The Scum Also Rises

THE ABSURD TIMES

Just as we orbit around the Sun, the Sun orbits around the core of the Milky Way. Relative to the center of the galaxy, we're moving at an average speed of 143 miles per second—even at that breakneck speed though, it still takes 225 to 250 million terrestrial years to complete one trip around. (Just to keep things in perspective.)

THE SCUM ALSO RISES

BY

CZAR DONIC

The title is a combination of a tribute to both bald Gonza and Hemmingway to whome Gertrude Stein once said "Earnest, You're always wearing a wig on your chest."  He was so poor in Paris that he sat of park benches waiting for stray pigeons stupid enough to get close him, grabbed them, wrung their necks, and too them home to feed his family.  One assumes the parts given to his family, at least, were cooked.  But we are trying to write about the train of recent events over the last week or so and not go insane without the aid of alcohol.

So first we got hit with the idea of bribery to get kids into "prestige" schools like UMC and Yale (a strange combination).  Yale is more famous for a learning ground for suit-wearing preps who study how to become government agents and overthrow foreign governments, any foreign government.  Clean cut and pure and skull and crossbones.  Yeah, true Amerikans.

Which reminds us to look up tuition history.  At one time in Chicago, under Dick Daley, Junior College tuition was free (one-half by the state and half by the city), just as long as you took PE.  (In Champaign Urbana it was just half).  That explains why I could play semi-pro baseball (once shutout a AAA minor league baseball team in Eau Claire Wisconsin belonging to the Cubs).  That way, I could forget about the stupid baseball scholarship and free room and board at an all-jock dormitory that would have been Hell.  Stupidity strutted down the halls with a badge of honor.  Now, of course, the legislators found out that people actually learn some things in higher education, so they kept raising the tuition until only the mindless children of the wealthy could afford to go.

Next?  We have to cover international stuff and also have a few snippets from Daffy Don here and there.

Turkey: Erdogan made some remark about rising eggplant prices causing his political defeats and therefore he will buy his weapons from Russia. 

France: An inspiration to all of us to wear yellow anywhere.  France had the same choice as we did in the last election, either an insane fascist or a well-dressed austerity junkie.  They chose the latter.  We choose the former.  Oh,hey, civil war in Libya, but Looney John Bolton still wants to use the Libya model for North Korea.  That's why fat and jolly guy from Kansas is now secretary of State.  I assume the President or Supreme Leader of North Korea still sends love letters to Trump. 

Boeing is angry, which makes absolutely no difference to me as I will not get on an airplane and haven't since 9/11, not for fear of terrorists, but the driving to and from the airport and trying to get through the checkout line, all of which makes it much easier and more efficient to drive.  "Take you shoes off, bend over, let's search you anal cavity, you have more than 2 ounces of liquid with you, and batteries?"  It's damn nuts!  And we still have idiots saying "Better safe than sorry."  Why is that a choice?  Or rather why isn't that a choice?  Let's have an airline that doesn't give a damn, says fly at your own risks, and bombs welcome?  Before that, it was still strange.  People would get on planes and hijack them to Cuba as it was a safer place for them.  It was so strange that once Marlon Brando was arrested for saying, joking, but not letting on, "Is the plane to Cuba?"

Trumps Tax Returns – you almost only have to mention them to get a laugh.  It is about as funny as a headline I saw: THE LEFT CAN'T MEME!  Yes, it's funny until you find out it is supposedly a serious article about politics.  So, tax returns – aren't we the only country that subjects its people to that ritual to the extent that anyone who can afford it has to hire a tax attorney or a CPA?  If you can't, you probably don't have to file.  Now 10 years of Tax returns made public?  Give it up, folks, give it up.

Have you heard that windmills cause cancer?  Trump says so.  Also, the United States is like a cheap motel: NO VACANCIES if you try to cross the border with a coyote?  Don Quixote! 

Where are you when we need you.  Attack those windmills before we all get cancer and the giants come.  Wehat giants?  Where did that come from?"   Who cares, it's there now.

