Why Divest From Israel? A Belfast Resident Explains

You meet the nicest, smartest people while opposing U.S. support of Israel's genocide in Gaza. My new friend Jamila Levasseur went on Fox ABC's "Good Morning Maine" show this week to talk about Belfast's unanimous council vote to divest from two companies linked to the genocide: Honeywell, and RTX/Raytheon.

Jamila is the granddaughter of Jews who survived the Nazi Holocaust and who lost many family members in that genocide. I admire her leadership as a member of Jewish Voice for Peace in Maine and with the Maine Coalition for Palestine and its member org Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights. 

Her articulate voice is just what's needed now to continue resistance to U.S. complicity in Israel's genocide.

Art And Political Action

Source: https://banksy.co.uk/out.html

My husband and I have collected political art together for 25 years, most of it created by artists living or working in Maine which has a history as an art colony. The original artists, the Wabanaki, maintain continuous traditions and the very act of doing so in the face of attempted genocide is political. So is the climate-linked decline of the brown ash tree whose bark is used in basketmaking. 

Interior of Wabanaki ash basket lid, artist unknown

In the colonizer tradition, artists have been moving to Maine for generations because the land stolen from Wabanaki people was "cheap" and the cost of living and maintaining studio space so much lower than in the cities they came from.

What is the role of art in political action?

Still from Leni Riefenstahl's documentary on the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, "Festival of Beauty"

Many successful political movements of the 20th century had outstanding aesthetics but conveyed meaning you and I might find disgusting. Filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl's politics sucked, but her mastery of the film medium is undeniable.

Other artists on behalf of the Nazis mimicked highly successful Russian revolution design elements and palettes. 

Nowadays we see political art like innovative films from Palestinian resistance groups effective at attracting sympathizers and supporters.

Hezbollah film released Sep 2024. Watch: https://x.com/alihashem_tv/status/1816076492599595253

We see graphic designers going all out to bring the reality of genocide in Gaza to complacent Westerners who are busy having brunch.

We see graffiti artists using media that were and sometimes still are considered criminal.

Mural in Gaza, artists unknown

Can arts organizations expect our support if they fail in this hour to stand with the oppressed?

At least two organizations that I know of in Maine have had internal discussions where Zionist members attempt to control the narrative if it veers from hasbara i.e. positive pr for Israel. Other members push back as there is an actual genocide happening and we, the U.S. taxpayers, are funding it. People who can't deal with conflict retreat and stick with "safe" subjects -- a p0litical act in itself.

Banksy mural in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, 2015. The artist explained that many people only want to look at pictures of kittens on the internet, so he painted a kitten playing with a tangle of metal cables amid the rubble from Israel's bombings. Photo credit: Suhaib Salem / Reuters 

An artist friend told me a gallery owner asked her to exhibit a triptych she'd painted early in the "War on Terror" without the middle panel of three, which dramatically but semi-abstractly depicted airstrikes. She declined.

Another artist friend who shows her work frequently commented, "No one wants to buy political art."

Many have argued that didactic art -- created to make a point -- isn't real art.

Others have argued that if it's real art, it was created to make a point. Possibly an obscure point about the purpose and nature of art. Possibly a point that requires thinking and considering to tease out.

Hang Zhou City Art Studio, March Triumphantly Along With Chairman Mao’s Route On Literature & Art Of Proletariats,1972

Or not. As reported by researcher Christian Appy in Patriots, an oral history of the Vietnamese war from many viewpoints:

Every major North Vietnamese combat unit included several artists and entertainers. These singers, musicians, painters, writers, and actors traveled south on the Ho Chi Minh Trail not as separate artistic "troupes," but mixed in among the regular troops, with whom they lived and sometimes fought.

And one of the regular soldiers told Appy they always wondered where the U.S. military's artists were. How did the troops keep their morale up without art? (Short answer: they didn't.)

How will we keep our morale up to continue the struggle against empire and its Zionist holocaust?

People's Arms Embargo Shuts Down Calif Air Base Shipping Weapons To Israel

Main Gate/Hospital Gate, Travis AFB, before the blockade;  Banner and photo @DavidSolnit and friends

Good news on pro-Palestine resistance from the Left Coast on World Children's Day: the People's Arms Embargo campaign shut down every entrance to a California military base on Wednesday!

