Ken Jones: Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing In Hebron

Photo from West Bank land theft documentary NO OTHER LAND which won an Oscar last night (if you're in the UK, watch it streaming at Channel 4).

Reposting this piece from Counterpunch by a friend who just returned from the West Bank. 

Slow Motion Ethnic Cleansing in Hebron

Ken Jones

Photograph Source: Oren Rozen – Own work – CC BY-SA 4.0

“Tell our story!” the man in the checkpoint cage yelled, in English. He and a crowd of Palestinian Muslim men were jammed together waiting to be checked out, one at a time, by an Israeli soldier in a glass booth so they could go into Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque to pray. Such daily and routine humiliation is the hallmark of the Israeli occupation.

I was in Hebron (Al-Khalil) for two weeks recently as part of a Community Peacemaker Team (CPT) delegation. Every day, we accompanied or heard testimony from people living there who were living under the guns of the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) and the aggressive hostility of the 800 settlers who claim that the city of 200,000 was given to them by their god. Every night, I kept a blog trying to capture one of the many stories we heard of the oppression.

Hebron is in the southern part of the West Bank. It hasn’t gotten the genocidal Gaza treatment that Jenin, Tulkarem, and Nur Shams are now getting. But, as someone said to me, “We are waiting our turn.” It may be that the tanks and bombs will come to Hebron too, but at the moment, what is happening there is the decades-long grind of military occupation and settler colonialism.

The stories we heard are gruesome. And everyone has one. Most men have been taken to prison and tortured. It’s common to have your home broken into in the middle of the night by soldiers who yell, beat everyone, and kidnap fathers, sons and daughters, taking them away to unknown locations, with no charges, and for an undetermined time. Entire homes are demolished regularly. Land is stolen. Movement is restricted. Surveillance is constant and pervasive. These stories don’t make the news. They have become too normalized.

Here are a couple of stories that may give a glimpse of what daily life is like in Hebron.

One day, a 20 year old woman told us about her year in prison. She recounted the horribly dirty and crowded conditions, the scarcity and bad quality of the food, the strip searches, the beatings, the constant verbal abuse.

She said the hardest thing that she witnessed was when women from Gaza were brought in. They wore bloody clothes and their hijabs had been stripped away from them. They were given no beds, nothing to clean themselves with. They were given dirty clothes that had been deliberately contaminated with lice. When they went to the bathroom, they were taken by male soldiers.

Then she told us the story of Oct 7, 2024, the one year “memorial” of the Gazan attack on Israelis. An officer entered women’s rooms and gave them 30 seconds to cover themselves before soldiers came in. When the soldiers came, they put zip ties on the women’s hands, blindfolded them, and took them out. They made them lie face down on muddy ground, beat them, cursed hatefully at them, and brought police dogs out to terrorize them. While this was going on, soldiers went into their cells, took all of their clothes, and set off tear gas grenades in their cells. Then they put the women back in their cells.

On another day, an older man who was living in a family home handed down through generations told us of the daily harassment he has been subjected to by settlers living next to his house. Protected by the IOF, they are taking pieces of his land every day. They have poisoned his sheep, stolen his olives, and destroyed over 250 olive trees.

His home is frequently used for family gatherings. During one of these recent gatherings, a large group of settlers burst into the house and started assaulting people. Some of them were dressed as soldiers. There were many injuries, windows were broken, and cars damaged. Then they stopped an ambulance from getting to the house.

Settlers have attacked his family in the fields and farm with stones, have brandished guns, and beaten them with sticks. They have driven jeeps right into the house, dumped bulldozers full of trash at their front door. Soldiers have tear gassed the inside of their home and flown drones overhead frequently.

The story we heard at the village of Um Al-Khair in the South Hebron Hills is emblematic of what is happening  all over the West Bank. The village consists largely of descendants of refugees from the 1948 Nakba.

Immediately next to the village is a settlement of some 500 Israeli families and nearby, a military base. The teens from the settlement act as front-line vigilantes. They roam around with sticks and pepper spray making life miserable and tense for the people of the village. They have broken into homes and beaten women, damaged the village water pump, and even herded sheep right into village homes.

