Racism and Trump

THE ABSURD TIMES

Our country and the Mideast

By

Ellia dea

Our noble leader at work.   Hungry for anything.  Seems the invasion is over, but the kids are still locked up, 14,000 of them.  Many have people here more than willing to take care of them, recommended by their parents, but they are undocumented.  If they call the person and find that out, the people are referred to ICE.  After all, they are Mexican.

What else is going on?  Trump doesn't want comedians at the white House correspondent's dinner, and they caved in.  Last time he was there, that I remember, Obama deconstructed him and he didn't find it amusing.  In fact, I don't think he finds anything amusing or funny.  Low IQ.

He attacked the 9^th Circuit as having "Obama" judges.  Chief Justice Roberts set him straight one that (and he is only intelligent, not politically liberal at all) and then Trump tried to stir up a Twitter war with him.  It ain't gonna happen. 

Gun control with Ollie North as its spokesman – a huge black Friday sort of shooting in Hoover Alabama.  The name itself should be a warning.  The cops shot the wrong guy who is still on the loose.  Then, anybody who voluntarily goes to a shopping mall in a place called Hoover, Alabama on Black Friday is obviously taking their own lives very lightly.

They also shot up a mall in Alaska.

Some woman in Mississippi, land of the inbred Scots (apologies to the people of Scotland, it's not your fault), who makes a 1960s Jerry Lee Lewis look like a puritan, cheered public hangings and voter suppression and had posed at a Confederate museum with a gun,  She will probably win, but Trump will go down there to lend his support.  Who needs Jeff Sessions?

In a land of mawkish, selfish, and racist panorama

We are attacked with vicious, ignorant, and un-mellow Drama

God took a dump

And expelled Donald Trump

And we all miss Barack Obama.

Some crackpot went to some island to tell the people about Jesus.  They didn't want to hear it.  First they shot his bible and he got away.  So the bugger goes back: "My name is Paul and I want to tell you about Jesus".  This time they shot the arrow into him.  Moral: Get you Jesus outta here.

This is crazy!  This Trump is weird.  It's like a bad acid trip.  Go away.  Bats and lizards!!!  I can't take it!!

Intervention

By

Czar Donic

It seemed to us at this point in time to terminate Ellis' contribution and bring us back to the topic at hand as the rest of his contribution is incomprehensible.  Contemporary events sometimes overwhelm Ellis, but the limerick is fun.

Looking back at it, however, helped me realize why I've never been able to finish writing a work of fiction. One of the purposes of fiction is to concoct a story so vivid that it penetrates the veil that separates us from reality.  Today, finally, it is clear that the only real fiction is in the so-called "reality shows", which Donald Trump once starred in.  He is still doing the same thing, but he has hired someone else to say "You're fired".  There are rumors that Kelley will be dismissed and he is the one whose job it was to do that for him, so I don't know who it is that will do that.  Betsy DeVoss?  

Anyway, France is in trouble.  Macron is trying to blame the riots on the right wing, but it is his economic policy that is crippling him.  He is practicing what eventually brings down every government – austerity.   Whether he dislikes Trump or not, it will bring him down. 

May gave her policy for the EU or Brexit to parliament, and the members laughed.  She continued, but they continued laughing.  Jeremy Corbyn, a sane leader in England, gave a rebuttal, but the BBC cut away after about 15 brilliant minutes of his analysis, giving credence to the contention that the BBC had become the Fox news of Britain.

Anyway, the racism here is getting very stark these days.  Trump has lifted the taboo on the subject and the mental white wing is getting uglier by the day.  The attack in Pittsburgh was not against Zionism, but against Jews.   Same with the attacks on Muslims.  These people are too dumb to distinguish an Indian sect from Islam.  They just don't like what they perceive to be their race.  Of course, there are exceptions for Saudi Arabia and other places the racist in chief likes because they bribe him, but in general, it is a dislike of the "other".  They can't handle it.  Black people? Low IQ, of course.

