domingo, 28 de abril de 2019

The Legitimacy of Anti-Zionism


Anti-zionism is legitimate because it is the only human response to the ethnic cleansing that Israel is carrying on in Palestine. Tel Aviv is a bubble where Israeli "liberals" live in denial, however, they too recognize Israel as an apartheid state.
Apartheid is alive and well and thriving in occupied Palestine.
Palestinians know this. South Africans know this. Many Israelis have accepted this as part of their political debate. Americans are coming to terms with this, with new voices in Congress and NGOs like Jewish Voice for Peace unafraid of speaking this truth.
Only in Europe is there a steadfast denial of Israeli apartheid over Palestinians despite overwhelming evidence underlining it.
Israel's restrictions on freedom of movement in the occupied Palestinian territory are a resurrection of South Africa's hated pass laws, which criminalised black South Africans without a permit or pass to be in a "white" city. Israel's policy of forcible population removals and destruction of homes resembles the relocation of black people from areas zoned for exclusive white occupation in apartheid South Africa.
The Israeli security forces engage in torture and brutality exceeding the worst practices of the South African security apparatus. And the humiliation of black people that was a feature of apartheid in South Africa is replicated in occupied Palestine.
Racist rhetoric in the Israeli public debate offends even those familiar with the language of apartheid South Africa. The crude racist advertising that characterised campaigning in Israel's recent elections was unknown in South Africa.
Of course, there are differences that arise from the different histories, religions, geography and demography, but both cases fit the universal definition of apartheid. In international law, apartheid is a state-sanctioned regime of institutionalised and legalised racial discrimination and oppression by one hegemonic racial group against another. 
In some respects, apartheid in South Africa was worse. In some respects, Israeli apartheid in occupied Palestine is worse. Certainly, Israel's enforcement of apartheid in occupied Palestine is more militaristic and more brutal. Apartheid South Africa never blockaded a black community and methodically killed protesters as Israel is currently doing along its fence with Gaza.
These facts are well known. No one who follows the news can claim to be ignorant of the repression inflicted on the Palestinian people by the Israeli occupation army and Jewish settlers. It is common knowledge that the different legal systems for settlers and Palestinians have created a regime of separate and grossly unequal legal statuses.
Why then do Europeans consistently deny the existence of apartheid in occupied Palestine? Why is it business as usual with Israel? Why is Eurovision to be held in Tel Aviv? Why does Europe sell arms to Israel; trade with it, even with its illegal settlements; maintain cultural and educational ties? Why is Israel not subjected to the kind of ostracism that was applied to South Africa and complicit white South African institutions?
Why were sanctions against apartheid South Africa welcomed while European governments take steps to criminalise the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to secure freedom, justice and equal rights for Palestinians?
There are three explanations for this conundrum.
First, pro-Israeli lobbies in many European countries are as effective as their US counterparts without the same degree of visibility.
Second, there is Holocaust guilt. The policies of some countries towards Israel, such as the Netherlands, are still determined by guilt stemming from the failure to have done more to save Jews during World War II.
Third, and most important of all, there is the fear of being labelled anti-Semitic. Encouraged and manipulated by Israel and Israeli lobbies, the concept of anti-Semitism has been expanded to cover not only hatred of Jews but criticism of Israeli apartheid.
In the case of South Africa, President PW Botha was hated because he applied apartheid and not because he was an Afrikaner. It would seem obvious that in the same way many hate Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu because he enforces apartheid and not because he is a Jew. But this distinction is increasingly blurred in Europe. To criticise the government of Israel for applying apartheid is seen as anti-Semitism. And so it becomes dangerous and unwise to criticise Israel.
In Europe, criticism of apartheid in South Africa was a popular cause. The Anti-Apartheid Movement, which lobbied for the boycott of South African exports, trade, sport, artists and academics was encouraged and subjected to no restrictions. Governments imposed different kinds of sanctions, including an arms embargo. Public protests against apartheid were a regular feature of university life.
Criticism of Israel's discriminatory and repressive policies, on the other hand, can result in one being labelled anti-Semitic with serious consequences for one's career and social life. Consequently, there are fewer protests against Israeli apartheid on European campuses and less popular support for BDS. Public figures who criticise Israel are attacked as anti-Semites, as evidenced by the witch-hunt against members of the British Labour Party.
Until Europeans have the courage to distinguish anti-zionism and criticism of Israel for applying apartheid from real anti-Semitism - that is, hatred of Jews - apartheid will continue to flourish in occupied Palestine, with the direct complicity of Europe and the rest of the world that allow it to happen. 
When US President Donald Trump congratulated Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on his election win, he said it gave the yet-to-be-revealed US regional peace plan a "better chance"."The fact that Bibi won, I think we'll see some pretty good action in terms of peace," Trump said on Wednesday. "Everybody said you can't have peace in the Middle East with Israel and Palestinians. I think we have a chance and I think we now have a better chance," he Added.
Why Antisemites love Israel

In his election campaign, Netanyahu, whose last government was the most right-wing in Israeli history, showed little interest in peacemaking. Ahead of the vote, he said he would annex illegal Israeli settlements if he won a fifth term.
With the new coalition government likely to be even more right-wing than the last, analysts expect it will lead to tougher restrictions on Palestinian daily life and a more rapid annexation of the occupied West Bank.
The 2019 election campaign was riddled with anti-Palestinian racism as Israeli political discourse shifted further rightwards.
Of the parties elected to the Knesset, left-wing Meretz is the only predominantly-Jewish Israeli party that supports an end to the occupation. However, it has a record of supporting Israel's bombing of Gaza.
46 to 50 percent of Israel's population is  very right-wing, candidates had "correctly calculated" that they would need to compete to appear more right-wing during the campaign to win more votes.
As far as Israel's government is concerned, there is no end in sight for the 52-year-old occupation of the Palestinian territories. The candidates wouldn't even talk about a two-state solution and certainly not a Palestinian state because the phrasing is important. And the last thing they would have done was use the word 'occupation' because that's cobnsidered left-wing.
In the three election cycles after 2009, Likud has declined to offer a platform on conflict resolution or anything else, she added.
Netanyahu's renewed mandate will allow him to continue his policies of apartheid, colonisation, and racism. He has done everything in his power to make it difficult if not impossible for Israeli-Palestinians to live in what became Israel and for Palestinians to  live in the occupied territory of what was left for Palestine. It was clear with the language he's used, with the passage of the nation-state law, with series of home demolitions of Palestinians in Israel his government has taken and all these measures to erase Palestinian Identity. Bottomline, Israeli fascism and Israeli racism ends up having a disproportionate impact on Palestinians. Their existence is under real threat.
Just days ahead of the vote, Netanyahu made headlines when he promised to annex illegal settlements in the West Bank to Israel.
But annexation has already been under way for some time. There was a marked shift from de-facto to de-jure incremental annexation of the West Bank during the previous parliament shift. In four years, 60 bills pertaining to annexation were presented to the Knesset and eight were approved, becoming law in Israel. The Israel Knesset regards itself as the legislative authority in the West Bank and the sovereign there. Therefore, Israel is transforming itself into an apartheid state, in which two types of people live: Israeli citizens who have full rights and Palestinians who lack political rights, as well as other rights.
While Israeli civil law applies to Israelis living in illegal settlements in the West Bank, Palestinians living in the same territory live under Israeli military law. Israel has illegally erased the Green Line. All that has been missing is simply to do that formal annexation. But on the ground it already has been annexed.
Post-election negotiations are likely to involve Netanyahu extracting majority support for a law that would see parliament members, including prime ministers, granted immunity from prosecution.
In return, his potential coalition partners are likely to make strategic demands for positions in the cabinet or for policy guarantees, such as a form of annexation of the West Bank, assurances that no settlers will be evicted or the application of additional Israeli laws in the West Bank.
It's rumoured that the US plan, expected to be released in the coming months, will allow Israel to keep Area C, some 61 percent of the West Bank which includes the illegal settlements and areas used by the army.
According to Aluf Benn, writing in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Palestinians are expected to be offered some form of economic compensation. "If they reject the plan, as expected, it will be easier to support Israeli annexation of [the occupied West Bank], as Washington justified its recognition of Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights," he wrote.
The highly likely Palestinian rejection will drive the Israeli government to further advance the pro-settlement Policy. "Broad policies of settlement construction and limitations on Palestinian life due to supposedly Israeli security needs, will continue and be more pronounced.
Furthermore, the new right-wing coalition may promote the implementation of Israeli law in occupied East Jerusalem, most controversially completing the land registration reform so that all land in East Jerusalem will need to be registered in the Israeli land register, Zalzberg said. This could be very significant in terms of the crisis it would provoke. It would create conflicts over land between East Jerusalemites and the state of Israel.
Over the past year and a half, US President Donald Trump administration has been giving Binyamin Netanyahu's government one political "gift" after the other.
In December 2017, his administration recognised Jerusalem as Israel's capital and moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv in May 2018. In January 2018, it froze all assistance to UNRWA, the UN agency tasked with supporting millions of Palestinian living as refugees, and in June that year, it quit the UN Human Rights Council after accusing it of having a bias against Israel on account of its policies in occupied Palestine. In September, the Trump administration closed the representative office of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in Washington.
Meanwhile, it gave Netanyahu freehand to expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank, which the State Department stopped calling "occupied" in official documents and instead designated as "Israeli-controlled".
Then, just before this year's Israeli elections, Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognising Israel's annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights, which had been previously declared "null and void" by the Reagan administration and the UN Security Council.
Perhaps most alarmingly, his administration pushed certain Arab countries towards normalisation of relations with Israel without any Israeli concessions being made.
These US policies have encouraged Netanyahu, who will serve a fifth term as prime minister, to boast of maintaining forever Israeli sovereignty over a "united Jerusalem", as Israel's "eternal capital", and to vow to never relinquish Israel's control over any Palestinian territories west of the Jordan River. He has also pledged to annex all the illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
In the meantime, the Palestinian leadership and Arab rulers have done little more than issuing inconsequential statements. 
These and other changes to the traditional US foreign policy in the Middle East have come at the initiative of Trump's three top Middle East advisors: his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his two former New York lawyers, Jason Greenblatt and David Freedman, who have been actively promoting pro-Israeli policies for decades.
These three pround Zionists have clearly demonstrated their enthusiasm for Israel's illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories and their rejection of the label "occupied" for the West Bank and Jerusalem.  They are part of a group of American Zionist hardliners who opposed the "Oslo Peace Process" in the 1990s and have even made comparisons between Israeli peacemakers and Nazi collaborators. They have dismissed Palestinian national and historical rights out of hand and defended Israel's actions as ordained by God. Like their evangelical partners, they believe their boss Trump might have been anointed by God to look after Israel and reckon their interpretation of divine will supersedes the will of the international community. 
Last year, Friedman, who has been serving as US ambassador to Israel, tweeted: "More than 2000 years ago, Jewish patriots (Maccabees) captured Jerusalem, purified the Holy Temple and rededicated it as a house of Jewish worship. The U.N. cant vote away the facts: Jerusalem is the ancient and modern capital of Israel."
That the Trump trio displays such religious fundamentalism on steroids, while disingenuously insisting that they have the Palestinians' best interest at heart, should worry everyone in the Middle East and beyond.
While Kushner has remained largely quiet about the new deal, Friedman and Greenblatt have been chatty about its merits and implications for the Palestinians.

With unmatched chutzpah, both lawyers have been trolling Palestinian leaders and shaming them for not caring about the Palestinian people. They have also wrongly attacked the Palestinians for "praising" terror and harbouring terrorists, and at the same time, have wholeheartedly defended Israel against any and all criticism of its violence and repression, including by US media.
In all likelihood, the trio has been relying on the infamous "Israel Project" media guide for "leaders who are on the front lines of fighting the media war for Israel", in order to embarrass the Abbas-led Palestinian Authority and cheer the Netanyahu government. They persistently use PR gimmicks like: "We are ready to help the Palestinians, but is the Palestinian leadership ready?"
All of this prompts the question: Why should the Palestinians even consider the US plan when Kushner and company advocate for the expropriation of their land, their capital and their resources, all in the name of realism and peace? Why should they think differently, when two leading pro-Israel experts and former White House advisers reckon the plan is no more than "economy plus-plus", that is "set up for failure"?
Well, the Trump trio insist they are working on something completely different than past US initiatives, as Kushner told Time 100 Summit this week - something based on reality not fantasy - and the sooner the Palestinians embrace it the quicker their lives may improve. But if past initiatives failed because they were slanted in favour of Israel, how does making them even more favourable to Israel lead to peace?  Needless to say, no occupied or colonised nation have or ever will accept any such advice that is based purely on the logic of rogue power.
But if the US administration wants the Palestinians to come on board with the plan, why does it continue to humiliate them in public and private? After all, any new deal, like any old deal, would have to involve accepting dividing or/and sharing the land.
There's old Hebrew wisdom at play here.
In an attempt to offer his own rendition of the old adage, "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs", Mr Kushner wrote in a January 2018 email that: "Our goal can't be to keep things stable and as they are, our goal has to be to make thing significantly BETTER! Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there."

But breaking what exactly?
It seems Kushner's main goal is to break the Palestinians' spirit and their hope for a sovereign state on all territories occupied in 1967, in order to force them to settle for autonomy in parts of these territories with a down-the-road option for a "Gaza first" pseudo-state, conditional on good behaviour.
All of this reminds me of an old story Kushner surely knows - a Hebrew parable about a poor man who complained to his rabbi about living with his big family in a small house. The rabbi told him to bring all his animals into the house. Though astonished, the man did what he was told. The next day he rushed back to see the rabbi and complained that the situation has gotten much worse. The rabbi then suggested the man take out the chickens. Feeling a slight relief but still frustrated with his living arrangements, the man headed back to the rabbi, who advised him to take out another animal. This back-and-forth repeated until the man had taken all animals out. The following day he went back to the rabbi with a big smile. "O Rabbi", he said, "we have such a good life now. The house is so quiet and we've got room to spare!"
The moral of the story is that when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. In this sense, the Trump trio is trying to force the Palestinians to see that their reality is not so bad in comparison to how bad it could become.
But the truth is, changing your perspective does not change your reality. In fact, every time the Palestinians changed the way they viewed things at US insistence over the past quarter of a century, their situation has only gotten worse. Whichever way you look at it, Israel has been expanding at the expense of Palestine for décades.
It is high time for a new generation of Palestinian leaders to fundamentally reshape the reality on the ground by reversing or overcoming past and present US and Israeli policies.

PALESTINA

Along the political spectrum, from the far left to extreme right, and spanning racial and ethnic lines, nearly everyone who has something to say about protesters in Gaza seems to fail the task of recognising Palestinian humanity. If it's coming from the right, the narrative is of terrorists, rockets and Hamas, a legitimate Palestinian resistance fully cemented as the Boogieman in the western imagination.
From the left, the stories are the stuff of legends, portraying unfathomable Palestinian heroism, courage and "sumud", an Arabic word romanticised in English to convey epic Palestinian steadfastness.
At both ends of the spectrum, defenceless Palestinians are larger than life, unlike other humans, either superhumanly posing a threat to highly armed soldiers several football fields away, or displaying supernatural courage and fearlessness before near-certain death. The latter narrative, which manages to sentimentalise unspeakable misery is so enticing that even Palestinians have taken up this framing.
Just days ago, I watched a video of a young man who was shot in the legs. He limps along, falls and gets up, only to be shot again. The scene repeats over five or six bullets before the man cannot get up again and others come to evacuate him. The headline and comments extolled the "brave young man" who continued to stand up to his oppressor despite being hit multiple times in his legs.
As a Palestinian mother, I saw something else in that man, young enough to be my son. Maybe he was utterly divested of hope and robbed of the will to live a life encased in the barbaric, malicious, and creative savagery of Israel's siege on Gaza. A young man who has probably known little more than fear, despair, want, and impotence to do anything. Maybe a young man with nothing to lose, someone already bled of his rightful life, attempting a single moment of dignity in defiance, knowing, and maybe hoping, it would be his last. And maybe this is what the soldier saw, and chose instead to add the trauma of amputated limbs to a tortured man feebly raising a small rock with no will or energy to even throw it.
Maybe his motivation was nationalism. Maybe it was the hope of securing money for his family following his martyrdom or injury. Maybe he thought his death would give his people an inch towards liberty. Maybe it was the only thing left for him to do. We cannot know what is in the hearts of those who put their bodies between bullets and despair. But we can be sure that their motivations are painfully human. There is nothing godlike to see or fetishise.
There is no doubting the courage required to stand up to hateful, murderous Israelis, but narratives that imbue Palestinians with mythical bravery are harmful. They propose an otherworldly ability to withstand what no human should be forced to withstand, and they obscure the very human and very dark reality of life in Gaza, which has led to rates of suicide never before seen in Palestinian society.
Individuals in Gaza have different reasons for joining the Great March of Return, but the prevailing analyses are reductive, often coupling epic Palestinian bravery with non-violent resistance, because western imaginary cannot abide armed resistance, no matter how enduring or merciless the violence inflicted on them. The kind of heroism that is connected with guns is the exclusive purview of western soldiers. The only moral resistance available for the oppressed in the western psyche is exclusively non-violent. This means that the case for Palestinian liberty and dignity collapses the minute we fly an incendiary kite or fire a rocket towards a state that has been eviscerating Palestinian society and Palestinian bodies for decades. We see the same phenomenon around reactions in the United States when Black Americans rise up and do not perfectly conform "peaceful" and "nonviolent" protest, despite the centuries of denigration and marginalisation they have endured.
It does not help that even some Palestinians reinforce this notion by dismissing Hamas or downplaying any form of armed resistance as outliers in an otherwise ideal and tidy protest of a preternaturally strong and valiant oppressed people.
But the truth must be said, and the truth is abysmally ugly and bleak. There is nothing for the world to romanticise in Gaza. Nothing to idealise. Gaza is a death camp. Death and suppression technology is "the Jewish Nation's" single greatest export and Gaza is the human laboratory where Israeli arms manufacturers fine-tune their wares on the bodies, psyches and spirits of Palestinians. It is a wretched existence that spares none of the two million prisoners in that concentration camp.
Israel has turned Gaza, once a great city at the intersection of trade across three continents, into a black hole of dreams. Gaza is hope's coffin, an incinerator of human potential, and extinguisher of promise. People can barely breathe in Gaza. They cannot work, cannot leave, cannot study, cannot build, cannot heal. By all accounts, the tiny strip is unlivable, literally unfit to sustain life. Nearly 100 percent of the water is undrinkable. Youth unemployment is so high that it makes more sense to measure employment, which stands at a pathetic 30 percent. Approximately 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Most residents get just a few hours of electricity every day. The sewage system has collapsed. The healthcare system has been stretched to its breaking point and hospitals are closing for lack of vital supplies and fuel, which Israel often prevents Palestinians from buying or even receiving from donors. This ineffable misery is intentional. Israel designed and made it. And the world allows it to persist.
When our lives, resistance and struggle are framed in mythical terms, not only does it obscure our humanity, but it diminishes the depravity of Israel's control over millions of Palestinian lives. The discourse of sumud set us up for failure at every turn. On one hand, it supposes that Palestinians can endure anything. On the other hand, it suffuses the unuttered assumption that Palestinians deserve to be free because we are good, brave, nonviolent and steadfast.
But the truth is that we are nothing more, or less, than human. We are collectively neither monsters nor heroes, and even the worst of us are entitled to live free of foreign occupation. It must be said again and again that our struggle against our tormentors is legitimate in every form, whether nonviolent or violent. It must be said again and again that however we fight, our resistance is always self-defence. It must be said again and again that our right to life and dignity is not predicated on measures of our collective goodness, bravery or steadfastness. Ultimately, the left must stop fabulizing Palestinians and instead look squarely into the gruesomeness of the despair and anguish of Gaza, which I suspect most of us cannot even imagine.


