Forgetting To Remember: Palestine's 50 Year Occupation vs. The Holocaust Industry

I spent my week off from school looking at art. One of the stops on my tour was the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston where I spent time in peaceful space with ancient representations of the Buddha and various boddhisattvas, balm to my soul.

I also found my way to two special exhibitions of interest. "I must tell you what I saw -- objects of witness and resistance" was a small display of art and artifacts from various bad patches of history including the Armenian Genocide, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  

Chalk mold, Armenia, 1900
During the Armenian Massacres the Ouzounian family, who owned the mold,
were spared by the Ottomans because the army needed the chalk.

Placed deliberately adjacent was "Memory Unearthed: The Lodz Ghetto Photographs of Henryk Ross" made up of hundreds of rare prints made from once buried (literally) negatives of Jewish life in Poland from 1940-1945.

WOLBORSKA STREET (DESTROYED BY GERMANS 1939), 1940

Gelatin silver print. Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario. Gift from Archive of Modern Conflict, 2007. © Art Gallery of Ontario, 2017.

Nowhere to be seen: artifacts or photographs of the now fifty year brutal occupation of Palestine, including the long ghettoization of the people of Gaza.

Most of those imprisoned in Gaza are refugees or the descendents of refugees from violent displacement during al Nakba (the Catastrophe) in 1946-7. The MFA makes no mention anywhere in its collection of this highly significant event, a human rights disaster with huge implications for those who endure it and the rest of us.

Screenshot of the MFA search results. Yes, I tried al-Nakba, too.

In case you have never been to the MFA in Boston, let me tell you that it is vast. It would take days to see everything on display. But a search of their database reveals what my visit suggested: virtually every example of art related to Palestine is a colonial artifact of the French and British occupations that paved the way for violent Zionist takeover.

An artifact related to Palestine from the Boston MFA's collection 

Besides a handful of Palestinian films shown at the MFA in the past few years, there is one item in their enormous collection that relates to contemporary Palestine: "Emergency Room, Gaza, 1989" is a photo (image unavailable) by American photographer James Nachtwey.

This is not a coincidence. The enormous "Holocaust industry" that supports important exhibits like the work of Henryk Ross deliberately suppresses any narrative suggesting that the state of Israel engages in ongoing, deliberate crimes against humanity.

Poster of journalist Muhammad al-Qiq held by his wife and child. Al-Qiq was imprisoned by Israel without charges or trial and has been on a hunger strike since February protesting the illegal nature of his detention. Photo credit: Wisam Hashlamoun / APA

This year on April 17 -- Palestinian Prisoners Day -- thousands of those imprisoned by Israel began a mass hunger strike. 

In a momentous break with its Zionist tendencies, the New York Times even published "Why We Are On Hunger Strike In Israel's Prisons" by prominent intellectual Marwan Barghouti. In it he wrote, "an Israeli court sentenced me to five life sentences and 40 years in prison in a political show trial that was denounced by international observers." 

Bowing to subsequent pressure from Israel, the NYT added an editor's note to its original description of the author as a "Palestinian leader and parliamentarian."

Hunger strike supporters wave banners with Barghouti depicted. Photo credit: ABBAS MOMANI/AFP

Getting the word out is tremendously difficult for Palestinians who are up against well-resourced establishments like the NYT, the MFA and a host of others. 

Just working as a journalist in occupied Palestine is extremely dangerous. According to Charlotte Silver reporting on the news site Electronic Intifada:

Over a dozen more Palestinian journalists and media workers remain behind Israeli bars. Some are being held without charge or trial, like al-Qiq, and others have been hit with incitement charges related to their work.

What to do about the world's vast failure to tell the Palestinian story?

