From the River to the Sea

November 2, 2023November 10, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

The national motto of Canada, “A Mari Usque Ad Mare,” which translates to “From sea to sea,” marks the occupation of a land which the prior occupants still call Turtle Island. While this proprietary geographical imagery derives from the Biblical Psalm 72:8, “He shall have dominion from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth,” its eschatological sense of “dominion” has been repeatedly transposed into an imperial one throughout the Common Era. The territorial imagery of “A mari Usque Ad Mare,” is evoked again in ‘America the Beautiful’, a popular patriotic song often confused with the American National anthem,

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

This proprietary boundary symbolism seems to be an identifiable feature of European settler colonial imagery and lore. Indeed, European settler colonialism can be said to have been inaugurated in 1452, when Roman Catholic Pope Nicholas V issued the bull Dum Diversas, authorizing King Afonso V of Portugal to subjugate the lands and the lives of non-Christians. While Zionism does not derive from this Christian ‘doctrine of discovery’, the founding of Israel in the violent displacement of native Palestinians by non-native European Jews, can be seen as the last significant instantiation of such an ethnopolitical ‘dominion’.

Given both the history of settlement and erasure of Palestinians from their lands and the fact that in the past month, 10,733 Palestinians have been killed (10,569 in Gaza and 164 in the West Bank, November 8, 10:50 GMT Update) with the complicity of the collective West, I wonder if it is a guilty self-projection that underpins the interpretation that the freedom slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as a call for genocide (mass killing or other form of eradication with intent)? In fact, as Israeli historian Avi Shlaim has recently explained, this is not a call for the destruction of the state of Israel, but “a call for freedom ‘from the river to the sea’ for everybody.

Image: https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/from-sea-to-shining-sea.html

https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/dum-diversas/

https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/why-israel-isnt-a-settler-colonial-state/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2023/10/9/israel-hamas-war-in-maps-and-charts-live-tracker

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the -palestinian-slogan-really-mean

Viva Bolivia!

October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Bolivia’s government severed diplomatic relations with Israel on Tuesday 31 October 2023, accusing it of carrying out “crimes against humanity” in Gaza. María Nela Prada Tejada, a diplomat, politician, minister of the Bolivian presidency said categorically, “We demand an end to the attacks on the Gaza Strip which have so far claimed thousands of civilian lives and caused the forced displacement of Palestinians.”

https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/bolivia-severs-diplomatic-ties-israel-104524467

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/31/bolivia-israel-hamas-gaza-war-crime

The Nakba is Ongoing

October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Ilan Pappé notes, in an interview prefaced by a reference to the leaked Israeli document which outlines a plan to displace the entire Gaza population into the Sinai Desert, “what unfolds in front of our eyes is a genocidal situation …this is a massive operation of killing, of ethnic cleansing of the population. The pretext for that kind of savagery is revenge for what the Hamas did on the 7th of October but I think the real intention here is … to create new realities in historical Palestine.” He goes on to state that the Nakba has never really ended for the Palestinians so it’s a new horrific chapter in the ongoing Nakba.” Pappé is a professor of history and the director of the European Centre for Palestine Studies at the University of Exeter. See also an earlier interview here – Terrorism and Genocidal Revenge

October 7 Casualty Count Interrogated

October 31, 2023October 31, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Max Blumenthal makes the explosive proposition that the Israeli military shelled the homes of Israeli civilians and made helicopter attacks on civilian cars and Israeli bases as they fought to dislodge Hamas militants from the country’s south on October 7. Based on 1st person accounts and other Israeli sources, he argues that the substantiated death count is only about 900 and not around 1400 as Israel claims. Most significantly, he suggests that an undertermined proportion of these deaths might have been self-inflicted, resulting from Israeli military protocols that are aimed at meeting Palestinian incursions with devastating force and also at minimizing hostage negotiation situations. He concluded, “Indeed, it appears that on October 7, Israel’s military resorted to the same tactics it has employed against civilians in Gaza, driving up the death toll of its own citizens with the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons.”

