Last night, outside of Britain's biggest corporate sponsor of Israel - Marks and Spencer, there was a loud and passionate protest against the war crimes which are continuing in the Middle East.
What was most promising was a large number of new people. What was even more promising was that a lot of these new faces were not the stereotype Palestinian/anti-war protestors made up of Muslims and lefties but people from work, people just passing. Just people - no tag necessary. Just people finishing their jobs for the day. Just people earning their wage and getting through life, to pay for their mortgage, to put food in their kids mouths and maybe to take a couple of weeks in the sun come Summer. Just people who no doubt wanted to get home to their families. Relax. Watch a little T.V. Maybe have a beer or two.
But last night they didn't just go home and relax. For the first time in their lives some of them had done something new. They acted. They evolved a little. They evolved because they are sickened. They are sickened by what they are seeing and what they are hearing. They are sickened by the fact that in Rafah alone on Wednesday 13 people were shot dead on a peaceful demonstration. They were sickened that 3 of them were children, one a 13 year old girl feeding pigeons on her roof, shot in the heads and back. They were sickened that every day Israel is committing War crimes. They are sickened that our fucking government does nothing. They are sickened that our country is bombing the hell out of men, women and children in a land that has done them no harm. they are sick of the lies.
The politicians, the media. They lie. They distort the truth. Readers of Indymedia know this of course, but most people actually know this too on varying levels. Even the pitiful Zionists who post racist comments against these reports delude themselves and know the truth. People know what our governments and states are really about. War. Plunder. Murder. Exploitation. Torture. Seeing a cowering naked prisoner attacked by dogs cuts through lies like a hot knife. Seeing 200 homes systematically destroyed in a day, all in the great battle of our time which is the war on terror (what a sick joke!) shreds the lies apart. Bombing the shit out of a wedding party, killing 45 in the process (15 being children) tends to make make people realise that enough is enough.
That is why there was so much support from people last night. White, black, Muslim, Jew, Communist, city worker. Human beings. For actually, it is not our nature to sit back, be self-interested, quiet, apathetic in the face of such crimes. People do get angry and passionate. The self-defence of being distant collapses in time. The covering of crimes gets wiped away and reality always seeps through as it is always there to be seen. Torturers are at the scene of the crime, committing the crime. They hood their victims not just to disorientate them. They also do it (whether they are aware of this on a conscious level or not) so they don't have to look into the eyes of another human being and see their own cowardice and crime reflected when they are beating them to death, humiliating them like animals. Disassociation.
We are all disassociating ourselves from what we are capable of, from what if we like it or not - is 'being done in our name'. Those at the forefront use the hood as the last line of defence - the last delusion. The block between the eyes. Ourselves, thousands of miles away have greater arrays of disassociation. Cilla Black and Eastenders, lying politicians whom we can blame when the shit hits the fan, football and 'open' media to digest and criticise from the warm chair in front of the fire. Mr's Bush and Blair instead of the system from whose juice we suckle greedily from. Brad Pitt dressed as a Greek warrior, fighting, drawing blood in Homer's mind 2500 years ago with modern computer technology....war becomes so distant. Jordans tits on the top of Page 1 and massacre at the bottom of page 5. Beer and drugs which dampen the pain when the great delusion begins to fall. The fortune and space to intellectualise...time to create, create excuses. WMD's and dictators. Suicide bombers and rampant anti-Semitism. Civilisation and collateral damage.
The delusion collapses. Despite the array of mechanism and twists and turns which ego and capitalism can contrive...the truth will out. Always. Why? Because it is not some set of facts, some knowledge to accumulate, it is always there...it is merely covered by lies, by self-deceit and delusion. The truth, about ourselves and the world which we create, is not something new to be acquired...it is something that is uncovered and shown with the removal of delusion. To see it is so simple that often we cannot accept it. But accept it we must and accept it people are beginning to do. We are approaching a crucial point in our history and amongst all the shit the delusion is beginning, however slowly, to be wiped away: Zionism is ethnic cleansing. Western 'democracy' is capitalism. Capitalism is imperialism. Imperialism is terrorism, war, exploitation....further self-deciet and delusion. 30,000 dead children daily from dirty water. This need not be the case. It is not our natural state or way to be.
