Wednesday, March 27, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dan Kovalik, John Helmer March 27th, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
March 27, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 27th, 2024


Russia held its presidential elections ten days ago, and if you haven’t heard, incumbent candidate, Vladimir Putin won reelection. At least that’s what they’re saying in the Russian press. On this side of the Atlantic however, America (and by default its Euro-allies) filled the week after with stories of the fix being in, trying to convince their viewers and readers the man with the 80+ percent approval rating had figuratively defenestrated opposition voters to steal the win, etcetera, etcetera, blah, blah, blah.

But that was before the terror attack in Moscow that claimed 139 lives at last count, and wounded hundreds more.

Dan Kovalik was in Russia for the vote, acting as an election observer. It’s something he has a lot of experience in, having performed that function many times in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Colombia. Dan’s a lawyer, educator, labour, peace, and justice activist, democracy defender, journalist, author, and filmmaker. His book titles include: ‘Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture’ the “Plot to” series on American efforts to undermine the governments and economies of Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, ‘No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using ‘Humanitarian’ Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interest’, ‘Nicaragua: A History of US Intervention & Resistance’. His latest is, ‘The Case for Palestine: Why It Matters and Why You Should Care’ due out in May.

Dan Kovalik in the first half.

And; as stated, the horror in the Crocus City Hall music venue has quashed the Western fake news campaign to delegitimize Putin’s election, and now looks to effect the nature of the two-plus years war between Russia and Ukraine.

John Helmer’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. He’s the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, and has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism and served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’. His latest article at Dances with Bears is, ‘The Evidence on the Crocus Gang Attack in Moscow‘.

John Helmer and what is known about the heinous Moscow attack in the second half.

But first, Dan Kovalik observing democracy in action in Russia, and making the case for Palestine.

 

Songs: This Is Genocide” “Evening News

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Saturday, March 23, 2024

Hollywood Bread: Words Left Unsaid

Hollywood Bread

by David Rovics

 
March 22, 2024
 
In principle, I still agree with Noam Chomsky on most everything.  Half the time these days when I see his name mentioned in some social media thread, it's to criticize him for his perceived disinterest in getting to the bottom of various events, such as the assassination of JFK or the 9/11 attacks.

 

Listen. Hear.

I still agree with Chomsky's basic orientation on these questions, and have long been parroting it myself.  

It goes something like this:  whoever committed various acts like these, the big problem we face is capitalism and empire, and that's what desperately needs to change, regardless of whatever nefarious activities intelligence agencies or terrorist networks are up to. 

Eight years ago, however, I had a personal experience which, though it didn't change my basic orientation politically in terms of the problems with capitalism and empire or the kind of country and world I yearn to live in, it did make me hone right in to the particular cataclysmic, world-shifting mass murder event that took place in multiple locations in the eastern US on September 11th, 2001.  It raised questions that seem to be very simple as well as very disturbing and exceedingly urgent, but which also seem to have no answers.

Eight years ago I got an email from an old friend who I hadn't been in touch with for many years.  One of the reasons we had been out of touch for so long was because for years he was in touch with no one, in fear for his life, basically living underground.  He wrote me a long email, catching me up on what had happened, particularly during the year, 2001.

Eight years ago, when I reconnected with my old friend, I published an anonymized version of his email to me on my blog, with his permission.  In 2022, I wrote and recorded a song called "Hollywood Bread."  Yesterday I received a rocking remix of the song from Chet Gardiner's studio in Hawai'i.  So this song will be another one on the upcoming album, which will be titled Bearing Witness.  On the occasion of the remix -- and on the occasion of the Israeli military very actively committing genocide, under explicit directions from Israeli leadership, while the western media engages in holocaust denial -- I thought I'd revisit that email I got back in 2016.

The details I would highlight, and the questions I would ask, are pretty much all in the song -- which is a long one, especially by my normally more punk rock standards of brevity.

In Hollywood, Florida, there used to be a building, since demolished, called Hollywood Bread.  My friend had an office on the 9th floor.  

The 10th floor was off-limits, though it used to be accessible.  The janitor of the building, who still was able to access the 10th floor but wasn't supposed to, was mysteriously found dead in the elevator on the 10th floor.  They said he was drunk and had an accident, but my friend said he knew the janitor, and the man never drank alcohol.

My friend shared the 9th floor with other businesses, mostly staffed by Israelis.  They had a lot of fancy IT equipment, but they said they were a moving company.  The staff often didn't seem to know they worked for a moving company, and had to be reminded on occasion.

The smoking area outside of the building was a smoking area shared by other nearby buildings, including one where a man named Mohammed Atta worked.  Mohammed smoked a lot, and often was at the smoking area when my friend was taking smoke breaks, along with lots of the Israelis, who seemed to know Mohammed.

On September 11th, 2001, Mohammed Atta died, along with the other hijackers and their thousands of victims.

By September 12th, 2001, the Israelis were all gone from the Hollywood Bread building, along with all of their equipment.

My friend contacted the FBI to tell them he knew Mohammed Atta and had some other things to talk about that might potentially be of interest to them, but they were never interested in following up on this with him.

None of these facts by themselves prove anything, but they certainly raise justifiable suspicions of all kinds -- suspicions made even more suspicious by the complete lack of believable answers to any of them.

Such as:

  • why does it appear from web listings that no one had offices in the Hollywood Bread building in September, 2001, when this is evidently not true?

  • what business was operating on the 10th floor in September, 2001?

  • how did the janitor die?

  • what was the Israeli "moving company" really doing?

  • what was the relationship between the Israeli "moving company" and Mohammed Atta?

  • why did they all quickly close their offices after September 11th?

  • why was the FBI not interested in my friend's stories about all of this?

I don't know if we'll ever know the answers to any of these questions.

Some things I do know is since I posted to my blog with my friend's testimony about this stuff, the online trolls who position themselves as "antifascists" consider me a "conspiracist," which seems to be a new term for people who spread "conspiracy theories."

I also know that as soon as I posted about this, I started hearing from people about all sorts of other conspiracy theories about 9/11 and many other things.

From my decades now of experience in two particular arenas -- speaking out against Israel's crimes, and speaking out in support of imprisoned journalist, Julian Assange -- there are clear patterns in terms of the reactions I've learned to expect.