https://newsparadigm.substack.com/p/max-blumenthal-october-7-testimonies

The Shame of the Sunaks

October 31, 2023November 8, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

European settler colonialism was initiated in the 15th century, on the premise of a divinely ordained white supremacy¹, and the founding of Israel in the land of the Palestinians during the British Mandate in the 20th Century was the last significant instantiation of this mode of ethnopolitical domination, albeit it might be seen as a species of settler colonialism all of its own.² The current British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, removed Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Paul Bristow from his post for rebelling against the government’s position on the ongoing war in Gaza. Bristow had expressed his support for a ceasefire and called on the PM to push for an end to fighting between Israel and Hamas. That Sunak, who rose to his high station in the British polity from Indian origins, and who should, therefore, be alert to the inhumanity of subjugation, would be complicit in Israel’s genocidal colonial expansion in the 21st century, is a shame unto him, his family, and their origins.

This theocratic doctrine was initiated 1452, when Pope Nicholas V issued a bull Dum Diversas which authorized King Afonso V of Portugal, to subjugate the lands of non-Christians.
While, it can be argued that Zionism does not derive directly from the Christian ‘doctrine of discovery’, the ethos of populating lands of non-Jews with European Jewish settlers under the auspices and geo-political designs of the British Empire, in my opinion, within the bounds of a broad notion of settler colonialism.

Image: https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/rishi-sunak-piles-pressure-on-spineless-keir-starmer-as-he-sacks-parliamentary-aide-paul-bristow-for-defying-him-with-demand-for-a-permanent-ceasefire-in-gaza/ar-AA1j6jnu

https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/israel-hebrew/why-israel-isnt-a-settler-colonial-state/

https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/dum-diversas/

Israel Invokes the Holocaust

October 31, 2023November 9, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, donned the despicable yellow star that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis to mark them out as such in Aryan society. After saying “From now on my team and I will wear Yellow Stars”. He stood up to put on his star, sat down again, and said, “We will wear this star until you condemn the atrocities of Hamas and demand the immediate release of our hostages.” The original yellow star had the word ‘Jude’ emblazoned across its center, while the ambassador and his delegation donned stars that said, ‘Never Again’. The Irony of this political theatre at the UN is that the Holocaust had already been invoked in the mediain a comparison with the contemporary Israeli persecution of Palestinians. Palestinian American celebrity Mohamed Hadid made a much maligned repost of a meme on X which itemised the 6 congruities between Israel and the Nazis . Hadid was accused of antisemitism and eventually removed his post. I have restated the correlations presented in the meme below –
1. an ideology/nationality based on racial supremacy,
2. the forced transfer of populations,
3. containment within ghettos and concentration camps,
4. the use of language to dehumanize,
5. collective punishment and
6. genocide by industrial means.

Image: https://staging-beta.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2023/10/31/israel-envoy-wears-yellow-star-at-un/

https://www.firstpost.com/world/staying-silent-in-face-of-evil-israel-envoy-to-un-vows-to-wear-yellow-star-until-un-condemns-hamas-atrocities-13323472.html

https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/culture/tierin-rose-mandelburg/2023/10/30/deport-him-bella-gigi-hadids-dad-roasted-comparing

Le Massacre des Innocents

October 26, 2023December 20, 2023 ~ The Koboi Project

The Massacre of Innocents is a 17th-century masterpiece by Nicolas Poussin that crystalizes, in the portrayal of a single imminent action, an eternal image of child murder. According to the Bible, King Herod the Ascalonite, who was a vassal of Imperial Rome in Judea, feared the advent of a new ‘King of the Jews.’ Unable to ascertain the precise location or age of the new-born Jesus Christ, he decreed the collateral slaughter of all the babies under 2 years old in and around Bethlehem (Matthew 2:1). This ancient specter of child murder has returned to haunt us today, both in the debunked (updated December 20) Israeli claim that HAMAS beheaded 40 babies in its fearsome raid on October 7th and, more concretely, in the number of dead Gazan children, laid waste in Israel’s fearful response.

UPDATE: The number of Palestinian children slaughtered stands at 8,663 (this figure is an estimate as of December 19).