Here's one thing I did. The photographs of the Lodz ghetto resonated particularly for me because I had just finished reading the Definitive Edition of Anne Frank's Diary of a Young Girl. It is definitive because editors have restored about 30% of the material which was left out by Anne's father when he submitted the diary for publication. Much of what would interest a young person had been removed -- Anne's reflections on her emerging awareness of sexuality, and her reports on the struggle to separate from her parents and achieve autonomy.

I mentioned the book to a friend who said her teenage granddaughter would probably like to read it. So, I also recommended a coming of age novel that would make a worthy companion in detailing how a young person copes with the cruelties of occupation, displacement and human rights abuses visited on people she loves: The Shepherd's Grand-daughter by Anne Laurel Carter. 

I would have preferred to recommend a Palestinian author but I think the reader is a bit young for The Secret Life of Saeed the Pessoptimist by Emile Habiby. 

I was looking for a parallel story to Anne Frank's. I did not know at the time that Carter's honest depiction of the growth of settlements in occupied Palestine has earned several awards but also has drawn the wrath of Zionists who lobbied in Canada to have it withdrawn from the recommended reading lists of schools calling it "anti-Israeli propaganda."

So that's what Palestinians and those who seek to share some truth about Palestine are up against. Why not order a copy, read it, and share it with a young friend?

Then get busy with your boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) efforts before 2,000 Palestinian prisoners starve to death.

Bombing An Afghan Watershed For Glory And Profit #PentagonClimateCrime

When on April 13 the Pentagon dropped a bomb with a one mile blast radius, allegedly killing zero civilians and 94 ISIS militants holed up in tunnels, here are some of the consequences:

The watershed of Kabul is heavily polluted, and the flow of ancient irrigation systems in an arid region is disrupted.

Trees growing within a 500 foot radius are flattened in the agricultural Achin district of Nangarhar province.

The Pentagon's already massive carbon footprint increases.

The U.S. taxpayer is out $314,000,000 the same week that federal income taxes are due.

The bomb dropped today in the middle of nowhere, Afghanistan, cost $314,000,000. https://t.co/mV6sJoMIFJ (credit @thenib) pic.twitter.com/aj0Om5RhAV

— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 13, 2017

War profiteer Dynetics gets a major brand boost.

The U.S. continues a pattern of funding its own enemies in the endless "war on terror" by bombing a tunnel complex the CIA helped bin Laden build for the mujahadeen. 

The demagogue with bad hair keeps one of his many campaign promises: "We're gonna bomb the shit out of ISIS."

The U.S. sends a message to governments everywhere e.g., this morning's Reuters headline "Pence warns North Korea of U.S. resolve shown in Syria, Afghan strikes" reporting on the vice president's trip to South Korea to further deployment of THAAD missile "defense" system there.

Image: Hassan Bleibel

The demagogue states on camera, "We are so proud of our military...We have the greatest military in the world!" but fudges when asked if he authorized use of the MOAB.

Corporate media talking heads nearly wet themselves expressing enthusiasm for a man they claim becomes more "presidential" when he orders (or maybe just observes?) airstrikes on other countries.

Alternative media examine the facts, alleged facts, and possible motivators for the airstrike more thoroughly.



North Korea responds by holding a missile parade, and the corporate press claim we are on the verge of going to war with that nuclear armed nation.

The neocons who had Syria on their maps when the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003 finally get to use a weapon developed for that conflict. 

U.S. military commander in Afghanistan General Nicholson finds the courage to visit Kabul two days later, possibly for talks about bringing in more troops than the 8,000 already there in order to "break the stalemate" of that 14 year conflict.

Antiwar organizer David Swanson observes the parallels with United Airlines' attack on a passenger, noting that if other passengers had simply blocked the aisle it would have halted the violent removal of David Dao. He then adds:

one should expect corporations and their thugs to behave barbarically. They are designed to do so. One should expect corrupt governments that lack popular influence or control to abuse power. 

The question is whether people will sit back and take it, resist with some nonviolent skills, or disastrously resort to violence themselves.

Amen to that, brother.

Banner from website of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers