aslam

open source advocate. I tweet what I like. The views expressed here are my own.

[Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng @drtlaleng]

What a read!

“Mofokeng’s criticism was an act of standing up to power. She was not punching down; she was punching up. To discipline her is to misunderstand language, to misread context and to misalign professional ethics with power rather than justice.”
https://t.co/Vlwj8n76JX

[aslam @aslam]

@YoBenCohen @MagnumGlobal Olive oil infused with lemon and chocolate - as served by https://t.co/WjShIzimCH

[United Nations Geneva @UNGeneva]

“It is clear there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry's report shows #Israel has committed #genocide in #Gaza.

https://t.co/UGjepPwmwo

[William Dalrymple @DalrympleWill]

Here you go, @michaelgove:
Gove’s book is a confused epic of simplistic incomprehension, riddled with more factual errors and misconceptions than any other text I have come across in two decades of reviewing books on this subject. Thus we are solemnly told, for example, that during the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank from 1948 to 1967, the Palestinian population from Jenin to Hebron was “herded into, and kept penned up inside, refugee camps”, an idea as novel as it is comically ridiculous and ahistorical. During this period, towns such as Ramallah became sleepy backwaters, quite free from the land seizures and apartheid policies of Arab-free Israeli settlements and Arab-free road networks that followed the Israeli occupation — realities entirely at odds with what Gove calls Israel’s “culture of equality”.

Gove also rewrites history when he alleges it was the “appeasement” of the Palestinians represented by the Oslo peace process that encouraged al-Qa'eda to launch the 9/11 attacks. In fact it was not any offer to make peace, so much as the violent repression that followed Israel’s unilateral ending of peace talks that actually formed the backdrop to the attacks. In his Knights Under the Prophet's Banner, Bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has written that it was the the repressive campaign waged against the second intifada by Sharon in the Autumn of 2000 that provided al-Qa’eda’s opportunity : as the corpses of dead children piled up, al-Zawahiri realized that here was the rallying cry that could unify the Muslim world. All that was needed was a massive strike, and the US system in the Middle East would begin to unravel. And so - thanks partly to Gove's friends in Washington- it has indeed proved, to the peril of us all.

Gove is also quite wrong that few Muslims or Islamists really mind what Israel does to the Palestinians and the Lebanese, and that “it is what Israel is, rather than what Israel does” that really provokes resistance. Instead Israeli violence is the principle cause of anti-American anger- Bin Laden himself has written that it was the sight of US support for the Israeli bombing Beirut in 1982 that initially radicalised him: “they started bombing… I still remember the blood-torn limbs, the women and children massacred. Houses were being destroyed and tower blocks were collapsing… As I looked on those destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the oppressor in kind by destroying towers in America…”

Throughout Gove's book, the old NeoCon myths are reheated and served up, despite being long discredited, most recently by the 2005 CIA report released last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Saddam, believes Gove, “invited Islamists into Iraq” (p130); he was “determined to pursue his WMD programme” and “dreamt of emulating” 9/11, strongly suggesting the central lie of Saddam's non-existent links with 9/11. Gove also repeats the tired old canard that the spread of democracy will exclude the Islamists from power in the Middle East, (p135) despite the evidence from Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and Algeria that given the option, the newly radicalized Muslim peoples of the region are much more likely to choose fundamentalist candidates over secularists.

At the heart of Celsius 7/7 lies the long-discredited idea that the Islamists are motivated by a deep hatred of freedom: as Bin Laden noted in his 2004 broadcast, if that was so “why we did not attack Sweden?” Instead, it is specifically to fight for freedom from US interference in the Islamic world that al-Qa'eda was formed: “We have been fighting you because we are free men,” said Bin Laden in the same speech. “Just as you violate our security, so we violate yours.”

All terrorist violence , Islamic or otherwise, is contemptible. But just because we condemn does not mean we should not strive to analyse accurately. It is exactly the sort of woolly elisions that Gove indulges in that has got us into the trouble we are now in.

[Muntadhar al-Zaidi @muntazer_zaidi]

If I had been there😏😏😏

[Fan Ms Rachel At Songs @msrachelforlitt]

#LetAidIntoGaza 💔

[thottoman empress ll 𓂆 @karlowitchy]

We have let down our most vulnerable in Palestine and the world over. I’m disgusted and ashamed.

[missfalasteenia @missfalsteenia]

Hind Rajab — 2 Ramadans ago.

Her mom recently shared this photo with this caption.

[Assal Rad @AssalRad]

Fixed.

[Fatima Hassan @_HassanF]

The @PresidencyZA + @HealthZA must be more accountable for + alert to potential genocidal partners' involvement in NHI design + delivery. Our 'future' is in the hands of people who perpetuate or don't understand apartheid health care, otherwise?!

⏰️ And yes, Free Palestine 🍉

[Ayesha Bagus @Ayesha_Bagus]

Health Workers 4 Palestine (HCW4P) calls on healthcare workers, Discovery members and the general public to email your objections to Discovery Health CEO Dr Ronald Whelan at [email protected].

[Mehreen. @iMehreenAlam]

SHE SAID IT.

[John Wight @JohnWight1]

Rachel Reeves: "There will be another £2m for Holocaust education." The whole world is getting a Holocaust education for free right now.

It's called #Gaza.

#Budget

[Friendly Neighborhood Comrade @SpiritofLenin]

In 1998, Bill Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on Sudan’s Al-Shifa factory, which produced 90% of the country’s pharmaceuticals. The destruction of the factory resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands from treatable diseases.

[The Lucky Heron @LuckyHeronSay]

I suddenly like Paul Weller a whole lot more 💚

[The Presidency 🇿🇦 @PresidencyZA]

South Africa’s Ambassador to the Netherlands Vusi Madonsela delivering South Africa's Memorial to the International Court of Justice.

The boxes contain 62 copies of the Memorial.

Each set contains the Memorial, the Annexes and the complete documents folder.

South Africa has filed its Memorial to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) today, 28 October 2024, in its case on the Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel).

#ICJMemorial
#ICJGenocideConvention

[The Palestinian @InsiderWorld_1]

A Palestinian child trapped under the rubble awaits help.

What a heartbreaking scene.

[Dr. Nika Soon-Shiong @nikasoonshiong]

As Mandela said:

“The temptation is to speak in muffled tones about the rights of the people of Palestine.

Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face.

Yet we would be less than human if we did so.”

[Jairo I. Fúnez-Flores @Jairo_I_Funez]

Sharing Refaat Alareer’s last post again.

[Dr. Jill Stein🌻 @DrJillStein]

You can buy a new flag, but you can't bring 180,000 people back to life.

How is it that this "full statement" says NOTHING about murderous genocide funded by the USA?