From one end there will be the voices discounting your questions on the basis of them addressing apparent conspiracies -- whether they might be conspiracies between intelligence agencies and terrorist networks to carry out, assist in, or deflect responsibility for terrorist attacks; or conspiracies between various state actors to libel, silence, and imprison a journalist.  Regardless of how much circumstantial or whatever other kind of evidence there may be pointing to an actual conspiracy, there will be many loud voices responding with attacks, to anything that gets attention.

From another end there will be those who see someone capable of believing in the outrageous, and therefore someone to share their own outrageous ideas with, ideas about other wild conspiracies involving mass murder, secret coups d'etat, or some form of world governance plot -- in some cases theories which are well-known to be true and a matter of the public record, in other cases theories which are patently completely wacky, and a whole bunch in between as well.

There is no doubt at all that both those making the accusations of "conspiracism" and those sharing news of other conspiracies are a combination of well-meaning individuals as well as people working in one of various troll farms, paid to sustain a narrative and attack those who veer from it and get any attention for doing so.  (Anyone who pays attention to me via Facebook in late February and early March can attest to the obviously organized and paid trolling activities of the pro-Israel trolls apparently unleashed on me by UK Lawyers for Israel.)

It may perhaps be possible for an investigative journalist or someone else to get past the "it's classified" response from FBI investigators to Israeli involvement in 9/11.  But it's very clear that the costs of even raising such questions can involve loss of credibility, association with wild-eyed tin-hat people, losing your job as a journalist or university professor, and not having your music played on BBC, among other consequences.  

To say the least, it's a very chilling academic/intellectual environment for any serious inquiry into very serious matters.

 

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer Extended Solo March 21, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
March 21, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 20th, 2024
 

None were surprised Vladimir Putin won an overwhelming mandate to continue in the office of the President in Russia over the weekend, but to hear the Anglo-American media reports, that entirely predictable event is merely a “claim” being made by the Kremlin. Just how are we in the West to go on in the World with our faculties clouded with such nonsense? And, every day it gets worse with ever more draconian message-management measures being devised to reach right into social media.

John Helmer is an antidote to the poisoned press, on Russia especially. John’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from there, and persists as the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears. John has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism, and has served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’. His latest article at Dances with Bears, ‘WHEN IT COMES TO FIGHTING RUSSIAN DIAMONDS, THE JEWISH DIAMOND TRADE AND DE BEERS ARE A BUSTED FLUSH’ looks at the cascading negative effects for Israel of its barbarous Gaza campaign.

Today, John Helmer and Europe Four Flushing Russia…

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Thursday, March 21, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, John Helmer March 20, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
March 20, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 20th, 2024

Listen. Hear.

As dates of infamy go, March 20th is right up there. It was on this very day, twenty-one years ago, George W. Bush marched American troops into Iraq preceding the heinous “shock and awe” bombing of Baghdad. Now, even the lying media majors whose mendacity then allowed the catastrophe inflicted by Bush’s “coalition of the willing” happen, concede the attack and all that followed was based on lies – “a pack of lies” as George Galloway would thunder at US senators two years later.

So why did Bush do it, if not to neutralize Saddam Hussein’s non-existent Weapons of Mass Destruction? Perhaps the intense lobbying by Israel for the war, and ascendancy of the Neo-Con claque within the Bush White House can explain it? Two things certain, however are; those manufacturing the lies in Washington profited their infamy handsomely, and today are free to enjoy the fruits of their complicity in the murder of unknown numbers of Iraqis. And, that impunity not only made the ongoing Gaza genocide possible, but guarantees a future of unending atrocity.

Ken Stone is an activist and author working for peace with the Syria Support Movement International and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. His book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’ is a compilation of his dispatches from his 2016 visit. Ken and the Hamilton Coalition have been in the fore of Canadian resistance to militarism for years, and that activity has increased since October of last year.

Ken Stone and Gaza foremost in the first half.

And; none were surprised Vladimir Putin won an overwhelming mandate to continue in the office of the President in Russia over the weekend, but to hear the Anglo-American media reports, that entirely predictable event is merely a “claim” being made by the Kremlin. Just how are we in the West to go on in the World with our faculties clouded with such nonsense? And, every day it gets worse with ever more draconian message-management measures being devised to reach right into social media.

John Helmer is an antidote to the poisoned press, on Russia especially. John’s a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from there, and persists as the principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears. John has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism, and has served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’. His latest article at Dances with Bears, ‘WHEN IT COMES TO FIGHTING RUSSIAN DIAMONDS, THE JEWISH DIAMOND TRADE AND DE BEERS ARE A BUSTED FLUSH’ looks at the cascading negative effects for Israel of its barbarous Gaza campaign.

John Helmer in the second half.

But first, Ken Stone and fighting for peace in the Middle East from Canada.

 

Song: Song for the Houthi Army

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Famine: Israel's Gaza WMD

When Starvation is the Weapon, the Harvest is Shame

by Kathy Kelly - World BEYOND War

 
March 14, 2024

In a work entitled “Irish Famine 4,” Palestinian-American journalist and artist Sam Husseini combined grass and paint to commemorate a bitter time in Irish history when starving people died with their mouths stained green because, according to historian Christine Kinealy, their last meal was grass. 
 

An Gorta Mór

Shamefully, British occupiers profited from exporting out of Ireland food crops so desperately needed. Over a seven year period, beginning in 1845, one million Irish people died from starvation and related diseases. It was a conscious mass killing. One of the most horrific means of execution we can read about or imagine was employed. The result, an excruciating descent into despair, delirium and bodily immobility while one’s attention, and character, is gradually reduced to extreme hunger and pain.

Now, in the occupied Gaza Strip, weapons dealers benefit from increasing military shipments to Israel. Palestinians, like the Irish, have resorted to eating mixtures of grass and animal feed. The past five months of Israeli siege, bombing, and displacement have killed more than 31,000 people – mostly women and children. The onset of famine will expand that number exponentially, particularly among children.