Much of this is supported by Evangelicals and other Jesus freaks, so I'd like to say a bit about Jesus.  (As people see him.)  The freaks are everywhere.  Recently, I was driving through a busy intersection on a two lane.  I wound up behind a bus with a big sign saying HONK IF YOU LOVE JESUS!  Well, the driver missed one green light and was still not moving at the next one, so I beeped the horn to alert him.  The people in the bus went wild, waving, smiling, shouting – that was the last thing I wanted.  I tried to pass, but too crowded.  At the next red, I made an illegal u-turn and escaped. 

Now, this isn't the first time I ran into these freaks.  Once they knocked on my door and said "We have good news, you can be born again!" 

I yelled back, "and go through puberty once more?  NO THANKS!"

Well, I was telling my Dad about this once and he mentioned Mormons knocking on his door every Sunday morning.  He kept telling them, as well as he could with a splitting hangover, "Please don't come again."  Well, they showed up then next Sunday.  "Well, youse guys one one ting I like dat de odders don't dat I like/"

"Oh sir, that's that der Ploygany.  Now you bring some seven or eight girls here, let me pick out say four, and if dey put out real good, I might just sign up wid youse."

"Oh, no sir.  We don't allow that any more."

"Den wat da hell good are youse.  Get outta here!"

They never disturbed him again.

So now, a guy goes to an Island where they are not allowed.  They kill him with a bow and arrow right after he says "I came to tell you about Jesus."  This was his second attempt.  The first time he stopped the arrow with a waterproof Bible.  He is with Jesus now.

 Next election – I'd like to see Sherrod Brown as President and Kamila Harris as Vice President.  The only problem would be getting them elected. 

But we are far from the racism new.  Let's get back to it with out interview.

The following is Noam Chomsky on real anti-Semitism and the war on Gaza.   It may give some people a clue as to the difference between Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism. 

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. We continue our conversation with Noam Chomsky. Democracy Now!'s Nermeen Shaikh and I spoke to him on November 1st. It was just days after a gunman shot dead 11 Jewish worshipers, October 27th, at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. It was the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history. I asked Noam to talk about anti-Semitism and his own Jewish upbringing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His father was a Hebrew linguist.

NOAM CHOMSKY: When I was a child, the threat that fascism might take over much of the world was not remote. That's much worse than what we're facing now. My own locality happened to be very anti-Semitic. We were the only Jewish family in a Irish—mostly Irish and German Catholic neighborhood, much of which was pro-Nazi, so I could see it better on the ground.

What we're now seeing is a revival of hate, anger, fear, much of it encouraged by the rhetorical excesses of the leadership, which are stirring up passions and terror, even the ludicrous claims about the Nicaraguan army ready to invade us—Ronald Reagan—the caravan of miserable people planning to kill us all. All of these things, plus, you know, praising somebody who body-slammed a reporter, one thing after another—all of this raises the level of anger and fear, which has roots.

The roots lie in what has happened to the general population over the past 40 years. People really have faced significant distress. An astonishing fact about the United States is that life expectancy is actually declining. That doesn't happen in developed societies, apart from, you know, major war or huge famine. But it's happening because of social distress, and not necessarily impoverishment. The people who are demonstrating this fear and resentment may be even moderately affluent, but what they see is they're stagnating. In the past, there was—you had this dream: You worked hard, you could get ahead, your children would be a little better. Now it stopped. It stopped for the last 40 years as a result of very specific socio and economic policies, which have been designed so that they sharply concentrate wealth, they enhance corporate power, that has immediate effects on the political system in perfectly obvious ways, even to the point where lobbyists literally write legislation. This onslaught has literally cast a bunch of the population aside. They're stagnating. They are not moving forward. They see no prospects. And they're bitter and angry about it.

AMY GOODMAN: And then, if you could talk about specifically the targeting of the Jewish worshipers, I mean, and the clear connection that the shooter made between this temple and HIAS, what's formerly known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the group that has helped to resettle refugees of any religion for well over a hundred years? And he repeated words that Trump has begun using more and more about, you know, they're helping the "invaders" come in. If you could respond specifically to that?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I think it's pretty clear that he's whipping up terror about invasions, people pouring across the border to plan to kill us all, to destroy our civilization. You take people who are already somewhat disturbed and living under harsh conditions, this can incite them to acts of extreme violence against targets like the Jewish temple. All the anti-Semitic tropes are pointing in that direction, but most—also against Afro-Americans, immigrants, any vulnerable population or population that's easy to target for lots of cultural and historical reasons, all this amplified by the loud speaker up in the White House and his minions, who are doing what they can to terrorize the population, create the conditions under which you can get something like the attack on the synagogue.