If you haven't joined us (us being human beings campaigning for human beings, not VTI) then why not? Still making excuses? Still disassociating? Still deluding? Still being a part of the great lie?
Come join us. See for yourself what the pickets are like. You won't have anything to loose but your own delusions.
Demonstrate next and every Thursday from 6 till 8pm outside Oxford St M&S (Marble Arch end)!
Demonstrate against the war and torture! Troops out of Iraq! Embankment Saturday 22nd at 11am!
Join the ongoing demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy!
Victory to the Intifada!
Victory to the Iraqi people!
Victory to the oppressed of the world!
What was most promising was a large number of new people. What was even more promising was that a lot of these new faces were not the stereotype Palestinian/anti-war protestors made up of Muslims and lefties but people from work, people just passing. Just people - no tag necessary. Just people finishing their jobs for the day. Just people earning their wage and getting through life, to pay for their mortgage, to put food in their kids mouths and maybe to take a couple of weeks in the sun come Summer. Just people who no doubt wanted to get home to their families. Relax. Watch a little T.V. Maybe have a beer or two.
But last night they didn't just go home and relax. For the first time in their lives some of them had done something new. They acted. They evolved a little. They evolved because they are sickened. They are sickened by what they are seeing and what they are hearing. They are sickened by the fact that in Rafah alone on Wednesday 13 people were shot dead on a peaceful demonstration. They were sickened that 3 of them were children, one a 13 year old girl feeding pigeons on her roof, shot in the heads and back. They were sickened that every day Israel is committing War crimes. They are sickened that our fucking government does nothing. They are sickened that our country is bombing the hell out of men, women and children in a land that has done them no harm. they are sick of the lies.
The politicians, the media. They lie. They distort the truth. Readers of Indymedia know this of course, but most people actually know this too on varying levels. Even the pitiful Zionists who post racist comments against these reports delude themselves and know the truth. People know what our governments and states are really about. War. Plunder. Murder. Exploitation. Torture. Seeing a cowering naked prisoner attacked by dogs cuts through lies like a hot knife. Seeing 200 homes systematically destroyed in a day, all in the great battle of our time which is the war on terror (what a sick joke!) shreds the lies apart. Bombing the shit out of a wedding party, killing 45 in the process (15 being children) tends to make make people realise that enough is enough.
That is why there was so much support from people last night. White, black, Muslim, Jew, Communist, city worker. Human beings. For actually, it is not our nature to sit back, be self-interested, quiet, apathetic in the face of such crimes. People do get angry and passionate. The self-defence of being distant collapses in time. The covering of crimes gets wiped away and reality always seeps through as it is always there to be seen. Torturers are at the scene of the crime, committing the crime. They hood their victims not just to disorientate them. They also do it (whether they are aware of this on a conscious level or not) so they don't have to look into the eyes of another human being and see their own cowardice and crime reflected when they are beating them to death, humiliating them like animals. Disassociation.
We are all disassociating ourselves from what we are capable of, from what if we like it or not - is 'being done in our name'. Those at the forefront use the hood as the last line of defence - the last delusion. The block between the eyes. Ourselves, thousands of miles away have greater arrays of disassociation. Cilla Black and Eastenders, lying politicians whom we can blame when the shit hits the fan, football and 'open' media to digest and criticise from the warm chair in front of the fire. Mr's Bush and Blair instead of the system from whose juice we suckle greedily from. Brad Pitt dressed as a Greek warrior, fighting, drawing blood in Homer's mind 2500 years ago with modern computer technology....war becomes so distant. Jordans tits on the top of Page 1 and massacre at the bottom of page 5. Beer and drugs which dampen the pain when the great delusion begins to fall. The fortune and space to intellectualise...time to create, create excuses. WMD's and dictators. Suicide bombers and rampant anti-Semitism. Civilisation and collateral damage.