Let's heard it for the Jewish Republicans for Trump!  Democrats are anti-Semitic.  We know that because they use tropes.  Yeah, whatch out for the wild tropes coming from the evil Democrats.  Better safe than sorry.  No more holocausts!  If the Democrats had their way, they'd put windmills in your back yard, giving you cancer and reducing your home's value by 75%.  The reason he knows this is because he lowered the value of everything he owns when it was time to file taxes, and then killed the windmills as soon as the filing was over and he applied for a bank loan.  How does one go bankrupt running a casino?

Hey, we need a head of the Federal Reserve.  Remember that strange black guy who used to run Godfathers Pizza and said 9,9,9 was his tax solution?  He will by Daffy Don's nominee for head of the Fed.  Why the hell not?  He can fight it out in the alley with John Bolton.

The secret is out from England and it makes the whole Brexit nightmare seem insignificant:  Details emerged that Margaret Thatcher used to spank Christopher Hitchens.  We have that detail from none other that Salmon Rushdie who, I assume, is no longer under a Fatwah for his death from writing SATANIC VERSES.  I don't know – he may be getting into deep mud here in exposing Maggie as a sexual predator – much worse than Pizza gate from the twisted mind of Steve Bannon.

I'm tired and you just have to take the rest as if I covered it.   Just remember, and Anarchist is someone who thinks all institutions should justify their existence.  

Putin, Trump v. whatever

THE ABSURD TIMES

Trump, Putin v. Sanity

by

Czar Donic

Let us start out with a quote:

Hunter S. Thompson‏ @GonzoVice

	Following @GonzoVice

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How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?

2:13 PM - 16 Jul 2018

We now have an answer for him, even though his ashes were shot over the mountains out of a some kind of cannon by Johnny Depp.  Does that sound strange to you?  Well, it shouldn't.  Not if you have been seeing what is going on today.

This was posted, apparently, by a Hunter Thompson fan on social media.  Now here's the rest of the story, my story, as I remember it, and as it happened.

Before we get to that, though, there is one thing you have to keep in mind about Donald J. Trump and that is he actually believes he is the greatest and all criticism or accusation against him is motivated though envy.  If you can not trust this, and still pay attention to what is going on here, they may well be forced to build a new wing in the mental institution for for people who went totally insane trying to makes sense about of what is going on and those when take these things seriously.

He first asked that question during the Presidency of Richard Nixon as the Watergate process was going on and he was, I think, the political correspondent for the ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE (this was before it moved to New York for the culture and money).  It is pretty well documented what happened during that, and leading up to that, but it is worth revisiting. 

The first real encounter with politics many of us had was during the 60s when Lyndon Johnson ran as the peace candidate against the Koch family's candidate Barry Goldwater to promised to "bomb North Vietnam into the stone ages."  Less than a year later, we were sending troops over there to "help save Vietnam from Vietnamese," as Tom Paxton said.  RFK and Martin Luther King had been assassinated, probably with help from J. Edgar Hoover who hated Bobby with a passion because he insisted he report to him, not directly to the President.  With him out of the way, he maneuvered his way back into fashion.  LBJ was in no way intimidated by Hoover, but kept him on as Hoover had found his weak spot.  He entertained LBJ with reports of the sexual exploits of people in Congress and this made great bedtime reading for the old bugger. 

So, Gene McCarthy had run LBJ out of office and it looked like Bobby would come back.  Gene folded, Bobby was killed, and that led to Nixon, one of the most paranoid presidents we have ever seen.  In his second term, he was still frightened that he would loose re-election and thus several things happened, including the Pentagon papers and the Watergate scandal.  Before his first term, he was able to take advantage of the Police Riot in Chicago at the convention that nominated Hubert Humphrey to run for President. 

