Munier Hossain

Consultant Orthopaedic foot and ankle surgeon, United Lincolnshire hospitals, content editor BJJ, author of "Making Sense of Medical Statistics".

[Michael Moore @MMFlint]

No filmmaker, writer or artist should ever have to tell the story of their own extermination. Yet 22 courageous Palestinian filmmakers found a way to film their story this past year in Gaza using whatever tools they could pull from the rubble of their homes and cities. The extraordinary film FROM GROUND ZERO — for which I am proud to be an Executive Producer — is the collection of these short films, told all together in under 2 hours. The fact that this film exists at all is a human and cinematic miracle. Go see FROM GROUND ZERO — in theaters now!

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

Very pleased to see the Second edition of Postgraduate Orthopaedics SBA book out in print. Privileged to have contributed the chapter on medical statistics.

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

@JitMangwani @BoneJointJ @bjjeditor @FATEaudit @bota_uk @BOFAS_UK @LeicesterBRC @DrFoxLHC @cwwalker10 @G8_Snow @LeicResearch @leicester_lorne Well done Jit, hard work paid off, and very well written.

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

@omarsuleiman Ameen,ya Rob.

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

@DillyHussain88 @realDonaldTrump Well said DillyHussain

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

@DillyHussain88 Thank you for your post, could not agree more, currently in Bangladesh trying to do my bit.

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

@jodymcintyremp In sha Allah, keep going,,brother.

[The Muslim Vote @themuslimvoteuk]

Regular people WILL decide the fate of this election.

⏳We have 2 weeks to register over 2 million Voters. Our Anti-Genocide Independents NEED the Muslim vote to win ⏳

Connect your Mosque with the TMV Movement & get your Congregation registered 👇

https://t.co/swN64p09IH

[Sami Hamdi سامي الهاشمي الحامدي @SALHACHIMI]

"And this is one of the greatest tragedies of this debate [on #Iran and Israel]: that 'rationality' is not in stopping a genocide [to prevent regional war], but in limiting it to #Gaza [and preventing any real intervention to stop one]"

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

The speech that I could not deliver because German police burst into our Berlin venue to disband our Palestine Congress (1930s style). Judge for yourselves the kind of society Germany is becoming when its police bans the following words:

Friends,

Congratulations, and heartfelt thanks, for being here, despite the threats, despite the ironclad police outside this venue, despite the panoply of the German press, despite the German state, despite the German political system that demonises you for being here.

“Why a Palestinian Congress, Mr Varoufakis?”, a German journalist asked me recently? Because, as Hanan Asrawi once said: “We cannot rely on the silenced to tell us about their suffering.”

Today, Asrawi’s reason has grown depressingly stronger: Because we cannot rely on the silenced who are also massacred and starved to tell us about the massacres and the starvation.

But there is another reason too: Because a proud, a decent people, the people of Germany, are led down a perilous road to a heartless society by being made to associate themselves with another genocide carried out in their name, with their complicity.

I am neither Jewish nor Palestinian. But I am incredibly proud to be here amongst Jews and Palestinians – to blend my voice for Peace and Universal Human Rights with Jewish Voices for Peace and Universal Human Rights – with Palestinian Voices for Peace and Universal Human Rights. Being together, here, today, is proof that Coexistence is Not Only Possible – but that it is here! Already.

“Why not a Jewish Congress, Mr Varoufakis?”, the same German journalist asked me, imagining that he was being smart. I welcomed his question.

For if a single Jew is threatened, anywhere, just because she or he is Jewish, I shall wear the star of David on my lapel and offer my solidarity - whatever the cost, whatever it takes.

So, let’s be clear: If Jews were under attack, anywhere in the world, I would be the first to canvass for a Jewish Congress in which to register our solidarity.

Similarly, when Palestinians are massacred because they are Palestinians – under a dogma that to be dead they must have been Hamas – I shall wear my keffiyeh and offer my solidarity whatever the cost, whatever it takes.

