The numerous attempts by activists in flotillas, to break the siege on Gaza, are a potent reminder that hope comes through acts of resistance and that we must never accept the status quo.
Gutless wonders, yes? But it does make you realize that Trump likely knew of that which he talked, when he called msm fake news. It's been quiet about the right wing's crimes for a few decades already....the Epstein scandal being their best known success story these days.
This is heartbreaking. My greatgrandfather, a rabbi from Vilna, is buried on the Mount of Olives. My mother's uncle, after his father was buried, decided to stay in Palestine, married the girl next door, and had children. Then they had children, and the children had children. Twenty-two great grandchildren for my mother's cousin. The girl next door's family had been there since the end of the Ottoman Empire, 1795, and has 13,000 descendants. They were farmers, taxi drivers, teachers, bakery owners. If you were a woman, you hoped to find a husband during your required time in the miltary, at age 18.
And now this. I am Jewish according to my DNA. That's about it. I am horrified, deeply ashamed, and wish it were all different. We and the Palestinian Arabs are brothers by our father Abraham. Why can't we find peace?
You said it sister....which is why I always laugh when I'm told I'm anti Semitic. I've read and admired more Jewish thinkers than yer average right wing rationalizer of genocide.
They all stand against what zionism is doing in the Holy Land
Yeah, was I an antisemite when I faced down Nazi skinheads in Kiev, when I tore down their antisemitic posters? These were people who genuinely hate Jews.
How exactly do the Atlanticists justify defining "antisemitic" as any criticism of Israel govt/Zionism yet not a word about the blatantly antisemitic Azov Battalion and other Ukrainian neoNazis? Especially when in Lviv and the surrounding countryside, it's not even neo. Their hero Bandera and his gang fought on the Nazi German side in WWII.
Remember Marcia if the US were not supplying Israel with weapons they would not be able to carry out their genocide. If we didn't have the majority of politicians in the US who allowed, and continue to allow themselves to be bought off by AIPAC Netanyahu wouldn't have had a standing ovation by America's elected officials while he was in the states pushing his genocide agenda. Also culpable are those Arab states that keep there mouths shut and it's business as usual, not to mention the colonial mindset that decades before set this in motion.
No need to be ashamed for something you didn't do and could not control.
Honestly speaking, especially as Zionists seek to stir up antisemitism (as without antisemitism, real, imaginary or manufactured, Zionist demands for special pleading and double standards evaporate, the cries that Jews must maintain ethnic solidarity at all costs ring hollow and Israel's justification for its existence disappears), you're on some small level a victim, too.
As someone Jewish, you have much to be proud of. Great musicians, scientists, and above all, a tradition of justice activists, many of whom paid with their lives. The ancient prophets who spoke truth to power. The labor union organizers. The U.S. civil rights workers.
My uncle was a U.S. Army medic; one of the first Americans into Dachau, famous for its "Arbeit Macht Frei" slogan. What he witnessed scarred him for life. Mind you, he was a combat vet of WWII and Korea and became career Army. When the Holocaust deniers hit the media in the '80s-'90s, I begged him to record what he'd seen. He just couldn't--it threw him into extreme PTSD. A few months ago, Chris H. wrote about a remarkable woman, an old friend who was also a Shoah survivor. I posted about my uncle then and was hit on the right by denier and on the left by someone saying that was irrelevant since Gaza is the only issue. Both assumed I must be Jewish. (This "logic" the very definition of prejudice; to know all about someone because whatever group that someone belongs to, they're all the same.) Although I shouldn't have to say so, let me ward off a repeat: I'm not Jewish, nor have I ever been, nor has any member of my family or any of their significant others.
Given the Jewish tradition of justice, the post WWII "Never Again" clearly meant 'never again' for everyone. (Something Native Americans are very aware of, btw.) Therefore the vile behavior of Zionists is all the more horrific. But let's be very clear; Jewish =/= Zionist =/= Israeli =/= all the same. To criticize one, especially about injustice, is not to declare, or even imply, all are guilty.