The police riot (as it was called in an official report) took place mainly in the Grant Park Area outside the convention, and was directed by Mayor Daley, not the Democratic party.  Most of us were simply protesting the process, Abbie Hoffmann was running around insanely, usually wild on acid, but hard to photograph as we had helped him write FUCK on his forehead.  I briefly acted as the press secretary, explaining why our candidate was named "Pigasus."  I explained that if we were going to nominate a pig, we might as well have a real one and the rest of it came from a Greek Legend about a winged horse that one could still see on some mobile gas stations as their symbol.  I served only so long as it took me to get that out and simply angered and confused all sides at once.  Dylan could not make it as he was busy crusading for the right to use electronic guitars and well as the purists' acoustic ones.  Norman Mailer was there, but ducked out to do his reporting by the evening after his speech.

By his own account, Hunter was there, but I had no idea who he was at the time.  He reports that he did have the sense to wear a motorcycle helmet to cover it, but still got the crap beat out of him.  This hardly distinguishes him from many others.  I was lucky as I had attended High School with several of the "Hoodlums" who then became police officers and who not only adopted me as a sort of mascot, but also found the entire scene fun.  It was the older cops, the five and ten year veterans that were so stirred up and I figured it was because all the guys demonstrating, or most of them, were scrawny and wearing beards and had long hair and the nubile females clung to them, not the cops who were REAL MEN.

Well, the first election was close, but Hubert's apology and change of stance on the war came way too late.  Nixon campaigned for the "silent majority," which was actually a bad translation of the term used by Homer in the Illiad to describe the underworld (this never crossed anyone's mind so far as I know).  On Viet Nam, "I have a plan," and that was that.  Well, they figured, a plan really sounded good about now and so he got elected.  After awhile, the second time around, he ran against George McGovern who managed to loose almost every state, but he was still paranoid and afraid of loosing.  That was the start of Watergate.

By the end, he was walking the halls at night, forcing Henry Kissinger to pray with him by the fireplace, probably drinking heavily.  Nixon.  Everybody thought he was the worst, and that is when Hunter asked that question.  How low?  Well, from the Watergate era, John Dean still exists as well as Carl Bernstein, and both rate Trump lower than Nixon, but what about Reagan-Bush?

Most people forget about the Iran Contra deal, and many still think of Ollie North as a hero from those days.  He is now spokesman from the NRA and a Russian spy has been charged with infiltrating the NRA.  But there is still more we have to remember from those days.  Ronnie and George assurred Gorbochev that, if we could unite East and West Germany, we would NOT move NATO any closer to Russia.  It helps to understand that Russia never started any conflict beyond its borders   Even in the time of 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia, not the converse. Hitler attacked Russia and that is what started the Warsaw Pact, or the "Iron Curtain," Churchill's term.  Well, with that assurance, Gorby said "Go Ahead," and we know what has happened since.

Still, we need to remember what Putin was going through at the time.  When the wall came tumbling down, Putin was the only person left in the Kremlin building.  Everyone else had fled and communications were cut off.  Germans were trying to storm the building, not unlike what happened in Iran.  Putin, however, managed to hold them off and at the same time managed to burn all sorts of documents.  He would come back and tell the Germans that he was trying to keep the army from attacking them and that they should just wait.  He went to burn more.  It was a desperate night, and he did not know if he would get out alive, so hated were the Russians by the Germans at that time.  He made it out, KGB, intact, and that was the end of his stay in Germany. 

But this is like the narrator in Thomas Mann's biography of Adrian Leverkūhn – we are leaving things out and rushing forward.  When Ronnie started the Iran-Contra debacle, there was concern as to whether he really started.  Mclaughan had his group on TV and Bob Germond was one of the regulars and the question, no so strangely if you think about it now, "Did they tell Reagan about the plot?  Yes or no"  There were various answers, but Germond came up with the best one "Yes, they told him, but he forgot."  At the time, nobody realized how perceptive all this was and Reagan was in the early stages of Alzheimer's.