Universal Human Rights are either universal or they mean nothing.

With this in mind, I answered the German journalist’s question with a few of my own:

· Are 2 million Israeli Jews, who were thrown out of their homes and into an open air prison 80 years ago, still being kept in that open air prison, without access to the outside world, with minimal food and water, no chance of a normal life, of travelling anywhere, and bombed periodically for 80 years? No.
· Are Israeli Jews being starved intentionally by an army of occupation, their children writhing on the floor, screaming from hunger? No.
· Are there thousands of Jewish injured children no surviving parents crawling through the rubble of what used to be their homes? No.
· Are Israeli Jews being bombed by the world’s most sophisticated planes and bombs today? No.
· Are Israeli Jews experiencing complete ecocide of what little land they can still call their own, not one tree left under which to seek shade or whose fruit to taste? No.
· Are Israeli Jewish children killed by snipers today at the orders of a member-state of the UN? No.
· Are Israeli Jews driven out of their homes by armed gangs today? No.
· Is Israel fighting for its existence today? No.

If the answer to any of these questions was yes, I would be participating in a Jewish Solidarity Congress today.

Friends,

Today, we would have loved to have a decent, democratic, mutually-respectful debate on how to bring Peace and Universal Human Rights for everyone, Jews and Palestinians, Bedouins and Christians, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea with people who think differently to us.

Sadly, the whole of the German political system has decided not to allow this. In a joint statement including not just the CDU-CSU or the FDP but also the SPD, the Greens and, remarkably, two leaders of Die Linke, joined forces to ensure that such a civilised debate, in which we may disagree agreeably, never takes place in Germany.

I say to them: You want to silence us. To ban us. To demonise us. To accuse us. You, therefore, leave us with no choice but to meet your accusations with our accusations. You chose this. Not us.

· You accuse us of anti-Semitic hatred
o We accuse you of being the antisemite’s best friend by equating the right of Israel to commit war crimes with the right of Israeli Jews to defend themselves.

· You accuse us of supporting terrorism
o We accuse you of equating legitimate resistance to an Apartheid State with atrocities against civilians which I have always and will always condemn, whomever commits them – Palestinians, Jewish Settlers, my own family, whomever.
o We accuse you of not recognising the duty of the people of Gaza to tear down the Wall of the open prison they have been encased in for 80 years – and of equating this act of tearing down the Wall of Shame – which is no more defensible than the Berlin Wall was – with acts of terror.

· You accuse us of trivialising Hamas’ October 7th terror
o We accuse you of trivialising the 80 years of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and the erection of an ironclad Apartheid system across Israel-Palestine.
o We accuse you of trivialising Netanyahu’s long-term support of Hamas as a means of destroying the 2-State Solution that you claim to favour.
o We accuse you of trivialising the unprecedented terror unleashed by the Israeli army on the people of Gaza, W. Bank and E. Jerusalem.

· You accuse the organisers of today’s Congress that we are, and I quote, “not interested in talking about possibilities for peaceful coexistence in the Middle East against the background of the war in Gaza”. Are you serious? Have you lost your mind?
o We accuse you of supporting a German state that is, after the United States, the largest supplier of the weapons that the Netanyahu government uses to massacre Palestinians as part of a Grand Plan to make a 2-State solution, and peaceful coexistence between Jews and Palestinians, impossible.
o We accuse you of never answering the pertinent question that every German must answer: How much Palestinian blood must flow before your, justified, guilt over the Holocaust is washed away?

So, let’ s be clear: We are here, in Berlin, with our Palestinian Congress because, unlike the German political system and the German media, we condemn genocide and war crimes regardless of who is perpetrating them. Because we oppose Apartheid in the land of Israel-Palestine no matter who has the upper hand – just as we opposed Apartheid in the American South or in South Africa. Because we stand for universal human rights, freedom and equality among Jews, Palestinians, Bedouins and Christians in the Ancient Land of Palestine.

