HASSAN NASRALLAH COMPARES U.S. AND ISRAEL ORIGINS

If not for the support of the United States, Israel could not have successfully embarked upon its current rampage in West Asia. The US has supplied Israel with weapons, funding and diplomatic cover at the UN, even as the occupation has k*lled as many as 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and as many as an estimated 335,000, according to University of Edinburgh global health chair Devi Sridhar. Public awareness of this contradiction has decimated any semblance of US prestige and morality. But what explains this self-destructive drive to support Israel?

Continued........Recently assassinated Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah (1960-2024) laid out the connection between the two states. He said both are the consequence of settler colonialism, which k*lled off, displaced and dispossessed the respective native populations. For the US, land grabs and slavery defined the modern state. Meanwhile, Israel's foundation lies in dispossessing lands from the Palestinians and forcing them into what's been described as a 'concentration camp' known as Gaza or the West Bank, parts of which Israeli settlers have seized over time, preventing freedom of movement among other human rights. For this reason, Nasrallah said Arab groups' lobbying efforts, for example, would fail to achieve desired results as the US aligns more closely with Israel instead. Today, Israel is the United States' largest aircraft carrier, which could never be sunk' in West Asia, as a former US official once said, a tool to keep the region destabilised and under US control.

Let us know what you think about Nasrallah's assessment.

Disclaimer:
This video has been posted for journalistic purposes. The views, information, or opinions expressed during this speech are solely those of the individual involved. This should not be seen as endorsing the individual or the group they represent.

Video credit: t.me/sayyed_speeches/397

Sources
US complicity in Israeli crimes
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-has-undeniable-complicity-gaza-war-killings-say-former-us-officials-2024-07-03/

Foundations of the US
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/8/16/20806069/slavery-economy-capitalism-violence-cotton-edward-baptist

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/12/26/black-activists-charge-genocide-united-states-systemic-racism-526045

Foundations of Israel
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2017/06/israel-occupation-50-years-of-dispossession/

Role of Israel in US policy
https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2023/11/12/why-us-support-israel-geopolitics-michael-hudson

Unsinkable aircraft carrier
https://www.jpost.com/international/haig-had-a-special-feeling-for-israel

Death toll
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/05/scientists-death-disease-gaza-polio-vaccinations-israel

FRANCE WANTS WESTERN SAHARA UNDER MOROCCOFRANCE WANTS WESTERN SAHARA UNDER MOROCCO

President Macron got a standing ovation in Morocco recently - vowing full French support for Rabat’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara. It goes against most of Europe’s position, as well as the African Union’s - whose rights court ruled that Morocco should be seen as an illegal occupying power. Macron also promised to invest into the region, whose independence movement, along with Algeria, has condemned his remarks. Israel, Spain and the US are among those backing Morocco’s claims.

SOURCES:

News
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1vdl92zlzqo

Promised investment
https://www.barrons.com/news/france-pledges-investment-in-w-sahara-under-moroccan-sovereignty-a94bdfd8

EU bans Moroccan Sahrawi exports
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/10/4/eu-morocco-trade-deals-in-western-sahara-ruled-invalid-rabat-claims-bias

Algeria, Polisario Front condemnation
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1vdl92zlzqo

Continued.......UN in W Sahara to organize referendum
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1vdl92zlzqo


https://minurso.unmissions.org/mandate

AU on Western Sahara
https://wsrw.org/en/news/african-court-rules-for-saharawis

MAKEBA: I’D CHOOSE OPPRESSED, ALWAYS

On this day in 2008, the world lost an extraordinary voice. Miriam Makeba wasn’t just an amazing singer, she spoke up for Africans and championed their cause at the highest level - including at the UN, where she exposed the cruelties of the apartheid regime in her native South Africa. The regime repaid her by revoking her citizenship, but even in exile, she continued to defend Africans, using her music to raise awareness of the plight of people in Cameroon, Congo, Guinea, Mozambique, South Africa and Black communities in America. In this clip, she eloquently explains why she would always choose the side of the oppressed over that of the oppressor. Rest in peace, Mama.

ISRAELI JOURNO CALLS OUT ISRAELI APARTHEID

Palestinians have been speaking on the true nature of Israel for decades. While rare, here is an Israeli voice, veteran journalist Gideon Levy, giving weight to claims that Israel is a violent settler-colonial state enforcing apartheid. Indeed, a UN human-rights expert and human-rights organisations, including an Israeli group called B'Tselem, have called Israel an apartheid state.

He argues that the situation in occupied Palestine is not a 'conflict' between two equal sides but rather an occupation that systemically oppresses Palestinians. He suggests that the disparity in power between the Palestinians and the Israeli state is so stark that to call it a 'conflict' misrepresents reality. He compared it to Algeria's war of independence against France, a colonial occupier.

Have a watch, and please share your thoughts.

Video credit: @oxfordunion

Continued.......Sources
Israel is an apartheid state
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/b-tselem-labels-israel-apartheid-regime-first-time-n1253863

https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde15/5141/2022/en

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/03/israels-55-year-occupation-palestinian-territory-apartheid-un-human-rights

SHELL’S MURDEROUS MEDDLING IN NIGERIA

On this day in 1995, Nigeria - under the military regime of General Sani Abacha - executed nine Indigenous environmental organisers, known as the Ogoni 9. They had been defending the Ogoni lands from environmental destruction by major oil companies such as Shell (a company that is currently embroiled in legal disputes over its irresponsible practices in the country, which have devastated local fishing communities). Not long after the executions, Shell announced a huge multi-billion-dollar gas project in Nigeria.

THE WILMINGTON MASSACRE OF 1898

On the 10th of November 1898, over 2,000 armed white people descended on Wilmington City Hall in the US state of North Carolina and forced Black and white elected officials to resign in a coup. At the time, Wilmington was home to a thriving community of Black doctors, lawyers, politicians, Black-owned banks and a Black newspaper.

Continued........The 20,000-person city's 8,000 Black men were a political force, exercising their voting rights after the 15th amendment was added in 1870 to the US Constitution. In the 1890s, Black voters helped elect a rare biracial 'fusion' alliance of candidates. However, influential white leaders, including the Wilmington Cotton Mills Company's president, the Raleigh News and Observer's editor, and the state Democratic Party chairman, set out to topple what the newspaper editor labelled 'Negro rule.' These white leaders created what they called the 'White Supremacy Campaign' by printing falsehoods about Black men preying on white women and stockpiling guns. And, so, in the days leading up to the 1898 elections, white groups, galvanised by the propaganda, were infuriated with the mixed-race government and set out to intimidate Black voters, k*lling 60 Black men. The mob of 500 white men swelled to 2,000 as they marched across the city and became known as 'Red Shirts,' wreaking a wave of terror against Black residents. Colonel Alfred Moore Waddell, a white former Confederate officer and congressman, told a gun-waving white audience he would 'choke the current of the Cape Fear River with Black bodies if he had to.'

Armed white rioters destroyed Black businesses, including the local Black newspaper office, and forced Black people to run into the woods. A 2006 study described the coup in detail, blaming all levels of government for not intervening, resulting in Black merchants and workers suffering losses 'in terms of job status, income, and access to capital.' Black businesses moved or closed, about 2,100 Black residents fled, and Black literacy rates plunged.

Historians and Equal Justice Initiative researchers have documented at least 34 instances of mass violence, when white mobs k*lled scores of Black people during the Reconstruction period (1865-77), during which the southern United States was re-built following the destruction of the US Civil War (1861-65).

SOURCES:

https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/nov/10

https://www.dncr.nc.gov/1898-wilmington-coup

https://eji.org/report/reconstruction-in-america/documenting-reconstruction-violence/#34-documented-mass-lynchings-during-the-reconstruction-era

https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/elections/voters/african-americans

AIME CESAIRE : EUROPE IS INDEFENSIBLE

Martiniquan poet and politician Aimé Césaire reading from his brilliant Discourse on Colonialism (1950).

The essay explores the damning implications of colonialism - for the coloniser. Césaire wanted to think through the consequences of building a civilisation based on exploitation and oppression. The essay came at a time when Europeans were still reeling from the horrors of WWII. Césaire reminds us that these shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone with a nodding acquaintance of colonial atrocities. The real shock was that it was inflicted on fellow Europeans.

Continued.....SOURCES:

https://files.libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf

https://violencespolicieres.fr/signalement/8197/#martinique-une-enquete-pour-violences-ouverte-contre-la-crs-8

https://www.la-croix.com/france/vie-chere-en-martinique-des-policiers-blesses-lors-d-affrontements-avec-des-manifestants-20241008#:~:text=Onze%20policiers%20ont%20été%20blessés%20lundi%207%20octobre%20en%20Martinique,île%2C%20a%20indiqué%20la%20préfecture.

https://www.palestineiseverywhere.com

How important is leadership? Will a great people under a lesser leader succumb to weaker forces led by someone great? We might want to take this week's African Proverb seriously, considering our leaders' quality (or lack thereof) outside the Sahel and a few other notable exceptions. Can we achieve what we need to accomplish in our countries, offices and elsewhere if sheep lead us?

MALCOLM X: ENTERTAINERS ARE
PUPPETS OF WHITE-SUPREMACY

The failed Kamala Harris campaign wheeled out a string of Black celebrities to sway the community’s vote, which reminded us of this Malcolm X gem. As he says, entertainers are not political leaders. Worse, more often than not, they’re simply puppets - used by the White-supremacist system to keep Black people distracted from the real issues.

SOURCES:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n88ONdIISV4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oozaVp5M93g

IS BOTSWANA'S NEW PRESIDENT UNDER THE CONTROL OF FOREIGN INTERESTS?

After nearly 60 years of being governed by one political party, Botswana has a new president and ruling party. Amid the euphoria that the change-of-guard has brought to the diamond-rich nation, there are concerns that the new president, Duma Boko, has ties to some not-so-progressive forces - including right-wing liaisons and links to controversial business people. African Stream's William Sakawa dives deeper.