Ollie North would end up testifying after holding out for immunity and spent most of the time talking about what a patriot he was, how he loved his family and flag, and so on.  He is now with the NRA after his brave actions in shipping weapons to Iran, having met "briefly with" Butina, currently charged with being a Russian spy, perhaps filtering money though the organization.

At any rate, it's time to wrap this up as I am getting very tired of Trump and his whole deal.  He is definitely the lowest we have ever seen.  When he finished his press conference, I had been watching it on CNN as that is his most hated news channel, Anderson Cooper launched into an attack at how "disgraceful" or "disgusting" his performance was.  I knew MSNBC would be jumping all over it, so I went over to Fox.  I was again, a stranger in a strange land, but wait!  They were pissed off at him as well.  Since that is where Trump gets his advice, the next day he said "wouldn't" instead of "would," (never mind the context as it is sick enough) and that was that.  How low can we get?  I don't know, but I think we got there at last.  Frankly, I was surprised at the reaction on social media as I simply asked "Well, what did you expect?"  It was as if everyone was surprised and shocked.  I suppose the world is denser than I thought.

If you are not certain, consider this (someone sent this out):

Donald J. Trump‏

Verified account

 @realDonaldTrump

	Follow @realDonaldTrump

FollowSome people HATE the fact that I got along well with President Putin of Russia. They would rather go to war than see this. It's called Trump Derangement Syndrome!

6:27 AM - 18 Jul 2018

GAZA -- NAKBA

THE ABSURD TIMES

There is not anything more sickly so far from Israel and the Trumps than what is going on right now on the border with Gaza.  The report covers it pretty well, so there is no need to get into details.  All we can add is a reflection: back during Watergate, Hunter Thompson asked how low must one get to become President in this country.  So far, one wishes that we have the answer now, but an equal fear is that there is a possibility of sinking even lower.  To contemplate it, however, is the path to madness.

Dr. Jill Stein ‏Verified account @DrJillStein 52m52 minutes ago

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Israel killing scores of Palestinian protesters in Gaza isn't a "clash", it's a massacre. A US-backed massacre of an occupied people crying out for their human rights. The occupation of Palestine is an atrocity. Stop $10 million/day US support for Israeli military NOW.

Here is the report.  It is accurate in every single detail as of this morning:

We go to Gaza for a live update from Sharif Abdel Kouddous as tens of thousands of Palestinians have gathered near the heavily fortified border with Israel for nonviolent protests against the U.S. Embassy's opening in Jerusalem. At the time of our broadcast, the Israeli military had killed at least 30 Palestinians, and least 1,000 had been injured. "No one is carrying any weapons here. There are no bullets being fired by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers. … And yet these killings continue," Kouddous says. This comes as senior members of the Trump administration have gathered in Jerusalem for the embassy's opening.

---

Transcript

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: We begin today's show in Gaza, where the Israeli military has killed at least 30 Palestinians, at this count, today, amidst the massive nonviolent protests against the U.S. Embassy's opening in Jerusalem, later, after this broadcast. At least 1,000 people have been injured. Israeli soldiers are currently firing live ammunition into the crowd of tens of thousands of Palestinian protesters, who have gathered in Gaza near the heavily fortified border with Israel. The Israeli military has also been dropping tear gas from drones over Gaza.

This comes as senior members of the Trump administration have gathered in Jerusalem for the opening of the U.S. Embassy, including President Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump, White House senior adviser; her husband, senior adviser Jared Kushner; and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. Jared Kushner is expected to lay out the Trump administration's plan for Middle East peace in the coming weeks. The Trump administration's decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem has sparked widespread international condemnation, while it's been praised by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who spoke on Sunday.

PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Move your embassies to Jerusalem, because it advances peace. And that is—that's because you can't base peace on a foundation of lies. You base peace on the foundations of truth. And the truth is that not only has Jerusalem been the capital of the Jewish people for millennia, and the capital of our state from its inception; the truth is that, under any peace agreement you could possibly imagine, Jerusalem will remain Israel's capital.