 Here's organizer Toby Blomé's account: 

 [Nov 20] on a rainy early morning, 75-100 people rallied at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield to protest Travis’ ongoing shipments of weapons to Israel.  This is a new campaign, "The People’s Arms Embargo," to nonviolently impede the weapons supply to Israel that fuels the ongoing genocide in Gaza. 

Commercial (South) Gate, Occupy Beale Affinity Group;  Photo by Janie Kesselman

 

28 activists were arrested at Travis AFB in nonviolent Human Blockades at all 4 entrance gates to protest US weapons sent from Travis to Israel.

Over 20 organizations co-sponsored or endorsed.  Thank you!

It was a most successful day because of the participation of many people in large and small ways.  

Great media coverage and still coming. 

Main Gate, Travis AFB, The blockade begins, Banner and photo @DavidSolnit and friends

 

A beautiful example of PEOPLE POWER!   We will be back! 

The People’s Arms Embargo is a new campaign at Travis, sponsored by over 20 organizations.

Screenshot from KCRA Sacramento coverage

MEDIA COVERAGE:

‘People’s Arms Embargo’ at Travis Air Force Base                          
https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2024/11/20/peoples-arms-embargo-at-travis-air-force-base/

Photo by David Solnit

28 arrested during Israel-Hamas war protest at Travis Air Force Base                         
https://www.kcra.com/article/travis-air-force-base-israel-hamas-protest/62966290

 

Photo by Jim Ulrick

Dozens gather for 'Rallies and Human Blockade' protest at Travis Air Force Base
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dozens-gather-rallies-human-blockade-192612650.html

Long Range Missiles Flying Both Ways But Who's At The Controls?

 

In the puppet show that is U.S. national politics, the best time to ramp up a war is when no one really knows which puppet to pretend is calling the shots. Giving the green light to ATACAMs long range missiles fired into Russia this week by Ukraine with a lot of U.S. help and also to Shadow Storm long rangers from the UK -- we all know Biden isn't mentally capable of this. But it's convenient for headlines and propaganda purposes to assign him this agency. 

And to posit that this is all being done in a big rush before the incoming administration can bring peace. Uh huh. A less peaceful group than those appointed by 47 thus far would be challenging to assemble.

Then there's coverage of the initial Russian response, which was to use its Intercontinental Ballistic Missile for the first time ever. The ICBM released five other missiles over Ukraine that air defense systems there could do nothing to intercept. These were not nuclear missiles but a point being made by use of the delivery system is: they could have been.

Back to the U.S. lurching toward Armageddon with who exactly at the wheel? Here's an unsubstantiated internet rumor to chew on:

https://x.com/TonySeruga/status/1858728300899979298

The intermingling of corporate interests and a form of government that nobody believes is "for the people" is just about complete. Faced with the fact that very few want to be soldiers in the imperial wars corporations said, Great, we'll just replace them with a lot of expensive hardware, like drones. We borrow the money to finance this, CEOs make big bucks, and winning is not the point.

People say that the alphas[sic] all have bunkers with fantastic life support systems and elaborate security provisions. Or that some of them will be blasting off for outer space to escape nuclear war fallout. 

This fails to explain in my mind how the lust for even more wealth could bring someone to the brink of destroying Eden, our planet.

I can only hope for cooler heads in Russia and China to prevail, or possibly for coders anywhere to figure out how to interfere with the ultimate deployment.

Hey, a girl can dream.

Standing With Palestine: International Roundup

Palestine solidarity demonstration in Beijing, 1969. Banner reads “Resolutely support the struggle of the Palestinian and Arab peoples against Zionism and US imperialism!” Source: Qiao Collective, "The Gates of the Great Continent: Palestine, China, and the War for Humanity’s Future"

I've been reading a really interesting series of essays about the parallels that Chinese people see between occupied Palestine and their own experiences of brutal Japanese occupation and colonization in the mid 20th century.

The first essay I stumbled across was "Shattering the Iron Wall" described as:

an original translation of a video essay by Chinese political analyst Jianghuqizi (江湖弃子), exploring in detail the dialectic of colonial counterinsurgency, collaboration, and anti-colonial resistance through martyred Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s semi-autobiographical novel The Thorn and the Carnation and its many parallels with China’s War of Resistance against Japan.

These essays led me to thinking how many instances of international solidarity with Palestinian resistance I've seen on social media in the last few days.

