By Irwin Jerome
A truly shocking and disturbing action is currently afoot in the United States Congress. AIPAC & the U.S. Congress have now introduced the draconian Israel Anti-Boycott Act that already has 300 co-sponsers in the House (HR1697) & in the Senate (S720) that carries with it punishment with minimum penalty fines of $250.000 and a maximum of $1 Million Dollars with an added-on 20 year prison sentence to any U.S. citizen, company or corporation – ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD – that dares to engage in any Boycott, Divestment or Sanctions against Isreal for the many vile, heinous things it continues to commit against the all but helpless Palestinian peoples. This action suggests more than one very dark things that are afoot in the world at lare.
Namely, that the criminalization of people that is occurring around the world against all those who are speaking out for humanistic, non-violent, human rights solutions to the many ills of the world are now being made out to be criminals in their own homelands for daring to speak out in defiance of all the oligarchs, fascists, war mongers and haters. This represents the opening salvo in a world-wide war to subdue all who would dare to speak out for the forces of light in defiance to the forces of darkness.
All over the world, every newspaper is filled with the stories of those activists, no matter how peaceful, non-violent and warranted their protests may be, who are being turned into common criminals, threatened, imprisoned, and murdered for their beliefs. No where better can this criminalization be found than in Palestine where, for decades, Israeli military occupation forces continue to brutally suppress Palestinian’s people peaceful civil disobedience so much so that organizations, like the Center for Constitutional Rights, even characterize Israel’s racist actions as The Palestine Exception to free speech. This outrage continues in spite of the fact that the U.N. Security Council reaffirmed, in 2016, with its Resolution 2334, that Israel’s establishment of settlements in Palestine territories occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem – site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third-holiest mosque, and place where Palestinians, if ever allowed, would make the capital of their new Palestinian State. Israel’s unflagging denial of Equality, Human Rights, Religious Freedom & Human Dignity constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and poses a constant major obstacle to the vision of two States living side-by-side in peace and security within internationally-recognized borders.
Yet in light of the current, on-going non-violent protests by Palestinian’s against Israel’s refusal to allow Palestinians their religious right and freedom to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the grievous nature of Prime Minister Netanyahu and his right-wing, fascist Likud Party, partnered up with its counterparts in the United States Congress, are active maneuvering with the Anti-Boycott Bill to destroy whatever their resistance movement. Meanwhile their righteous cause is either totally ignored or downplayed by the international corporate media and nowhere more so than in the United States. The fact that the United States – politically, ideologically, religiously – has long had Israel’s back and covered for it, no matter what vile thing it has ever done to the Palestinians, now is being further underscored by the United States Government’s outrageous attempt to pass its Anti-Boycott Bill.
The White American Christian Right and White Jewish Right are equally violently-opposed to the BDS Movement that might be the one thing that, once and for all, puts an end to the illegal settler movement of the West Bank and ghettoizing of Gaza in Palestine. By pushing for the enactment of this Anti-Boycott Bill – that should rightly be called THE ANTI-LIFE & ANTI-FREEDOM BILL – hold fast to the same racist, fascist, authoritarian values that, at different points in history, have been held by a host of other imperialist countries like South Africa, Britain, Germany, Japan and too many others to mention.
Suffice it to say that within the human species it would simply seem to be a basic weakness or flaw in its basic DNA that, since the beginning of its evolution, has condemned the species, over and over again, to commit the same fatal human impulses that, as time goes on, imperils all the morethe very essence of life itself; and that, as the species continues to intellectually evolve or devolve its scientific abilities, continues to invent ever more diabolical ways, catastrophic weaponry and toxic substances to bring about the cataclysmic end of all life forms.
That this is a self-evident truth, one only has to make a cursory examination of the modern historical record – and in particular how the White American Christian Right’s violent brand of so-called democracy, and White Israel’s Jewish Right’s similar brand of Zionism first came to be – quickly reveals how each since has abominably treated all peoples of different color and racial backgrounds and religious beliefs who have ever had the misfortune to come into their midst – Aboriginals, indigenous, Mexicans, Black Africans, Arabs, Muslims and other non-Christian, non-Jewish peoples – which leads one to arrive at the only conclusion possible. Namely, that whatever each is now doing in the world, no matter how self-delusional or self-destructive it may be, there is no other sane rationale or logic to explain away the actions that each continues to pursue. The historical record speaks for itself!
Nowhere clearer can this now be seen than with America and Israel’s vigorously attempt to try to utterly destroy the BDS Movement in the world that seeks to stop all the madness in Israel and Palestine before it sucks the world down the rabbit hole towards yet a third world war and ultimate self-immolation. It’s like the human species either resolutely refuses, or lacks the basic capacity, to learn from all the madness once committed by those like the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Germany, Japan, the Afrikaner South African National Party or whoever else has ever subscribed to the same racist, fascist tendencies to create the kind of ugly world they would like it to become.
The world once had the will to stop the Hitler, Hirohito and Botha but does it now have the same will to stop Trump’s America or Netanyahu’s Israel? Or has the world become: too propagandized by the international corporate media’s bevy of Rupert Murdoch’s, AIPAC’s, J Street’s and Christian hardcore Broadcast Networks; too smothered by the influences of so many alt-right Talk Radio, Blogs, Websites, TV and print media networks that stifle any independent intellectual thought; too economically compromised by the corporate Wall Street sector, ruthlessly controlled by Goldman Sachs-type banksters and gangsters that hold every citizen and nation so tightly by the financial short hairs, or; is the citizenry simply just too corrupt, impotent or beaten down to undertake any independent moral, ethical actions?
Meanwhile, as: the U.S. Congress continues to mull over its latest Anti-Democratic, Anti-Boycott Bill; Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who politically holds in his hands the fate of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, conveniently continues to vacation in the United States; while Israel’s PM Netanyahu continues his arm-twisting, bludgeoning anti-Palestinian propaganda campaign in Europe; and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas remains distracted in distant China. And while they smooze and palaver with other world heads about other things, the Palestinian people, once again, are left all alone to try to defend, as best they can, their inherent right to pray and worship in East Jerusalem, the Al-Aqsa Mosque or wherever else they would in their ancient lands of Palestine. AND NOW HERE COMES THE DOUBLE WHAMMY: THE AIPAC & THE U.S. CONGRESS ANTI-BOYCOTT BILL AGAINST THE BDS MOVEMENT! OH MY…..SUCH RUTHLESSNESS!
Jerome Irwin is a freelance writer and author of “The Wild Gentle Ones; A Turtle Island Odyssey” (www.turtle-island-odyssey.com), a three volume account of his travels as a spiritual sojourner, during the 1960’s, 70’s & 80’s, among Native American & First Nation peoples in North America. It encompasses the Indigenous Spiritual Renaissance & Liberation Movements that emerged throughout North America during the civil rights era. During this period of sojourn, Irwin also underwent a Lakota hanbleceya vision quest, under the tutelage of Joe Thunder Hawk and his clan members, and received the name Twin Rainbow that symbolizes a healing bridge between the cultures of the West & East. and their many ensuing conflicts. In addition to being a long-time community activist and political organizer among his people, Twin Rainbow-Irwin has authored over the years a number of environmental, political, cultural, spiritual articles with a special focus on Native Americans, First Nations, Australian aboriginals, Israel, Gaza, Palestine and Syria. Irwin also is the publisher of The Wild Gentle Press.
