Geography Quiz: Let Palestine Live!

Lluís Ràfols November 2012

Chris Hedges and other Western journalists are going to stand at the Rafah gate on the Egyptian side I learned yesterday from his heart-breaking Letter to the Children of Gaza. This is in response to Israel's refusal to let in international witnesses to the carnage (10,000+ dead with 40% of those children) and Israel's rapid killing of Palestinian journalists already on the ground. A video of tv journalist Salman Al Bashir ripping off his press vest and helmet saying, "This protection gear does not protect us!" has gone viral.

What's a blogger to do in these genocidal times? Lift up other voices, spread the word, help jam congressional phone lines and offices demanding a ceasefire now, and educate myself about the balkanized geography of a fossil fuel resource region. So here, in the midst of the worst onslaught against Gaza ever, is another geography quiz.

Map A – This nation is what the United Nations laid out in 1948 after the Nakba by Zionist militias saw several hundred thousand indigenous people slaughtered. Note that it does not stretch from the [Jordan] river to the [Mediterranean] sea.

Map B - This nation was created by UN mandate in 1948 after British colonial rulers had promised both the indigenous Arabs and also the Zionist Jews in Europe the same territory. 

Map C - This nation is the home of Hezbollah which takes credit for defeating Israel and driving it out after a civil war during which Israel stood by while militias massacred Nakba refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps.

Map D - This nation absorbed millions of refugees driven out by Zionists in 1948 and has refused to accept any more following the Al Aqsa Flood breakout from Gaza in October 2023.

 

Map E - This nation absorbed millions of refugees driven out by Zionists in 1948 and has refused to accept any more following the Al Aqsa Flood breakout from Gaza in October 2023. 

Map F - This nation is frequently bombed by Israel and the U.S., which maintains illegal military bases there in order to steal its oil.

Current blank maps sourced from Free Country Map 

Map G - This German map was made in 1869 when the Ottoman Empire considered itself entitled to rule the prime location where ancient Silk Road routes met the Mediterranean Sea. Falsely described by Zionists as "a land without a people."

Map H - This region of historical Palestine is named for a body of water that it borders.

Answer Key

Map A – UN-mandated Palestine

Map B - UN-mandated Israel

Map C - Lebanon

Map D - Egypt

Map E - Jordan

Map F - Syria

Map G - Palestine

Map H - West Bank

Ground view in Gaza right now:

For an extended video tour of the damage shared on reddit:

Israeli propaganda trolls don't want you to see these kind of footage, because they're trying to hide from the world that Israel has been dropping over 6000 bombs in the first week alone.

That's the equivalent of 2 nuclear bombs. Israel killed over 10,000 Palestinians so far, incl over 4000 children

No Rocket Launch Site Off Acadia National Park

Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island in Maine is a gorgeous spot stolen from Wabanaki people who considered what white people now call Cadillac Mountain a sacred place. I've watched the sun come up from the shoreline near a campground at Acadia, a good reminder of why Native people called their home the Dawnland. 

Acadia's view of the Atlantic could include a rocket launch site someday soon if profiteers sniffing around nearby Steuben get their way. We've been organizing opposition to that and yesterday some board members of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space attended the Maine Space Conference in Portland. Two of us paid to go inside while a dozen of us met outside at the lunch break to picket the hotel venue, our presence meriting one sentence at the end of a puff piece by local tv a reporter. 

That puff piece studiously avoided the word "military" as did most of the presentations we saw inside. But we're paying attention to the promises made when the Maine Space Corporation legislation was rushed through under the gavel amid assurances to legislators that any launch site would be strictly for civilian uses like education and research. That is complete bullshit if the experiences of other launch sites like Kodiak, Alaska are any indication: promised no military use, they now play a key role in Israel's genocide in Gaza as the Israeli military uses the Kodiak facility frequently to launch communications satellites.

bluShift Aerospace is pushing for the rocket launch site and its CEO told us in September that he expects to accept funding from both NASA (its official at the conference was referred to as the Maine space industry's "sugar daddy" which seemed to delight him) and the U.S. Space Force. One of the breakout sessions I attended on Composites also had an orientation toward military applications and this was mentioned as a point of pride.

Meanwhile, everyone I spoke to at a rally for Gaza last weekend in Portland was astonished that there are plans to build a rocket launch site anywhere in Maine much less off the coast near Acadia.

To raise awareness our print ad is running this week in two newspapers in Bar Harbor near Acadia, and our radio ad is airing in that market as well.