The delusion collapses. Despite the array of mechanism and twists and turns which ego and capitalism can contrive...the truth will out. Always. Why? Because it is not some set of facts, some knowledge to accumulate, it is always there...it is merely covered by lies, by self-deceit and delusion. The truth, about ourselves and the world which we create, is not something new to be acquired...it is something that is uncovered and shown with the removal of delusion. To see it is so simple that often we cannot accept it. But accept it we must and accept it people are beginning to do. We are approaching a crucial point in our history and amongst all the shit the delusion is beginning, however slowly, to be wiped away: Zionism is ethnic cleansing. Western 'democracy' is capitalism. Capitalism is imperialism. Imperialism is terrorism, war, exploitation....further self-deciet and delusion. 30,000 dead children daily from dirty water. This need not be the case. It is not our natural state or way to be.
If you haven't joined us (us being human beings campaigning for human beings, not VTI) then why not? Still making excuses? Still disassociating? Still deluding? Still being a part of the great lie?
Come join us. See for yourself what the pickets are like. You won't have anything to loose but your own delusions.
Demonstrate next and every Thursday from 6 till 8pm outside Oxford St M&S (Marble Arch end)!
Demonstrate against the war and torture! Troops out of Iraq! Embankment Saturday 22nd at 11am!
Join the ongoing demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy!
Victory to the Intifada!
Victory to the Iraqi people!
Victory to the oppressed of the world!
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Comments
Hide the following 7 comments
Racist reply?
21.05.2004 14:47
How have the reports been racist. Just because they contest your opinions does not mean it is racist. Grow up.
Hezbollah flags have been seen waving from your picket. Hezbollah is a racist organization. In addition anti Semitic comments have been hears coming from your picket. I do recall the occasion when the speaker on the megaphone called us "Christ Killers" and refered to fabricated quotes from the Talmud (a holy Jewish book) that echoed sentiments similar to the blood libels in Europe in the past centuries.
You are not the only ones to have a multi racial picket. The Pro Israel picket has attracted people from all backgrounds, Jewish, Asian, Black, White and even Arab.
James
Christ killers???!!!
21.05.2004 17:12
Try again...
Rifka
Zionist bullshitters
21.05.2004 18:13
Myob
anti semitism
21.05.2004 23:31
As for Myob, you seem to be filled with inacracies.
1. Your comment showed a shocking distain of anti Semitism which is unfortunatly still a problem in Europe. Poo pooing the problem makes matters worse. All kinds of racism should be condemned regardless.
2. You seem to have a lack of understanding of what Zionism is. It is a concept that wishes to distance itslef from anti Semitism as Jewish persicution is a symbol of Jewish weakness. The very fabric of Zionism is to emancipate the Jew from weakness and persicution to equality with all other peoples. Zionists dont want to see Jews as victims at all.
The Inappropriate Simon
so antisemitism doen't exist
22.05.2004 17:10
antisemitism does exist, alas, and I'd really rather it wouldn't. bt what about the left considering this man norman finkelstein a hero, a man who has written loads of stuff about jews and has never had one positive remark to make about them or their culture in all his works, and who says that the jews are racial supremacists because they dare suggest that perhaps the holocaust wasn't just "one massacre out of many"?
why does one constantly hear people on the left making idiotic remarks about "talmudic obscurantism" and about how the jewish religion is constituted so as to discriminate against non-jews wherever it has the chance? what kind of perverse view of jews can lead someone to believe that the zionists wanted to make an alliance with the nazis who were killing their relatives back in europe? or that when jews talk about the holocaust where one third of them died, they do so out of interest? or that antisemitism doesn't exist even though orthodox jews have been attacked on the streets of france just for being jewish?
the voice of common sense
lies lies lies
22.05.2004 22:17
When you look at it like that then, not much of a damning allegation really is it?