I'm a proud hater of all people who claim to be jews in 2026. Third and fourth generation amerikans from germany, england, ireland france, the netherlands, west africa - anywhere in fact identify as amerikans. Except for jews. Jews identify as jews first, not the nationality in the passport some nation has kindly given them, despite the generations who have lived in lands all across this old rock.
It is no coincidence that jews have turned on the very people who provided them with shelter and succour following the xtian invasion of tghe Iberian peninsular. Followers of Islam offered them safety in West Asia, but jews being jews and following their indoctrinated hatred of outsiders (as they see them) saw Islamic charity as weakness and decided to steal land, rape and murder the community which had protected them for a thousand years.
They recognise a religion whose leaders preach torture, rape and genocide of any other community of humans they take a dislike to. Look at what Mossad has been up to in Iran the past two weeks! Killing innocents as if they were flies, for no reason other than maybe it will scare the victim's friends and family into submission.
Look at the Kabbalists who have a history of molesting children up until,then past, epstein eg that likud creep who was given a free pass out of Las Vegas last year.
There was a time when I imagined those stories were made up by the Tsar's secret police - now we know different, some Kabbalist groups have been revelling in pedophilia for centuries yet nothing happens to them as they use their contacts within the so-called jewish community to escape punishment in the rare instances where they are caught.
Normal humans who have a jewish antecedants run a million miles from this perverted 'religion' based on old wives' tales and silly superstitions. I am yet to see a temple where the poison of zionism is not indoctrinated into children from a young age. The jewish belief system is like all fascist belief systems it preaches hatred of their fellow humans and afaic anyone who claims to be a jew is identifying as a supporter of those foul philosophies.
"I'm a proud hater of all..." WHAT?!! Are you so far into darkness you're unaware this is the very definition of prejudice? A priori declaration of not having to judge individually because 'they' are all the same. Hatred toward an entire group?! Great example of rank bigotry. Ask any of us who are BIPOC and LGBTQ.
I doubt you know much about Kabbalah/cabala/qabala, either. Consider those spellings as a hint. As for"...revelling in pedophilia for centuries"? Where in hell did that come from? Solid scholarly research with vetted sources? Or maybe Proud Boys--with the rest at the infamous Unite the Right march chanting "Jews will not replace us." (Refers to an old KKK and John Birch Society claim Jews were tricking whites into procreating with non-whites to dilute the white race so easy for Jewish world control.) The alleged "pedophilia" is a version of the old blood lust charge: "they," the enemy, 'use the blood of our babies in their unholy rituals.' Wiccans, Jews, Native Americans have all been accused of that one.
"...I imagined those stories were made up by the Tsar's secret police..." That's exactly what they were! The main text is "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," long ago revealed as a forgery. Historical, literary, and textual criticism, methodologies honed over 200 years, are reliable. Yet this horrid work is still circulating, particularly among Christofascists, right wing believers in conspiracy, anti-vaxxers, and even some UFO groups. I've personally seen it referred to several times in the last few years.
A terrible indictment of the criminal state of Israel.........but it's not the first.
Only a total refusal to read or listen to any of the horrors coming out of Palestine makes it possible for western people to believe they stand with social justice, God or the planet.
Only a determined ignorance of the facts on the ground keep westerners convinced of their own goodness........or of the differences between themselves and the MAGA authoritarianism rising in America.
The truth is.......as long as we ignore this evidence, as long as we look the other way........we're all 1930's Germans, fiddling while the forces of repression come for everyone who opposes the death squads..........or is in the way of their profiteering schemes.
This is the moment to stand with the earth and the peoples of the earth.........to stand with Greta, and the brave people of the flotillas. Anything else is complicity with genocide and the monster's genocidal regimes create and enable.