AMY GOODMAN: Two controversial pastors have been chosen by the Trump administration to lead prayers at the U.S. Embassy's opening. The right-wing preacher Robert Jeffress, who has previously said, quote, "Islam is a false religion inspired by Satan," and that, quote, "You can't be saved by being a Jew," he's anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic, anti-Mormon, anti-gay.

For more, we go to Gaza, where we're joined by Sharif Abdel Kouddous, independent journalist, Democracy Now! correspondent.

Sharif, welcome back to Democracy Now! Explain what's happening in Gaza right now, as the U.S. Embassy is about to be opened, symbolically, in Jerusalem.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, there's just a simply massive protest all along the eastern border of Gaza, the border with Israel, throughout the entire length of the Strip, from the north in Beit Hanoun, to the south in Rafah. I was at the biggest protest site, which is just east of Gaza City. There are thousands of people converging on the site—men, women and children. And it's a really surreal scene. There are people gathering, mostly young men and boys, up near the border, where there is barbed wire, three sets of barbed wire. And you can see, just a couple of hundred yards away, Israeli soldiers, you know, under these canopies, on mounds of sand, sometimes in jeeps, and they are picking people off with—snipers are literally picking people off. I've seen people who weren't even close to the fence being shot. Most of the people are being shot in the lower extremities, in their legs. I saw one person shot in the throat. The latest numbers—they keep going up—somewhere between 28 and 30 killed, including a paramedic and a disabled person. There's a thousand wounded today, including nine journalists. That brings the total, since this movement began, this kind of somewhat unprecedented movement in Gaza, since March 30th, to 74 people killed and over 9,000 injured.

And, you know, there's—no one is carrying any weapons here. There are no bullets being fired by Palestinians on Israeli soldiers. There's nothing I have seen that poses any threat to the Israeli military. Not a single Israeli soldier has been injured. And yet these killings continue. People insist that this is peaceful. There are no military uniforms allowed. There are no weapons allowed. Despite the fact that there are very heavily armed groups in Gaza, this was a decision that was made by a group of—by the committees that are running this movement. People throw rocks. They burn tires, large tires, which send huge plumes of black smoke into the air, to try and block the view of the snipers. They also send these kites and balloons, which have either a burning rag or an improvised Molotov cocktail dangling off the end, and they try and guide it over, over the border.

And what most people are doing, it's just the very act of walking to the border. Some people go and place the Palestinian flag on the barbed wire. Some people do go and cut the wire and try and cross, saying that they are implementing the right of return themselves. But it's also a way—you know, we have to remember that people are trapped in Gaza. There's really no way out. Many people have never left the Strip, because all border crossings are closed to them, and they're not allowed to leave. And so this is a way of pushing their bodies up against their confinement. And this is also happening, all of this, in a buffer zone. We have to remember that Israel imposed a buffer zone a couple of hundred meters from the border in Gaza. And so, over the years, farmers and people living on that side of the Gaza Strip have been regularly shot at by Israeli troops from the other side. And so, even reclaiming this space in Gaza itself is, in itself, an achievement. But it's a very—it's a very difficult situation.

And as you mentioned, there are—well, and they're using these high-velocity sniper bullets, which cause a lot of damage. Also, a couple of doctors told me that they're using fragmentation bullets, which break apart upon impact. And they have seen injuries with fist-sized holes in the exit wounds. And most of this is being—people are being shot in the legs. They were talking about nearly 10,000 people injured, many of them by live ammunition, many being hit in the legs. You know, it kind of reminds me of the first intifada. Israelis would break the arms of Palestinians who were throwing stones. And now it's Palestinians walking towards the border, and so they're taking out their legs. We were in Shifa Hospital. If you just walk there, I mean, there was a wailing of pain in the orthopedic wards and young men and boys walking around on crutches, many of them lying in beds, their legs bandaged up with rods and pins protruding out. One doctor told me that they're creating a new generation of cripples. There's been almost 30 amputations.