Japan (Tokyo, I think)

https://x.com/AkimotoThn/status/1858465519906717981

Seoul, South Korea

https://x.com/s_m_marandi/status/1859174199534764162

Shannon, Ireland

https://x.com/PressTV/status/1858493345611284588

Copenhagen, Denmark (yellow sign says Ceasefire Now in Danish)

https://x.com/PalHighlight/status/1858585351344079344

Mexico City, Mexico

https://x.com/PalBint/status/1722394649149440124

Washington DC, USA (banners the cops are grabbing say FUND JOBS - NOT GENOCIDE)

https://x.com/prem_thakker/status/1858912889463087210

Maine, USA

On November 19 Belfast, Maine, unanimously passed a divestment resolution that specifically named Israel. Good on the organizers who pursued a quiet strategy of advocacy that worked. Jamila Levasseur who attended the council meeting reports:

What was clear to me was that even without immersing themselves in the alternative media we activists read and watch [emphasis mine], Israel's crimes have had a profound effect on Belfast's dedicated public servants. I think there are many more people out there who are horrified by the genocide in Gaza but don't feel empowered to do anything. We offered our city councilors the opportunity to do something concrete, and they unanimously agreed.  

Not only that, they were immensely grateful to be given this opportunity.

As reported by the Bangor Daily News:

The issue is familiar to [Mayor] Sanders, as his son was not allowed to receive his degree from Harvard University last spring because of his participation in campus demonstrations for Palestine.

I've been wondering how all those parents who had invested $200k or so in their kid's undergrad degrees were going to retaliate against the universities that did this last year. I was thinking lawsuits but this is also good!

Now, a question: How many of the items I've shared above did you see reported anywhere? Alternative media, and social media that shares truthful reporting from Palestine, are under attack and censored constantly. Keep sharing to bring real news to the people!

Use It Or Lose It: Protests To Continue Full Steam Ahead

Ending circle in Farmington, Maine created space for activists to connect and hear from one other.

A busy week presenting a webinar on direct actions at war industry facilities Thursday night and then yesterday organizing a stand out in Farmington with around 30 people bringing a pro-Palestine message to the downtown area near a University of Maine campus.

My buddies Ken Jones and Melody Shank organize Resist Raytheon actions in North Carolina and elsewhere, and helped found the War Resisters Network that offers monthly webinars on related topics. You'll see Ken introducing me and then moderating the Q&A.

Ken and Melody used to live in Maine when they taught at the University of Southern Maine. I often joke that Maine is one big small town because our sparse population means most of us engaged in resisting imperialism and the war machine know each other. We get excited when new people show up and that's been happening a lot this past year.

I thought that was happening yesterday when I stood next to a UMF worker who seemed familiar. Turns out she had come to stand with us in Farmington last year and signed up to get email announcements, but never received any. My bad, I'm sure I misread or mistyped her email address from that sign-up sheet. After we'd stood downtown for a couple of hours we circled up in the town gazebo to share why we were there. Once she heard my last name she realized that I was an old friend of her extended family, and I realized that we'd been at Occupy Augusta together many years ago. 

You meet the nicest people standing up to the war machine. 

A less than nice person who passed us on the street yesterday started shouting that all problems would be cleared up in no time if we would just vote Republican like he did (many of us are finding 47's victory has emboldened his supporters to challenge our protests on various pretexts). Eventually my friend Bruce Gagnon said, "We're not Democrats" and the man returned a few minutes later for dialogue with some more of us. There was some concern about the safety of a woman in that conversation (which was too far away for us to hear) but I noted it was my friend Mary Beth Sullivan who just retired from a long career in social work. If it can be de-escalated, MB will de-escalate it! She reported that they found common ground in the belief that the U.S. should not be funding "all these wars."

An organizer local to Farmington has been holding standouts for Palestine weekly on Saturdays at noon in front of the post office. Several attendees yesterday want to join in and contact info was shared; later over lunch people with connections to the university strategized about what each of them could do to build the movement in their town. Students and members of the public can, for instance, engage in organizing that instructors are restricted from doing by the terms of their contract.

Everyone is concerned about legislation passed in the House last week that would enable the Treasury to designate non-profits as supporting "terrorism" and rescind their tax-free status. My own odious representative, Democrat Jared Golden, voted for it -- his advocacy for Republican causes contributed to his very narrow re-election win this week after ranked choice voting tabulations concluded.

Liberals will use this law as an excuse to curtail their own advocacy for Palestine. I'm happy to know lots of well-informed people who will continue full steam ahead taking action to say no to genocide and no to trashing 1st amendment protections for political speech. We'll continue our monthly coalition stand outs at big intersections in Maine (next up: Freeport Sat Dec 21) in addition to weekly protests in many locations, and a steady stream of direct actions. 