Some Americans are beginning to get a tiny, partial glimpse of what the Palestinians have suffered for 75 years: arbitrary and deadly violence by a regime that operates with impunity. I feel sad, angry, and yes, impotent. My government ignores people like me, we're not even fleas on a dog to them.
It's been said if voting mattered, it would be outlawed. One can see by the resistance that voting is starting to matter more, and other popular actions like the courageous flotilla, matter more too. Our governments in the capitalist west, separate from their populus constituents, are representing their minority constituents trying to hang on to their privilege and positions. This is why there is little complaint against Israel's Zionism and almost no Palestine support. But it is difficult to suppress 9 billion people for long.
While its awful to say, given what the Palestinian people are suffering, the one thing that gives me hope is that at last, the fascism of the American (western) right is out in the open.......it is getting harder and harder to not know, to look away, to pretend that American regime change operations since Vietnam have been anything but ideological/capitalist power grabs.
And it is also getting harder and harder not to notice who's party they are. Big Fossil Fuels and Fools get rich off of extraction, war machinery and military ventures here there and everywhere. We can continue to believe in the existence of the enemy, externalized evil as it were......or we can search out other ways of being. Competititve military industrial capitalism's reign has to come to an end.
Something more humane and sustainable take its place. Either that, or its the danse macabre....extinction of the life support systems by force.
I was just reading, in the December issue of The Sun Magazine, the interview with William Rees. He is quite convinced (and gives the needed numbers) that with all the consumption and war and over population, that we are heading for a die-off. That our planet has neared the endpoint. If I could hear god's thoughts, here's what I might hear: "The dinosaurs were boring--all they did was eat and defecate, so I created a smart creature. Smart enough to destroy the glorious home I created for them. Maybe I should start over." My sorrow would be for Beethoven symphonies to never be heard again. Or artists believing that their art is not essential to human well-being.
But I'm a believer in the butterfly effect. That a single butterfly's wings could cause a tornado on the opposite side of the world. So we each need to gently and kindly do what needs to be done. I'm looking for candidates to support in the coming elections by phone banking or walking precincts. Butch Ware, anyone?
We are all being diverted from the real catastrophe. But that it takes such a bonifide idiot to do the diverting might end up telling us all something. We aren't who we think we are in the privileged west.......but living as if we were might be a good start.
The illegal arrests, the illegal imprisonments, the illegal torture, this is Trump's world, what he desires for America. It won't matter what race or color we are, everyone will be a potential victim depending upon what we say and what we do.
This is such a penetrating story. When you contrast the morality of these resisters, who risk everything against the demented mentalities that populate the ruling class, it's difficult to conceive that it is a singular species.
We are overrated as a net result
We adopted a system 500 years ago and little has changed.
We can engineer up a storm yet the simple and obvious escapes us.
There must be something fundamentally srong, mystery in so called democrazy.. How a hell every where in western countries via elections similar leadership, incabable analyse, take actions on Israel, Palestine according same brave so called western values, principles, human rights, humanity, law and justie etc.
Not even freedom of martime, kidnapping on international waters are criticised.
No critics on own citicens are tortured or more, there is no state comments.
Double faced hyporcrise, but how via democrasy, what methods managed to succeed decade after decad elected similar leaderships. Western democrazy is loosing its legitimacy and justification on this way. Now all main challenges ahead is to be denied, climate, change, peace, health water and food security etc are to put aside only issue is rearmament. Discusting, irresponsble, shameful and no sustainable hope for generation to come. Time to stand up like brave activists done and will continue -time to join efforts.
Its not anymore particular single issues, but more fundamental concurs of western false concept of democracy to take in focus due its not cabable concentrate serious world fatal challencies.. Deepers feforms needed.
Note that Israeli security forced sexually assaulted flotilla participants.
The response from the global media was silence.
Gutless wonders, yes? But it does make you realize that Trump likely knew of that which he talked, when he called msm fake news. It's been quiet about the right wing's crimes for a few decades already....the Epstein scandal being their best known success story these days.