Whenever the villagers complain to the police about such attacks, the police say they have been told by the settlers that the teens are being attacked by the Palestinians. The police threaten to arrest the villagers if they keep making these calls.

We were walked to a recently demolished house where a couple of young Palestinian men were sitting, looking sadly at the ruins. Three rooms and a water tank were all jumbled up in piles. One of the men told us his 60-year old mother, who owned the house, had been thrown to the ground when she yelled about her house being destroyed. There was nothing the son or mother could do about it. Their family is now crowded in with a next door neighbor. In June, Israel had demolished 10 homes in one morning in the village.

We were told that Israeli law forbids people from rebuilding a demolished home in the same site. There is, in fact, a settler organization in Israel named Regavin that flies drones over newly demolished homes to report to the military any Palestinian attempt to rebuild. Still, the son and villagers are planning to rebuild the home.

Our village guide talked about the trauma of it all, especially for the kids. He said, “It is very hard for us to live in this condition. These people are not neighbors, they don’t care about us at all. They treat their dogs better than they treat us.” He worried about the mental health of his five young daughters and all of his friends living there.

We walked down to the paved road that was put in for the settlement. It was put over a dirt road that had been there since Jordan controlled this territory many years ago. Israel now defined the paved road as the border of the village, beyond which they and their goats and sheep were not allowed to “trespass.” Simple as that, their pasture land was stolen. Soldiers also put a gate at the beginning of the road so that they can close off entry and exit into the village whenever they choose.

We walked past some sapling trees, supplied by the Jewish National Fund, that settlers had just planted right next to villagers’ houses. The obvious purpose of planting the trees was to establish a claim to the land.

We saw the electric lines leading to the settlement. The villagers can’t use that electricity. They have power only from a small number of solar panels. We also saw the now repaired water pump from which they are allowed to draw from only 2 days a week, for a total of 6 hours. We saw the surveillance camera up on a pole overlooking the village. “They are watching us all the time,” our guide said.

We were told about the sounds of gunfire from the military firing range that was put illegally on their land. I imagined how threatening that must be, especially for the children.

All of this pressure in Um Al-Khair is one big systematic slow motion ethnic cleansing campaign, designed to push the villagers off their land. The intention is not just to demolish homes, land rights, and mental health. It’s meant to demolish hope.

But from what I could see, Palestinians will never give up hope. Every story of injustice we heard was told with a spirit of determined resilience and resistance – sumud, as it is called there. No Palestinian we met was planning to leave or submit. Everyone appeared to be carrying on with life, with joy and humor, and with healthy relationships, despite the danger and indignities they were suffering. They refuse to live in fear. As one person said, “That’s what they want, for us to be afraid. They want us to leave. We will not fear and we will stay until this occupation is over.”

As has often happened to me when I visit places that are on the receiving side of U.S.-sponsored violence and oppression, I was struck during this visit by the strong and enviable character of the Palestinians we met. They are not defeated, their spirits are not broken. They are warm, generous, dignified. I always felt safe and cared for around them, even though I, as an American, had no right to expect such treatment. The only times I felt fear and coldness were when I was around Israeli soldiers or settlers. That’s telling.

The stories and voices of Palestinians have always been purposefully suppressed by the powers that be in the U.S. and the West. As has the truth about how Palestinians have been treated for over a hundred years. The genocide in Gaza has burst that bubble of shadows and lies and revealed the ugly truth of the Zionist project all over Palestine. It is a cancer.

Hebron is still a vibrant place, bustling with life. May its countless stories be heard, may its occupation end, may its people be free. And the same for all of Palestine.

Professional Wrestling Match Aside, Israel Resuming Genocide With U.S. Backing

When my husband was growing up, his Slovak immigrant grandparents watched professional wrestling matches on television while cheering and stomping their feet as if they believed the matches were real rather than staged. This annoyed his mother, their daughter-in-law, who was living downstairs. She was embarrassed by their naïveté, and the noisy spectacle aggravated her Anglo sensibilities. At least that's the way her son remembers it.