And also there's the fact of the tear gas. Tear gas comes in three different ways. It's fired by jeeps, which fire in multiple rounds, five at a time, at the crowd. They're also fired by the normal kind of rifle, that goes much further. But there's a new method, which I saw twice today, is tear gas being fired from drones. And this is a new method that Israel experimented with just a couple of weeks before these protests started. It was first used in Gaza in March. And military officials were reported as saying that they were experimenting with this, but it looks like it's now operational. And this also fits a trend of Israel kind of experimenting its tools of occupation on the bodies of Palestinians. And those tools are usually exported elsewhere. And I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing tear gas drones in other places, as well. But a really chaotic situation here.

AMY GOODMAN: So, you're talking about what's happening on the Gaza-Israel border. The embassy is opening in Jerusalem, Sharif. Do you know about any protests there? It's opening just after the broadcast, actually, of this show. The protest in Gaza, while today is the most deadly day of the Israeli military gunning down Palestinian protesters—the numbers, we think, around 30, as you said—we're nearing 80 Palestinians killed by Israeli snipers and the Israeli military since the ongoing nonviolent protest of March 30th, that are supposed to be culminating tomorrow, although expected to go on from there.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, Amy, being here in Gaza, it's hard to know what's happening in Jerusalem, just with everything that's happening on the ground and also a lack of access to the internet. But what I can tell you is that Jerusalem is a main factor in what's driving this. You know, there's a number of reasons that this kind of new movement is happening in Gaza. It's the accumulation of a number of things and the convergence of a number of events.

You know, first of all, there's the siege, of course, where the situation in Gaza—I've been coming here since 2011, and every time I come, the situation is much worse. It's really now intolerable. This has been a siege for 11 years. It has affected everything—the economic situation, humanitarian situation, the right to travel. On top of that, in summer, the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas imposed sanctions on Gaza, worsening the economic situation and things like electricity, in a bid to force Hamas's hand. And, you know, everyone knew that this was unsustainable. People were talking about it. And so, that's one of the reasons this has risen up.

But another one, in a broader context, and from speaking with a lot of people here, there's a sense that the very core of the Palestinian cause is under threat, that the essence of the Palestinian cause is under threat. So you have Jerusalem, which is at the very core of the Palestinian cause, with Trump moving the embassy to Jerusalem, the U.S. Embassy, and recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and that is a huge insult to Palestinians. And there's also the issue of the right of return. Many people here spoke of what's called the deal of the century, that's supposedly being worked on by Trump and other countries. There's been several leaked versions of it. But many of them do away with the right of return, and treat Palestinian refugees as a humanitarian situation. If you take away Jerusalem and the right of return, you know, what's left for the Palestinian cause? So that's really driving this, as well.

And it also comes in a context of a divided leadership, Palestinian leadership, with Fatah and Hamas really nowhere near reconciliation, that was supposed to happen a few months ago. It comes in a context of a region where Arab countries, like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, are aligned with Israel, in many ways. And it's coming on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, of 70 years of waiting for the right to return not being realized.

And finally, Gaza has seen itself, historically, as responsible for the national cause. Yasser Arafat is from Gaza. Gaza gave birth to the first intifada. It gave birth to Fatah. It gave birth to Hamas. It gave birth to Islamic Jihad. It is—all of this came out of Gaza, and it sees itself as part of—you know, responsible for the Palestinian cause. And so, that's why the demands here are not just lifting the siege. They go to the very essence of it, and they're calling for the right of return, as well.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to ask you about the significance of the opening of the embassy in Jerusalem. An anti-gay, pro-Trump pastor from Dallas, Pastor Robert Jeffress, was chosen by the Trump administration to lead the prayer at the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem. Pastor Jeffress has a history of making hateful comments against Muslims, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, the LGBTQ community. This is just a few of the statements he's made over the years.

DONALD TRUMP: Where is Pastor Jeffress? He's around here someplace. What a good guy! Where is he? Well, come here. I love this guy!