This is heartbreaking. My greatgrandfather, a rabbi from Vilna, is buried on the Mount of Olives. My mother's uncle, after his father was buried, decided to stay in Palestine, married the girl next door, and had children. Then they had children, and the children had children. Twenty-two great grandchildren for my mother's cousin. The girl next door's family had been there since the end of the Ottoman Empire, 1795, and has 13,000 descendants. They were farmers, taxi drivers, teachers, bakery owners. If you were a woman, you hoped to find a husband during your required time in the miltary, at age 18.
And now this. I am Jewish according to my DNA. That's about it. I am horrified, deeply ashamed, and wish it were all different. We and the Palestinian Arabs are brothers by our father Abraham. Why can't we find peace?
You said it sister....which is why I always laugh when I'm told I'm anti Semitic. I've read and admired more Jewish thinkers than yer average right wing rationalizer of genocide.
They all stand against what zionism is doing in the Holy Land
Yeah, was I an antisemite when I faced down Nazi skinheads in Kiev, when I tore down their antisemitic posters? These were people who genuinely hate Jews.
'Cause my views have not changed since then.
How exactly do the Atlanticists justify defining "antisemitic" as any criticism of Israel govt/Zionism yet not a word about the blatantly antisemitic Azov Battalion and other Ukrainian neoNazis? Especially when in Lviv and the surrounding countryside, it's not even neo. Their hero Bandera and his gang fought on the Nazi German side in WWII.
Simple, they aren't interested in consistency but in pushing their agenda.
Remember Marcia if the US were not supplying Israel with weapons they would not be able to carry out their genocide. If we didn't have the majority of politicians in the US who allowed, and continue to allow themselves to be bought off by AIPAC Netanyahu wouldn't have had a standing ovation by America's elected officials while he was in the states pushing his genocide agenda. Also culpable are those Arab states that keep there mouths shut and it's business as usual, not to mention the colonial mindset that decades before set this in motion.
Yup. So, unless you are a US or eu politician or an Arab despot, then you are no more guilty than anyone else.
Leave Sippenhaft (kin responsibility) to the Nazis.
No need to be ashamed for something you didn't do and could not control.
Honestly speaking, especially as Zionists seek to stir up antisemitism (as without antisemitism, real, imaginary or manufactured, Zionist demands for special pleading and double standards evaporate, the cries that Jews must maintain ethnic solidarity at all costs ring hollow and Israel's justification for its existence disappears), you're on some small level a victim, too.
As someone Jewish, you have much to be proud of. Great musicians, scientists, and above all, a tradition of justice activists, many of whom paid with their lives. The ancient prophets who spoke truth to power. The labor union organizers. The U.S. civil rights workers.
My uncle was a U.S. Army medic; one of the first Americans into Dachau, famous for its "Arbeit Macht Frei" slogan. What he witnessed scarred him for life. Mind you, he was a combat vet of WWII and Korea and became career Army. When the Holocaust deniers hit the media in the '80s-'90s, I begged him to record what he'd seen. He just couldn't--it threw him into extreme PTSD. A few months ago, Chris H. wrote about a remarkable woman, an old friend who was also a Shoah survivor. I posted about my uncle then and was hit on the right by denier and on the left by someone saying that was irrelevant since Gaza is the only issue. Both assumed I must be Jewish. (This "logic" the very definition of prejudice; to know all about someone because whatever group that someone belongs to, they're all the same.) Although I shouldn't have to say so, let me ward off a repeat: I'm not Jewish, nor have I ever been, nor has any member of my family or any of their significant others.
Given the Jewish tradition of justice, the post WWII "Never Again" clearly meant 'never again' for everyone. (Something Native Americans are very aware of, btw.) Therefore the vile behavior of Zionists is all the more horrific. But let's be very clear; Jewish =/= Zionist =/= Israeli =/= all the same. To criticize one, especially about injustice, is not to declare, or even imply, all are guilty.
