens of House Democrats to Israel earlier this month, had repeatedly asked Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders to allow the freshman lawmakers to enter the country, only to be rejected.

Hoyer and other pro-Israel Democrats, like Nita Lowey of New York, Brad Schneider of Illinois, Ted Deutch of Florida and Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, also personally lobbied Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., to allow the visit. Dermer stated several weeks ago that Israel would let the trip go ahead.

Gottheimer, who has previously sparred with Omar and Tlaib over their controversial comments about Israel, said refusing to allow them to visit the country “regardless of their views and misguided, planned itinerary, is a serious, strategic mistake.”

An irate Hoyer called Thursday’s decision “outrageous” and pointed to Dermer’s earlier pledge to let Omar and Tlaib enter the country.

“This action is contrary to the statement and assurances to me by Israel’s ambassador to the United States that ‘out of respect for the U.S. Congress and the great alliance between Israel and America, we would not deny entry to any Member of Congress into Israel,’” Hoyer said. “That representation was not true.”

Even the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel lobby, criticized the announcement.

“We disagree with Reps. Omar and Tlaib’s support for the anti-Israel and anti-peace BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] movement, along with Rep. Tlaib’s calls for a one-state solution,” AIPAC said in a statment. “We also believe every member of Congress should be able to visit and experience our democratic ally Israel firsthand.”

Republicans, meanwhile, have been largely silent about the move. House and Senate GOP leaders have avoided commenting on the controversy. Even Trump’s most loyal boosters on Capitol Hill were mostly quiet, showing how poorly the decision was received by lawmakers in both parties.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said Tlaib and Omar “should have come with the rest of the U.S. delegation to Israel,” referring to the recent trips headed by Hoyer and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

“I stand fully with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israel regarding their right to deny admittance to anyone who advocates against the interests of Israel,” Roy said.

But another prominent Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, called the decision “a mistake.”

“Being blocked is what they really hoped for all along in order to bolster their attacks against the Jewish State,” Rubio said on Twitter. Thursday morning, Trump slammed Tlaib and Omar — two fierce critics of the president who have called for his impeachment — and encouraged Israel to block them.

“It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!”

Tlaib had planned to see her grandmother, who lives in the West Bank. Instead, Hoyer met with Tlaib’s grandmother during his congressional trip.

On Thursday afternoon, Tlaib sent a letter to her fellow freshman Democrats asking for their help in getting the decision reversed, although her request called Palestine “a sovereign state,” which angered some pro-Israel lawmakers in the class.

In her letter, the Michigan Democrat called on her fellow freshmen to support her publicly: “Many of you have more of an influence than I do and I am asking as your colleague to advocate that I am allowed to enter (even if just to allow transport into another sovereign state — Palestine).”

She also defended the trip, saying that their agenda had no meetings planned with Israeli or Palestinian Authority officials — rebutting one of Netanyahu’s chief complaints about the itinerary.

Senior Democrats, including longtime pro-Israel advocates, blasted the move as one that will hurt U.S.-Israeli relations in the long run.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the Israeli decision “is a sign of weakness, not strength. It will only hurt the U.S.-Israeli relationship and support for Israel in America. … Many strong supporters of Israel will be deeply disappointed in this decision, which the Israeli government should reverse.”

“It is utterly egregious for the Israeli government to deny entry to two sitting members of the United States Congress,” added House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.). “I strongly condemn this decision.”

“Democracies are marked by the ability to express opposing views,” added Lowey, top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee. “By blocking entry by these representatives, the Israeli government is missing an opportunity for engagement in dialogue with those they disagree with, instead empowering those who seek to create a wedge between our two countries.”

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said “no member of Congress should visit Israel until all members of Congress are welcome.”

Democratic presidential candidates also called on Israel to reverse course.

“Israel doesn’t advance its case as a tolerant democracy or unwavering US ally by barring elected members of Congress from visiting because of their political views,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “This would be a shameful, unprecedented move.”

The trip by the two Democratic freshmen would be historic. Tlaib has long touted the trip as an alternative to the annual AIPAC-funded trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, which pro-Palestinian advocates have argued is intended to promote Israel’s political positions.

Israeli leaders said they would deny the lawmakers’ entry into the country because of their support for the global BDS movement, which is intended to force Israel to improve its treatment of the Palestinians.

Most Democrats have strongly rejected the BDS effort, and the House passed a resolution last month on a 398-17 vote condemning the movement. Omar and Tlaib were among the lawmakers who opposed the resolution.

Before that vote, Hoyer had worked with Dermer to ensure that Tlaib and Omar would be able to go ahead with their Israel trip, according to a Hoyer aide.

Dermer recently told Democratic lawmakers that Israeli officials were unsettled by the lawmakers’ itinerary — which did not include meetings with any of the country’s diplomats or visits to historic sites — and was largely focused on the territories.

“They see the point of the trip to cause problems, not to learn,” said one lawmaker describing Dermer’s comments.