Human Rights Watch says the Israeli government is starving civilians as a method of warfare in the Gaza Strip. Aiding and abetting this war crime, the U.S. government has approved 100 military sales to Israel over the past five months. U.S. bullets, bombs and guns have helped prevent crucially needed aid from reaching millions of Palestinians. The bombs have buried or destroyed much of the food supplies which could have partially mitigated this horror. Continued attacks have forced vast populations to flee, huddling in the occupation force’s next target, Rafah. The United States continues providing resources and support for this genocide.

On March 11, eight U.S. senators signed a letter to President Biden insisting that ongoing weapons shipments to Israel violate U.S. laws forbidding military aid to regimes obstructing U.S. humanitarian aid.

Additionally, 25 prominent humanitarian and human rights organizations delivered a letter to the President echoing the Senators’ message.

Even as Israel faces mounting pressure from world leaders to stop attacking people in Gaza awaiting relief and stop impeding humanitarian relief shipments, Israel turned back another aid truck. The reason? The shipment included children’s medical kits with scissors useful for applying bandages or cutting away clothing to reach shrapnel.

The Israelis forbid the scissors as a potential dual use weapon. Meanwhile the United States keeps sending Israel guns and bombs which present a far greater threat.

Each day brings new reports of Palestinians, 40 percent of them children, succumbing to disease and death because they are deprived of food, fuel, clean water, medicines, and shelter. Hellish conditions worsen as infectious contamination spreads from decomposing bodies and the chemical contaminants from the shell casings of thousands upon thousands of Israeli and western-supplied bombs dropped on Gaza.

In Northampton, Massachusetts, six activists are on day three of occupying the office of Representative Jim McGovern. They are demanding he call on the president to immediately halt all weapons shipments to Israel, even if Israel allows humanitarian aid into Gaza. And they want Rep. McGovern to publicly call for the United States to stop vetoing U.N. cease-fire resolutions.


Photo credit: Leahy Fast for Palestine Committee
Occupiers in Rep. Jim McGovern’s office.


“These are desperate times,” says one of the occupiers, Peter Kakos. “We must call for immediate action, and nothing less.” He’s particularly mindful of 17,000 Palestinian children in Gaza who are estimated by UNICEF to be currently unaccompanied or separated from their parents.

Save the Children’s March 12, 2024 report questions what five months of carnage, flight, starvation and disease, on top of nearly 17 years of apartheid blockade, will do to the children in Gaza who survive the brutality now afflicting them.

During a recent visit to Amman, Jordan, I witnessed the anguish and frustration felt by many Palestinians denied any means of relieving the suffering of loved ones.

They had this response to photo-ops taken of U.S. aid drops. 
 

“Are you going to feed starving people so that they can then face genocide from the Israeli Army with a full stomach?” asked my host. “What’s the logic in that? The only humanitarian thing to drop would be to drop all support for Israel’s war on the people of Gaza.”

 
In May of this year, an Irish NGO called AFRI (Action From Ireland) will hold an annual “famine walk ” to commemorate when hundreds of desperate people trekked in cold and stormy weather to beg mercy from British officials designated to assess who would qualify for small portions of food or tickets to enter a workhouse.

“The weather was terrible,” notes County Mayo’s official record, “with wind and hail beating down upon them. When they arrived in Delphi the Guardians refused them food or their tickets to the workhouse. Needless to say many of them perished on the return journey as fatigue and exhaustion from hunger took hold. Some of those that had energy to start the journey back to Louisburgh were swept into the lake by the heavy squalls.”


Each year, the organizers of AFRI’s famine walk focus on a place in the world afflicted by famine. “This year’s famine walk will focus on the unspeakable horrors being visited on the population of Gaza,” says AFRI’s coordinator, Joe Murray, “with ‘Irish’ President Biden forgetting his history and playing the part of a ‘Black and Tan’ in providing the means to obliterate an entire population.”

It’s heinous to ignore the plight of starving people as was done by the British relief officials in the spring of 1847. But how much crueler is it to bomb the people you are deliberately starving, forcing people to wonder if they will face a quick death or a long and tortuous one?

Yes, these are desperate times. People in the United States ought to occupy local offices of every elected official, denouncing all forms of violence, insisting on an immediate end to any support for Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza. It’s time to acknowledge the futility of war and call for a collective home to be shared by Muslims, Jews, Christians, Bahais, Druze and many others in a secular democratic state encompassing Israel and Palestine. Similarly, the elected representatives should occupy the Oval Office until the President takes action. 

 

Kathy Kelly (kathy.vcnv@gmail.com) co-coordinates the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal and is board president of World BEYOND War
 


This article first appeared in The Progressive Magazine.

Back to Fallujah: War Crimes Tribunal and the Bloodiest Battle of America's War Against Iraq

Fallujah: The Bloodiest Battle of the Iraq War

by Merchants of Death Tribunal

Dear friends; this video episode of the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal examines the US aerial bombardment of Fallujah and the resulting bloodbath that occurred there. The Second Battle of Fallujah would become the bloodiest battle of the entire Iraq War.
I'm writing to share with you the next evidentiary video for the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal, entitled: Fallujah: the Bloodiest Battle of the Iraq War. Please see below!

And on this St. Patrick's Day, please consider an article about The Great Starvation in Ireland and the suffering borne by Palestinians starved in our time by Israeli policies. The U.S. government's criminal complicity persists. The article can be read here: https://worldbeyondwar.org/when-starvation-is-a-weapon-the-harvest-is-shame/


 

 The link for this video evidence is here: https://rumble.com/v4i7pjn-fallujah-the-bloodiest-battle-of-the-iraq-war.html

Please share this video link with friends and colleagues. Form discussion groups around all video evidence of the Tribunal.

The link for previous video episodes of the Tribunal is here: https://rumble.com/user/merchantsofdeath

And please encourage friends to sign up to receive future video segments of evidence here: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-up-for-emails-from-the-merchants-of-death-war-crimes-tribunal?clear_id=true

In solidarity,

Brad Wolf, Kathy Kelly, and Nick Mottern
Organizers
Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal

The Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal will hold accountable -- through testimony of witnesses -- U.S. Weapons manufacturers who knowingly produce and sell products which attack and kill non-combatants. These manufacturers may have committed Crimes Against Humanity as well as violated U.S. Federal criminal laws. The Tribunal will hear the evidence and render a verdict.