And so that we are even clearer on the questions, legitimate and malignant, that we must always be ready to answer:

Do I condemn Hamas’ atrocities?

I condemn every single atrocity, whomever is the perpetrator or the victim. What I do notcondemn is armed resistance to an Apartheid system designed as part of a slow-burning, but inexorable, ethnic cleansing program. Put differently, I condemn every attack on civilians while, at the same time, I celebrate anyone who risks their life to TEAR DOWN THE WALL.

Is Israel not engaged in a war for its very existence?

No, it is not. Israel is a nuclear-armed state with perhaps the most technologically advanced army in the world and the panoply of the US military machine having its back. There is no symmetry with Hamas, a group which can cause serious damage to Israelis but which has no capacity whatsoever to defeat Israel’s military, or even to prevent Israel from continuing to implement the slow genocide of Palestinians under the system of Apartheid that has been erected with long-standing US and EU support.

Are Israelis not justified to fear that Hamas wants to exterminate them?

Of course they are! Jews have suffered a Holocaust that was preceded with pogroms and a deep-seated antisemitism permeating Europe and the Americas for centuries. It is only natural that Israelis live in fear of a new pogrom if the Israeli army folds. However, by imposing Apartheid on their neighbours, by treating them like sub-humans, the Israeli state is stoking the fires of antisemitism, is strengthening Palestinians and Israelis who just want to annihilate each other and, in the end, contributes to the awful insecurity consuming Jews in Israel and the Diaspora. Apartheid against the Palestinians is the Israelis’ worst self-defence.

What about antisemitism?

It is always a clear and present danger. And it must be eradicated, especially amongst the ranks of the Global Left and the Palestinians fighting for Palestinian civil liberties –around the world.

Why don’t Palestinians pursue their objectives by peaceful means?

They did. The PLO recognised Israel and renounced armed struggle. And what did they get for it? Absolute humiliation and systematic ethnic cleansing. That is what nurtured Hamas and elevated it the eyes of many Palestinians as the only alternative to a slow genocide under Israel’s Apartheid.

What should be done now? What might bring Peace to Israel-Palestine?

· An immediate ceasefire.
· The release of all hostages: Hamas’ and the thousands held by Israel.
· A Peace Process, under the UN, supported by a commitment by the International Community to end Apartheid and to safeguard Equal Civil Liberties for All.
· As for what must replace Apartheid, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to decide between the 2-state solution and the solution of a Single Federal Secular State.

Friends,

We are here because vengeance is a lazy form of grief.

We are here to promote not vengeance but Peace and Coexistence across Israel-Palestine.

We are here to tell German democrats, including our former comrades of Die Linke, that they have covered themselves in shame long enough – that two wrongs do not one right make – that allowing Israel to get away with war crimes is not going to ameliorate the legacy of Germany’s crimes against the Jewish People.

Beyond today’s Congress, we have a duty, in Germany, to change the conversation. We have a duty to persuade the vast majority of decent Germans out there that universal human rights is what matters. That Never Again means Never Again. For anyone, Jew, Palestinian, Ukrainian, Russian, Yemeni, Sudanese, Rwandan – for everyone, everywhere.

In this context, I am pleased to announce that DiEM25’s German political party MERA25 will be on the ballot paper in the European Parliament election this coming June – seeking the vote of German humanists who crave a Member of European Parliament representing Germany and calling out the EU’s complicity in genocide – a complicity that is Europe’s greatest gift to the antisemites in Europe and beyond.

I salute you all and suggest we never forget that none of us are free if one of us is in chains.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

I've been saying since the start of the war on Gaza that one key - if not THE key - prism through which one should read the conflict is that it's a fight between America's "rules-based order" and international law (see my original post👇)
https://t.co/hAiYa64w10

Sadly, since then events have gradually confirmed this, culminating in the recent cancellation of UNRWA funding by the collective West - led by the US - which is the starkest and most cynical confirmation that this prism is unfortunately correct.