But the move threatens to open a new rift on Capitol Hill over Israel, especially inside the Democratic Party.

Progressive champions Omar and Tlaib have sharply criticized Israel’s political influence in Washington and they’ve faced charges of anti-Semitism. Both freshman Democrats, and Omar in particular, have become a favorite target of Trump and conservative media.

Democrats, meanwhile, counter that Trump is fueling a rise in white nationalism and anti-Semitism with his divisive racial rhetoric — not the Israel critics in their party.

“Netanyahu choosing to ban the only 2 Muslim women in Congress from entering tells the US that only *some* Americans are welcome to Israel, not all,” tweeted Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), a close ally of Tlaib and Omar. “Trump is exporting his bigotry & making matters worse.”

#Foreign #lashes #Politics #Trump

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clubofinfo · 6 years

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Expert: This essay is inspired by Professor James Petras’ article, describing that the US never wins wars despite trillions of investments in her war budget and obvious military superiority. Professor Petras is, of course, right, the United States is currently engaged in seven bloody wars around the globe (Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Libya) and has not been winning one, including WWII. The question is: Why is that? To these wars, you may want to add the totally destructive and human rights adverse war that literally slaughters unarmed civilians, including thousands of children, in an open-air prison, Gaza, the US proxy war on Palestine, carried out by Israel; plus, warmongering on Iran, Venezuela and North Korea. Let alone the new style wars — the trade wars with China, Europe, and to some extent, Mexico and Canada — as well as the war of sanctions, starting with Russia and reaching around the world, the fiefdom of economic wars also illegal by any book of international economics. Other wars and conflicts, that were never intended to be won, include the dismantlement of Yugoslavia by the Clinton / NATO wars of the 1990s, the so-called Balkanization of Yugoslavia, ‘Balkanization’, a term now used for other empire-led partitions in the world, à la “divide to conquer”. Many of the former Yugoslav Republics are still not at peace internally and among each other. President Tito, a Maoist socialist leader was able to keep the country peacefully together and make out of Yugoslavia one of the most prosperous countries in Europe in the seventies and 1980s. How could this be allowed, socio-economic well-being in a socialist country? Never. It had to be destroyed. At the same time NATO forces advanced their bases closer to Moscow. But no war was won. Conflicts are still ongoing, “justifying” the presence of NATO, for European and US “national security”. Then, let’s not forget the various Central American conflicts — Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala — the 8-year Iraq-Iran war, and many more, have created havoc and disorder, and foremost killed millions of people and weakened the countries affected. They put the population into misery and constant fear, and they keep requiring weapons to maintain internal hostilities, warfare and terror to this day. All of these wars are totally unlawful and prohibited by any international standards of law. But the special and exceptional nation doesn’t observe them. President Trump’s bully National Security Advisor, John Bolton, recently threatened the ICC and its judges with ‘sanctions’ in case they dare start prosecution of Israeli and American war criminals. And the world doesn’t seem to care, and, instead, accepts the bully’s rule, afraid of the constant saber-rattling and threats being thrown out at the resisters of this world. Even the United Nations, including the 15-member Security Council, is afraid to stand up to the bully – 191 countries against 2 (US and Israel) is a no go? None of these wars, hot wars or cold wars, has ever been won. Nor were they intended to be won. And there are no signs that future US-led wars will ever be won; irrespective of the trillions of dollars spent on them, and irrespective of the trillions to come in the future to maintain these wars and to start new ones. If we, the 191 UN member nations allow these wars to continue, that is. Again, why is that? The answer is simple. It is not in the interest of the United States to win any wars. The reasons are several. A won war theoretically brings peace, meaning no more weapons, no more fighting, no more destruction, no more terror and fear, no more insane profits for the war industry, but foremost, a country at peace is more difficult to manipulate and starve into submission than a country maintained at a level of constant conflict, conflict that not even a regime change will end, as we are seeing in so many cases around the world. Case in point, one of the latest ones being the Ukraine, after the US-NATO-EU instigated February 2014 Maidan coup, prepared with a long hand, in Victoria Nuland’s word, then Assistant Secretary of State, we spent more than 5 years and 5 billion dollars to bring about a regime change and democracy to the Ukraine. Today, there is a “civil war” waging in eastern Ukraine, the Russian leaning Donbass area (about 90% Russian speaking and 75% Russian nationals), fueled by the ‘new’ Washington installed Poroshenko Nazi government. Thousands were killed, literally in cold blood by the US military-advised and assisted Kiev army, and an estimated more than 2 million fled to Russia. The total Ukraine population is about 44 million (2018 est.), with a landmass of about 604,000 km2, of which the Donbass area (Donetsk Province) is the most densely populated, counting for about 10% of population and about 27,000 km2. Could this Kiev war of aggression end? Yes, if the West would let go of the Donbass area which in any case will never submit to the Kiev regime and which has already requested to be incorporated into Russia. It would instantly stop the killing, the misery and destruction by western powers driven Nazi Kiev. But that’s not in the interest of the west, NATO, EU and especially not Washington – chaos and despair