Donate to support the Tribunal.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dimitri Lascaris, T. J. Coles March 13, 2024

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
March 13, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio recorded March 13th, 2024

  

Listen. Hear.

Sunday past marked the beginning of Ramadan, Islam’s Holy Month marking the first revelations to the prophet. There had been hope, and some hints by US president Biden, a ceasefire would be agreed, but those hopes died with Israel’s bombing of Rafah, the city harbouring more than a million and a half displaced Palestinians – survivors of Israel’s now five months-long genocide campaign.

Dimitri Lascaris is an activist, journalist, and lawyer. His interviews for TRNN are at TheRealNews.com, and his articles appear at his website, DimitriLascaris.org, where you can find the recent interviews and videos he’s produced during his “month-long trek across the Middle East.” As Hollywood celebrated itself Sunday at the Oscars, and Israel bombed the civilians of Rafah, Dimitri spent the first night of Ramadan in East Jerusalem, outside the gates to Al Aqsa Mosque.

Dimitri Lascaris in the first half.

And; there’s been an effort to paint the genocide in Gaza, (and growing pogrom in the communities of the West Bank and East Jerusalem) in the colours of a religious war. The “battle of civilizations” narrative is a familiar one; we’ve heard it variously intoned during all of the many conflicts the United States and its allies have fomented across the so-called ‘Arc of Instability’ for the last twenty years and more, and each time it’s been a lie. But to what purpose?

Dr. T.J. Coles is the director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author of numerous books, including: ‘The War on You’, Manufacturing Terrorism’, ‘Capitalism and Coronavirus: How Institutionalized Greed Turned a Crisis into a Catastrophe ‘, ‘Biofascism: The Tech-Pharma Complex and the End of Democracy’, among others. His essays can be found at CounterPunch, where his recent piece, ‘The New Atheism at 20: How An Intellectual Movement Exploited Rationalism to Promote War‘ appears.

His latest book is, ‘The New Atheism Hoax: Exposing the Politics of Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Hitchens’ an indictment of both the weaponization of that “philosophical genre, which argues for secularism over organized religion” and its most famous literary proponents, the so-called “Four Horsemen”.

T.J. Coles and the Four Horsemen of the modern apocalypse in the second half.

But first, Dimitri Lascaris in the middle of the Middle East.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Thursday, March 07, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Andy Worthington, Yipeng Ge March 6, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
March 6, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 2nd & 6th, 2024

Last month, Julian Assange’s final appeal to avert extradition to the United States was heard over two days in a British court. Now Assange and the millions of his supporters around the globe wait for that court’s decision. To call his detention, approaching five years in maximum security under the harshest conditions allowed by English law, a miscarriage of justice hardly addresses the produndity of the perversion of the principles of Magna Carta, that foundational precept of Western jurisprudence.

Andy Worthington is an English journalist, activist, author, photo-historian, filmmaker, musician, song-writer and principle of The Four Fathers band. He and the Fathers have released a new tribute song to the Belmarsh Prison’s most famous inmate, ‘Warriors’. Andy’s is too co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, still trying to get released men captives of George W. Bush’s “generational war”.

Gorilla Radio is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

His book titles include: ‘The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison’, ‘Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion’, and ‘The Battle of the Beanfield’. Andy’s articles appear at his website, AndyWorthington.co.uk, where he invites participants to enjoin Close Guantanamo’s efforts.

Andy Worthington in the first half.

And; the horrors in Gaza intensify by the moment. This past week, the World witnessed the infamous targeting of starving civilians gathered by some of the few aid trucks allowed in by Israel southwest of Gaza City. The Flour Massacre, as this infamy is now being called, claimed at least 112 lives outright, with more than 750 people wounded to varying degrees. Small beer when counted against the tens of thousands killed in Palestine, hundreds of thousands injured, and more than a million and a half people rendered homeless in this purposefully made humanitarian catastrophe, and undeniable genocide. And yet, those in Canada calling for an end to the killing are being assailed by the government, attacked in the media, and in true McCarthyite fashion, blackballed from their professions.

Dr. Yipeng Ge is one of these. A family practice doctor and resident physician in Public Health and Preventive Medicine at the University of Ottawa’s faculty of medicine, Ge was suspended in November for social media posts criticizing Israel and calling for a ceasefire.

The University subsequently backed down, giving indications of rescinding that suspension, but Ge refused to return saying, “I feel incredibly harmed by this process, and I don’t know how to continue within this institution because of what’s happened.” Ge too resigned his membership on the Canadian Medical Association board in protest of that institution’s silence on the targeting of hospitals, doctors, and the entire medical system there.

Since, Dr. Ge traveled to Gaza to see for himself and ostensibly work at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, but was unable to do so due to “targeted attacks on healthcare workers” in that place.

Yipeng Ge and bearing witness in Gaza in the second half.

But first, Andy Worthington and fighting for justice for truth warrior, Julian Assange.

Song: Warriors

Artist: The Four Fathers

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Your Six O'Clock Holocaust

Wadi Gaza is Arabic for Babi Yar, and Aaron Bushnell is American for Szmuel Zygelboym

by David Rovics - DavidRovics.com

 
March 7, 2024

The holocaust that is underway in Gaza is being enabled by the US government and denied by the mainstream US press.

When the German Nazis and their Ukrainian collaborators massacred their Jewish, Roma, and other victims, they often coaxed them to the site of the massacre by offering them food. For media consumption, they had nicer stories about what they were up to. years ago now, the Nazis' industrial death machine was already in full motion. So many of those killed died of famine and disease long before ever reaching a gas chamber. One member of the Polish Underground made it into and out of the Warsaw Ghetto during its last weeks of existence, and also made it into and out of a transit camp en route to Auschwitz.

He saw the naked, starved bodies of the dead all over the Warsaw Ghetto, and the naked, starved bodies of the dying being stuffed into cattle cars, often just left in them until they finished dying. He got to London, where he made sure the leaders of the Polish government in exile fully understood what was happening there.

When the operative from the Polish Underground got into the ghetto and saw what was going on, he asked his guides from the Jewish Combat Organization what they thought people on the outside should do to raise attention to what was happening. They responded that they thought people should do extreme things that communicate the extreme nature of what was happening, such as publicly starving themselves to death.

Szmuel Zygelboym was a leader of the Polish Socialist Bund in exile in London. Upon getting news of the scale and horrors of the industrial slaughter of his fellow Polish Jews from this emissary, by the time the last of the Jews of Warsaw had been killed, including much of his own family, Zygelboym left a long communique explaining that he was killing himself in order to call attention to the systematic extermination of the Jews of Poland by the Nazis that was then taking place.

He would have publicly starved himself to death, but he was afraid the British authorities would just have him locked up in a mental institution, so he opted for poison instead.

There are things happening today that it's really important we all be clear on. I'd break them down into four basic points of understanding.


1) A holocaust is underway.


A holocaust happens when an entire population is targeted for elimination, by means such as famine, disease, and/or various other forms of mass killing, such as carpet-bombing cities, firing machine guns into helpless crowds of people, using various forms of chemical weapons such as poison gas, napalm, white phosphorous, and cluster munitions in order to indiscriminately kill large numbers of people, and doing all these things day in and day out.

Examples of other holocausts include the centuries of persecution of Native Americans -- which are perhaps best understood as a whole series of smaller genocides, each bearing a remarkable resemblance to what's happening right now in Gaza, minus the Air Force element. One of the many examples I'd use to illustrate this series of holocausts with would be the exile and intentional death by famine and disease of most of the Indians of Minnesota in the wake of Little Crow's uprising of 1862.

Examples of other holocausts would include Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the industrial carnage wrought on the entire populations of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia by the US Air Force in the 1960's and 1970's, which was fundamentally genocidal, as it was about targeting the people -- with the recognition that when facing a People's War, your enemy is, in fact, the People.

Committing genocide is nothing new for the US. It doesn't belittle one holocaust to highlight another -- unless you're one of these people who has managed to convince themselves that some people matter (such as certain Europeans), and others don't (such as American Indians, Vietnamese, or Palestinians).

2) The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other major countries are directly enabling the Gaza Holocaust.


Unlike the Nazi holocaust, where photographs and video were tightly controlled and operations were kept secret, the holocaust underway in Gaza being perpetrated by Israeli occupation forces is literally being livestreamed by its victims in real time. Millions of people in Gaza are being deprived of food or clean water, and we're watching them die of dehydration and starvation in real time. Their home is a landscape of rubble, with unknown numbers of people buried underneath it, and we can see them digging with their bare hands through the cement to try to find the bodies of their neighbors.

When thousands of starving Palestinians attempt to get food from supposed aid convoys, they are systematically mowed down with automatic weapons, and this is happening every day. The main reason Israeli leaders have pursued such militaristic solutions to every problem they've ever faced, and the main reason Israel is able to continue its military campaign now is because the US, the UK, and Germany supply them with everything they need and more -- and the US vetoes the rest of the United Nations calling for an immediate ceasefire, just as the US has been protecting this rogue regime with its veto for decades.

3) The US media and most of the western media is actively denying this holocaust.


What does it mean to be a holocaust denier? The term is usually used to describe people who don't believe the Nazis systematically exterminated millions of people during the latter years of the Third Reich -- using killing fields, forced starvation, forced extended nudity in winter, gas chambers, and other such means.

Many years into Hitler's reign, the western media treated the German press as a legitimate source of information, despite the increasing censorship there. When the German press ran a story about a nice, tidy detention camp where all the prisoners played classical music, for years the tendency of the western press was to cover these stories like they'd cover other international stories coming from a legitimate source.

When the Israeli press tells us their soldiers fired on starving Palestinians because they were "looting" food from trucks, and that most of them died from trampling each other anyway, this nonsense is treated as legitimate information by most of the western press -- if they're covering Gaza anymore at all. What is actually happening, clearly, verifiably, is every time Palestinians gather in a public place where they think there might be the prospect of food, they are gunned down by Israeli forces, who are waiting for them to come out of the buildings they've already destroyed. The food is there to draw them out, it's a trap.

This is obviously what's going on, daily, and reports to the contrary are nothing more than a matter of western press and politicians believing a completely unbelievable, verifiably repeatedly dishonest source of information -- the Israeli military -- and acting on their lies as if they were true. They're obviously lying, it's a pattern that's been going on for months, years, decades. Believing lies when you know they're lies is known as denial. Holocaust denial, in this horrific nightmare of an instance.

4) The appropriate responses to a holocaust are whatever measures might have an impact on stopping it or raising the alarm about it, regardless of how extreme they might be.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Anas Al Salah February 28th, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
February 28, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 28th, 2024
 

Listen. Hear.

Yes by the Dickens, while it’s the best of times for war profiteers on Wall Street and their puffed up pitchmen in the Pentagon, few champagne corks were popping in Kyiv to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the coup that toppled President Victor Yanukovich and led to the quagmire of death and destruction engulfing first Ukraine, then Russia. And if celebrations were tastefully demure in Washington, in Ottawa, home of many in high places playing a role in fomenting the stock boon and distant disaster, observances were absolutely muted. In fact, not a word was uttered of the coup with a Canadian connection on the teevee, or in the Press.

And, truth be told, there’s an embarrassment of riches this week for Canadian coupsters with not one but two milestones marking the nations’ international perfidy. Likewise though, Canadians won’t likely hear about Canada’s inglorious role in the overthrow of Haiti’s duly elected. Down there they’re marking the 20th year of political regression tomorrow with more poverty and chaos in the streets.

Yves Engler is a Montreal-based political activist and the author of thirteen books, mostly detailing the dark dealings of Canada’s foreign policy elite, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. Yves’ latest, co-authored with Owen Schalk, is ‘Canada’s Long Fight Against Democracy‘. Yves’ also a prolific essayist, whose writing appears across the internet and at his website, YvesEngler.com.

Haitians Respond to Canadian announcement of millions for intervention forces.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; the deleterious effects of Canada’s pernicious foreign policies are not limited to just creating conflict, death, and retarding the social developmental of poorer nations. With its egregious – and illegal – actions regarding the current genocide in Gaza, this country has shown the World it’s ready to join history’s first tier of global infamy.

Anas Al Salah is a third-generation refugee, descended from Haifa, Occupied Palestine, currently residing here on the Saanich Peninsula, Coast Salish territory. Anas has been a featured speaker at the Gaza solidarity March and Rally in Victoria, carrying on now into its 5th month.

