Israeli Occupation of Palestine: Disinformation, Denials, Distortions, Distractions, and Destruction of Human Rights
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 4 Nov 2019
Mazin Qumsiyeh – TRANSCEND Media Service
29 Oct 2019 – I was today again denied entry to my city Jerusalem by the Israeli occupation authorities. If they think that helps intimidate me, this piece and actions to follow will show otherwise.
In my book, Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment, I explained the ups and downs of resistance. Setbacks and upward steps towards freedom and liberation are many. The analysis of some 14 uprisings since the late 19th century led me to several conclusions. Most importantly that the Oslo accords and the way the Palestinian authority was created took the legacy and legitimacy of the PLO to become the Vichy government in Palestine and is now the biggest impediment to popular resistance and hence to Palestinian liberation. Every day proves this point. Even when the PA hosts a “Popular Resistance” conference like the one held in Tubas last week, it is really sad to watch the dispirited spectacle.
Mahmoud Abbas and the many paid people stand distant from the destitute Palestinian people and yet speak of a state and of popular resistance. If they want us to really believe them they would be using their VIP cards to go to Gaza and join the march of return every Friday or come in front of an Israeli bulldozer demolishing a Palestinian home in the West Bank. The fact is that PA-Israel security coordination still goes on and many activists are harassed or their websites closed.
Now a recent book with more detailed analysis of how this came about is published. Polarized and Demobilized: Legacies of Authoritarianism in Palestine by Dana El Kurd is a frank assessment of how burgeoning authoritarianism among elites has divided Palestinians and divested them of political power.
Globally, people are still being killed in Yemen, Syria, Kashmir, etc. The killers doing this try to distract their public with fake news (I borrowed this term) CIA/Mossad concoctions are numerous and their creations are discarded as need be to appear to fight threats and then create new threats and new boogie-men. Hence these people are never captured or put in public trials. Even their remains are supposedly thrown in the sea.
Zarqawi (Bush) Bin Laden (Obama) and Baghdadi killed (for the third time, supposedly under Trump). The public is distracted also by the supposed conflict between Democrats (CNN as media outlet among others) versus Republicans (Fox news).
This fake media is silent on important news such as the fact that a panel of experts found ‘Unacceptable Practices’ in the OPCW’s investigation of the Alleged Chemical Attack in Douma, Syria [many have been saying the imperial and Zionist power created excuses for attacks on Syria by claiming “Assad is gassing his own people”].
The same media is also silent about the US simply going in and grabbing (to use Trump’s words) oil belonging to other countries (Syria latest example). It is silent about the impact of the military on the environment (largest contributor to devastation). It is silent about the regular home demolitions and daily Israeli violations of human rights that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is silent about Haiti and about repression in Kashmir. It is silent about the fact that the rich get richer (and literally get away with murder) and the poor get poorer. It is silence about torture and harassment of those who expose crimes (Snowden, Assange etc). It is silent about reports from UN experts that ask for decisive international action to end Israeli occupation (longest remaining in history). It is silent about our Orwellian surveillance societies (please Tell Microsoft to drop company helping Israel’s invasive facial recognition surveillance https://dropanyvision.org/).
This same media tries to implement the policies of governments based on disinformation, denials, distortions, distractions, and destruction. And paid trolls do the rest of the needed colonial/imperial work on social media.
RESPONSE? More decent people need to get together, organize, and resist. Join us. Stay Human and act positively for human rights and justice.
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Mazin Qumsiyeh, associate professor of genetics and director of cytogenetic services at Yale University School of Medicine, is founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-president of the Middle East Genetics Association. He won the Raymond Jallow Activism Award from the national Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. He is co-founder and national treasurer of Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, and has written extensively about the Middle East. Qumsiyeh is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, author of Sharing the Land of Canaan and Popular Resistance in Palestine, a professor at Bethlehem University and director of the Palestine Museum of Natural History in Bethlehem. http://palestinenature.org
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Tags: Conflict, Fatah, Gaza, Geopolitics, Hamas, History, Human Rights, Indigenous Rights, International Relations, Israel, MATW, Media, Middle East, Military, Nakba, Nonviolence, Occupation, Oslo Accords, Palestine, Palestine/Israel, Politics, Power, Racism, Religion, Social justice, Torture, UN, Violence, Wall, War, West, West Bank, World, Zionism
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 4 Nov 2019.
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