make for easy manipulation of people, for exploitation of this immensely rich country, both in agricultural potential – Ukraine used to be called the bread basket of Russia – and in natural resources in the ground; and for steadily advancing closer to the doorsteps of Moscow. That’s the intention. In fact, Washington and its western EU vassal allies are relentlessly accusing Russia for meddling in the Ukraine, in not adhering to the Minsk accords. They are ‘sanctioning’ Russia for not respecting the Minsk Protocol (Ukraine, Russia, France, and Germany agreed on 11 February 2015 to a package of measures to alleviate the ongoing war in eastern Ukraine), when, in fact, the complete opposite is true. The west disregards the key points of the accord – no interference. But western propaganda and deceit-media brainwash western populations into believing in the Russian evil. The only ones meddling and supplying Kiev’s Nazi Regime with weapons and “military advisors” is the west. The ongoing strategy is lie-propaganda, so the western public, totally embalmed with western falsehoods, believes it is always Russia. Russians, led by President Putin, are the bad guys. The media war is part of the west’s war on Russia. The idea is, never let go of an ongoing conflict – no matter the cost in lives and in money. It’s so easy. Why isn’t that addressed in many analyses that still pretend the US is losing wars instead of winning them? It’s 101 of western geopolitics. For those who don’t know, the US State Department has clearly exposed its plans to guarantee world primacy to the Senate’s Foreign Relations Commission. Assistant Secretary of State, Wess Mitchell, has declared that the United States is punishing Russia, because Moscow is impeding Washington from establishing supremacy over the world. It gets as blunt as that. The US openly recognizes the reason for their fight against Russia, and that Washington would not accept anything less than a full capitulation. See French version in ZE Journal. The full supremacy over the world is not possible without controlling the entire landmass of Eurasia, which for now they, the US, does not dominate. Mitchell added, contrary to optimistic hypothesis of earlier administrations, Russia and China are the most serious contenders to impede materially and ideologically the supremacy of the United States in the 21st Century, in a reference to the PNAC, Plan for a New American Century. Then Mitchell launched a bomb: “It is always of primordial interest for the United States’ national security to impede the domination of the Eurasian landmass by hostile powers.” This clearly means that the United States will shy away from nothing in the pursuit of this goal – meaning an outright war, nuclear or other, massive killing and total destruction to reach that goal. This explains the myriad false accusations, ranging from outright insults at the UN by a lunatic Nikki Haley, the never-ending saga of the Skripal poisoning, to Russian meddling in the 2016 US elections and whatever else suits the political circumstances to bash Russia. And these fabricated lies come mostly from Washington and London, and the rest of the western vassals just follows. War is hugely profitable. It creates so much money because it’s so easy to spend money very fast. There are huge fortunes to be made. So, there is always an encouragement to promote war and keep it going, to make sure that we identify people who are ‘others’ whom we can legitimately make war upon. — Roger Waters, Co-founder of the rock band Pink Floyd Russia today is attacked by economic and trade “sanctions”, by travel bans, by confiscated assets they have in the west. The Cold War which propagated the Soviet Union as an invasive threat to the world, was a flagrant and absolute lie from A to Z. It forced the Soviet Union, thrown into abject poverty by saving the west from Hitler during WWII – yes, it was the Soviet Union, not the US of A and her western ‘allies’ that defeated Hitler’s army – losing between 25 and 30 million people! Imagine! By saving Europe, the Soviet Union became unimaginably devastated and poor. The US propaganda created the concept of the Iron Curtain which basically forbade the west to see behind this imaginary shield to find out what the USSR really was after WWII – made destitute to the bones by the second World War. Yet this Cold War and Iron Curtain propaganda managed to make the western world believe that it is under a vital threat of a USSR invasion day-in-day-out, and that Europe with NATO must be ready to fend off any imaginary attack from the Soviet Union. It forced the Soviet Union to using all her workers’ accumulated capital to arm themselves, to be able to defend themselves from any possible western aggression, instead of using these economic resources to rebuild their country, their economy, their social systems. That’s the west – the lying, utterly and constantly deceiving west. Wake up, people!!! Here you have it, confirmed by Wess Mitchell. The US would rather pull the rest of the world with it into a bottomless and an apocalyptic abyss with its sheer military power, than to lose and not reach her goal. That’s the unforgiving ruling of the deep state, those that have been pulling the strings behind every US president for the last 200 years. Unless the new alliances of the East; i.e., the SCO, BRICS, Eurasian Economic Union, half the world’s population and a third of the globe’s economic output, are able to subdue the United States economically, we may as well be doomed. As the seven present ongoing wars speak for themselves, chaos — no end in sight and intended — allow me to go back to a few other wars that were not won, on purpose, of course. Let’s look again at WWII and its sister wars, economic wars and conflicts. Planning of WWII started soon after the Great Depression of 1928 to 1933 and beyond. Hitler was a ‘convenient’ stooge. War is not only hugely profitable, but it boosts and sustains the economy of just about every sector. And the major objective for the US then was eliminating the Bolshevik communist threat, the Soviet Union. Today it’s demonizing President Putin and, if possible, bringing about regime change in Russia. That’s on top of Washington’s wish list. In the midst of