I'm a proud hater of all people who claim to be jews in 2026. Third and fourth generation amerikans from germany, england, ireland france, the netherlands, west africa - anywhere in fact identify as amerikans. Except for jews. Jews identify as jews first, not the nationality in the passport some nation has kindly given them, despite the generations who have lived in lands all across this old rock.
It is no coincidence that jews have turned on the very people who provided them with shelter and succour following the xtian invasion of tghe Iberian peninsular. Followers of Islam offered them safety in West Asia, but jews being jews and following their indoctrinated hatred of outsiders (as they see them) saw Islamic charity as weakness and decided to steal land, rape and murder the community which had protected them for a thousand years.
They recognise a religion whose leaders preach torture, rape and genocide of any other community of humans they take a dislike to. Look at what Mossad has been up to in Iran the past two weeks! Killing innocents as if they were flies, for no reason other than maybe it will scare the victim's friends and family into submission.
Look at the Kabbalists who have a history of molesting children up until,then past, epstein eg that likud creep who was given a free pass out of Las Vegas last year.
There was a time when I imagined those stories were made up by the Tsar's secret police - now we know different, some Kabbalist groups have been revelling in pedophilia for centuries yet nothing happens to them as they use their contacts within the so-called jewish community to escape punishment in the rare instances where they are caught.
Normal humans who have a jewish antecedants run a million miles from this perverted 'religion' based on old wives' tales and silly superstitions. I am yet to see a temple where the poison of zionism is not indoctrinated into children from a young age. The jewish belief system is like all fascist belief systems it preaches hatred of their fellow humans and afaic anyone who claims to be a jew is identifying as a supporter of those foul philosophies.
"I'm a proud hater of all..." WHAT?!! Are you so far into darkness you're unaware this is the very definition of prejudice? A priori declaration of not having to judge individually because 'they' are all the same. Hatred toward an entire group?! Great example of rank bigotry. Ask any of us who are BIPOC and LGBTQ.
I doubt you know much about Kabbalah/cabala/qabala, either. Consider those spellings as a hint. As for"...revelling in pedophilia for centuries"? Where in hell did that come from? Solid scholarly research with vetted sources? Or maybe Proud Boys--with the rest at the infamous Unite the Right march chanting "Jews will not replace us." (Refers to an old KKK and John Birch Society claim Jews were tricking whites into procreating with non-whites to dilute the white race so easy for Jewish world control.) The alleged "pedophilia" is a version of the old blood lust charge: "they," the enemy, 'use the blood of our babies in their unholy rituals.' Wiccans, Jews, Native Americans have all been accused of that one.
"...I imagined those stories were made up by the Tsar's secret police..." That's exactly what they were! The main text is "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion," long ago revealed as a forgery. Historical, literary, and textual criticism, methodologies honed over 200 years, are reliable. Yet this horrid work is still circulating, particularly among Christofascists, right wing believers in conspiracy, anti-vaxxers, and even some UFO groups. I've personally seen it referred to several times in the last few years.
And don't get me started on the Crusades!
Sigh.
A terrible indictment of the criminal state of Israel.........but it's not the first.
Only a total refusal to read or listen to any of the horrors coming out of Palestine makes it possible for western people to believe they stand with social justice, God or the planet.
Only a determined ignorance of the facts on the ground keep westerners convinced of their own goodness........or of the differences between themselves and the MAGA authoritarianism rising in America.
The truth is.......as long as we ignore this evidence, as long as we look the other way........we're all 1930's Germans, fiddling while the forces of repression come for everyone who opposes the death squads..........or is in the way of their profiteering schemes.
This is the moment to stand with the earth and the peoples of the earth.........to stand with Greta, and the brave people of the flotillas. Anything else is complicity with genocide and the monster's genocidal regimes create and enable.