AMY GOODMAN: So, I wanted to turn, then, to a clip of the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, who was interviewed by Ayman Mohyeldin on MSNBC on Sunday, so it was soon after the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre.

RON DERMER: To simply say that this is because of one person or it only comes on one side is to not understand the history of anti-Semitism or the reality of anti-Semitism. One of the big forces in college campuses today is anti-Semitism. And those anti-Semites are usually not neo-Nazis on college campuses. They're coming from the radical left.

AMY GOODMAN: This is right after the white supremacist attack on the synagogue, and the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. is now injecting, saying this comes from both sides. If you could respond to this? Interestingly, two days later, when Trump and his family went to Pittsburgh, the only—and this is pointed out in The New York Times—the only public official standing there to greet him was Israel's ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer. People like the Pittsburgh mayor and the others said this was not the time to come.

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, I think it's quite easy to understand. There is an alliance of reactionary repressive states developing under the U.S. aegis. Israel is a leading member of it. Saudi Arabia is another, one of the most brutal, regressive, harsh states in the world; United Arab Emirates; Egypt under the harsh, brutal dictatorship; the United States; Israel.

And the United States, of course, very—especially under this—the alignment goes way back, but the Trump administration has gone way out of its way to lend support to Israeli crimes, Israeli expansion. And the Israeli right wing, of course, which is increasingly dominant, is delighted. So, the fact that, say, the Israeli ambassador would come out and say that is really no more surprising than the fact that John Bolton would praise the election of a strong advocate of torture, murder and repression. It all fits the same pattern.

AMY GOODMAN: This issue of the number of people who died this weekend, the horrific massacre—11 Jews died. The model of the coverage, of knowing who each person was, hearing their names, their life stories, their ages, who their families were, knowing when the funerals are taking place through the week—what about this being a model for what's happening in Gaza? I mean, for example, on, I think it was, Friday, six Palestinians were killed, with those ongoing protests near the separation wall. Israeli military has gunned down more than 200 Palestinians. That was Friday. Six Palestinians died. And on Sunday, three Palestinian teenagers were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Gaza Strip. Your thoughts on Dermer trying to make this connection to get away from the issue of white supremacy and, somehow, someway, blame the left?

NOAM CHOMSKY: Well, remember, all of this in Gaza is being done with overwhelming U.S. support, even U.S. weapons, literally.

Gaza is on the verge of becoming, literally, uninhabitable. The international monitors—U.N. and others—have warned that within just a few years, it may be literally unlivable. I mean, right now, there's virtually no potable water. The sewage pours into the sea, because Israel has bombed and destroyed the power plants and the sewage plant.

Back in 2005, when Israel withdrew its illegal settlers in Gaza and moved them to illegal settlements in the West Bank, it imposed a siege on Gaza. The official terms for that—official, not making this up—are "We have to impose a diet on Gaza, not harsh enough so they'll all die"—implication being that wouldn't look very good—"but harsh enough so that they can barely survive."

And there have been—quite apart from the brutal siege, there have been repeated attacks on Gaza by the Israeli army. Gaza is virtually defenseless. This is one of the strongest armies in the world, lashing out to devastate Gaza.

There's always pretexts. There are pretexts for everything. Hitler had a pretext for invading Poland: He was protecting Germany from the wild terror of the Poles. And the Israelis, with U.S. backing, have concocted pretexts—no time to go through it here, there's plenty in print about it. Every one of them collapses on inspection. It's just a punching bag.

And the effect on the people of Gaza is to create utter desperation. The current march is just an attempt to somehow break the siege, make life possible. The problem could be overcome easily, simply by providing them with the opportunities for survival. That's it. Not trying to block every attempt at political unification of the factions. It's often been a pretext for another attack.