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Here's the deep, dark, dirty secret of Islam. It is a religion that promotes pedophilia, sex with children. … Mormonism is not Christianity. It has always been considered a cult by the mainstream of Christianity.

ANDERSON COOPER: Hindus and Buddhists, Islam—cults?

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Yes, absolutely. … Muhammad was nothing but a bloodthirsty warlord who beheaded 600 Jews who would not follow him into battle.

IMAM MOHAMMAD ALI ELAHI: That is not true.

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Islam is wrong! It is a heresy from the pit of hell. Mormonism is wrong. It is a heresy from the pit of hell. Judaism, you know, you can't be saved, being a Jew.

JIM ACOSTA: And Mormons do say they are Christians.

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Yeah.

JIM ACOSTA: They say that. They believe in Jesus Christ.

PASTOR ROBERT JEFFRESS: Well, a lot of people say they're Christians, and they're not. … Homosexuality is degrading. It's a degenerative practice. .. Homosexuality is a perversion. They are engaged in the most detestable, unclean, abominable acts you can imagine. … Marriage should be between a man and a woman. Whenever you counterfeit something, you cheapen the value of the real thing. … Around the world today, you have Muslim men having sex with 4-year-old girls, taking them as their brides, because they believe the prophet Muhammad did it.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Reverend Jeffress, in that compendium put together by Media Matters. Mother Jones reports Jeffress, who runs the First Baptist Dallas megachurch in Texas, has referred to both Islam and Mormonism as a "heresy from the pit of hell," believes Islam, Mormonism, Hinduism and Buddhism are all cults, that Catholicism represents the genius of Satan. Jews, he believes, are going to hell. "You can't be saved by being a Jew," he said. Islam, he said, "is a religion that promotes pedophilia, sex with children," he said, among other things. This is the man who will be doing the opening prayer today at the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, Sharif. Also, President Trump's children, son-in-law and daughter, Ivanka Trump and Jared [Kushner], will be there, along with the treasury secretary, Steve Mnuchin. Apparently, Jared Kushner, who's under investigation in the United States, his son-in-law, will be unveiling a Middle East peace plan in the next few weeks, Sharif.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Well, what can you say? I mean, you know, Jerusalem, it goes to, like I said, the very core of the Palestinian issue. And this is being done—I mean, speaking with people here in Gaza, you know, and not just—well, I mean, the fact that the decision was made in this way, but also the arrogance in the way that it is being done, will not be, I think—you know, pass easily here. It's not something that Palestinians are just going to let slide.

You know, there's been a slow and very determined movement to displace Palestinians from Jerusalem. Palestinians who live in Jerusalem have a separate kind of identity card. They have to constantly prove what's called a "center of life" there. If they travel abroad for a length of time, they can lose that residency, and then it will go to a Jewish person, a settler. If they marry someone from the West Bank, then they can't live together in Jerusalem. So there's a whole raft of laws and rules and different ways that they've been slowly chipping away to take over Jerusalem.

And then, you know, this, the move of the embassy, is just another kind of slap in the face. And it's one of the main three issues that Palestinians have been calling for. And it's also recognized under international law, you know, that it's not going to go to either state, that it's going to be a shared capital, if we go by what the United Nations resolutions have said. So, you know, what can you say when—and also you get this kind of pastor here?

And I've just been handed, Amy, the death toll number here in Gaza has now just gone up to 37 just today. So this killing continues.

And, you know, I just have to point out also, in a lot of the coverage I've seen, it's always Gaza is equated with Hamas, and it's just that this is a Hamas movement and so forth. And, you know, Gaza is much more than Hamas. And especially what's happening now, this is a mass movement of all sectors of Palestinian society. Hamas is involved, but so is Fatah, so is PFLP, so is Islamic Jihad, you know, all those political parties. But more than that, there are women's committees, youth committees, civil society committees, legal advocates. All of them are taking part and making these decisions of how to move forward and how to run this movement. There are no party flags allowed. I didn't see any Hezbollah flags. They're not allowed. Only the Palestinian flag. And in the back of the protest, further away from the border just a couple of hundred yards, there's a festive atmosphere. There's cultural events. There's art. There's music. There's celebrations of Palestinian heritage. So, this is really more of a broad-based, grassroots movement. I don't think, even if Hamas wanted this to stop, that it could stop it. And—

AMY GOODMAN: Sharif?