the Great Depression, in 1931, the US created the Bank for International Settlement in Basel, Switzerland, conveniently located at the border to Germany. The BIS, totally privately owned and controlled by the Rothchild clan, was officially intended for settling war compensation payments by Germany. Though, unknown to most people, Germany has paid almost no compensation for either WWI and WWII. Most of the debt was simply forgiven. Germany was an important player in Washington’s attempt to eliminating the “communist curse” of the USSR. The BIS was used by the FED via Wall Street banks to finance Hitler’s war against the Soviet Union. As usual, the US was dancing on two weddings: Pretending to fight Hitler’s Germany, but really supporting Hitler against Moscow. Sounds familiar? Pretending to fight ISIS and other terrorists in the Middle East and around the world, but in reality, having been instrumental in creating, training, funding and arming the terror jihadists. When WWII was won by the Soviet army at a huge human sacrifice, the US, her allies and NATO marched in shouting victory. And to this day these are the lessons taught in western schools, by western history books, largely ignoring the tremendous credit attributable to the Soviet Union, to the Russian people. And since the USSR was not defeated, the Cold War had to be invented – and eventually with the help of Washington stooges, Michael Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the west brought down the Soviet Union – preparing the way for a unipolar world. This grandiose goal of the exceptional nation was, however, and very fortunately, stopped in its slippery tracks by the ascent of Russian President Putin. But that’s not all. For dominating Russia, Europe had to be ‘colonized’ – made into a “European Union” (EU) that was never meant to be a real union, as in the United States of America. The idea of a European Union was first planted shortly after WWII by the CIA, then taken over by the Club of Rome – and promoted through numerous conventions all the way to the Maastricht Treaty of 1992. The next logical step was to give the EU a Constitution, to make the EU into a consolidated Federation of European States, with common economic, defense and foreign relations strategies. But this was never to be. The former French President, Giscard d’Estaing (1974 – 1981), was given the task to lead the drafting of an EU Constitution. He had strict instructions, though unknown to most, to prepare a document that would not be ratified by member states, as it would have bluntly transferred most of the EU nations sovereignty to Brussels. And so, the constitution was rejected, starting by France. Most countries didn’t even vote on the Constitution. And so, a federation of a United Europe didn’t happen. That would have been an unbeatable competition to the US, economically and militarily. NATO was eventually to take the role of unifying Europe under the control of Washington. Today, the EU is ever more integrated into NATO. What happened in parallel to the construct of a (non) European Union was the European financial and economic colonization or enslavement through the Bretton Woods Agreements in 1944. They created the World Bank to manage the Marshall Plan, the US-sponsored European reconstruction fund, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to monitor and regulate the gold standard (US$ 35 / Troy Ounce), vis-à-vis the so-called convertible mostly European currencies. In fact, the Marshall Plan, denominated in US-dollars, was the first step towards a common European currency, prompted by the Nixon Administration’s exiting the gold standard in 1971, eventually leading to the Euro, a fiat currency created according to the image of the US dollar. The Euro, the little brother of the US fiat dollar thus became a currency with which the European economic, financial and monetary policies are being manipulated by outside forces; i.e., the FED and Wall Street. The current President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, is a former Goldman Sachs executive. These are wars, albeit the latter ones, economic wars, being constantly waged, but not won. They create chaos, illusions, believes in lies, manipulating and mobilizing people into the direction the masters of and behind Washington want them to move. These are the same masters that have been in control of the west for the last 200 years; and unknown to the vast majority of the western population, these masters are a small group of banking and financial clans that control the western monetary system, as we know it today. It was brought into existence in 1913, by the Federal Reserve Act. These masters control the FED, Wall Street and the BIS – also called the central banks of central banks, as it – the BIS – controls all but a handful of the world’s central banks. This fiat financial system is debt-funding wars, conflicts and proxy hostilities around the world. Debt that is largely carried in the form of US treasury bills as other countries’ reserves. The continuation of wars is crucial for the system’s survival. It’s hugely profitable. If a war was won, peace would break out – no war industry profit there, no debt-rent for banks from peace. Wars must go on and the exceptional nation may prevail, with the world’s largest military-security budget, the deadliest weapons and a national debt, called ‘unmet obligations’ by the US General Accounting Office (GAO) of about 150 trillion dollars, about seven and a half times the US GDP. We are living in the west in a pyramid monetary fraud that only wars can sustain, until, yes, until a different, honest system, based on real economic and peaceful output, will gradually replace the dollar’s hegemony and its role as a world reserve currency. It’s happening as these lines go to print. Eastern economies, like the Chinese, with China’s gold-convertible Yuan, and a national debt of only about 40% of GDP, is gradually taking over the international reserve role of the US dollar. The US of A, therefore, will do whatever she can to continue demonizing Russia and China, provoke them into a hot war, because dominating, and outright ‘owning’ the Eurasian landmass is the ultimate objective of the killer Empire. http://clubof.info/