Some of what's gone on—parts of it we've seen—are just grotesque, like when a highly trained Israeli sniper murders a young woman far from the border who's trying to help—a Palestinian volunteer medic, young woman, who's trying to help a wounded man, and a sniper murders her. Highly trained snipers. They know what they're doing. The international monitors who have gone through the hospitals are shocked by the kinds of wounds they're finding, purposely designed to maim people so they'll barely—not kill them, but maim them, so they won't be able to have a—even take part in the minimal life that exists there.

Actually, Trump had a solution to this, to the misery of Gaza and the prospect that 2 million people, half of them children, will soon be in a situation of, literally, beyond the possibility of survival. They had a lifeline, what's called the UNRWA support, international support, which was barely keeping them alive. So, Trump's reaction is to cut it, cut support for it. And he even had a reason. He said, "They're not being grateful enough to me for my efforts to give them the ultimate deal that I'm planning." Ultimate deal, which means give up all your rights and forget it.

I mean, the war in Yemen, which finally, at last, is getting a little bit of attention, has been a major horror story. The most careful estimates of the killing, that are now just coming out, show that there may be seven or eight times as high as what has been—the numbers that have been given. They're on the order of 70,000 or 80,000. The analysis of these Saudi-Emirate programs, a long study that came out of the Fletcher School of International Diplomacy at Tufts University recently, showed, quite persuasively, that the policies of the attackers are aimed at destroying the food supplies, making sure the population starves to death. They're also trying to close the port through which some supplies come.

All of this is fully backed by the United States. U.S., and Britain secondarily, supply the arms. The U.S. supplies the intelligence for the Saudi Air Force, which is carrying out massive atrocities. All of these things are happening. For years, they've barely been discussed. Now, finally, you're seeing pictures on the front page of starving Yemeni children, even a call for a ceasefire—much belated, little attention to our crucial responsibility for it.

Just like our responsibility, which is overwhelming, for the plight of the miserable people trying to escape from the troika—Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala—the three countries that have been completely under our thumb and are suffering bitterly for it, now trying to escape. So we turn them into an invasion mob planning to destroy us. All of this is surreal. It only is overshadowed by the failure to attend even minimally to the literal existential threats, that are not remote.

AMY GOODMAN: Do you consider this one of the gravest times, in your lifetime, in U.S. politics, Noam?

NOAM CHOMSKY: It's one of the gravest times in human history. Humans have been around for 200,000 years. For the first time in their history, they have to decide—and quickly—whether organized human society is going to survive for very long. So, is it the most gravest moment in my life? Yes. But also in all of human history.

AMY GOODMAN: The world-renowned professor, linguist and dissident Noam Chomsky. He was speaking to us from Tucson, Arizona, where he now teaches at the University of Arizona. He's also institute professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he has taught for more than 50 years.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

`

I TOLD YOU SO

THE ABSURD TIMES

The dead guy

I told you so

By

Czar Donic

Before we get to before we get to, this just in, and I shit you not, TRUMP JUST SAID THAT EVEN IF THE CROWN PRINCE DID ORDER THE MURDER, THERE WILL BE NO CONSEQUENCES.

Also, he is going through with that stupid "pardon the turkey" bit for "Thanksgiving" (which originally was just a day off declared by Lincoln with thanks to the working families of the country and it had nothing to do with our fucking the Indians).

Also, he is withdrawing forces from the MeXican borders, thus allowing thousands of Mexican rapists into the country,  not just rapists, but mother rapers and father rapers (thank you Arlo and try to listen to Alice's Restaurant this thanksgiving -- things havn't changed much since then except we don't have the drive to combat the bullshit anymore.

Before we get to that, we have other things to think about before we are sent off on the yearly mass death scene on our decaying highways. 

Trump decided not to attend to veterans at the WWI memorial because of rain.  Yes, because it was raining out there and he was tired.  He also admitted that he does not visit troops in combat zones because he is afraid to do so.  He give new meaning to the term "Chicken Hawk," a term originally used, I think, to refer to Dick Cheney and the weird Secretary of Defense who authorized torture, Rumsfield, and meaning the war hawks who never served in the military but nevertheless claimed great patriotism.  Perhaps it is patriotic to refuse being drafted, but not because you "had other priorities" (Cheney's reason).  You oppose it because it is evil and wrong.  You face possible imprisonment if you can't manipulate the system to be out of the idiocy altogether, but you don't have "other priorities".

