“Britain in Palestine 1917-1948 investigates the contradictory promises and actions which defined British Mandatory rule in Palestine and laid the groundwork for the Nakba (the catastrophe) and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The roots of the contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental landscape of Palestine and Israel can be traced back to this period, making it essential viewing for understanding Britain’s legacy in the region and the situation on the ground today.”
#Video length: eighteen minutes and thrity seconds.
“Britain in Palestine 1917-1948 investigates the contradictory promises and actions which defined British Mandatory rule in Palestine and laid the groundwork for the Nakba (the catastrophe) and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The roots of the contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental landscape of Palestine and Israel can be traced back to this period, making it essential viewing for understanding Britain’s legacy in the region and the situation on the ground today.”
#Video length: eighteen minutes and thrity seconds.
“Britain in Palestine 1917-1948 investigates the contradictory promises and actions which defined British Mandatory rule in Palestine and laid the groundwork for the Nakba (the catastrophe) and the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. The roots of the contemporary social, political, economic, and environmental landscape of Palestine and Israel can be traced back to this period, making it essential viewing for understanding Britain’s legacy in the region and the situation on the ground today.”
#Video length: eighteen minutes and thrity seconds.
🏆 Applications for the Amílcar Cabral Prize are open until 26 May.
The prize is intended to honour an article of historical research that deals with any topic or issue relating to the history of anti-colonial resistance and colonial empires.
"The ultimate goal, I suggest, was a translatio imperii; the establishment of an imperial monarchy in the west that could rival the Habsburg empire, and which in time, perhaps, might even come to imitate the universal glory of the Roman imperium. Not the American Atlantic seaboard, but rather the continent of Europe, with its arms, its learning, and its treasure, was the goal of Bacon’s early imperial vision."
#Image attribution: Yale Center for British Art, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. Page URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anonymous_-_Sir_Francis_Bacon,_1st_Viscount_St_Alban_-_B1977.14.9772_-_Yale_Center_for_British_Art.jpg
Today in Labor History April 21, 1910: Mark Twain died. William Faulkner called him "the father of American literature." He grew up in Hannibal, Missouri, which provided the setting for “Tom Sawyer” and “Huckleberry Finn.” He apprenticed with a printer and worked as a typesetter, contributing articles to the newspaper of his older brother Orion Clemens. He later worked as a riverboat pilot before heading west to join Orion in Nevada. Twain was famous for his wit and brilliant writing. However, he also had extremely progressive politics for his era. Later in his life, he became an ardent anti-imperialist. “I have read carefully the treaty of Paris and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem… And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.” During the Boxer Rebellion, he said that "the Boxer is a patriot. He loves his country better than he does the countries of other people. I wish him success." From 1901, until his death in 1910, he was vice-president of the American Anti-Imperialist League, which opposed the annexation of the Philippines by the U.S. He was also critical of European imperialists such as Cecil Rhodes and King Leopold II of Belgium, who attempted to establish colonies in African. He also supported the Russian revolutionaries fighting against the Tsar.
Many people have criticized him for his racism. Indeed, schools have banned “Huckleberry Finn.” However, Twain was an adamant supporter of abolition and said that the Emancipation Proclamation “not only set the black slaves free, but set the white man free also." He also fought for the rights of immigrants, particularly the Chinese. "I have seen Chinamen abused and maltreated in all the mean, cowardly ways possible... but I never saw a Chinaman righted in a court of justice for wrongs thus done to him." And though his early writings were racist against indigenous peoples, he later wrote that “in colonized lands all over the world, "savages" have always been wronged by "whites" in the most merciless ways, such as "robbery, humiliation, and slow, slow murder, through poverty and the white man's whiskey."
Twain was also an early feminist, who campaigned for women's suffrage. He also wrote in support of unions and the labor movement, especially the Knights of Labor, one of the most important unions of the era. “Who are the oppressors? The few: the King, the capitalist, and a handful of other overseers and superintendents. Who are the oppressed? The many: the nations of the earth; the valuable personages; the workers; they that make the bread that the soft-handed and idle eat.”
#USA finally passed #Ukraine aid so we get the predictable whining from defenders of ethnofascist mass murdering #imperialism.
First up, everyone's favorite mafia ghoul, #Peskov, vomiting zero effort, weak abuser reverse-victim-and-offender "no u!" crap, that US aid "will kill more Ukrainians."