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nathanitatspectrum · 6 years

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Prevent and safeguarding

Introduction

The Safeguarding and Prevent Policies of Aspire Advance Achieve Ltd (3aaa) reflects the importance of safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children (those under the age of 18) and vulnerable adults. Our Policy is based on the guidance issued by the Department of Education – Working Together to Safeguard Children and Young People (2015) WT. 3aaa also complies with the statutory guidance on children who run away or go missing from home or care (January 2014) and The Prevent Duty (The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act June 2015) and Social Media for Online Radicalisation (July 2015) and this Policy should be read in conjunction with these procedures and guidance – a copy of these are available from the Academy Manager. The Prevent Duty (The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015)

Responsibilities of Apprentices and Staff All apprentices and staff have a responsibility to:

o Undertake training o Be aware of when it is appropriate to refer concerns to the Designated Safeguarding Lead o Exemplify British values of: • Democracy • The rule of law • Individual liberty and mutual respect • Tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs

What is CONTEST? CONTEST is the Government's Counter Terrorism Strategy, published in July 2006 and refreshed in March 2009. The aim of the strategy is 'to reduce the risk from international terrorism, so that people can go about their lives freely and with confidence.'

CONTEST has four strands, often known as the four Ps. The aims of the 4 Ps are: o PREVENT - to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism o PURSUE - to stop terrorist attacks through disruption, investigation and detection o PREPARE - where an attack cannot be stopped, to mitigate its impact o PROTECT - to strengthen against terrorist attack, including borders, utilities, transport infrastructure and crowded places

What is Extremism? The Government has defined extremism as "vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs". This also includes calls for the death of members of the British armed forces.

What is Terrorism? An action that endangers or causes serious violence to a person/people, causes serious damage to property or seriously interferes or disrupts an electronic system. The use of threat must be designed to influence the Government or to intimidate the public and is made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

What is Radicalisation? The process by which a person comes to support terrorism and forms of extremism leading to terrorism.

What are British Values? British values are defined as "democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance for those with different faiths and beliefs".

What is Prevent? Prevent is about stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. The long-term solution to the threat faced by the UK from domestic or international terrorism is not just about more effective policing. It is about tackling the factors that can cause people to become drawn into violent extremism and empowering individuals and communities to stand up to violent extremists.

Prevent is not about singling out a particular group. It is about addressing the real threat to the security of this country.

Today if we think of extremism or terrorism we think about one group ISIS, however 30 years ago it would have been the IRA, there are many different violent extremist groups that can cause potential harm and conflict. Below are a few examples from the proscribed Government list of 71 separate groups.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC) Proscribed June 2014 PFLP-GC is a left wing nationalist Palestinian militant organisation formed in 1968. It is based in Syria and was involved in the Palestine intifada during the 1970s and 1980s. The group is separate from the similarly named Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). 16 From its outset, the group has been a Syrian proxy. PFLP-GC has been fighting in the Syrian war in support of Assad, including in Yarmouk Refugee Camp in July 2013. The group also issued statements in support of the Syrian government, Hizballah, and Iran.

National Action Proscribed December 2016, National Action is a racist neo-Nazi group that was established in 2013. It has a number of branches across the UK, which conduct provocative street demonstrations and stunts aimed at intimidating local communities. Its activities and propaganda materials are particularly aimed at recruiting young people. The group is virulently racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic. Its ideology promotes the idea that Britain will inevitably see a violent ‘race war’, which the group claims it will be an active part of. The group rejects democracy, is hostile to the British state and seeks to divide society by implicitly endorsing violence against ethnic minorities and perceived ‘race traitors’ National Action’s online propaganda material, disseminated via social media, frequently features extremely violent imagery and language. It condones and glorifies those who have used extreme violence for political or ideological ends. This includes tweets posted by the group in 2016, in connection with the murder of Jo Cox(which the prosecutor described as a terrorist act), stating “Only 649 MPs to go” and a photo of Thomas Mair with the caption “don’t let this man’s sacrifice go in vain” and ”Jo Cox would have filled Yorkshire with more subhumans!”, as well as an image condoning and celebrating the terrorist attack on the Pulse nightclub in Orlando and another depicting a police officer’s throat being slit. The images can reasonably be taken as inferring that these acts should be emulated and therefore amount to the unlawful glorification of terrorism.

Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC) Formed in November 1999, SHAC is perhaps the leading ARE group in the UK. Its stated aim is to force the closure of Huntingdon Life Sciences. After beginning with actions against HLS, including loud and sometimes violent demonstrations outside HLS sites, infiltrations, harassment of employees (including visits to their homes to vandalise cars or other property), and a physical attack on HLS' managing director, SHAC moved on to target HLS' suppliers. SHAC would identify suppliers of virtually any service to HLS (laboratory equipment, catering, childcare, etc), and contact them to request they sever all relations with HLS ‘or face the consequences.' SHAC has a history of aggressive and reputation-damaging campaigns.

There are many other such groups can you think of any more extremist organisations?

Think about other groups such as environmental extremists as well as religious, left wing or right wing extremism.

Copy and paste the links below into your browser, look at three different extremist organisations from around the world and describe what each group stands for.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_designated_terrorist_groups

http://scribol.com/news-and-politics/politics/top-4-environmental-extremist-groups/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_left-wing_rebel_groups

Prevent is delivered in partnership by a wide range of organisations including the police service, education providers and local government. Together we recognise that the best long term solution to preventing terrorism is to stop people becoming terrorists in the first place.

Violent extremists are motivated by an ideology, which wrongly uses religion or beliefs to justify violence. Working closely with other organisations, our aim is to support local communities and institutions to challenge and reject the message of extremism. The Prevent strategy also aims to support vulnerable members of our communities by helping to divert them away from violent extremism.

This is a challenging and complex area that requires a whole community approach' between national and local organisations and embraces the experience, energy and ideas of our local communities, as well as police officers, local authorities and staff. Prevent is a long-term endeavour for us all and together we need to challenge those who support violence regardless of faith, race or background.

Violent extremists seek to exploit vulnerabilities in individuals and drive a wedge between them, their families and their communities. Working with other local and national organisations, it is the aim of the police service to support those who are being targeted and create stronger and more empowered communities who have the ability to reject violent extremism in all its forms.

How does someone first start to become involved in extremist activity? They may have previously shown no signs at all of having sympathy to, or identifying with, an extremist or terrorist cause. Clue: the answer lies in a person’s vulnerability – certain factors, whether emotional or something external, which can prompt someone to set out on the journey. The following are examples of a person’s needs, susceptibilities and motivations.

Emotional External o Confusion o Upset o Loss of identity or belonging o Sense of injustice o Bereavement o Family breakdown o Lack of role model o Anger o Lack of confidence o Isolation o Disappointment o Adolescent feelings o Peer pressure o A need for adventure or excitement o Desire to feel important o Media (especially social) o Desire for political or moral change through extremist activities o Low academic achievement o Substance misuse or mental health issues o Period of transition (move home/school) o Government/establishment policies and conventions o Religion – can be misinterpreted intentionally as it has a strong pull on people o Family or friends’ involvement in extremism

Channel What is Channel? Channel is an early intervention multi-agency process designed to safeguard vulnerable people from being drawn into violent extremist or terrorist behaviour. Channel works in a similar way to existing safeguarding partnerships aimed at protecting vulnerable people.

Who does Channel work with? Channel is designed to work with individuals of any age who are at risk of being exploited by extremist or terrorist ideologues. The process is shaped around the circumstances of each person and can provide support for any form of radicalisation or personal vulnerabilities.

How does Channel work? Each Channel Panel is chaired by a local authority and brings together a range of multi-agency partners to collectively assess the risk and can decide whether a support package is needed. The group may include statutory and non-statutory partners, as well as lead safeguarding professionals. If the group feels the person would be suitable for Channel, it will look to develop a package of support that is bespoke to the person. The partnership approach ensures those with specific knowledge and expertise around the vulnerabilities of those at risk are able to work together to provide the best support.

What does Channel support look like? Channel interventions are delivered through local partners and specialist agencies. The support may focus on a person’s vulnerabilities around health, education, employment or housing, as well as specialist mentoring or faith guidance and broader diversionary activities such as sport. Each support package is tailored to the person and their particular circumstances.

How will the person be involved in this process? A person will always be informed first if it’s felt that they would benefit from Channel support. The process is voluntary and their consent would be needed before taking part in the process. This process is managed carefully by the Channel Panel.

Who can make a referral? Anyone can make a referral. Referrals come from a wide range of partners including education, health, youth offending teams, police and social services.

What happens with the referral? Referrals are first screened for suitability through a preliminary assessment by the Channel Coordinator and the local authority. If suitable, the case is then discussed at a Channel panel of relevant partners to decide if support is necessary. Raising a concern If you believe that someone is vulnerable to being exploited or radicalised, please use the established safeguarding or duty of care procedures within your organisation to escalate your concerns to the appropriate leads, who can raise concerns to Channel if appropriate

Safeguarding 3aaa Have a duty to safeguard and promote the well-being of children and young people. This includes the need to ensure that all adults who work with children and young people are competent, confident and safe to do so. Safeguarding means “recognising that the needs, wellbeing, and safety of all apprentices and staff and that actions relating to this are in line with legislation, recommendations and guidelines. All adults who work with children and young people are accountable for the way in which they exercise authority, manage risk, use resources and safeguard children and young people

Local authorities have overarching responsibility for safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and young people in their area. This includes specific duties in relation to children in need and children suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm, regardless of where they are found under sections 17 and 47 of the Children Act 1989.