Now, veterans are being screwed out of their health and education bemefits and so on because of an IT "glitch" (a technical term for lazy fuckups).  Some of my ex-military friends tell me that Afghanistan is being called "Forgottenstan" by other vets.  They know me.  I helped treat them for PTSD.  They know where I stood and I know where they stood, but at least they had been there and knew what the hell had gone on.  Some told me things that I'm not supposed to know, but I assured them I knew about it already.  Just recently commercial TV is mentioning the millions of bombs we hit Laos with during Vietnam (one of the things I wasn't supposed to know about).  Thank you Henry Kissinger who at 99 or so still charges $5,000 and hour for advice.  Yeah, the guy who would pray in front of the fireplace under the pitcher of Lincoln at Nixon's bidding.

One more thing: McCrystal or however you spell it, the seal who killed Bin Laden said Trump was a disgrace or some other evil thing.  Trump's response is "He is a Clinton Supporter -- he is an Obama supporter".  Well, what more do you want.

We are starting to believe the CIA, FBI, and other such nefarious entities as the only people we can trust.  Take it from there.

But I digress. 

Now we find out that Ivanka is doing the same damn thing that the chants of "LOCK HER UP" were directed at Hillary were about. 

Trump went out to California to Paradise, which he called Pleasure and Governor Jerry Brown had to correct him, but only on the send time he did it.  He said it could have been avoided if we raked the leave like the president of Finland said.  Finland was asked about this and said, essentially, "We don't know what the fuck he was talking about and neither does he".  Actually, obviously, it was about the logging industry.

Now some cabinet member (or like that) blamed it all on "radical environmentalists.

Honestly, the only sane person still standing in that chicken coop of a White House right now is called "Mad Dog" because of how he behaved as commander in Iraq.  Trump told him to assassinate a bunch of people in Syria and he said "OK," sir.  After hanging up, he turned to his staff and said "We are not doing anything like that."

I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO!!

BY

CZAR DONIC

These are the "new developments".  After we published the article below, the Saudis said that he actually walked out of the embassy alive.

No, then that he got into a fist fight with the clerk and died in battle.

Then they admitted that, yes, he was killed.  The all the details below were confirmed.  It seems like months ago that we told you so.

Now, it's clear that the CIA says that the Crown Prince ordered this assassination.  However, that the journalist was given a burial.  It seems more likely that the body parts were dissolved in a vat of acid.

Our retaliation is to reduce our refueling of bombers sent to Yemen to kill wonder and children, with special emphasis on wedding parties.

Ah, what friends we have in the family, the royal family.

We assume "new details" will continue to "emerge," so perhaps it is time to discuss this and let it go. 

First, let's learn how to pronounce this man's name:  Ka shoeg [alternatively "showg") she.  Networks, even in the U.S. have begun to get it relatively correct.  A major problem is caused by the transliteration which is strange and mysterious at the very least and has never been explained to our satisfaction, although not through lack of interest on our parts.  Similar problems exist in The Cyrillic and Greek alphabets, but this is beyond anything like that. 

The Prince, who runs things over there in Mohammed Bin Salamon, which people have taken to calling MBS for good reason.  So now, what happened?

Kashoggi (see what I mean?) was a columnist for the Washington Post.  He also seemed to be somewhat of a patriot and supported MSB in many things, including giving women the right to drive.  He seems to have written some things a bit too critical and, thus, he had to go.  He fled here in order to escape death.  He also wanted to marry a Turkish citizen.  In fact, that may have been his ultimate crime.

At any rate, he asked for the paperwork and the consulate in Washington, and they told him he would have to go to Turkey to get the papers.  He seemed to find this reasonable, although going along with it casts some doubts on his credulity.  At any rate, after he eventually entered the building in Turkey, he never left alive.  His fiancé waited outside and was given the name of two people to call if he never got out, and she called them. 