UNRWA is of course an expression of international law since it is a UN agency, established in 1949 by a resolution of the UN General Assembly to provide relief to all refugees victims of the Nakba. It is now the largest agency of the UN with 30,000 employees and, especially these days, the Palestinians' main lifeline.

UNRWA's role is all the more critical after the ICJ's recent ruling - the ICJ, the world's court, being of course THE most important expression of international law - that Israel was "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza, and its order in the form of a binding provisional measure that "the State of Israel shall take immediate and effective measures to enable the provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in the Gaza Strip".

There is simply no way for Israel to fulfill this provisional measure without UNRWA, given that it runs the very infrastructure for basic services and humanitarian assistance on the ground in Gaza.

Worth mentioning, according to international law, an ICJ ruling is binding on all of the world's countries - which very much includes Western states - and they therefore have a legal obligation to also take actions that they can to facilitate the fulfillment of the provisional measures. And certainly taking actions that directly contravene the ruling would be a direct violation of international law, and in this case would place violating countries in direct violation of the Genocide Convention.

Yet that's exactly what they did. A mere few hours after the ICJ ruling they cut UNRWA's funding. I believe that as of this writing we're at 10 Western states having done so, with the US having initiated the move, followed by its henchmen.

So in effect we have proponents of the "rules-based order" yet again in a frontal assault against international law. What's the "rules-based order"? A good definition is that it's a system outside of international law that essentially defends whatever the US judges is in its and its allies' interests at any moment in time. For the best definition that I've ever read on it, see this fascinating study in the Leiden Journal of International Law: https://t.co/jUuZzBHbII

The message this sends couldn't be clearer: do not defy us, we make the rules and we will be ruthless with whoever dares challenge this. It is, first and foremost, a power dynamic, which is immensely telling: the US clearly saw the ICJ ruling as an affront and responded by upping the ante. Which means it sees itself as an adversary of international law, with the latter a force that needs to be brought to heel. In effect this is the US admitting it's lost its role as "the world's policeman" and that it became an insurgent. Much like a disgraced former president would rather launch a civil war than lose their power, the US is in many ways announcing it's now the lead insurgent against a new multipolar world order they don't like having full control of anymore.

This can't end well, and presages a period of destabilizing chaos characterized - as we're tragically seeing in the case of the Palestinians - by untold human suffering. It was always naive to imagine the US would take its loss of hegemony constructively but optimists could have at least hoped they wouldn't go full genocidal maniacs. Unfortunately it looks like they've concluded that a couple of genocides here and there are acceptable prices we humanity should pay for their attempt to preserve their fast declining hegemony.

The only silver lining in all this is that this can only hasten this declining hegemony. I fundamentally believe that we as a species strive for order and justice and with all this - coupled with its immensely unhinged internal politics - the US is telling the whole world it has become the principal force of chaos and injustice. Also, at a fundamental level, the vision behind it is absolutely revulsive for 90% of the planet as it's all about subjugating them, denying them a voice in the way the world - our shared world - should run. So buckle up for a very bumpy ride, but one which - if we aren't all genocided on the way (and unfortunately that's becoming a bigger "if" by the day) - has some light at the end of the darker tunnel we find ourselves in.

[Life With Allah - الحياة مع الله @alifewithallah]

Nothing can break the īmān of the #Palestinians.

Listen to this brother who praises Allah in this dire situation and is content with His decree.

This brother lost everything. However he affirms his īmān in Allah and is certain that everything belongs to Allah: He gives and takes as He wills.

#GazaTaughtMe

[Palestine Festival of Literature @PalFest]

Brian Cox reads If I Must Die, by beloved Palestinian poet, teacher and martyr Refaat Alareer.

Refaat was killed on December 7th by an Israeli airstrike.

This was the last poem he published.

[Zak 🇵🇸🇿🇦🇱🇧 @z____a____k]

There is now an international righteousness race for political leaders to condemn Netenyahu's actions in order to save their own political campaigns. Sad that self-interests are what dictate human life. The current world leaders cannot change their stance on Palestine on the 67th day. That is far too late. They are complicit and should never be re-elected.

[أجيج @1b2_r]

@Megatron_ron People of the year
Retweet if you agree

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

Very good point.

[Majid Freeman @Majstar7]

𝘼𝙌𝙀𝙀𝘿𝘼𝙃 𝙇𝙀𝙎𝙎𝙊𝙉 𝙁𝙍𝙊𝙈 #𝙂𝘼𝙕𝘼 🇵🇸 𝙄𝙉 𝘼 𝙈𝙄𝙉𝙐𝙏𝙀 💚

“People, what’s wrong with you? I want to ask you a question, who is stronger? Them 🇮🇱 or Allah?”

What’s between me and Jannah (paradise) is death. I trust in Allah.”

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

@ManPalestine @PSCupdates #CeasefireNOW
Manchester marching for Palestine

[Fadi Quran @fadiquran]

The end of the myth of Israeli military invincibility: The view from the Middle East

We’ve seen a massive shift in the average perspective on the Israeli military in the MENA region. It used to be viewed as an intimidating advanced force to be reckoned with, with a level of supremacy that could not be broken.

Now it is perceived as extremely weak and fragile. Specifically, the current perspective is that it would be easily defeated if it didn’t have unlimited American backing.

Here’s why:

- Without the 600+ fighter aircrafts and missiles mostly provided by generous US support over the last decades, Israel wouldn’t have its military advantage - which as we’ve seen is simply aggressive air power and carpet bombing.

- Without ammunition restocking by US industrial might, Israel couldn’t fight a long war.

- Without US war ships in the Mediterranean, Israel wouldn’t be able to effectively deter regional actors.

- Without US interventionism in selling advanced weapons to UAE and “gifts” to other regimes, Israel couldn’t entice regional actors or normalize with them.

- Without the US veto at the UNSC against any ceasefire, Israel would be in the gutter diplomatically and couldn’t continue the war.

This war has proven to Palestinians, people across MENA, and the global south just how fragile the Israeli military actually is, and how defeatable it would be if it didn’t have unlimited US government support.

The huge death toll of innocent people, including 7000+ children, and destruction, all through aerial bombardment and carpet bombing, which Israeli strategists assume would create “deterrence”, is instead being perceived as the most cowardly tactic of a military that’s afraid of fighting “face to face” with a militia that is a TENTH its size, has 1% of its resources, and has been under siege for 17 years. Israel’s ground incursions happen through fortified tanks after massive aerial and artillery bombardment and yet still fail to effectively hold territory.

It is also being noted that while in 1967 Israel defeated the largest Arab nations in 6 days, in 60 days it has not achieved any significant strategic successes in Gaza despite using unprecedented force on the whole population.

Now, a generation of people across the region are not only witnessing what appears to them to be weakness and criminal cowardice of Israel’s military, they’re feeling deeply ashamed of their political leaders and guilty because they aren’t doing enough to stop this bloodshed.

Recall that the Arab revolutions in 2011 happened 5 years after the second Palestinian uprising ended, and were led by a generation of activists who came of age organizing for Palestinian rights during that period.

Moreover, across the region people now see this as an American war on Palestinian civilians just as much as it is Israel’s. If there was any doubt about that, the US veto yesterday solidified this view.

Similarly, you now have a generation of Americans who are horrified by what their government is complicit in, with the majority of Americans wanting a ceasefire. Even top US officials, who care about American national interests, are showing their discomfort, realizing that Israel is dragging the US towards a massive strategic failure.

The massive paradigm shifts that are unfolding as a result of these dynamics are going to be profound.

[Munier Hossain @orthebm]

From today's march demanding ceasefire in Palestine, @ManPalestine #CeasefireNOW #CEASEFIRE_NOW @PSCupdates