I woke up this morning intending to write about the professional wrestling-themed meeting between President Zelensky, 47, and VP Vance but, as is often the case, Australian Caitlin Johnstone got there first. In "Trump Sends Netanyahu Weapons While Talking Tough to Zelensky" she writes:

Democrats are rending their garments over the public humiliation of Saint Zelensky and crying about the “bullying” behavior of Trump and Vance, while Republicans are applauding the whole ordeal as a sign that Trump is a strong and heroic peacemaker who doesn’t take any guff from Washington’s warmongering proxies. But the most immediate and glaring point about Zelensky’s public castigation is that this same administration doesn’t appear to be taking that same energy to Benjamin Netanyahu as he prepares to resume a genocide.

Two of the dumbest takes I've seen on last Friday's Oval Office match are from politicians using the opportunity to put on their own performances -- likely to ingratiate themselves with the real empire managers behind the scenes.

Senator Bernie Sanders weighed in on the elongated muskrat's platform to say:

Trump berates Zelensky, the leader of a democratic country courageously fighting Russian imperialism, while he allies himself with Putin, a dictator who started the bloodiest European war in 80 years.

Sorry, President Trump. We believe in democracy, not authoritarianism.

Let's unpack those claims. Zelensky declared martial law and suspended elections in Ukraine, so "democratic" in this sentence strains credulity. Russian "imperialism" is just blatant propaganda from an elected official in the belly of the only global empire that exists in our day. "Dictator" Putin was re-elected in 2024 and that's an indication that 88% of people in Russia know who actually started "the bloodiest European war in 80 years" i.e. Victoria Nuland et al.

The phrase "we believe in democracy" is especially rich coming from perennial fraud Sanders who allowed his own party to put the imperial thumb on the scale in 2016 and again in 2020 to deny him the nomination for president. Most who lived through these years witnessed the overwhelming popular support for Sanders, and believe he would have prevailed where lackluster candidates like Hillary Clinton and no-primary Kamala Harris failed. Put another way, Sanders colluded in handing those elections to the very candidate that Democrats love to hate and also fundraise off of.

Not to mention the Russiagate hoax which Sanders and his party enthusiastically pushed in order to -- gasp -- control the outcome of an election.

Then there's the so-called independent senator from Maine, Angus King, who caucuses and votes with Democrats but isn't one because ?? (My theory: he's wealthy enough in a small population state to own his own data and declines to pay the DNC vast sums to use theirs.)

the point that Zelensky was trying make is that, based on history, Russia cannot be trusted to honor its commitments and therefore any deal must include some form of security guarantee to insure the territorial integrity of Ukraine. Unfortunately, our president insisted on talking over this point and refused to acknowledge it.

I hope this unfortunate meeting will not detract from the pursuit of an agreement that ends the bloodshed, recognizes and protects the sovereignty of Ukraine without appeasing the territorial ambitions of a murderous dictator.

It would be hard to come up with a more fraudulent claim than "Russia cannot be trusted to honor its commitments" given that both Minsk I and II were negotiated in bad faith by King's team and the Europeans, some of whom have admitted those agreements were simply stalling for time by Ukraine's sponsors. 

As for protecting the "sovereignty of Ukraine," I suspect that King wants those rare earth minerals ever bit as much as 47 does and deliberately obfuscates the plain fact that Ukraine is one of the least sovereign nations on the planet at this point in time.

Zelensky visits Congress, 2022 -- good times

Lest my post leaves you with the mistaken impression that I am a fan of 47 and his administration, I am not. I don't watch much professional wrestling and I'm not confused about how political power is actually waged i.e. by force and blackmail, not by means of theatrics. All U.S. presidents are servants of empire in the role of hired talking heads, not "deciders." 

Meanwhile, the U.S. continues shipping weapons to Israel and giving Zionists the green light to break the Gaza ceasefire -- after failing to honor many of the commitments it made in that agreement. The primary reason for the war in Ukraine that the U.S. and other NATO countries started in 2014 is what Johnstone said: they believed it would weaken Russia and allow the Zios to move on Syria. Which indeed turned out to be the case. Syria not only has oil fields but its strategic location made it a conduit for the Palestinian resistance to receive arms and other logistical support.

But few are talking about that. Because Zelensky's attire and comportment are far more important, right?

BOOK REVIEW: The Message

I just finished Ta-Nahisi Coates' controversial book The Message, a Christmas present from one of my kids who said, I know he's kind of a liberal darling, mom, but I think you're going to really like this book. It's an opportune time to read about Coates' experiences in Palestine  because I have friends who are visiting the West Bank as observers of the Zionist occupation. One of them posts to a private blog each day and coincidentally had just read The Message before leaving on their trip. Much of what they report aligns with Coates' descriptions of apartheid and white supremacy in all its ugliness.

As for what Coates made of his experiences, therein lies the controversy.

Coates burst on the scene with a long-form piece in the legacy liberal magazine The Atlantic where he was on staff. "The Case for Reparations" is something most of us probably read years ago when it came out in 2014. If so, did you remember that Coates used the creation of Israel as an historical example of reparations? That he now regrets his hoodwinking by hasbara (Zionist pr) is palpable; he's embarrassed for himself, but not too embarrassed to learn more and to hold himself accountable for his errors.

I had been aware of his fall from grace with the liberal, Democratic Party-aligned media over the book but didn't know the details. Since I never watch CBS Mornings or really any corporate media, I missed it when Israel-aligned journalist Tony Dokoupil attacked Coates for comparing Jim Crow and Israeli apartheid. Astonishingly, Dokoupil told him:

If I took your name out of it, took away the award, and acclaim, took the cover off the book, the publishing house goes away -- the content of that section would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.

So the Zionist argument is: despite your stature as a prominent Black intellectual, we are going put a pejorative label on you for drawing your own conclusions based on your own recent observations in occupied Palestine. 

Conclusions that prominent Jewish intellectuals Noam Chomsky, Dr. Gabor Maté , Hannah Arendt, and Albert Einstein also reached based on their own observations.

What makes Coates' observations and conclusions so powerful is his broad experience with structural racism and white supremacy in our times. The Message is actually a collection of three essays he wrote for his writing students at Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington DC. One essay reflects on his trip to Senegal to see where the African slave trade that his ancestors suffered through originated. One reflects on his visit to a South Carolina school district that attempted to ban his book Between the World and Me from Advanced Placement English. And both those essays inform what he makes of his experiences in the West Bank, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv.

Coates is nothing if not a researcher, delving into primary sources like Zionist founder Theodor Herzl's early writings to find prescient scheming and plans for dehumanization:

We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it[sic] in the transit countries, while denying it[sic] any employment in our own country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly.

As Coates begins to examine why he never interrogated Zionism, his research uncovers some facts that shock him: a study finding that from 1970-2019 fewer than 2% of opinion pieces about Palestine were by Palestinian authors. The dearth of Muslim or Arab journalists with positions in Western corporate media. Myths about Israel being "the only democracy in the Middle East" and the industry devoted to mythologizing archaeological ruins that become theme parks for promoting Zionist tropes.

The role of settlers in pushing Palestinians out of their homes and off their land is a major theme in Coates' essay. According to his research there are now half a million of them.

In case you're wondering, he meets with Israelis, too. They tell him how dangerous it is to speak out against apartheid or to refuse military service. They take him, a Black descendant of enslaved people, on the roads that only Jews may use, bypassing the checkpoints that clog up commerce, education, and familial bonding for Palestinians.

Back stateside, Coates gets together with a group of Palestinian professionals and activists and their friends.

The group spoke about politics in a manner of communal intimacy -- the way my people speak when no white people are around..

Deanna [Othman] told me she taught at a school where most of the kids were Palestinian, and she loved teaching "The Case for Reparations." She said, "The kids always say, Yeah but about the Israel part? And I just say, Well, nobody's perfect."

There's so much more in-depth analysis in The Message than I can convey here. As Israel refused over the weekend to release 600 Palestinian prisoners already on buses, despite the release as promised by Hamas of Israeli hostages in Gaza, and moved tanks into the West Bank for the first time in 20 years, it's time to examine the unvarnished truth about the Zionist project.

What To Do? Diverse Strategies And Tactics

 

Jamila Levasseur of Jewish Voice for Peace being arrested July 27, 2024 at General Dynamics warship factory in Bath, Maine  Photo by Derek Davis - Source: Portland Press Herald - Best Photos of 2024

The U.S. empire, bloated beyond sustainability for many years, now ramps up its plans to annex other sovereign lands. Of course it does! Doubling down on imperial hubris as it hurtles toward a fall.