Just before he entered, 15 killers had arrived at the consulate.  Various accounts exist to explain the existence of the recordings to what happened to him while he was there, accounts including that he had an Apple watch to and then including that the Turks had the place bugged.  Whether or not there were cameras tucked away is still unexplained, but the Turks claim they have both audio and visual proof. 

According to accounts, the proceedings were quite vicious and cruel.  The regular functionnaire at the place did say "if you are going to do that, do it somewhere else.  I could get into trouble."

He was told it was best for him if he kept his mouth shut if he ever wanted to survive in Arabia. 

Accounts relayed to sources say that the killings were "brutal" and shook him, and this person was a veteran of torture sessions.  We do know that the journalist was strapped down on a table, injected with some sort of liquid, his fingernails and then fingers were separated for his body all the while he was screaming.  One of them, a forensic doctor, had a bone saw and he was cut up into pieces and, presumably, the pieces placed in bags.   The "blood curdling screams" lasted about seven minutes.  The bags were then disposed of somehow and the 15 returned by plane to Saudi Arabia without hours the same days.  In face, the fifteen were there only for a few hours.

Donald Trump explained the situation as caused by "rogue elements", although 15 well-coordinated rouges seem a bit convenient.  More and more explanations are developing.   Our Secretary of State visited with MBS and suggested we give them a few more days to investigate.

Meanwhile, the Turks did manage to gain access to the place after about two weeks and report smells of cleaning fluid and repainting.  They were not allowed to visit the residence.

Kashoggi's last column was printed just hours ago, and it warns about suppression of the press and suggests that some sort of Radio Free Europe is needed for the entire Arab world.  He limits this to since the quickly aborted "Arab Spring", although we know that the process continues under every despotic regime in the world and to some extent even here, although the suppression here is done more though economic means. 

Everyone not in Trump's world remembers Jefferson's words to the effect that if he needed to choose between a free press or a safe government, he would favor the press.  The press is unpopular everywhere.  We can remember Russia Nobel prize winners defecting here and being criticized, but mainly their comments went unheeded.  One of them pointed out that in "The Soviet Union" he works were sought out and devoured.  Here, there was so much junk and clutter that whatever he had to say went virtually unnoticed unless some government figure sought to criticize him with taunts such as "If you don't like it here, why don't you go back to wherever?"  Strange how many Americans were given the same treatment and still are.

At any rate, that's that. 

It may be worthwhile to point out that the penalty for murder in Saudi Arabia is death in public by sword, sometimes followed by crucifixion.   Death is also the penalty for espionage, homosexuality, and atheism (which makes any 19^th century German philosophic discussions rather risky.

We could go on, but we seem to have already done so.  Here is documentation as we know it:

* *  *

Israel, Sociopath Inc.

THE ABSURD TIMES

Israel has come to this.  Their new flag in honor of Netenyahoo.  A ceasefire had been arranged by Egypt and to celebrate Israel conducted underground or undercover operations against a Palestinian or Hamas leader.  It failed, and what's more, even Fox news as well as every major news outlet admitted that this current fighting is a result of Israel's aggression.  [Flag done by my our prior illustrator, Hugh, now deceased.  He died shortly after the Sociopath in chief was elected.  Tom Hayden died before he was elected.  Farewell both.]

First, we have to come to terms with the sociopath in the White House, the Sociopath in Chief.  He is so desperate for attention, admiration, approval, even hatred, any attention (it doesn't matter) that he will go to any lengths to keep himself on the front pages.  What would happen if everyone finally realized that he is genuinely nuts?

I'm not sure I ever explained about Psychopaths here.  If I did, too bad, if I didn't, here it is:

1) I pointed out that although what Trump has is now called an "anti-social personality defect" was previously called a Sociopath. The next few entries will distinguish between a Sociopath and a Psychopath.

 2) a Psychopath can not tell right from wrong. A sociopath can, but deems it irrelevant.

3) A Psychopath can empathize with others and often enjoys doing so. A Sociopath can not.

4) A Psychopath is legally insane, a Sociopath is responsible legally.

5) A Psychopath does not feel emotional pain. A Sociopath does, when it involves him/her.