NO to Eurovision in Tel Aviv

OCHA  



BRASIL
The Intercept Brasil
AOS FATOS:Todas as declarações de Bolsonaro, checadas
VENEZUELA

domingo, 21 de abril de 2019

NOTRE DAME: In hoc signo vinces

Nossa Senhora: Por este sinal vencerás
Para que se entenda a importância da Notre Dame na França, há de se saber muitas coisas sobre a história nacional; uma delas é quase trivial
Como indica a placa ao lado, a catedral é o ponto de partida de todas as rodovias do país. Ela é o coração da França e a bússola do "navegante". 
Em trinta minutos, os franceses descobriram no dia 15 de abril que o legado da História não é um aparelho de jantar de porcelana Sèvres ou Limoges, cristais Baccarat, facas Laguiole e faqueiro de prata Christofle que atravessam os séculos intactos por não serem aproveitados; são obscurecidos pelas perdas, encharcados de lama, lágrimas, e obscurecidos por dramas que pesam nos herdeiros como uma corcunda invisível que os esmaga.
Em trinta minutos, os franceses e os católicos mundo afora descobriram o que nos une, Nossa Senhora. Era quem lamentávamos ao ver o fogo alastrar-se por sua catedral, pois é a Ela que nos confiamos, a Ela que pedimos a bênção, a Ela que agradecemos a bonança que nos traz após tempestades que nos ajuda a atravessar nos transmitindo esperança. 
Quais olhos ficaram secos diante das chamas que engoliam a flecha e a floresta da catedral parisiense e universal? 
Quais corações não palpitaram de temor que as paredes desmoronassem e que as torres viessem abaixo? 
Quais mentes não ligaram inconscientemente o monumento universal ao patrimônio católico que nos acalenta a alma?
São pedras sobre pedras, é verdade. 
A estrutura será fortalecida, a flecha e a floresta de cedro serão reconstituídas ou modernizadas, tudo isso é certo. A pena não vinha do concreto e sim do abstrato.
Não há fé que não irrompa ou seja reforçada ao ver no altar da Notre Dame escurecida e coberta de fuligem negra a Cruz ereta e incólume após a catástrofe - como um símbolo de Deus, do Cristo da Igreja inabalável que atravessou, de pé, os séculos e inúmeros tumultos civis e religiosos. O Crucifixo que é o pilar da nossa história greco-romana-cristã e de nossa civilização; símbolo de contrição e erudição, do que temos de melhor a legar de pais para filhos e deixar para a posteridade.
O incêndio da Notre Dame é um desses males que vêm para bem.
Serviu para sacudir os católicos, descomplexá-los, tirá-los da toca intelectualizada para manifestar a fé de uns aconchegada na intimidade, de outros soterrada no âmago debaixo de um monte de interdições que enrustem, desunem e esfacelam nossa comunidade e corroem fatalmente a humanidade e a clarividência necessária nesse mundo de Bolsonaros/Trumps/Netanyahus/ evangélico-sionistas atrasados, ignorantes e desalmados. 
O mundo precisa que o catolicismo seja forte, tolerante, inabalável como as torres da Notre Dame. Que resista ao incêndio dos falsos profetas em pele de pastores de ovelhas desgarradas; que responda com presteza e certeza aos "apóstolos" improvisados que leem os evangelhos atravessado e pecam mortal em suas exegeses aproximativas (quando não totalmente deturpadas) da palavra do Cristo as tornando nocivas à evolução da humanidade.     
O Brasil, a América, a Europa, a Àfrica, a Oceânia, a Ásia, precisam do catolicismo dos estudiosos Santo Agostinho, São Tomás de Aquino e dos Franciscos, o santo e o papa, de ciência, consciência, empatia e humildade. 
Havemos de inspirar-nos na Igreja dos três primeiros séculos, no catolicismo que gerou artistas memoráveis como Pier Paolo Pasolini e escritores magistrais como Victor Hugo e seu Corcunda que iluminou a Notre Dame do século XIX aos nossos dias, com uma luz tão intensa que nenhum fogo jamais extinguirá. 
Notre Dame resistiu, altiva, mas com a modéstia da Nossa Senhora que ela encarna, a Nossa Senhora que vela por nós junto com seu filho e o Pai, per saecula saeculorum.
FELIZ PÁSCOA!
I cried seeing Notre Dame in flames. I felt a deep sorrow for the cathedral, as a culture lover as much as a Catholic and a human being. My grief was great, but as a Catholic and a human being, it hurt less than Israel's daily barbarism in the Palestinian occupied territories. Talk about loss and destruction of culture and habitat and the historical Palestine instantaneously comes to my mind, sorry.
I can't mourn Notre Dame without remembering that the Israeli ambassador to the US valiantly defended Israel's "right" to bomb hospitals in 2014 and beyond - and yet the literal "horror" of this objectively "sad spectacle" hardly drew a mob of Twitter-mourners.
Ditto for the year-long killing and maiming spree unleashed by Israeli soldiers in 2018 onto peaceful protesters near the Gaza fence, which resulted in the death of more than 260 people and the injury of close to 30,000 others.
Nor has Yemen found itself to be especially heartbreaking on the international scene, despite being under continuous assault by a Saudi-led coalition. Though the country does attract split-second attention here and there - as when a US-supplied bomb slaughtered 40 Yemeni children on a school bus last year - there's been no sustained collective weeping over reports that, since the start of the Saudi onslaught in 2015, 85,000 children may have died of starvation.
Therefore, I understand that a few Catholics and some non-Catholics have expressed dismay that there is so much international grief over the loss of a building and not over the loss of nature, or the biosphere, or of human lives. That being said, I ask, why does there need be an “either or” response? Why do some people feel the need to limit the scope of grief?
The razing of a primeval forest, the violent removal of an ancient mountaintop, the despoiling of a holy river, the unnatural death of a species, the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, the hunger in Yemen and the destruction of its gorgeous capital Sanna by Ryad and Washington; all of them wound the human psyche as well, and in far greater ways. These places are not venerated or preserved by the forces of capital except as exploitable property; and these populations are victims of greed and evil.
Like Notre Dame, they represent our collective history and future and the population that are being martyrized and erased from their roots deserve attention and action against their executioners. 
Of course that more than Notre Dame or any other human made structure, these places are the real world that we and countless species depend on for existence, and the populations that have been tortured and exterminated are our fellow human beings who depend on us for their survival. But the fact that buildings and structures are reflections of the collective human psyche itself should not be downplayed.
Some have said that Notre Dame represented colonial oppression and feudalism. But indeed, the same could be said about the Imperial Palaces of China, the monasteries of Tibet, St. Basil’s in Moscow, the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Akshardham in Delhi, even the ancient ruins of the Acropolis or Teotihuacan, the royal palaces of Britain and elsewhere. All of them represent some kind of oppression, caste or injustice. And of course each of them should be understood beyond mere romanticism and in this historical context. Many of the colonial structures we see today were erected on the razed temples or cities of conquered peoples and were placed there erase that peoples history. A message of ruthless and brutal imperial supremacy. But there is often a tendency to reduce the power of place, that enduring spirit of loci, to fit places and their nuanced and complex meaning into neat and tidy narratives. What is lost is ambiguity, movement, and the very weight of human history itself.
To be sure, there are no shortage of hideous human made structures, ones that stand atop nature scraped of its life, convey alienation, brutality and raw power. Shopping and strip malls are one example, the White House is another. They reflect the cold and ravenous narcissism and insatiable cupidity of our age. Desolate places of alienation, where mind-numbing Muzak is piped through sterile, air-conditioned, cavernous tombs. Big Box stores are another. They squat shamelessly on seas of pavement. Former wetlands, meadows and woodlands raked and drained clean of their original inhabitants. Monuments to banality and a fitting sarcophagus for capitalist consumerism.
Over time, the meaning of structures often change. Events change them. People change them. Nature changes them. But some places and structures are imbued with grace from the start. They convey both a sense of place and connection with nature and an inexplicable transcendence from the repressive systems of their times. So their destruction or desecration can understandably leave a deep psychic wound especially in a world where the wounds appear to be piling up.
Any conscious visitor to Notre Dame would have understood it to be one of those places. Beyond the holiness of the place, they would have noticed its graceful curved lines which boldly celebrated the feminine as divine. Indeed, it was built on an ancient and sacred pagan site and I cannot help but wonder if the artisans and architects reflected this either consciously or not in their work. Any visitor would have taken time to sit in its gardens which carved out a sanctuary of nature in a city bustling with noise, chaos and pollution. They would have taken refuge under the watchful gaze of more gargoyles and chimeras perched on virtually every ledge than in any Harry Potter movie. They would have marveled at the number of depictions of the Virgin Mary, a striking avatar for the pagan goddesses, and an amazing thing considering the repression of religious patriarchy elsewhere. They would have noticed its symmetry and geometry as reflections of nature and the universe or multiverse that we humans inhabit, often unconscious of it all.
So the loss of this structure is perhaps a portent of our times. A time where grace, beauty and nature itself are under perpetual siege. The flames we witnessed devouring her tender spire and arched roof are akin to the fires that are devouring our fragile biosphere. She was a refuge, now scorched. How many others await a similar fate?
It shouldn’t be too difficult to draw from the symbolism of Notre Dame’s desecration. Notre Dame, “Our Lady,” was considered the mother of God. How often is our living earth referred to as our mother? So we need not have to pare down our grief over the loss of this sacred temple. On the contrary, we should expand it to encompass the entire imperiled biosphere. The soul devoid capitalist class may have claimed her smoldering ashes as their own, as they have done with the entire planet. But they are merely pale and pitiful shadows against her walls. Notre Dame is perhaps the best human made symbol for the living earth, and she belongs to no one. On the contrary. We have always belonged to her. Our Lady. Nossa Senhora. Notre Dame. She, or her son, or the three of them - mother, Son and Father, did not allow the fire to take any human life. None. Nor did they allow the fire to desecrate the two most precious Christian symbols of the magestic cathedral: the Cross, which stood unscathed and shines more than ever, and Her image, beside it, at the altar. She keeps watching over Him and us.
As I see it, this fire came to reunite Christians all over the world and allow French catholics to come out of the closet, to break their silence, to show their grief, to pray and to sing together their faith without being mocked or reprimanded. 
The fire of Notre Dame reconcile the French for a few hours, maybe days. 
They needed it, badly. 
Our Lady knows, better.