Whilst local authorities play a lead role, safeguarding children and young people and protecting them from harm is everyone’s responsibility. Everyone who comes into contact with children and families has a role to play.

Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Safeguarding means: protecting children from abuse and maltreatment. preventing harm to children’s health or development. ensuring children grow up with the provision of safe and effective care.

There are many forms of abuse some examples are listed below

Child Sexual Exploitation Child sexual abuse and exploitation includes touching and non-touching activity.

Some examples of touching activity include:

o Touching a child's genitals or private parts for sexual pleasure o Making a child touch someone else's genitals, play sexual games or have sex putting objects or body parts (like fingers, tongue or penis) inside the vagina, in the mouth or in the anus of a child for sexual pleasure

Some examples of non-touching activity include:

o Showing pornography to a child o Deliberately exposing an adult's genitals to a child o Photographing a child in sexual poses o Encouraging a child to watch or hear sexual acts o Inappropriately watching a child undress or use the bathroom

As well as the activities described above, there is also the serious and growing problem of people making and downloading sexual images of children on the Internet (also referred to as child pornography). To view child abuse images is to participate in the abuse of a child. Those who do so may also be abusing children they know. People who look at this material need help to prevent their behaviour from becoming even more serious.

Neglect Neglect is the ongoing failure to meet a child's basic needs and is the most common form of child abuse. A child may be left hungry or dirty, without adequate clothing, shelter, supervision, medical or health care. A child may be put in danger or not protected from physical or emotional harm. They may not get the love, care and attention they need from their parents. A child who's neglected will often suffer from other abuse as well. Neglect is dangerous and can cause serious, long-term damage - even death. Neglect can be really difficult to identify, making it hard for professionals to take early action to protect a child. Having one of the signs or symptoms below doesn't necessarily mean that a child is being neglected. But if you notice multiple, or persistent, signs then it could indicate there’s a serious problem.

Children who are neglected may have:

o Poor appearance and hygiene o Health and development problems o Housing and family issues

Domestic abuse Is any type of controlling, bullying, threatening or violent behaviour between people in a relationship. But it isn’t just physical violence – domestic abuse includes emotional, physical, sexual, financial or psychological abuse.

Abusive behaviour can occur in any relationship. It can continue even after the relationship has ended. Both men and women can be abused or abusers. Domestic abuse can seriously harm children and young people. Witnessing domestic abuse is child abuse, and teenagers can suffer domestic abuse in their relationships

Forced marriage Is a marriage in which one or more of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will. A forced marriage differs from an arranged marriage, in which both parties consent to the assistance of their parents or a third party (such as a matchmaker) in identifying a spouse. This is illegal in the UK under the Forced Marriage (Civil Protection) Act 2007 and can lead to up to 5 years in prison, forced marriages are often abusive relationships.

FGM Female Circumcision, and Cutting Female Genital Mutilation- also called FGM, Female circumcision, cutting or sunna – Across the world, it is estimated that 125 million girls and women are survivors of FGM. Most of these live in just 29 African and Middle Eastern Countries. FGM can also be found in other regions such as SE Asia and across Europe including the UK. FGM is mainly carried out on young girls between the ages of 8-15.

In the UK FGM has been a Criminal offence since 1985 with the introduction of the Female Circumcision Act. In 2003 the law was updates and renamed the Female Genital Mutilation ACT. This means that anyone found to be involved in FGM including sending girls abroad for FGM can be prosecuted and sent to prison for 14 years. Under UK law FGM is regarded as a human rights issues. When it involves a girl under 18 years it is regarded as child abuse, and when it involves a woman over the age of 18 it is treated as violence against women.

There are many other forms of abuse and as educational providers 3aaa are committed to keeping all our learners safe and can offer professional guidance and support.

E-Safety E-safety is in place for not only staying safe on the internet, but also other electronic form of communication, l such as wireless technology and mobile phones. The purpose of e-safety is to safeguard all activity on electronic devices and the internet, as well as raising awareness of how to stay safe.

3aaa promote the use of the internet and other forms of technology to work and learn, however, doing so in a suitable manner. As technology and the internet are easily accessible, it also unfortunately means that every user could face potential risks and consequences.

