The Shame of the Sunaks

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.

  1. 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. 
  2. 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/

Le Massacre des Innocents

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).

See also:

Netanyahu channels Herod!

Grace in the Face of Suffering

The Advance of Maleficence

Witness to Slaughter

https://bible.oremus.org/?passage=Matthew%202:16&version=nrsv

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/hamas-behaded-babies-israel-unconfirmed-reports-spread/

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

https://news.sky.com/story/its-important-to-separate-the-facts-from-speculation-what-we-actually-know-about-the-viral-report-of-beheaded-babies-in-israel-12982329

Shame on US

The United States was the only member of the Security Council to veto a draft resolution put forward by Brazil at the UN Security Council calling for a humanitarian pause in the assault on Gaza. This vote, which took place on 18 Oct 2023 followed an earlier resolution that was voted against by France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, for failing to condemn the HAMAS attack on Israel. Blocking this second, amended, call for a cessation of hostilities, which in fact specifically condemned “the heinous terrorist attacks by Hamas,” enables, Israel to continue its slaughter of innocent Palestinians without the legal restraint of UN censure. CNN reports that the US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield criticized the resolution for failing to mention Israel’s right to self-defense, thereby perpetuating the Israeli conflation of the semantics of ‘attack’ and ‘defense.’ She also explained that the US wanted more time to let its on-the-ground diplomacy “play out.” It seems that the United States is enabling, even promoting, what Raz Segal has called a textbook case of genocide. Shame!

26. 10 2003 update: 7,028 people killed by air strikes in the Gaza Strip.

Image https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/18/europe/us-veto-security-council-israel-gaza-war-intl/index.html

https://apnews.com/article/un-security-council-resolution-gaza-hamas-1c23913f8552f5379b2c158a83493835

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-death-toll-names-killed-released-biden-questions

Terrorism and Genocidal Revenge

On 7th October HAMAS fighters broke out of the blockaded Gaza strip the executed a devastating military operation deep within Israel. They captured 11 military bases and inflicted indiscriminate acts of terror on Israeli settlements, killing over 1,200 people, including women and children.

Exiled Israeli historian Ilan Pape gives his views on the impending Israeli response to this devastating HAMAS incursion. He characterizes the ongoing siege and impending invasion of Gaza as being based on an impulse for revenge set within an ongoing policy of genocide involving settler colonialism, occupation, and ethnic cleansing. He suggests that the objective of this invasion can be conceived of in terms of two possible models:
1) The moderate Beirut 1982 model, wherein Israel forced the PLO out of Lebanon – which he characterizes as expulsion and interprets as the permanent ejection of HAMAS from Gaza and
2) The extreme Afghanistan 2003 model wherein the USA invaded to eradicate the Taliban – which he extrapolates as the mass killing of all those whom Israel believes are associated with HAMAS.

Whichever model prevails, Pape believes that Israel will succeed militarily but that it may lose politically, particularly if HAMAS’ strategy triggers such a massive response from Israel as to provoke an attack from Hezbollah in Lebanon and an uprising in the West Bank, amounting to a third Intifada.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog-october-7-2023/

https://www.jta.org/2023/10/11/israel/death-toll-in-israel-attack-soars-past-1200-as-catalog-of-hamas-horrors-is-revealed

https://www.britannica.com/topic/intifada

Forms of Government 2

2. Ethnocracy: A form of government based on communalism. It is more widespread than you might think. Sometimes it is an explicit premise, at other times, it is just an unstated reality. Wherever the communal organization is stated explicitly in law, we find the formal ethnocracy that we call apartheid.

Here are three instances of legislated ethnocracy –
1) Canada, the quintessential settler-colonial ethnocracy, based on the Indian Act, status identity cards, and native reservations, upon which South African apartheid was based.
2) Malaysia, where there is a constitutionally enshrined ‘special position’ for the indigenous Malays by which they assert their supremacy over immigrant Indians and Chinese who settled under the auspices of colonial rule.
3) Israel, where there is an ongoing occupation of Palestinian lands effected through an apartheid system that involves limiting the Palestinian’s right to movement, denying them the right to vote, and subjecting them to a separate legal system. The seal was set on this ethnocracy, when Israel passed a law in 2018, symbolically affirming that it was the nation-state of the Jewish people.


Teka Teki: Malaysia, Canada, Israel; Apa Persamaannya?
Jawapan: Semuanya mengamalkan Ethnocracy!

UPDATED 13.11.2023

https://en.everybodywiki.com/Apartheid_in_Malaysia

https://troymedia.com/politicslaw/indigenous-apartheid-system-canada/

https://www.vox.com/23924319/israel-palestine-apartheid-meaning-history-debate
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/7/31/17623978/israel-jewish-nation-state-law-bill-explained-apartheid-netanyahu-democracy

Ukraine: Yanis Varoufakis’ View

In a stirring conversation with Russell Brand, Yannis Varoufakis offers the most heart I have come across in the ubiquitous commentary on the Ukraine crisis, and some sound mind too! He notes,

1. When there is an invasion we must always take the side of people who are facing troops with direct orders to destroy the circumstances of their lives.

2. We must support all defenders of neighborhoods and homes across the world without prejudice without making a distinction between fashionable victims (Ukraine) and unfashionable victims (eg Palestine, Yemen).

3. The only question is how to stop the carnage and how do we get the Russians to withdraw.

4. There is a serious moral problem in supporting the Ukrainian fighters as we know that Russia is unstoppable, that Putin is ruthless (eg Grozny), and that NATO will never intervene directly (for fear of starting World War III).

5. While we cant ask the resistance to stop resisting, we, from the comfort of our homes, have a moral obligation to find a solution.

6. Such a solution might involve the US and Russia arriving at a quid pro quo somewhat like the following-
I. Russia withdraws from Ukraine
II. there is a demilitarization of Donbas and border regions
III. there could be bargaining about specific areas like Crimea
IV. the US and Russia guarantee the neutrality of Ukraine.

7. The alternative is carnage, a prolonged occupation, the permanent division of Ukraine, and the toxification of politics both in Ukraine and Russia.

The Situation in Palestine

Michael Walker and the British communist commentator Ash Sarkar discuss Israel’s ongoing bombardment of Gaza in terms of Western geopolitical interests. They deconstruct the blatant media bias in covering the conflict, which they set in the context of Israel’s ongoing settler colonialism and apartheid. The critique is centered on Omar Badder’s analysis and questioning of the entry point for Western media reporting, which is as follows –

  1. Status quo: occupation/ apartheid is violence against Palestinians
  2. Then Israel escalates through evictions/beatings/ shootings
  3. Then some Palestinians respond w/violence.
  4. Then Israel “responds” w/massacres

“If you start reporting at #3. you are misleading your audience”