Use it, or lose it.

47 Is Going To Be So Much Worse Than This?

Liberals continue melting down over 47's announced draft picks for government positions. They are going to be so much worse! they howl as recycled neocons are slotted in to keep the war and wage theft machines humming.

I'm not surprised by these developments because a) I read Chris Hedges' piece before the election advising that the oligarch party thrives on chaos and will create it in order to take the money and run and b) we already had 47 back when he was 45, and he really hasn't changed. 

I am also not horrified by these developments because honestly what could be more horrifying than what follows? (Trigger warning: these are the images I have not been able to stop seeing in my grieving, distraught mind; this is my brain on genocide.)

Concentration camps in Gaza

Forced death marches from one end of Gaza to the other

Click the link to see this horrific video 

https://x.com/philippa_bear/status/1856808303592181

Starvation in Gaza

Dispatch from @AbubakerAbedW in Deir-al-Balah, shared by Jeremy Scahill on Twitter

Doctors testifying about treating vast numbers of children shot in the head by Israeli snipers

https://x.com/RyanRozbiani/status/1856430910553354747

Hand waving desperately from rubble in Lebanon

(Can't find this one again, but I will never unsee it.)

Air strikes on Syria

Security officers and rescuers gather at a destroyed building hit in an Israeli airstrike in Damascus, Syria, Thursday, Nov. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Omar Sanadiki)

Air strikes on Yemen

US-British coalition warplanes conducted seven airstrikes on targets across the Houthi-controlled northern Yemen on November 10, Houthi-run Al-Masirah TV reported. 

There is no "worse than this," and you will not convince me otherwise.

How Long Will Protests At Bomb Factory Continue? As Long As It Takes To Shut It Down!

The crowd at weekly standouts in Saco, Maine at General Dynamics' bomb factory across the street from an elementary school continues to grow. There were 26 of us yesterday around the time that the shift and the nearby schools let out providing a big drive by audience (and they have stopped keeping the kids in at recess so there's that audience, too). When autonomous groups arrive at dawn to block the incoming shift we expect fewer people because of the hour, but those actions have been growing in numbers, too. 

Diversity of messaging and associations makes for unity of fields!

Yesterday my friend Bruce Gagnon wrote:

Good turn out tonight in Saco - at least 26 spread out over both sides of road with 2 bullhorns raising chants. Chief of police came up and asked me how long these protests will go on - I said I don't see them stopping as long as the U.S. keeps supplying the zionists with money and weapons. 

I also told him about how U.S. space tech is helping Israel target people in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

Why ask Bruce rather than one of the people on the bullhorns? Bruce has served as police liaison before (see his post about how angry the chief was last time he did this).

You meet the nicest people doing this kind of work. Yesterday two newish readers of my blog and I talked about my process: get up at dawn and read the news until I feel like my head is going to explode from stress and cognitive dissonance. Process by writing a blog post, and survive to be in action another day.

A motorist stopped to taunt one of us yesterday warning that now that 47 was coming back to the White House that our kind would soon be feeling the effects. Several veiled threats of violence followed until our friend ran the guy off with a feigned gesture of contempt that seemed to frighten him. He was so frightened that he called the police and filed a complaint. If he was trying to impress us with what a tough guy he is, it was an epic fail.

Some of us are old, but most of us are young. Some of us are veterans, but most of us declined to enlist in the imperial wars. We're here, and some of us are queer. Get used to it! 

Palestinian Resistance Groups React: New Boss, Same As Old Boss

While U.S. election drama was underway, the Pentagon took steps to hasten WWIII: it moved nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to Qatar (with U.S. pilots), and it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile delivery system out of Vandenberg Air Base in California. The Democratic Party is seen as losing the White House and both branches of Congress in part because their wars -- in Ukraine and, with Israel, in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen -- are unpopular with voters, and because the austerity that endless wars require is deeply unpopular. 

https://x.com/BigBreakingWire/status/1854166174453375297

Our imperial overlords sneak their warmongering moves into the news cycle when they think it will be least noticed.

I thought it might be of interest to readers to see reactions from people impacted by U.S. foreign policy. This content is available on Telegram, but you will not see it in your corporate news feed.