Some Americans are beginning to get a tiny, partial glimpse of what the Palestinians have suffered for 75 years: arbitrary and deadly violence by a regime that operates with impunity. I feel sad, angry, and yes, impotent. My government ignores people like me, we're not even fleas on a dog to them.
a flotilla of states would be appreciated !!!!!
It's been said if voting mattered, it would be outlawed. One can see by the resistance that voting is starting to matter more, and other popular actions like the courageous flotilla, matter more too. Our governments in the capitalist west, separate from their populus constituents, are representing their minority constituents trying to hang on to their privilege and positions. This is why there is little complaint against Israel's Zionism and almost no Palestine support. But it is difficult to suppress 9 billion people for long.
While its awful to say, given what the Palestinian people are suffering, the one thing that gives me hope is that at last, the fascism of the American (western) right is out in the open.......it is getting harder and harder to not know, to look away, to pretend that American regime change operations since Vietnam have been anything but ideological/capitalist power grabs.
And it is also getting harder and harder not to notice who's party they are. Big Fossil Fuels and Fools get rich off of extraction, war machinery and military ventures here there and everywhere. We can continue to believe in the existence of the enemy, externalized evil as it were......or we can search out other ways of being. Competititve military industrial capitalism's reign has to come to an end.
Something more humane and sustainable take its place. Either that, or its the danse macabre....extinction of the life support systems by force.
I was just reading, in the December issue of The Sun Magazine, the interview with William Rees. He is quite convinced (and gives the needed numbers) that with all the consumption and war and over population, that we are heading for a die-off. That our planet has neared the endpoint. If I could hear god's thoughts, here's what I might hear: "The dinosaurs were boring--all they did was eat and defecate, so I created a smart creature. Smart enough to destroy the glorious home I created for them. Maybe I should start over." My sorrow would be for Beethoven symphonies to never be heard again. Or artists believing that their art is not essential to human well-being.
But I'm a believer in the butterfly effect. That a single butterfly's wings could cause a tornado on the opposite side of the world. So we each need to gently and kindly do what needs to be done. I'm looking for candidates to support in the coming elections by phone banking or walking precincts. Butch Ware, anyone?
William Rees has one of clearest descriptions of our ecological predicament.
You would also enjoy Nate Hagens
We are all being diverted from the real catastrophe. But that it takes such a bonifide idiot to do the diverting might end up telling us all something. We aren't who we think we are in the privileged west.......but living as if we were might be a good start.
Best of luck and stay safe.
Well said, Ingamarie!
why doesn't the pope lead a flotilla. what would Jesus do?
Thank you.
The illegal arrests, the illegal imprisonments, the illegal torture, this is Trump's world, what he desires for America. It won't matter what race or color we are, everyone will be a potential victim depending upon what we say and what we do.
This is such a penetrating story. When you contrast the morality of these resisters, who risk everything against the demented mentalities that populate the ruling class, it's difficult to conceive that it is a singular species.
We are overrated as a net result
We adopted a system 500 years ago and little has changed.
We can engineer up a storm yet the simple and obvious escapes us.
There must be something fundamentally srong, mystery in so called democrazy.. How a hell every where in western countries via elections similar leadership, incabable analyse, take actions on Israel, Palestine according same brave so called western values, principles, human rights, humanity, law and justie etc.
Not even freedom of martime, kidnapping on international waters are criticised.
No critics on own citicens are tortured or more, there is no state comments.
Double faced hyporcrise, but how via democrasy, what methods managed to succeed decade after decad elected similar leaderships. Western democrazy is loosing its legitimacy and justification on this way. Now all main challenges ahead is to be denied, climate, change, peace, health water and food security etc are to put aside only issue is rearmament. Discusting, irresponsble, shameful and no sustainable hope for generation to come. Time to stand up like brave activists done and will continue -time to join efforts.
Its not anymore particular single issues, but more fundamental concurs of western false concept of democracy to take in focus due its not cabable concentrate serious world fatal challencies.. Deepers feforms needed.