Anas Al Salah and struggling for peace in Gaza from Canada in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler on remembering the death of Haitian democracy and them that helped kill it twenty years ago tomorrow.

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

The Tweet Shadow-Banned Around the World (on Twitter)

The Israel lobby tries to cancel my gig in Leicester

by David Rovics

 
Feb 25, 2024

Caroline Turner, the wife of the CEO of UK Lawyers For Israel, Jonathan Turner, is writing emails to venues where I'm performing, trying to get them to cancel the gig.




Is Caroline Turner and her “charity” trying to promote my new album, Notes From A Holocaust, about the genocide her favorite country is currently committing against the Palestinian people? It seems so. Read her email below and decide.
 
 
To The Manager

The Musician Pub

Dear Sir or Madam

This is an urgent email to request that you cancel tomorrow’s event with David Rovics
We are UKLFI Charitable Trust, which provides legal support to victims of antisemitism, particularly antisemitism which manifests itself with regard to Israel.


We have been notified of the event that you are holding this evening with a singer called David Rovics. He is on a tour which is promoting his political views in relation to Gaza and Israel which could stir up racial hatred. These views are demonstrated by his lyrics and his political beliefs and could be seen as violating the laws of this country under:-

Section 18 Public Order Act 1986

18 Use of words or behaviour or display of written material.

(1)A person who uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or displays any written material which is threatening, abusive or insulting, is guilty of an offence if—

(a)he intends thereby to stir up racial hatred, or

(b)having regard to all the circumstances racial hatred is likely to be stirred up thereby.

(2)An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the written material is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and are not heard or seen except by other persons in that or another dwelling.

(3)F1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(4)In proceedings for an offence under this section it is a defence for the accused to prove that he was inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe that the words or behaviour used, or the written material displayed, would be heard or seen by a person outside that or any other dwelling.

(5)A person who is not shown to have intended to stir up racial hatred is not guilty of an offence under this section if he did not intend his words or behaviour, or the written material, to be, and was not aware that it might be, threatening, abusive or insulting.

(6)This section does not apply to words or behaviour used, or written material displayed, solely for the purpose of being included in a programme [F2included in a programme service].

Section 1 Malicious Communications Act 1988

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/27/section/1

His songs are totally a political expression of his views in relation to the war in Gaza. As they can be interpreted as a potential weapon for stirring up racial hatred you are breaching the law in the UK if he is permitted to perform this evening. We request that you take heed and cancel this tour otherwise we will have no hesitation in contacting the police.

The incendiary nature of his songs can be seen from the song titles listed below.



Yours faithfully

Caroline Turner

UKLFI Charitable Trust

30 City Road, London EC1Y 2AB

Tel 07905 719650, email caroline.turner@uklfi.com

Patrons: Lord Carlile CBE KC, Lady Cosgrove PC CBE KC, Baroness Deech DBE KC, Lord Dyson PC, Sir Bernard Eder, Lord Grabiner KC, Stephen Hockman KC, Lord Pannick KC, Professor Richard Susskind OBE, Rosalind Wright CB KC.

UKLFI Charitable Trust is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered with and regulated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales

(Charity no. 1169041)

Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer, Mazin Al-Nahawi February 21, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
February 21, 2024
 
Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 17th and 21st, 2024

 

Despite his death in prison yesterday, Russian “democracy activist”, Alexei Navalny will continue to serve his Western masters in their effort to unseat Vladimir Putin’s government. Since the news broke, the Free Press has inundated the cybersphere, airwaves, and teevees of Europe and America with extollations of the man’s courage and journalistic integrity with testimonials coming from them in high places; those same silent on the bitter fate of Julian Assange, long dying but not dead yet in a British dungeon.

Would it be too soon unkind to remind, Navalny cosseted neo-fascists; was a performative if not demonstrable racist, and an asset of the CIA and MI6? Yes, the only thing worse than living in prison perhaps is dying there, and few deserve that, so rest in peace Alexei, if you can find it.

John Helmer is a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. Principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, Helmer has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism, and has served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’. Helmer has also written voluminously on Navalny; his activities, methods, goals and sponsors.

John Helmer in the first half.

And; Canadians largely still believe, despite clear and present evidence of complicity in coups, occupations, and conspiracies to profit from the misery foisted upon anonymous others in foreign lands, that “we” constitute a force for good in the world.

This is perhaps nowhere more evident than in Palestine, where successive Canadian governments maintain vociferous and bipartisan support of the state of Israel, even while paying lip service to the unmet humanitarian needs of the captive populations of Gaza, Jerusalem, and the West Bank.

Mazin Al Nahawi is a Palestinian refugee from Safad, occupied Palestine. He’s a graduate of the Higher Institute of Dramatic Arts – Criticism Department, Damascus, Syria where he too studied Arab Linguistics, Mazin now lives here in Victoria, land that is the traditional territory of the Lkwungen, Esquimalt, and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples.

Mazin Al Nahawi and the fight for Palestine on two home fronts in the second half.

But first, John Helmer and the use of Alexei Navalny in life, and afterwords.

 

Songs: 

Once the Last Palestinian’s Killed

Lines Are Drawn

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Sunday, February 18, 2024

Eyeless on Gaza: The Annihilation the World Refuses to See

Annihilation in Gaza

by Kathy Kelly - World BEYOND War

February 19, 2024
 
“They’ve killed health care workers, nurses, paramedics; ambulances have been bombed. This has all been systematic…Now there’s 10,000-15,000 bodies decomposing.”

Many decades ago in Chicago, my favorite of several part-time student jobs was operating the “old-style” telephone switchboard at a small hospital called Forkosh Memorial. The console of coils and plugs included a mirror so operators could keep an eye on the hospital entrance, which on weekends and evenings was also monitored by an elderly, unarmed security guard named Frank. He sat at a classroom style desk near the entrance with a ledger book. Over the course of four years, on weekends and evenings, “security” at the hospital generally consisted solely of Frank and me. 

Fortunately, no dangerous incidents occurred. The possibility of an attack, invasion or raid never occurred to us. The notion of an aerial bombardment was unimaginable, like something out of “War of the Worlds" or some other sci-fi fantasy.

