Children As Grass

golden sheaves
spread in school yard
salt coast grown,
resistant stems
of native centuries
warned from homes
to wretched refuge
without respite
no shafts to freedom
where none are safe

threat of grass
and budding seed
shields real estate
coveted by
lawnmower men
with tunnel vision
of western pretexts,
colonial deterrents
to permanence,
not never again,
but again and again

unseen drone buzz
no fertilising bee
searing scythe
explodes from thirsty sky
row on row ripped
before flower blown
monstrous harvest
in Gaza charnel house
beneath earth strewn
with blood and bone
olive tree kernels awaken

August 2014

Names of Palestinians Killed in the War on Gaza since 8 July

AUGUST 1 UPDATE: Child death toll in Gaza approaches 200 and rising

Related Links

The IDF prepares to attempt to cover its tracks, but thousands of photos of disproportionate death and destruction don’t lie. Israel has been engaged in a deliberate, planned act of genocide, with accompanying war crimes. Its attack on the Occupied people of Gaza breaches the Geneva Conventions in the first place. Israel to the Hague!

Another vile story calls for genocide of Gazans in the Israeli media, this time in JPost and phrased as ‘humanitarian relocation of the non-belligerent Arab population’

The author of this scurrilous piece of incitement, Dr. Martin Sherman of the Israeli Institute for Strategic Studies, has the gall to quote Einstein in support of his solution for the Palestinian question “No, periodically mowing the lawn is not a policy that can endure for long – it simply will not cut it. The grass needs to be uprooted – once and for all.”

How do these drooling fascists live with themselves?

More zionist genocidalists – Prof. Efraim Inbar is director and Dr.Eitan Shamir a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

Against an implacable, well-entrenched, non-state enemy like the Hamas, Israel simply needs to “mow the grass” once in a while to degrade the enemy’s capabilities.

Another genocidal Israeli lawnmower man: David M. Weinberg is Director of Public Affairs at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies

Racism is the Foundation of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge Joel Beinin:

The viciousness of Mordechai Kedar, lecturer in Arabic literature at Bar Ilan University, was even more creative than Shaked and Elitzur’s merely genocidal proposal. “The only thing that can deter terrorists like those who kidnapped the children and killed them,” he said, “is the knowledge that their sister or their mother will be raped.” As a university-based “expert,” Kedar’s heinous suggestion is based on his “understanding” of Arab culture. “It sounds very bad, but that’s the Middle East,” he explained, hastening to add, “I’m not talking about what we should or shouldn’t do. I’m talking about the facts.”

Racism has become a legitimate, indeed an integral, component of Israeli public culture, making assertions like these seem “normal.”

Israeli security officials sardonically call these operations “mowing the lawn” because well-informed observers know that Hamas cannot be uprooted and is capable of rebuilding its military capacity. There is no long-term strategy, except, as Gideon Levy put it, to kill Palestinians. Major General (res.) Oren Shachor elaborated, “If we kill their families, that will frighten them.” And what might deter Israel?

Times of Israel publishes a zionist’s defence of genocide – the article was withdrawn but is archived.

Behind the Lying Eyes of Mark Regev

Behind the lying eyes of Mark Regev from One Democratic State Group on Vimeo.

Discrimination against Arab families:

‘In an attempt to lure the small ultra-Orthodox party United Torah Judaism into his new government, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has agreed to pay extra child allowance to religious Jewish families with many children in a way that guarantees the extra payments do not also go to large Arab families.

This is the latest in a long line of manoeuvres by successive Israeli governments to ensure that Jewish and Arab citizens receive differential child allowances so that higher birth rates among Jewish families can be encouraged without also encouraging increased fertility among Arab families.

Such schemes are widely seen as being part of government initiatives to counter the perceived “demographic threat” posed by high Arab birth rates and maintaining Israel’s Jewish majority. Child allowance was only equalised for Jews and Arabs in the mid-1990s.’