So, now that we have a Sociopath running things and very angry that nobody seems to like him right now, but at least people are focusing on him, we are safe.  But what if we simply ignored him?  He would obviously try to get front page news, perhaps by starting a war, as mentioned.  This could happen if he was either ignored or, worse, if his darling son or daughter after whom he secretly lusts, were under investigation.  What would save us?

I never thought I'd be reduced to this.  I didn't think it could possibly happen, not in my most Kafkaesque nightmares, but we would be in the position of depending on the four star generals to refuse to follow his orders and conduct an unprovoked nuclear attack against Russia, China, and perhaps Canada and Mexico, just to get back on the front page.  Imagine being in the position where the only hope for survival of the planet is a revolt of the military against the Sociopath in Chief?  We are counting on them.  Otherwise, we will have to continue to say things about him, no matter what things they may be, just to satisfy his lust for attention.

Now to Israel.  The Zionist state.  Palestinians have been peacefully demonstrating for some time now for the right of return, the same argument as used to justify the Balfour declaration that established the State of Israel in the first place and displaced many Palestinians, many of whom still have the original deed to the homes they once occupied. 

* * * *

The death toll in Gaza has risen to at least six after Israel launched its heaviest airstrikes on the region since 2014, targeting scores of buildings, including the TV station Al-Aqsa TV. Israeli airstrikes also reportedly hit dozens of homes. Militants in Gaza responded by launching hundreds of homemade rockets into Israel. One person in Israel, a Palestinian man in Ashkelon, was reportedly killed. Some 16 others were injured, including at least two critically. The escalation began after a team of Israeli commandos drove into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis Sunday in a clandestine raid that killed seven Hamas members, including a commander. Israel said one of its soldiers had been killed in an exchange of fire before Israel called in tank fire and airstrikes while the commandos escaped back to Israel. We speak with Muhammad Shehada, a writer and activist from the Gaza Strip and a student of development studies at Lund University, Sweden. He writes for Haaretz, The Forward and other publications.

---

Transcript

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

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I'm Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: The death toll in Gaza has risen to at least six after Israel launched its heaviest airstrikes on the region since 2014, targeting scores of buildings, including a TV station, Al-Aqsa TV. Israeli airstrikes also reportedly hit dozens of homes. Militants in Gaza responded by launching hundreds of homemade rockets into Israel. One person in Israel was reported killed, a Palestinian man in Ashkelon. Sixteen others were injured, including at least one—two critically. The recent escalation began after a team of Israeli commandos drove into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis Sunday in a clandestine raid that killed seven Hamas members, including a commander. Israel said one of its soldiers had been killed in an exchange of fire before Israel called in tank fire and airstrikes while the commandos escaped back to Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we're joined by Muhammad Shehada, a writer and activist from the Gaza Strip, writes for Haaretz, The Forwardand other publications.

Muhammad, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you explain to us what you understand is happening in Gaza, as you join us from Sweden, where you're a student?

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, it started with Israel carrying out an undercover assassination against the top Hamas leader, Nour Baraka, at the worst and most inexcusable time one could ever think about: only a few days after Hamas and Israel supposedly reached an understanding to restore tranquility and calm and reintroduce progress to Gaza. Once the Israeli cover was blown up, Hamas retaliated with a barrage of improvised, primitive projectiles on Israel's south, with the aim to draw a red line of deterrence for Israel, that it cannot do as it may please in the Gaza Strip. Israel responded immediately with an explicit implementation of the Oxford definition of "terrorism," basically intimidating and terrorizing Gaza's civilian caged population as an instrument to achieve political gains—essentially, to send strong messages to Hamas and, according to a senior Israeli officer, exact a price from the other side.

The bombed buildings are usually predesignated targets, where Israel's choice of the next target is carefully calibrated in accordance with the desired magnitude of pain it wishes to leave Gaza with in order to teach it a lesson, so that when people wake up, they see destruction, rubble and funerals everywhere. They would be, presumably, terrorized back into passivity. This morning, a senior Israeli Air Force commander said that the nature of the targets, quote, "are completely different from anything we've known in the past." These targets are high-rise buildings in the city centers.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk—

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: And so, eight—

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about the bombing of Al-Aqsa TV in Gaza?