Now, tragically, hospitals in Gaza and the West Bank have been attacked, invaded, bombed and destroyed with news of additional Israeli attacks reported on a daily basis. 

Last week, Democracy Now interviewed Dr. Yasser Khan, a Canadian ophthalmologist and eye surgeon who recently returned from a humanitarian surgical mission at the European Hospital in Khan Yunis in Gaza. 

Dr. Khan spoke of bombings taking place every few hours resulting in a constant influx of mass casualties. The majority of patients he treated were children from age 2 to 17. He saw horrific eye injuries, shattered faces, shrapnel wounds, abdominal injuries, limbs severed above the bone, and traumas caused by drone launched laser guided missiles. Amid the overcrowding and chaos, health care workers tended to patients while lacking basic equipment, including anesthesia. Patients lay on the ground in unsterile conditions, vulnerable to infection and disease. Most of them also suffered from severe hunger.

Normally, a child who undergoes an amputation faces as many as twelve additional surgeries. Dr. Khan wondered who would do the follow-up care for these children, some of whom have no surviving relatives?

He also noted sniper fire prevented doctors from going to work. “They’ve killed health care workers, nurses, paramedics; ambulances have been bombed. This has all been systematic…Now there’s 10,000-15,000 bodies decomposing. It’s the rainy season right now in Gaza so all the rainwater mixes with the decomposing bodies and that bacteria mixes with the drinking water supply and you get further disease.”

Dr. Khan states that Israeli forces have kidnapped 40 – 45 doctors, specifically targeting Specialists and hospital administrators. Three health care professional organizations have issued a frantic statement expressing deep concern that the Israeli military has abducted and unlawfully detained Dr. Khaled al-Serr. Dr. Serr is a general surgeon at the Nasser Hospital where, according to Norwegian Dr. Mads Gilbert, Israeli forces have emptied two of  three buildings, displacing 600 patients at gunpoint, forcing them into the choked hallways of the third building.
 
Eight years ago, in October of 2015, the United States military destroyed Afghanistan’s Kunduz hospital, run by Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans Frontières). For over an hour, a C-130 transport plane repeatedly fired incendiary devices at the hospital’s emergency room and intensive care unit, killing 42 people. Thirty-seven additional people were injured. “Our patients burned in their beds,” read the MSF’s in-depth report. “Our medical staff were decapitated or lost limbs. Others were shot from the air while they fled the burning building.”

The horrific attack outraged war resisters and human rights groups. I remember joining a group of activists in upstate NY who assembled outside a hospital emergency room displaying a banner which proclaimed “To bomb this site would be a war crime.”

In 2009, on a smaller, yet still horrific scale, I witnessed an Israeli onslaught in Gaza called “Operation Cast Lead.” In the emergency room of the Al Shifa hospital, Dr. Saeed Abuhassan, an orthopedic surgeon, described experiences similar to Dr. Khan’s. This surgeon grew up in Chicago, very close to the neighborhood where I lived. I asked him what he would want me to tell our neighbors back home. He listed a litany of horrors and then he stopped.  “No,” he said. “First, you must tell them that U.S. taxpayer money paid for all of these weapons.”

Taxpayer money feeds the bloated, swollen Pentagon budget. U.S. Senators, last week, cowed by AIPAC, decided to send Israel an additional $14.1 billion to boost military spending. Only three Senators voted against the bill.

From Palestine, Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American human rights attorney, writes: “The scary part is not that Israel is planning the forcible transfer of the Palestinians it hasn’t slaughtered, but that the so-called ‘civilized world’ is allowing it to happen. The ramifications of this coordinated evil will haunt its collaborators for generations to come.”

At Forkosh Hospital I had a mirror to see what was happening behind my back, but everyone on earth can see, directly, the horror of U.S. support for a genocidal event happening on our watch.  Gravely distorted versions of what occurred on October 7th, cannot – even if believed - justify the scale of the horrors being reported in Gaza and the West Bank, daily.  The U.S. government continues enthusiastically to bankroll Israel’s systemic and inhumane destruction of Gaza. U.S. advisors make feeble attempts to suggest Israel should pause or at least try to be more precise in their attacks. In its quest for hegemonic superiority, the United States tears into ever tinier shreds whatever remains of a commitment to human rights, equality and human dignity. 

What kept Forkosh Hospital secure, decades ago, was a social contract that presumed safety for a small hospital serving the local population. 

If we can't find the morality to stop supplying weapons for ongoing Israeli onslaughts against Gaza and its places of healing, we may find we have created a world in which no-one can count on upholding basic human rights. We may be creating intergenerational wounds of hatred and sorrow from which there will never, ever be any safe place to heal.  
 

Kathy Kelly (kathy.vcnv@gmail.com) is board president of World BEYOND War;  she co-coordinates the Merchants of Death War Crimes Tribunal.


Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, John Helmer February 17, 2024

This Week on GR

by C.L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

 
February 18, 2024

Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded February 17th, 2024
 

Despite his death in prison yesterday, Russian "democracy activist", Alexei Navalny will continue to serve his Western masters in their effort to unseat Vladimir Putin's government. Since the news broke, the Free Press has inundated the cybersphere, airwaves, and teevees of Europe and America with extollations of the man's courage and journalistic integrity with testimonials coming from them in high places; those same silent on the bitter fate of Julian Assange, long dying but not dead yet in a British dungeon.

Would it be too soon unkind to remind, Navalny cosseted neo-fascists; was a performative if not demonstrable racist, and an asset of the CIA and MI6? Yes, the only thing worse than living in prison perhaps is dying there, and few deserve that, so rest in peace Alexei, if you can find it.


John Helmer is a journalist and author who’s spent decades living in and reporting from Russia. Principle behind the web news site, Dances with Bears, Helmer has too been a professor of political science, sociology, and journalism, and has served as advisor to governments at the highest levels.

Among his many book titles are: ‘Skripal in Prison,’ ‘The Man Who Knows Too Much About Russia,’ ‘The Lie That Shot Down MH-17’, ‘SOVCOMPLOT: How Pirates Tried to Capture the Treasure of the Russian Seas, and Were Caught Out’, and his lately released autobiography, ‘Dunce Upon a Time: A Life of Mistakes’. Helmer has also written voluminously on Navalny; his activities, methods, goals and sponsors.