Now we wait excitedly for #Medvedev to finish his 9 AM vodka and beer, wipe his spittle from his smartphone, and ramble incoherently about nuking "Anglo Saxons."
[...]
If Israel escalates by attacking Iran and striking at the country’s infrastructure, then Iran’s counter will be to take a page out of Russia’s book and commence the one line of attack which Israel, the US and their allies cannot withstand any better than Ukraine – that’s Electric War.
For the seven months which have elapsed since Hamas began its operation against Israel on October 7, and Israel commenced its genocide against the Palestinians, there has been no targeting by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or the Syrian and Iraqi groups of Israel’s highly vulnerable maritime gas platforms, gas pipelines, coal and oil-fired electricity generating plants, the coal and oil storages nearby, solar and wind power units, or the electricity grids keeping the country alight.
The Arab inhibitions and calculations are understandable. Iran’s will disappear if Israel triggers a new round of attacks.
[...]
If Israel escalates by attacking Iran and striking at the country’s infrastructure, then Iran’s counter will be to take a page out of Russia’s book and commence the one line of attack which Israel, the US and their allies cannot withstand any better than Ukraine – that’s Electric War.
For the seven months which have elapsed since Hamas began its operation against Israel on October 7, and Israel commenced its genocide against the Palestinians, there has been no targeting by Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or the Syrian and Iraqi groups of Israel’s highly vulnerable maritime gas platforms, gas pipelines, coal and oil-fired electricity generating plants, the coal and oil storages nearby, solar and wind power units, or the electricity grids keeping the country alight.
The Arab inhibitions and calculations are understandable. Iran’s will disappear if Israel triggers a new round of attacks.
[...]
"Our goal is to establish sharia law in the whole world, specifically in Burkina Faso 🇧🇫”, he added.
He said that they have noticed that Captain has recruited some militias called the VDP ( Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland). Now, let me pause right here and make a comment. When I heard the word “Militias”, I automatically knew who is behind these people: the imperialists, especially France 🇫🇷.
Why? Because, it was the same imperialists, especially France 🇫🇷 that were accusing us on the MSM and on their media that we recruited militias without training and sent them to the frontline. They even used this as an alibi to refuse to sell us weapons, and even used their diplomatic ties to block the delivery of weapons we bought from others like Russia 🇷🇺. Of course, that’s not true because, our VDPs undergo training for months before being deployed. So, for me, when he used the same rhetoric, I knew who are their sponsors. [...]
This account occasionally shares some spicy opinions but it's a relatively accurate OSINT guy who isn't pure evil. How often does that happen on X (formerly known as Twitter)? Very interesting points about France above.
Rest of the posts on recent clashss are interesting. If you're curious why people in the comments are so happy to see these dudes die I'm happy to explain.
IF there is no a "wider regional conflict,” as the Biden admin asserts, how to explain:
*Israel attacking Syria, Lebanon, & Iranian diplomats?
*Iran attacking Israel?
*Houthis attacking Israeli ships in the Red Sea?
*U.S. bombing Houthis in Yemen
*U.S. & UK proudly proclaiming they shot down Iranian drones and missiles heading toward Israel?
*Deployment of Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense surface-to-air missile batteries in Iraq, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, & secret Site 512 base in Israel?
🏆 We are receiving applications for the third edition of the Amílcar Cabral Prize, which is intended “honour an article of historical research that deals with any topic or issue relating to the history of anti-colonial resistance and colonial empires”.
First Worldism—“the loss of the prerogative, only and always, to be the one who transgresses the sovereign boundaries of other states, but never to be in the position of having one’s own boundaries transgressed.”
When US responded to #ICJ ruling of plausible case, by stripping all funding from #UNRWA, I argued that was active US execution of #Genocide against #Gaza. New spending bill defunding it until 2025 outstrips that in viciousness & scope.
ALSO NOTE her citation of CNN reporting from 3 wks ago: UN clearly says Israeli govt used torture on UN staff to extract false confessions.
Well folks, here's another one for the "reality disagrees with your genocidal cheerleading" file.
I am often verbally accosted by motivated parties whenever I point out that supporting the genocide of Palestinians is objectively a bipartisan position in American media and politics. So at this point my question to those folks is, how else do you explain a spending bill that bars U.S. funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency through March 2025, as over a million Palestinians in Gaza are being purposely starved to death by the government of Israel? Please keep in mind that this bill was written and passed by a Republican Congress, ratified by a Democrat-controlled Senate, and signed into law by a Democrat President. Furthermore, while the spending bill itself was reported in American corporate news, the fact that it blocks vital, life-saving aid to Palestinians trying to survive an ongoing engineered famine, barely rated comment in mainstream Pig Empire media.