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VENEZUELA

PALESTINA


Speaking of Our Lady above makes me think of empathy, compassion and the land where She and Her son come from, Palestine, and of course, the Palestinians run through my mind.
It makes me think that along the political spectrum, from the far left to extreme right, and spanning racial and ethnic lines, nearly everyone who has something to say about protesters in Gaza seems to fail the task of recognising Palestinian humanity. If it's coming from the right, the narrative is of terrorists, rockets and Hamas, a legitimate Palestinian resistance fully cemented as the Boogieman in the western imagination.
From the left, the stories are the stuff of legends, portraying unfathomable Palestinian heroism, courage and "sumud", an Arabic word romanticised in English to convey epic Palestinian steadfastness.
At both ends of the spectrum, defenceless Palestinians are larger than life, unlike other humans, either superhumanly posing a threat to highly armed soldiers several football fields away, or displaying supernatural courage and fearlessness before near-certain death. The latter narrative, which manages to sentimentalise unspeakable misery is so enticing that even Palestinians have taken up this framing.
Just days ago, I watched a video of a young man who was shot in the legs. He limps along, falls and gets up, only to be shot again. The scene repeats over five or six bullets before the man cannot get up again and others come to evacuate him. The headline and comments extolled the "brave young man" who continued to stand up to his oppressor despite being hit multiple times in his legs.
I saw something else in that man, young enough to be my son. Maybe he was utterly divested of hope and robbed of the will to live a life encased in the barbaric, malicious, and creative savagery of Israel's siege on Gaza. A young man who has probably known little more than fear, despair, want, and impotence to do anything. Maybe a young man with nothing to lose, someone already bled of his rightful life, attempting a single moment of dignity in defiance, knowing, and maybe hoping, it would be his last. And maybe this is what the soldier saw, and chose instead to add the trauma of amputated limbs to a tortured man feebly raising a small rock with no will or energy to even throw it.
Maybe the Palestinian youngster's motivation was nationalism. Maybe it was the hope of securing money for his family following his martyrdom or injury. Maybe he thought his death would give his people an inch towards liberty. Maybe it was the only thing left for him to do. We cannot know what is in the hearts of those who put their bodies between bullets and despair. But we can be sure that their motivations are painfully human. There is nothing godlike to see or fetishise.
There is no doubting the courage required to stand up to hateful, murderous Israelis, but narratives that imbue Palestinians with mythical bravery are harmful. They propose an otherworldly ability to withstand what no human should be forced to withstand, and they obscure the very human and very dark reality of life in Gaza, which has led to rates of suicide never before seen in Palestinian society.
Individuals in Gaza have different reasons for joining the Great March of Return, but the prevailing analyses are reductive, often coupling epic Palestinian bravery with non-violent resistance, because western imaginary cannot abide armed resistance, no matter how enduring or merciless the violence inflicted on them. The kind of heroism that is connected with guns is the exclusive purview of western soldiers. The only moral resistance available for the oppressed in the western psyche is exclusively non-violent. This means that the case for Palestinian liberty and dignity collapses the minute they fly an incendiary kite or fire a rocket towards a state that has been eviscerating Palestinian society and Palestinian bodies for decades. It does not help that even some Palestinians reinforce this notion by dismissing Hamas or downplaying any form of armed resistance as outliers in an otherwise ideal and tidy protest of a preternaturally strong and valiant oppressed people.
But the truth must be said, and the truth is abysmally ugly and bleak. There is nothing for the world to romanticise in Gaza. Nothing to idealise. Gaza is a death camp. Death and suppression technology is "the Jewish Nation's" single greatest export and Gaza is the human laboratory where Israeli arms manufacturers fine-tune their wares on the bodies, psyches and spirits of Palestinians. It is a wretched existence that spares none of the two million prisoners in that concentration camp.
Israel has turned Gaza, once a great city at the intersection of trade across three continents, into a black hole of dreams. Gaza is hope's coffin, an incinerator of human potential, and extinguisher of promise. People can barely breathe in Gaza. They cannot work, cannot leave, cannot study, cannot build, cannot heal. By all accounts, the tiny strip is unlivable, literally unfit to sustain life. Nearly 100 percent of the water is undrinkable. Youth unemployment is so high that it makes more sense to measure employment, which stands at a pathetic 30 percent. Approximately 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. Most residents get just a few hours of electricity every day. The sewage system has collapsed. The healthcare system has been stretched to its breaking point and hospitals are closing for lack of vital supplies and fuel, which Israel often prevents Palestinians from buying or even receiving from donors. This ineffable misery is intentional. Israel designed and made it. And the world allows it to persist.
When Palestinian lives, resistance and struggle are framed in mythical terms, not only does it obscure their humanity, but it diminishes the depravity of Israel's control over millions of fellow human being lives; many of them Christians like me and most of my readers. The discourse of sumud set us up for failure at every turn. On one hand, it supposes that Palestinians can endure anything. On the other hand, it suffuses the unuttered assumption that Palestinians deserve to be free because we are good, brave, nonviolent and steadfast.
But the truth is that they are nothing more, or less, than human. Just like us Brazilians, French, British, Americans or any other people.
They are collectively neither monsters nor heroes, and even the worst of them are entitled to live free of foreign occupation. 
It must be said again and again that their struggle against their tormentors is legitimate in every form, whether nonviolent or violent. 
It must be said again and again that however they fight, their resistance is always self-defence. 
It must be said again and again that their right to life and dignity is not predicated on measures of their collective goodness, bravery or steadfastness. 
Ultimately, the left must stop fabulizing Palestinians and instead look squarely into the gruesomeness of the despair and anguish of Gaza, which I suspect most of us cannot even imagine.