John Helmer and the use of Alexei Navalny in life, and afterwords.

Song: Once the Last Palestinian’s Killed

Artist: David Rovics

 

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Friday, February 16, 2024

Israeli Malignancy Contracted by Canada's Political Authoritarians

Zionists lead the charge to a more authoritarian Canada

by Yves Engler - via SpringMag

 
February 16, 2024
 
Israel supporters have become a leading fascist force in Canada. They are pushing to restrict civil liberties, dismantle democratic organizations and increase policing.
 

Zionists politicians banning protests

Since I wrote about the phenomenon a month ago, Zionist groups and journalists have deepened their ties to fascist groups and escalated their anti-democratic rhetoric in a bid to defend the genocide in Gaza. Israel lobby groups and commentators have repeatedly taken their cues from the former head of the thuggish and racist Jewish Defence League (JDL). They’ve repeatedly circulated long-time JDL head Meir Weinstein’s videos depicting anti-genocidal protesters as a threat, and in a sign of this deepening alignment, arch-Israeli nationalist reporter Joe Warmington recently quoted Weinstein in a story tarring protesters. In a Toronto Sun article spurred by the former JDL head’s X post headlined “Security threat against Trudeau all of Canada’s concern,” Warmington quotes Weinstein, labelling Palestine solidarity protesters a “risk.”

As they deepen their ties to Khanist fascists, Zionist lobby groups have repeatedly called for marches to be banned, individuals to be fired and talks canceled. To suppress criticism of Canada’s contribution to Israel’s genocide, Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather, Marco Mendicino and Ya’ara Saks have repeatedly taken up the call to suspend democratic rights. A month ago Saks posted, “As I stated last week, & will repeat again – protests within largely Jewish neighbourhoods like the ones in our riding of #YorkCentre is completely unacceptable. Targeting an overpass in an area that is known to be local Jewish community is a form of intimidation.”

In response to pressure from Saks, Weinstein, B’nai Brith, CIJA and others, the Toronto police barred protests on an overpass of Highway 401. They then arrested three people for asserting their right to assemble. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) condemned the police’s move and CCLA executive director Noa Mendelsohn Aviv pleaded in the Canadian Jewish News against the Zionists push to suppress civil liberties. (A B’nai Brith suit to expand the anti-protest zone was rejected.)

As part of this push to suppress demonstrations, Israeli nationalist city councillor James Pasternak pushed Toronto representatives to develop a “policy and framework for the management and monitoring of rallies and protests.” In mid-January Pasternak declared, “It does not take much to see the [Palestinian] gatherings taking place downtown are not Charter-protected.”

Attacks on unions, libraries, and public democracy

In a similar bid to shut down basic democratic rights, B’nai Brith called for suppressing the public’s rights to ask questions at city council meetings. Reportedly, on December 21 a handful of members of the public showed up at a meeting of the Agglomeration Council of Montreal in response to Hampstead mayor Jeremy Levi telling me he would support Israel even if they killed 100,000 Palestinian children since “good needs to prevail over evil.” Apparently, they asked about Levi’s genocidal apologia and a Hampstead law to send money raised from fines for ripping down posters of hostages to Israel, which led B’nai Brith to file a complaint with the Quebec Municipal Commission (which the Commission rejected). When members of the public asked questions at the January meeting, B’nai Brith filed a second complaint (also rejected). The arch-Zionist Suburban newspaper/website has published three stories on the matter and a week ago the Montreal Gazette put the Zionists complaints on its front page in a story headlined, “Agglomeration council won’t act on antisemitism complaint, Montreal mayor says.”

CIJA and B’nai Brith recently succeeded in pressuring Concordia and Carleton universities to cancel their stops on a national speaking tour with British commentator Sami Hamdi, organized by the Canadian Muslim Political Affairs Council. A recent Zionist-sponsored lawsuit also called for the Concordia administration to block students from funding their union. In a similar vein, Conrad Black penned a commentary last week headlined “SHUT CUPE DOWN” due to their Palestine solidarity, and in the same National Post newspaper, lawyer Howard Levitt called on Zionist members to decertify the Canadian Union Public Employees union.

Fascists have long targeted labour unions. Ditto for books. Montreal’s Jewish Public Library recently pulled the books of Quebec’s most prominent children’s author, Elise Gravel, from their displays because she posted against genocide. A councillor in Côte-St-Luc, Mike Cohen, called for his municipality to do the same.

Zionism and fascism, hand-in-hand

On X, Israel supporters regularly respond to videos of large numbers protesting Canadian complicity in genocide by calling for protesters to be deported. In a similar vein, JSpace board chair Joe Roberts recently called protesters “fifth columnists” whose “real enemy has always been the liberal democracies of the west.”

To suppress the “fifth column”, the establishment Jewish groups are campaigning for increased police funding. On January 18, CIJA instigated a letter writing campaign demanding “Reverse the police cuts” in Toronto. Two weeks later, the advocacy agent for Canada’s Jewish Federations wrote, “We continue to urge Council to take action to prevent any shortfall in funding for the Toronto Police Service, so that our police have the tools they need to enforce the law and safeguard the Jewish community and all Torontonians from the threat of hate-motivated and all other types of crime.”

B’nai Brith recently called for increased funding to Montreal police and a slew of Zionist voices have called for the provincial government to allow security guards at schools to carry guns. City councillor Sonny Moroz, who previously worked for arch-Zionist federal MP Anthony Housefather, submitted a motion calling for greater police presence in part of Montreal.

CIJA, B’nai Brith and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center have extensive ties to police forces across the country. Recently it was reported that the RCMP’s controversial Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), which has spied on Indigenous and pipeline protests, has been targeting Palestine solidarity protests. In internal budgetary documents C-IRG labelled one protest a “Hamas Day of Action”

Zionists have long sought to criminalize support for Palestinians. In a bid to promote the slaughter in Gaza, they’ve become cheerleaders for authoritarianism, cancel culture and other forms of intimidation historically associated with fascism.

 

Yves Engler is the author of 12 books. His "Stand on Guard For Whom? -- A People's History of the Canadian Military" is available August 26