The internet is a huge part of learning, mandatory for most workplaces and is used constantly in day-to-day life. There are many advantages of the internet and its uses, however, there are also plenty of risks that result in using it. When visiting websites, it is a possibility that you may come across malicious and/or inappropriate websites with the following risks:

o Viruses & spyware (Malware) o Phishing (Obtaining your personal financial details to possible steal identities) o Fraud o Copyright violation (Illegally copying/downloading protected images, software, documents etc.) o Being exposed to inappropriate content. In addition to the internet, it is extremely important to use email safely and be cautious of sending and receiving mail. There are a few points to consider when using email:

o Never click on link or open attachments from unknown senders or suspected fraudulent senders o Do not respond to, or forward on, emails for unknown senders or suspected hoax senders o Report any scam emails and spam to the IT team who will then take the appropriate action.

As a learner at 3aaa’s, your responsibility is to report any incidents regarding e-safety either to your trainer / assessor who will forward this on, or directly to the safeguarding lead. As a learner or 3aaa’s, you are also responsible for ensuring you use all systems and devises in accordance to our policies and procedures.

General tips for E-Safety o Never enter any personal/financial information into PC’s/laptops/mobile phones o Always ensure the websites you are visiting are secure (the website address should begin with ‘https://’- the ‘s’ stands for ‘secure’. o Use a well-known, safe browser e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari etc. o Ensure you have effective ant-virus, anti-spyware and firewall software installed. o Report any inappropriate material to your assessor who will then forward it over to the it department. Report any concerns involving Safeguarding, Prevent or personal issues to the 3aaa safeguarding team below. Safeguarding Team email: [email protected], telephone: 07471 357 360 Deputy Designated Safeguarding Lead – Kate Whittaker email: [email protected], telephone: 07772 657 501 Safeguarding Officer – Ebony Newton email: [email protected], telephone: 01332 854 045 Safeguarding Officer – Karla Craven email: [email protected], telephone: 01332 854 045 By reading this Prevent Workbook and completing the following questions, you should:

1. Understand what extremism and radicalisation are 2. Know what Prevent and the Government’s CONTEST strategy are 3. Better understand what makes people vulnerable to radicalisation 4. Know your responsibilities and recognise indicators that radicalisation might be taking place 5. Understand what Safeguarding and abuse is. 6. Understand E-Safety. 7. Know what British Values are

British Values

Democracy Democracy can be seen as a state of society characterised by equality of rights and privileges. It can also refer to our nation’s electoral systems. At 3aaa we promote the importance of democracy through such things as:

o Learners being encouraged to consider alternative pathways in lessons. o Learner Voice on key areas of learner satisfaction.

Individual Liberty Individual liberty suggests the free exercise of rights generally seen as outside Government control. At 3aaa we promote the importance of individual liberty through such things as:

o Learners encouraged to voice views in lessons in a formative manner. o Learners offered autonomy over choices regarding academic pathways. o Support to gain meaningful employment in an area you want to work in.

Rule of Law All people and institutions are subject to and accountable to law that is fairly applied and enforced. At 3aa we promote the importance of the rule of law through such things as:

o There is a shared classroom code of practice. o Marking and feedback, as well as homework, policies set clear boundaries which are explained clearly to Learners o Accountability is stressed to all stakeholders including staff [teacher’s Standards], students [Student Code of Conduct], and company Board of Directors.

Mutual Respect The proper regard for an individual’s dignity, which is reciprocated. At 3aaa we promote the importance of mutual respect through such things as:

o Classroom code of practice. o Company ethos statement o Clear guidance on good behaviour in areas such as the workplace. o The publishing of a dress code for learners o Wellbeing promotes mutual respect through the skills developed in sessions.

Tolerance of Those with Different Faiths and Beliefs A fair, objective, and permissive attitude to those whose faith and beliefs may differ from one’s own. At 3aaa we promote the importance of tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs through such things as:

o Acceptance of faith symbolism. o Respecting different religious festivals and needs.

Questions to be Completed by the Apprentice

What are the 4 Ps of CONTEST? Prevent, Pursue, Protect, and Prepare

Name the 4 British Values democracy. the rule of law. individual liberty. mutual respect for and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs and for those without faith.

Name 3 forms of abuse 1: Domestic 2: Exploitation 3: Sexual

Who can report a Prevent incident? Me

Explain extremism and terrorism Using harmful and extreme ways to get across your views and ideas that will harm others.

Give 3 examples of emotional factors that might lead to extremist activity 1: media

2: peer pressure

3: Political

Explain radicalisation Getting persuaded to change your views through immoral methods.

Who would you report any concerns to? Police

What is the estimated prison sentence for anyone found to be involved in FGM? 14 years

What are 3 risks of websites? 1: Virus

2: Copyright

3: Inappropriate content

Who should you report any incidents regarding e-safety to? Trainer

Whose duty is it to safeguard children and young people? Parent or guardian

What are the definitions of Safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people? Safeguarding is the action that is taken to promote the welfare of children and protect them from harm. Safeguarding means: protecting children from abuse and maltreatment. preventing harm to children's health or development. ... taking action to enable all children and young people to have the best outcomes

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