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, basically, Israel claims to have warned people in advance that the building is going to be targeted, a compound for Al-Aqsa TV. However, it doesn't make it any better to give people a choice between losing their constructions or homes or losing their lives. Today, for instance, people were awakened at 4:30 in the morning, in the very early morning, to an Israeli phone call saying, "You have only one minute to leave your homes, or else you will die inside them." Afterwards, Al-Yaziji Tower, in the very heart of Gaza, was obliterated from existence, reduced to rubble and misery. And people—that construction, in addition to seven others, including Al-Aqsa TV compound, used to house tens of Gazan families, civilian families, essentially, including kindergartners—kindergartens and entrepreneurial centers. So what we are seeing here is that Israel is trying to teach Gazans a lesson not to walk out of the line, not to be loud about their slow death, by inflicting the severest and most traumatic pain it could afford to do.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Could you talk about the timing of this assassination attempt that touched off these latest troubles, especially in light of the fact that there appear to be at least some potential for restarting some kind of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and the involvement of other powers in the region in some sort of mediation?

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, Gaza has shown extraordinary commitment to overwhelming nonviolence over the last at least six months of protest, demanding the right to life at the 5-meter fence that entraps the enclave. Eventually, Israel decided that if the protests are distant from the fence, in return, Gaza would be given an influx—an increase in the influx of Qatari fuel and money to pay the salaries of government officials, and increase the electricity daily dose for Gaza's population. However, once this, let's say, ceasefire understanding settled in, Israel seized the opportunity to immediately target Hamas, thinking that they cannot retaliate, with the interest of maintaining the ceasefire. We are seeing, apparently, international efforts to restore progress in the Gaza Strip that are being exterminated from existence by the Israeli persistence to play a political game other than caring for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you give us the context? When you talk about the last six months of peaceful protest, since March 30th, over 200 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza. What is the number? Fifteen thousand, 18,000 injured, more than 5,000 of them shot by Israeli soldiers. Can you talk about these ongoing protests and what the demands are now in Gaza?

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, basically, Gaza has been rendered unlivable by the year 2020 by the United Nations. The United Nations officials came out recently to say that "We've been optimistic about this deadline. Gaza is already, in fact, unlivable." If you look at the humanitarian situation in Gaza, you have an ever-increasing segment of extreme poverty. About 80 percent of the population depend on food packages and humanitarian aid to survive. And you have 97 percent of the water unfit for human consumption, totally polluted.

For this, Gazans decided to rise against their slow death and take initiative with their own hands. People have been marching to the Gaza borders for more than six months every Friday, and on other days of the week, to demand their right to life, to demand that the blockade shall be removed. And Israel, time and again, refuse to of knowledge the basic facts that people in Gaza are caged in a toxic slum from birth to death, where they are being suffocated out of hope, out of life, out of any sense for progress, and hollowed out of their souls eventually. And hence, they came to the borders to bring it down, to bring the bars that surround Gaza and besiege it into slow death down. And that's basically what they were demanding, that they shall no longer suffer at this time of their history.

AMY GOODMAN: Your final words—we have about 30 seconds—on the situation and what you feel needs to be done?

MUHAMMAD SHEHADA: Well, The Guardian, a couple of years ago, opened an op-ed by saying Palestinian nonviolence should be met by global nonsilence. However, the equation that we have here is that if Gazans do not throw rockets or improvised projectiles, nobody at all listens to them whatsoever. Once these projectiles begin to fly over Israel, immediately the international community is concerned with restoring tranquility. However, what is made synonymous to tranquility is restoring the status quo that led to the explosion of these troubles in the first place, the very suffocating status quo. So it's a catch-22 that is being repeated over and over again. What Gaza needs in order to assuage existing problems, including security problems, is the very minimum of human dignity. They need to live as other people around the world, clear and simple.

AMY GOODMAN: We want to thank you so much for being with us, Muhammad Shehada, writer and activist from Gaza Strip, student of development studies at Lund University in Sweden, where he's speaking to us from. Muhammad writes for Haaretz, The Forward and other publications.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.