Olmert and the ‘demographic threat’:

‘The time is fast approaching when Arabs will constitute a majority in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza. Then, Olmert said, Palestinians will abandon their calls for an independent state and instead will demand a one-man-one-vote system in a binational state that they will control.

“The day we come to that, we will lose everything” Olmert said. “Even when they carry out terror, it’s hard for us to convince the world of the justice of our cause.”

“How much the more so,” he continued, “when all they ask for is one man, one vote? I shudder to think that the same liberal Jews who led the struggle against apartheid in South Africa will be at the forefront of the struggle against us.”’

More Olmert:

‘Mr Olmert said it was not the first time he had articulated his fears about the demographic threat to Israel as a Jewish state from a faster growing Palestinian population.

He made similar comments in 2003 when justifying the failed strategy of unilateral withdrawals from Israeli-occupied land which holds large Palestinian populations.

“If the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished,”

Rape of Palestinian women:

‘If the Or Yehuda banner only hinted at rape and the WhatsApp image played coyly with it, a leading Israeli academic blatantly floated the idea of using rape against the Palestinians at the very start of the current round of hostilities.

On July 1, just after the bodies of three Israeli teens who had gone missing in the West Bank were found, Bar Ilan University lecturer Dr. Mordechai Kedar spoke on Israeli radio about raping Palestinian women in order to deter “terrorism,” saying that only the knowledge that Israel could dispatch agents to rape a Palestinian militant’s mother or sister, as retribution for his crimes, could deter him from carrying out those actions.’

Here’s Netayahoo in 2003 bemoaning the ‘demographic threat’ of Palestinian wombs in Israel:

Israel’s growing demographic problem is not because of Palestinians, but of Israeli Arabs, Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday.

Speaking at the Herzliya Conference on security, Netanyahu said Israel had already freed itself from control of almost all Palestinian Arabs. He said he could not foresee a future in which “any sane Israeli” could try to make Palestinians either Israeli citizens or “enslaved subjects.” The Palestinians would under all circumstances rule themselves and administer their own affairs, he said.

“If there is a demographic problem, and there is, it is with the Israeli Arabs who will remain Israeli citizens,” he said. The Declaration of Independence said Israel should be a Jewish and democratic state, but to ensure the Jewish character was not engulfed by demography, it was necessary to ensure a Jewish majority, he said.

Joseph Massad – “Are Palestinian Children Less Worthy”

Who could forget these IDF T-shirts?

Deliberately killing children:

“Monica Awad, the spokeswoman of the UNICEF, condemned Israel’s targeting of women and children in its ongoing assault on the Gaza Strip.”

In an interview with Al-Jazeera on 31 July, Awad said “Israeli forces had deliberately killed 264 children in Gaza, which is equal to 11 children per day, and injured more than 2,000.”

“Where’s the international community’s reactions to the slaughtering of children in Gaza? Where are the international human rights covenants?”

IDF Sniper Admits On Instagram To Murdering 13 Gaza Children

Visible in Gaza

They shot the child in her innocent beauty
said she was a human shield
she made them do it they said
yet she was just a child.

They shot the mother who held the child
her womb a demographic threat
she made them do it they said
yet she was only a mother.

They shot the boy who ran from them
said his stones were missiles
he made them do it they said
his face blazes at them still.

Sylvia Posadas, July 2014.

Talib Kweli – Solidarity with those who live it is a stronger statement

Talib KweliAfter investigating the Palestinian-led call to boycott, divest and sanction Israel, US rapper artist Talib Kweli announced on twitter that he would respect BDS. Kweli was supposed to appear in an international hip-hop, funk and groove festival planned for mid-August at Hadera.

“As much as I want to play Israel, I have decided not to in solidarity with Palestinians who will not have access to my show. After days of discussions with many, I’ve decided to try & visit Israel & Palestine with those who fight to end the state of apartheid rather than use my art to force the issue on those who would rather not deal with it.”

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484157171332960257
https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484157612817010688
https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484157780257828864

Further, Kweli added:

“at the end of the day, whether I agree with boycott or not, it is my duty to respect it as a tactic. Hopefully it works…”

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484384292793896961

Kweli, who is well-known for the political content of his work, proved unresponsive to the usual calls from Israel’s propagandists that ‘music isn’t political’ and that ‘music is above politics’.