Providing a narrative fest for legacy media, 47 announces he wants to take over the Panama Canal, Canada, Greenland, and more.  Land grabs already well underway in Palestine and now in Syria provide the empire with access to oil and other energy reserves. Ditto in Iraq. How are the post 9/11 wars on terror going two decades later? Iran is vulnerable in the imperial crosshairs. Will Russia and China stand by if Iran is carpet bombed? How much can Russia do while tied up in Ukraine?

Also on the narrative front. the elongated muskrat announces that heads must roll as he tries to whip up color revolutions using ham-handed tweeting by robots on his behalf. They proclaim that the people should throw out their effete elite "leaders" and replace them with different elite "leaders." Ones more conducive to Starlink owning a whole layer of the sky, presumably.

What to do?

I was invited to contribute this essay for the Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights newsletter that came out today (click here to subscribe). I'm resharing it here so that I can illustrate with selected photos from the past year, mine unless otherwise indicated.

 

Video - Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine Maine https://www.instagram.com/p/DBwmgSixqW2

Solidarity with Palestine - Diverse Strategies and Tactics

Resisting Zionist occupation, land theft, and genocide is a long struggle.  As  it entered a heightened phase on October 7, 2023, so did our commitment to support the cause of Palestinian liberation.

In Maine we follow our hearts and our consciences in deciding how and where to apply pressure.

Photo by Kristen Salvatore  - source: Maine Morning Star 

Some of us doggedly call and write our alleged representatives in Congress, most of whom are owned by the Israel lobby.  As we object to their complicity in using our tax dollars to fund Israel's genocidal practices, do they listen?  When they don't, we sometimes occupy their offices, and our arrests generate coverage in the corporate, pro-Zionist media.

Rally participants convening with signs in front of Fogler Library at UMaine. Photo by Sofia Langlois.  source: Maine Campus

Others focus on places we feel more connected to -- our universities, or our town and city councils.  Last year, historic divestment resolutions passed in Portland and Belfast, and at the Maine Education Association Representative Assembly.  Divesting from the Israeli war machine generates public attention and people who rely on corporate media for information about Palestine hear some truth leaking through as activists testify about why they are standing up for humanity.

 

Some of us take up educating our fellow Mainers as our mission.  Standouts, media interviews, and letters to the editor generate curiosity.  We flyer to specific audiences, such as parents of school age children in a town where a General Dynamics factory helps make bombs that have reduced Gaza's schools to rubble.  When we have the time and troops for peace, we attend school board meetings, canvass in neighborhoods, or put flyers on windshields.

 

We visit recruitment fairs to ask job seekers if they really want to make a living off war.  Many do not.  We block the entrances to weapons factories, and wake up General Dynamics executives at dawn and let their community know that their neighbors are making million dollar salaries from killing children in Palestine.  It is legal to dump red water-based paint on the pavement in front of their homes, and we stay within noise ordinances of whatever town we are visiting.

Others of us feel that such non-violent direct actions create greater pushback than they win allies.  This is where activists with similar goals may agree to disagree on specific actions.

Sometimes we gather for rallies, marches, and teach-ins.  Those who can, travel to Palestine, to witness, and support, and learn.  At other times, we organize cultural events that help people -- safe and warm in our country -- relate to the humanity of those who suffer under the US-Israeli war machine.  Films, poetry readings, and theater performances may include traditional Palestinian food.  Debke line dancing joins activists together through a common cultural experience.

Art builds that create giant banners and colorful signs introduce a creative spark to our organizing.  The Artists Rapid Response Team (ARRT!) of the Maine Union of Visual Artists hosts a monthly gathering where ideas are batted and paint is splashed about.  Blood-stained shrouds signed with the names and ages of Palestinian martyrs are made with reverence before being used to block a bomb factory entrance.  Heavy lock-down devices such as cars, boats, and cement blocks are moved into place by activists whose personal bonds strengthen through creative political work.