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Go ahead.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have this report from AP. You were describing the drones that are releasing tear gas, and you've got the butterfly bullets that explode within a person's body. The latest number of people dead since March 30th is, we believe, around 84. Just today alone, in the deadliest day of the Israeli military's attack on this nonviolent protest in Gaza, 37 people dead. And AP is saying, "Witnesses say Israeli drones have dropped incendiary materials, setting ablaze tires that had been collected for use in a planned Gaza border protest. They say the drones set tires ablaze in two locations early Monday, releasing large clouds of black smoke."

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: I wouldn't be surprised. This morning, drones flew over and set fire to, early in the morning, two encampment sites, trying to set fire to the tents themselves. Some sewage water was sprayed in the tent encampment in Khan Younis. And, you know, when we talk about crossing borders, the military does regular incursions into Gaza all the time and commits these things.

But, yeah, I mean, these—you know, Israel is always coming up with kind of these new weapons. And the drones, I saw one, you know, for the first time today. It flew over, and then, all of a sudden, maybe six canisters, tear gas canisters, dropped out of the drone. They're spinning, because they're spewing out the gas, and so they kind of spread over a large area. And you have people, you know, men, women and children, just kind of fleeing everywhere. It's quite, quite terrifying. And again, you know, this is—the resistance of this movement is really—it's just rocks, it's kites and balloons, it's some Molotov cocktails. But nowhere near can they reach the Israeli soldiers, who are sitting behind these ramparts and picking people off with sniper rifles.

So, you know, and the burning of these tires, there have been kind of changes of tactics. You have what they call the tire brigade, and you'll see all these young men and boys run up with all these tires, and they put them in these holes that they've dug in the ground, so they can hide down and not be hit by the bullets. And then they'll light one on fire, and a young man will drag it, sprinting out to the front and hoping not to get shot, and then run back. And then, once that tire is burned, there's a huge plume of black smoke, and it really does bar the view of the snipers. And so, there's this kind of, you know, resistance that's trying to counter this violence. But again, yeah, today, as I said, the number now is up to 37, so, by far, the bloodiest day. And tomorrow there's also supposed to be a massive mobilization. Tomorrow is the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. And we don't know what will—

AMY GOODMAN: And when you say Nakba, Sharif, just to be clear, the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel, for Palestinians, seeing this as the 70 years starting with the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Explain what Nakba means.

SHARIF ABDEL KOUDDOUS: Yeah, Nakba was what—how Palestinians refer to the founding of Israel and the forced expulsion and mass displacement of something like 750,000 Palestinians from Palestine. And so, you know, this year marks the 70th anniversary of that. You know, in Gaza itself, over 80 percent of the residents of Gaza are refugees or the descendants of refugees who fled from their homes and were forced into Gaza back in 1948.

So, you know, you have these young men who keep trying to cross. They say, "I want to go back home," even though they've obviously never been there. But they say, "This is our land." And I asked one of them, you know, "You're going to cut this wire, and you're going to cross. You don't have anything with you." I said, "You're going to get hurt, or you're going to die." He said, "I knew I was going to get hurt. But I'm not afraid, and I'm going to go." So there's also a sense of despair involved, as well. I mean, there's these young men going, knowing that they're going to be either crippled or be killed, but they kind of keep doing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Sharif, we will continue to talk to you tomorrow, as this massive mobilization continues. Today, on this day of the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, opposed by many countries around the world, Palestinians protesting by the thousands. Sharif Abdel Kouddous, independent journalist, Democracy Now! correspondent, reporting to us from Gaza.

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