Daily Life Occupation

NOTRE DAME of GAZA
"As the 300-foot spire of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris tragically came tumbling down on live television, my thoughts ventured to Nuseirat Refugee Camp, my childhood home in the Gaza Strip. 
Then, also on television, I watched as a small bulldozer hopelessly clawed through the rubble of my neighborhood mosque. I grew up around that mosque. I spent many hours there with my grandfather, Mohammed, a refugee from historic Palestine. Before grandpa became a refugee, he was a young Imam in a small mosque in his long-destroyed village of Beit Daras.
Mohammed and many in his generation took solace in erecting their own mosque in the refugee camp as soon as they arrived to the Gaza Strip in late 1948. The new mosque was first made of hardened mud, but was eventually remade with bricks, and later concrete. He spent much of his time there, and when he died, his old, frail body was taken to the same mosque for a final prayer, before being buried in the adjacent Martyrs Graveyard. When I was still a child, he used to hold my hand as we walked together to the mosque during prayer times. When he aged, and could barely walk, I, in turn, held his hand.
But Al-Masjid al-Kabir – the Great Mosque, later renamed Al-Qassam Mosque – was completely pulverized by Israeli missiles during the summer war on Gaza, starting July 8, 2014.
Hundreds of Palestinian houses of worship were targeted by the Israeli military in previous wars, most notably in 2008-9 and 2012. But the 2014 war was the most brutal and most destructive yet. Thousands were killed and more injured. Nothing was immune to Israeli bombs. According to Palestine Liberation Organization records, 63 mosques were completely destroyed and 150 damaged in that war alone, oftentimes with people seeking shelter inside. In the case of my mosque, two bodies were recovered after a long, agonizing search. They had no chance of being rescued. If they survived the deadly explosives, they were crushed by the massive slabs of concrete.
In truth, concrete, cements, bricks and physical structures don’t carry much meaning on their own. We give them meaning. Our collective experiences, our pains, joys, hopes and faith make a house of worship what it is.
Many generations of French Catholics have assigned the Notre Dame Cathedral with its layered meanings and symbolism since the 12th century.
While the fire consumed the oak roof and much of the structure, French citizens and many around the world watched in awe. It is as if the memories, prayers and hopes of a nation that is rooted in time were suddenly revealed, rising, all at once, with the pillars of smoke and fire.
But the very media that covered the news of the Notre Dame fire seemed oblivious to the obliteration of everything we hold sacred in Palestine as, day after day, Israeli war machinery continues to blow up, bulldoze and desecrate.
It is as if our religions are not worthy of respect, despite the fact that Christianity was born in Palestine. It was there that Jesus roamed the hills and valleys of our historic homeland teaching people about peace, love and justice. Palestine is also central to Islam. Haram al-Sharif, where al-Aqsa Mosque and The Dome of the Rock are kept, is the third holiest site for Muslims everywhere. Yet Christian and Muslim holy sites are besieged, often raided and shut down per military diktats. Moreover, the Israeli army-protected messianic Jewish extremists want to demolish Al-Aqsa and the Israeli government has been digging underneath its foundation for many years.
Although none of this is done in secret; international outrage remains muted. In fact, many find Israel’s actions justified. Some have bought into the ridiculous explanation offered by the Israeli military that bombing mosques is a necessary security measure. Others are motivated by dark religious prophecies of their own.
Palestine, though, is only a microcosm of the whole region. Many of us are familiar with the horrific destruction carried out by fringe militant groups against world cultural heritage in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Most memorable among these are the destruction of Palmyra in Syria, Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan and the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul.
Nothing however can possibly be compared to what the invading US army has done to Iraq. Not only did the invaders desecrate a sovereign country and brutalize her people, they also devastated her culture that goes back to the start of human civilization. Just the immediate aftermath of the invasion alone resulted in the looting of over 15,000 Iraqi antiquities, including the Lady of Warka, also known as the Mona Lisa of Mesopotamia, a Sumerian artifact whose history goes back to 3100 BC.
I had the privilege of seeing many of these artifacts in a visit to the Iraq Museum only a few years before it was looted by US soldiers. At the time, Iraqi curators had all precious pieces hidden in a fortified basement in anticipation of a US bombing campaign. But nothing could prepare the museum for the savagery unleashed by the ground invasion. Since then, Iraqi culture has largely been reduced to items on the black market of the very western invaders that have torn that country apart. The valiant work of Iraqi cultural warriors and their colleagues around the world has managed to restore some of that stolen dignity, but it will take many years for the cradle of human civilization to redeem its vanquished honor.
Every mosque, every church, every graveyard, every piece of art and every artifact is significant because it is laden with meaning, the meaning bestowed on them by those who have built or sought in them an escape, a moment of solace, hope, faith and peace.
On August 2, 2014 the Israeli army bombed the historic Al-Omari Mosque in northern Gaza. The ancient mosque dates back to the 7th century and has since served as a symbol of resilience and faith for the people of Gaza.
As Notre Dame burned, I thought of Al-Omari too. While the fire at the French cathedral was likely accidental, destroyed Palestinian houses of worship were intentionally targeted. The Israeli culprits are yet to be held accountable.
I also thought of my grandfather, Mohammed, the kindly Imam with the handsome, small white beard. His mosque served as his only escape from a difficult existence, an exile that only ended with his own death." Ramzy Baroud
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