Oh, and it also happens to be a false allegation, also taken completely out of context. What they basically said was that the only way to save the lives of European Jewry would be to come to an understanding with the Nazis whereby the Jews would be allowed to go to Palestine - the Nazis would be happy because Europe would be purged of Jews, and the Jews would stay alive.
There was nothing pro-Nazi about this idea - earlier agreements had already been reached to save the lives of Jews, and, for example, negotiations and agreements with the anti-semitic pogromists in the Ukraine during the Russian civil war saved the lives of 100,000s of Jews. One should also remember, at this point in the war, no-one knew about the Nazi extermination plans, just insitutionalised anti-semitism, oppression of Jews, and forced labour camps were known of.
They also said that Jews could do little to help the Allied war effort, and that Britain was the primary enemy. The British were allied with the Arab anti-semites, whom they supported, and were actively preventing Jews from escaping the Holocaust. After the war they helped the Arab anti-semites in their attempt to destroy the Jewish state, clearly showing that they were a major enemy of the Jewish people and Zionism.
So their basic idea was that the Zionists should come to an agreement with the Nazis in order to save European Jewry. Hardly an evil desire. And remember, this is only the militant minority faction of a militant minority movement which the majority hated and denounced as fascists (which they were not).
Compare this with the "Palestinians" and the Arabs in general. The Mufti of Jerusalem, the leader of the Palestinian Arabs and creator of the Palestinian movement that still exists today, actively collaborated with the Nazis. Since the 30s he allied himself with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and thus the British came to oppose him. During the war he travelled to Italy, where he was greeted with great fanfare, and then went on to meet the Nazis. He inspected the death camps and said he was pleased with their work, and expressed his concern that they might not be killing Jews fast enough. He organised 20,000 Muslims into Muslim SS death squads in Bosnia, who murdered Jews, Serbs, Roma, etc, and offering to join in the hunt for Jews in neighbouring countries. He met with Hitler, and agreed that when the opportune moment came, Hitler would invade the Arab world, place him in charge, and they would slaughter the Jews - the mufti carrying out the operations he had already prepared. The mufti also helped organised a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq that was put down by the British. He also wrote to the Nazis, urging them not to let Hungarian Jews escape, but instead to transfer them to the death camps in Poland. The Nazis obliged, and as a result of that letter over 150,000 extra Jews died. He was a committed Nazi, and Arafat, a relative of his, boasts that he was one of his soldiers.
And yet the so-called "left" now opposes the anti-imperialist, anti-fascist Zionist revolutionaries, and openly supports the Arab anti-semitic pro-British and then pro-Nazi fascists? Strange, no? The left used to support Israel utterly and exposed Britain's collaboration with Arab Nazis and their efforts to destroy the Jews. Now the left hates the Jews. Thanks to...? The Soviets, who came to ally themselves with the Arabs, and, in 1967, launched a full-blown anti-semitic propaganda campaign, along with the Communist parties in other countries, to get the left to turn against Israel.
anti-fascist
no anti-fascist
23.05.2004 00:32
It was not Lehi who offered an allience with the nazis. No, this is the big myth.
In reality it was actually a middle ranking member of the Labour Zionist movement who proposed an allience. It must be stated that this was not the official position of the mainsteam Labour Zionist movement.
But what happenned to this middle ranking member? He was killed by Lehi.
Now this whole issue was blown out of proportion as Lehi, or what became Likud used this issue as a means to gain votes and deligitamize the Labour Party.
Unfortunatly, propagandists have used this as a means to try and deligitimize zionism. But the reality is that no allience was formed, no proposal was offered by the leading members of the zionist movement, it was not zionist policy, and the individual who proposed the allience was tried in a court of law in Israel and later murdered.
The Inappropriate Simon