 

 

The writers among us write: blogs, emails, articles.  Social media posts.  Speeches, which our hands struggle to scroll through as we read them off our smart phones.  The media savvy generate video coverage of our marches, rallies, and direct actions.  These are shared and re-shared throughout communities of resistance around the globe, including among the besieged people of Gaza.

 

Video - Healthcare Workers 4 Palestine Maine https://www.instagram.com/p/DBwmgSixqW2

Needless to say, we educate ourselves.  Finding reliable information is a job in itself and we all have our go-to sources: Electronic Intifada, Mondoweiss, Gray Zone, Resistance News Network.  We study reporting on solidarity actions around the world, particularly on those that disrupt the Israeli weapons maker Elbit Systems, and we don't overlook putting pressure on the insurers and supply chains of the US arms industry.

Diversity of strategies and tactics is a strength of our resistance movement.  We're at our best when we don't tell others what to do or not to do, but when we recognize that people of good conscience are likely to take action when they reach the point of shame and despair over US complicity in Israel's crimes.

As activists, we're evolving every day and learning from each other, and resistance until Palestine is free is our beacon no matter which steps we choose to get there.
 

 

The End of Pluralism in the Middle East: A Devil's Bargain By Craig Murray

“Israel’s promised land” - A badge was spotted worn by an Israeli occupation soldier in Gaza; the map shows “Greater Israel,” reflecting Zionist beliefs that the Bible promised them the lands from the Nile to the Euphrates. Source: Roya News

Reposting today as my understanding of events in Syria is quite limited compared with Murray, a Scottish journalist I trust who was formerly British ambassador to Uzbekistan. He is now persecuted by the UK government for his outspoken support of Palestinians.

The End of Pluralism in the Middle East

by Craig Murray
Republished from craigmurray.org.uk Dec 6, 2024

A truly seismic change in the Middle East appears to be happening very fast. At its heart is a devil’s bargain – Turkey and the Gulf States accept the annihilation of the Palestinian nation and creation of a Greater Israel, in return for the annihilation of the Shia minorities of Syria and Lebanon and the imposition of Salafism across the Eastern Arab world.

This also spells the end for Lebanon and Syria’s Christian communities, as witness the tearing down of all Christmas decorations, the smashing of all alcohol and the forced imposition of the veil on women in Aleppo now.

Yesterday US Warthog air-to-ground jets attacked and severely depleted reinforcements which were, at the invitation of the Syrian government, en route to Syria from Iraq. Constant, daily Israeli airstrikes on Syria’s military infrastructure for months have been a major factor in the demoralisation and reduced capacity of the Syrian government’s Syrian Arab Army, which has simply evaporated in Aleppo and Hama.

It is very difficult to see the tide turning in Syria. The Russians now have either to massively reinforce their Syrian bases with ground troops or to evacuate them. Faced with the exigencies of Ukraine, they may do the latter, and it is reported that the Russian navy has already set sail from Tartus.

The speed of collapse of Syria has taken everybody by surprise. If the situation does not stabilise, Damascus could be besieged and ISIS back on the hills above the Bekaa valley within a week, given the speed of their advance and the short distances involved.

A renewed Israeli attack on Southern Lebanon to coincide with a Salafist invasion of the Bekaa Valley would then seem inevitable, as the Israelis would obviously wish their border with their new Taliban-style Greater Syrian neighbour to be as far North as possible. It could be a race for Beirut, unless the Americans have already organised who gets it.

It is no coincidence that the attack on Syria started the day of the Lebanon/Israel ceasefire. The jihadist forces do not want to be seen to be fighting alongside Israel, even though they are fighting forces which have been relentlessly bombed by Israel, and in the case of Hezbollah are exhausted from fighting Israel.

The Times of Israel has no compunction about saying the quiet part out loud, unlike the British media:

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In fact Israeli media is giving a lot more truth about the Syrian rebel forces than British and American media just now. This is another article from the Times of Israel:

While HTS officially seceded from Al Qaeda in 2016, it remains a Salafi jihadi organization designated as a terror organization in the US, the EU and other countries, with tens of thousands of fighters.

Its sudden surge raises concerns that a potential takeover of Syria could transform it into an Islamist, Taliban-like regime – with repercussions for Israel at its south-western border. Others, however, see the offensive as a positive development for Israel and a further blow to the Iranian axis in the region.