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484372093883015168

Other Israeli hasbara agents wondered why Talib would support the Palestinian-led boycott but not boycott Russia or the US.

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484356303980998656

Talib identified three main reasons why he decided to support BDS:

(1) Discussions with members of DAM, Palestinian Israeli rap group.

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484383577610539008

(2) ‘the responses on twitter from BDS supporters were compassionate, measured, informed an respectful for the most part’
https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484383811149365248

(3) ‘reading abt Paul Simon recording Graceland in SA in defiance of boycott & how he thought Mandela was a terrorist back then…’
https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484384012828278784

Ultimately, Kweli decided “being in solidarity with those who live it would be a stronger statement…

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484351043308748800

Talib Kweli’s thoughtful, principled solidarity with Palestinians and their call for boycott of Israel is deeply appreciated, particularly at this time when Israel is engaged in a racist rampage of collective punishment against Palestinians, incited by Israeli leaders.

https://twitter.com/TalibKweli/status/484367953526153217

Related Links

Le rappeur américain Talib Kweli Greene annule son concert en apartheid Israël

Senator Nick Xenophon on Israel’s Occupation of the Palestinian Territories

In the Australian Parliament, Senator Nick Xenophon describes in detail why the Palestinian Territories are indeed occupied according to international law, also highlighting that Israel’s own highest court stated in 2004 Israel holds the Territories in belligerent occupation.

Related Links

Xenophon Smashes Brandis-Abbott Spin On Occupied Palestine
Senator Nick Xenophon’s speech to the Australian Senate on Palestine: Abbott government spin on Palestine is “factually untrue, legally ignorant and most unhelpful”

Mariza Plays at the Mediterranean Festival in Apartheid Israel

Palestinians expelled in the Nakba
Palestinians flee invading Israeli forces in 1948
Today, May 27th 2014, Portugese fadista Mariza played at the Mediterranean festival in Ashdod despite a petition and letters from supporters of the BDS movement asking her to respect the Palestinian-led boycott of Israel. Sadly, Mariza’s performance will be utilised as propaganda to obscure Israel’s abuses of Palestinian people and colonisation of their lands. Israel unashamedly uses all culture as propaganda to represent itself and its torment of Palestinians as ‘normal’, operating a sophisticated global network controlled by the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel. This Hasbara Apparatus strenuously attempts to prevent the attainment of basic rights, freedom and justice for Palestinians and sabotage actions which support these such as BDS.

Mariza sang in Ashdod, which before all its Palestinian inhabitants were expelled to Gaza by invading Israelis in 1948, was called Isdud or Asdoud. Israeli forces surrounded the town during Operation Pleshet, shelling and bombing it from the air. For three nights from the 18th October, the Israeli Air Force bombed Isdud. With the exception of its two schools, its crumbling mosque, and one of its shrines, Isdud was obliterated when Israel occupied it in on the 28th October, 1948. Most of the Palestinians who were driven from their homes then are corralled by Israel’s apartheid fence in Gaza now, only 40 kms (25 miles) south of their homes in Isdud. Along with their descendants, they are besieged and subjected to ongoing collective punishment by Israel.

The Mediterranean festival illustrates the disingenuous sanitization of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against Palestinians, through the appropriation of Mediterranean culture and music. Similarly, Israel subsumes Palestinian and Mediterranean food like falafel, hummus and couscous.

When on Saturday 25th May, Mariza appeared in Lisboa as the musician headlining the UEFA Champions League opening ceremony, she later celebrated having a photo with Real Madrid star, Cristiano Ronaldo. Perhaps she will have another opportunity to learn from him why Ronaldo has expressed his support for Palestinians, such as raising money from the sale of sports shoes by his club’s charity foundation for schools in Gaza through auction, and though belated she will realise she should have not performed in Israel and will refrain from returning.

Co-authored by Yael Kahn