New Secretary-General of Hezbollah,  Sheikh Na’eem Qasem (in translation, vetted by an Arabic-speaking friend):

https://x.com/swilkinsonbc/status/1854493691454345250 & see also https://x.com/V_Palestine20/status/1854505512777228688

From the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (English translation from same source):

Trump’s victory will reinforce the American anti-Palestinian approach, and the Democratic Party’s loss is a natural result of its direct involvement in the zionist war of genocide.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine affirms that Donald Trump and the Republican Party’s victory in the U.S. elections does not, in any way, signify a real change in the hostile approach that successive American administrations have pursued against our Palestinian people and their just cause. There is no fundamental difference between the Republican and Democratic parties; both have contributed to supporting the zionist entity and participated in the war of genocide against our people, whether through policies or unlimited military and diplomatic support.

Our people have never placed their hopes on any candidate from either the Democratic or Republican parties, as we have never witnessed any positive change in U.S. administration policies, which have consistently aligned fully with the zionist entity, providing it with military funding and all forms of political, legal, and diplomatic protection.

The Democratic Party’s loss is a logical result of its complicity with the zionist entity; it rejected calls from supporters of the Palestinian people, the Palestinian community, and Arab and Muslim communities in the United States to pressure for an end to the war of genocide in Gaza, continuing its support for aggression against our people. Today, the Democrats are paying the price for ignoring these demands at the ballot box.

We in the Popular Front do not expect any positive development from a Donald Trump administration; rather, we anticipate an escalation in hostile policies against our people, fully biased in favor of the zionist entity.

We call on supporters of the Palestinian people, as well as movements, organizations, and groups that stand with our cause in the United States, to intensify pressure on the new U.S. administration to end its support for the zionist entity. [emphasis mine]

We see in the popular and student movements that stand in solidarity with Gaza, along with the emergence of small, free voices and parties, a glimmer of hope that could contribute to even a slight change in the U.S. stance on our cause.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Central Media Dept, Nov 6, 2024

From the Popular Resistance Committees (English translation from same source):

The Republican and Democratic parties are two identical faces in entrenching American tyranny and supporting zionism in the genocidal wars it waged against our Palestinian and Lebanese peoples and our nation.

America is the enemy of peoples; it is a symbol of tyranny and arrogance, ruling the world with iron and fire, igniting wars and the flames of hatred across the entire globe.

America, with all its components, parties, and councils, stands behind the support for the zionist entity with all kinds of shells, rockets, and destructive weapons that wreak havoc on our people in Palestine and Lebanon.

Our people rely solely on their steadfastness, the valor of their resistance, and the support of the Axis of Resistance and the free people of the nation and the world in confronting the genocide and massacres they are subjected to. All successive American administrations are enemies of our people, our nation, and of free peoples.

Media Office of the Resistance Committees in Palestine

Wednesday 06 November 2024

https://x.com/gazanotice/status/1854491593207599356

From Hamas (English translation from same source):

In the Name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Press Statement on the Results of the U.S. Presidential Election

In light of the results indicating Donald Trump’s victory in the U.S. election, we, in the Islamic Resistance Movement - Hamas, affirm the following:

1. Our position regarding the new U.S. administration will depend on its stances and practical actions towards our Palestinian people, their legitimate rights, and their just cause.

2. It is unfortunate to note that all successive U.S. administrations, since the occupation of Palestine in 1948, have held negative stances on the Palestinian cause. They have consistently been the primary supporter of the zionist occupation in all fields, and the previous administration followed a path biased towards occupation and aggression, providing political and military cover for zionist war criminals to continue some of the most horrific acts of genocide in modern history, solidifying its role as a full partner in the killing of tens of thousands of our people, including children, women, and the elderly.

3. We call for an end to the blind bias toward the zionist occupation and for serious and genuine efforts to stop the war of extermination and aggression against our Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank, to end the aggression against our brotherly Lebanese people, to halt the provision of military support and political cover for the zionist entity, and to recognize our people’s legitimate rights.

4. The elected U.S. President is urged to heed the voices that have risen from within American society itself for more than a year since the zionist aggression on Gaza, rejecting occupation and genocide and objecting to support and bias toward the zionist entity. [emphasis mine]

5. The new U.S. administration must understand that our Palestinian people will continue to confront the abhorrent zionist occupation and will not accept any path that detracts from their legitimate rights to freedom, independence, self-determination, and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Al-Quds as its capital.

Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas, Wednesday, 04 Jumada al-Awwal 1446 AH, Corresponding to: 06 November 2024