Contrast this to the UK media, which from the Telegraph and Express to the Guardian has promoted the official narrative that not just the same organisations, but the same people responsible for mass torture and executions of non-Sunnis, including Western journalists, are now cuddly liberals.

Nowhere is this more obvious than the case of Abu Mohammad Al-Jolani, sometimes spelt Al-Julani or Al-Golani, who is now being boosted throughout western media as a moderate leader. He was the deputy leader of ISIS, and the CIA actually has a $10 million bounty on his head! Yes, that is the same CIA which is funding and equipping him and giving him air support.

Supporters of the Syrian rebels still attempt to deny that they have Israeli and US support – despite the fact that almost a decade ago there was open Congressional testimony in the USA that, to that point, over half a billion dollars had been spent on assistance to Syrian rebel forces, and the Israelis have openly been providing medical and other services to the jihadists and effective air support.

One interesting consequence of this joint NATO/Israel support for the jihadist groups in Syria is a further perversion of domestic rule of law. To take the UK as an example, under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act it is illegal to state an opinion that supports, or may lead somebody else to support, a proscribed organisation.

The abuse of this provision by British police to persecute Palestinian supporters for allegedly encouraging support for proscribed organisations Hamas and Hezbollah is notorious, with even tangential alleged references leading to arrest. Sarah Wilkinson, Richard Medhurst, Asa Winstanley, Richard Barnard and myself are all notable victims, and the persecution has been greatly intensified by Keir Starmer.

Yet Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) is also a proscribed group in the UK. But both British mainstream media and British Muslim outlets have been openly promoting and praising HTS for a week – frankly much more openly than I have ever witnessed anyone in the UK support Hamas and Hezbollah – and not a single person has been arrested or even warned by UK police.

That in itself is the strongest of indications that western security services are fully behind the current attack on Syria.

For the record, I think it is an appalling law, and nobody should be prosecuted for expressing an opinion either way. But the politically biased application of the law is undeniable.

When the entire corporate and state media in the West puts out a unified narrative that Syrians are overjoyed to be released by HTS from the tyranny of the Assad regime – and says nothing whatsoever of the accompanying torture and execution of Shias, and destruction of Christmas decorations and icons – it ought to be obvious to everybody where this is coming from.

Yet – and this is another UK domestic repercussion – a very substantial number of Muslims in the UK support HTS and the Syrian rebels, because of the funding pumped into UK mosques from Saudi and Emirate Salafist sources. This is allied to the UK security service influence also wielded through the mosques, both by sponsorship programmes and “think tanks” benefiting approved religious leaders, and by the execrable coercive Prevent programme.

UK Muslim outlets that have been ostensibly pro-Palestinian – like Middle East Eye and 5 Pillars – enthusiastically back Israel’s Syrian allies in ensuring the destruction of resistance to the genocide of the Palestinians. Al Jazeera alternates between items detailing dreadful massacre in Palestine, and items extolling the Syrian rebels bringing Israel-allied rule to Syria.

Among the mechanisms they employ to reconcile this is a refusal to acknowledge the vital role of Syria in enabling the supply of weapons from Iran to Hezbollah. Which supply the jihadists have now cut off, to the absolute delight of Israel, and in conjunction with both Israeli and US air strikes.

In the final analysis, for many Sunni Muslims both in the Middle East and in the West, the pull seems to be stronger of sectarian hatred of the Shia and the imposition of Salafism, than preventing the ultimate destruction of the Palestinian nation.

I am not a Muslim. My Muslim friends happen to be almost entirely Sunni. I personally regard the continuing division over the leadership of the religion over a millennium ago as deeply unhelpful and a source of unnecessary continued hate.

But as a historian I do know that the western colonial powers have consciously and explicitly used the Sunni/Shia split for centuries to divide and rule. In the 1830’s, Alexander Burnes was writing reports on how to use the division in Sind between Shia rulers and Sunni populations to aid British colonial expansion.

On 12 May 1838, in his letter from Simla setting out his decision to launch the first British invasion of Afghanistan, British Governor General Lord Auckland included plans to exploit Shia/Sunni division in both Sind and Afghanistan to aid the British military attack.