"While several of those donors have recently announced their intention to resume funding, the U.S. government, which has historically been a top donor to UNRWA, has instead doubled down. The spending bill passed the House on Friday afternoon with a 286-135 vote. Twenty-three House Democrats voted against the bill, with several issuing statements directly linking their “no” votes to the UNRWA provision. The Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill early on Saturday in a 74-24 vote."
Please also note that despite the U.S. State Department playing a little shell game with the truth, the reality is that the Biden administration originally suspended UNRWA funding over accusations that ultimately came from Israel (you know, the country currently engaging in a genocide in Gaza) and for which literally no credible evidence has ever been produced - we'll talk about that more in the three replies with citations I’ll publish under this post.
Truthfully however, the fact that the entire American government is happy to sign off on helping Israel starve over a million people in Gaza to death based on (again, not credible) accusations against a mere fourteen people, is an of itself a type of collective punishment; which also a crime against humanity - if you prefer to absolve the American state based on the fact that they're second-hand participants in a genocide and a purposely engineered famine that's your odious business, just don't expect me to join you. Furthermore, while "liberal" apologists will howl about a GOP nazi-controlled Congress and the need to fund the government till they're blue in the face, it wasn't a Republican State Department that originally cut off aid to starving people being bombed by a fascist colonial ally (still being supplied with American funds and weapons,) and dooming over a million people to famine shouldn't be consider an acceptable sacrifice to avoid a government shutdown by anyone with even the barest shred of human decency.
The fact that the entire American state can continue to aid and abet an ongoing genocide, against the will of its people, and long after the (still unacceptable) justifications for doing so have fallen apart, while barely rating a comment much less a condemnation from mainstream corporate media in the United States, can only lead to one reasonable conclusion - supporting genocide is a bipartisan position in the American ruling establishment. Which means that anyone arguing against that conclusion is ignorant, a liar, or a genocide apologist; full stop.
So, have you seen enough yet? Fine, let's look at one more article for the obtuse and disingenuous. If you're still clinging to the idea that the UNRWA was defunded by Pig Empire governments for justifiable reasons, I'm going to just assume that you're clinging to the supposed confessions Israel claims to have extracted from UNRWA employees. So let's take a look at the March 4th CNN article, to find out how Israel got those "confessions" - and let me warn you in advance that yes, it was intimidation and torture:
"The UN agency for Palestinian refugees on Monday accused Israel of detaining and torturing some of its staffers, coercing them into making false confessions about the agency’s ties to Hamas.
“Some of our staff have conveyed to UNRWA teams that they were forced to (make) confessions under torture and ill-treatment. These false confessions were in response to questioning about relations between UNRWA and Hamas and involvement in the 7 October attack against Israel,” UNRWA spokeswoman Juliette Touma said in a statement."
Folks, please let me remind you that this is not Hamas, but rather a UN relief agency issuing these torture allegations. Of course, American has its own history with confessions coerced under torture, perhaps you remember the (also bipartisan) War on Terror? And what did we learn? Yes, that confessions given under torture are in fact not reliable intelligence; something that really shouldn't have to be said, but has in fact been expressed by our own intelligence agencies.
So let's review here: the U.S. and much of the so-called West, cut funding to a UN aid organization that represents the only way to to prevent a literal famine in Gaza, based entirely on unverified accusations from a government engaging in a literal genocide against Palestinians in the territory. Additionally, Israel has never presented any hard evidence that these allegations are true, and that UN agency says Israeli officials extracted flimsy confessions of a UNRWA relationship with Hamas using literal torture. Finally, despite this lack of evidence, Israel's long history of attempting to dismantle the agency that feeds Palestinians, and a UN agency's report that torture was used to extract confessions, the American government's bipartisan position almost two months later is that helping Israel engineer a famine in Gaza by suspending UNRWA aid for the next year at a minimum, is cool and good actually. In fact, we're also going to keep funding Israel and we continue to ship weapons to Netanyahu's military during an ongoing genocide.
At what point does this stop being Israel's genocide in Gaza, and start being a joint American-Israeli genocide in Gaza? Because frankly, I think we're already there.