The colonial powers have been doing it for centuries, Muslim communities keep falling for it, and the British and Americans are doing it right now to further their remodelling of the Middle East.

Simply put, many Sunni Muslims have been brainwashed into hating Shia Muslims more than they hate those currently committing genocide of an overwhelmingly Sunni population in Gaza.

I refer to the UK because I witnessed this first hand during the election campaign in Blackburn. But the same is true all over the Muslim world. Not one Sunni Muslim-led state has lifted a single finger to prevent the genocide of the Palestinians.

Their leadership is using anti-Shia sectarianism to maintain popular support for a de facto alliance with Israel against the only groups – Iran, Houthi and Hezbollah – which actually did attempt to give the Palestinians practical support in resistance. And against the Syrian government which facilitated supply.

The unspoken but very real bargain is this. The Sunni powers will accept the wiping out of the entire Palestinian nation and formation of Greater Israel, in return for the annihilation of the Shia communities in Syria and Lebanon by Israel and forces backed by NATO (including Turkey).

There are, of course, contradictions in this grand alliance. The United States’ Kurdish allies in Iraq are unlikely to be happy with Turkey’s destruction of Kurdish groups in Syria, which is what Erdoğan gains from Turkey’s very active military role in toppling Syria – in addition to extending Turkish control of oilfields.

The Iran-friendly Iraqi government will have further difficulty with reconciling US continuing occupation of swathes of its country, as they realise they are the next target.

The Lebanese army is under control of the USA, and Hezbollah must have been greatly weakened to have agreed the disastrous ceasefire with Israel. Christian fascist militias traditionally allied to Israel are increasingly visible in parts of Beirut, though whether they would be stupid enough to make common cause with jihadists from the North may be open to question. But should Syria fall entirely to jihadist rule – which may happen fast – I do not rule out Lebanon following very quickly indeed, and being integrated into a Salafist Greater Syria.

How the Palestinians of Jordan would react to this disastrous turn of events, it is hard to be sure. The British puppet Hashemite Kingdom is the designated destination for ethnically cleansed West Bank Palestinians under the Greater Israel plan.

What this all potentially amounts to is the end of pluralism in the Levant and its replacement by supremacism. An ethno-supremacist Greater Israel and a religio-supremacist Salafist Greater Syria.

Unlike many readers, I have never been a fan of the Assad regime or blind to its human rights violations. But what it did undeniably do was maintain a pluralist state where the most amazing historical religious and community traditions – including Sunni (and many Sunni do support Assad), Shia, Alaouites, descendants of the first Christians, and speakers of Aramaic, the language of Jesus – were all able to co-exist.

The same is true of Lebanon.

What we are witnessing is the destruction of that and imposition of a Saudi-style rule. All the little cultural things that indicate pluralism – from Christmas trees to language classes to winemaking to women going unveiled – have just been destroyed in Aleppo and could be destroyed from Damascus to Beirut.

I do not pretend that there are not genuine liberal democrats among the opposition to Assad. But they have negligible military significance, and the idea that they would be influential in a new government is delusion.

In Israel, which pretended to be a pluralist state, the mask is off. The Muslim call to prayer has just been banned. Arab minority members of the Knesset have been suspended for criticising Netanyahu and genocide. More walls and gates are built every day, not just in unlawfully occupied territories but in the “state of Israel” itself, to enforce apartheid.

I confess I once had the impression that Hezbollah was itself a religio-supremacist organisation; the dress and style of its leadership look theocratic. Then I came here and visited places like Tyre, which has been under Hezbollah elected local government for decades, and found that swimwear and alcohol are allowed on the beach and the veil is optional, while there are completely unmolested Christian communities there.

I will never now see Gaza, but wonder if I might have been similarly surprised by Hamas rule.

It is the United States which is promoting the cause of religious extremism and of the end, all over the Middle East, of a societal pluralism similar to Western norms. That is of course a direct consequence of the United States being allied to both the two religio-supremacist centres of Israel and Saudi Arabia.

It is the USA which is destroying pluralism, and it is Iran and its allies which defend pluralism. I would not have seen this clearly had I not come here. But once seen, it is blindingly obvious.

Beirut 6 December 2024