Staring the reality of population stabilization/decline in
the face, The Economist has grudgingly acknowledged it might not be that
bad. Not because of any social health reasons mind you, but because its
prescribed growth-forever diet of ever higher consumption and mass
immigration (effectively 3 meals a day of cheeseburgers, fries and
Cokes) which they have promoted for the past 50 years, may no longer be
on the menu.
The predictable resultant morbid obesity of big
growth generated the intractable structural problems of low productivity
increase, housing unaffordability and massive transfer of wealth from
productive people to the unproductive finance cult. These problems have
proven immune to the “power of markets” ability to solve them despite
the hopium spun by Century Initiative supporter Mark Carney.
What
does solve these issues though is a healthy diet of shifting the menu
from growth junk food of more housing/infrastructure and endless cheap
labour to investing in people, their training and the tools they use.
P-R-O-D-U-C-T-I-V-T-Y is the basis of social, fiscal and health.
Housing
becomes affordable, productivity and wages go up and the beltsize of
ballooning deficits shrinks. All key improvements for social health but a
disaster for the finance cult. So much for those juicy directorships,
Mark.
The now corpulent nations which followed the Economist’s
advice are beset by massive debt, narrow house-of-cards economic bases,
declining living standards and social unrest. How bad has it gotten?
Most of the elites and their media now recognize there are severe
structural problems which the traditional cure-all of more growth may
not solve.
TEMPLE TRIO: Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi in one of the many meetings they addressed close to the demolition of the Babri Masjid.
(An extract from the second volume of Abhishek Choudhary’s biography of the former prime minister)
All through late 1992, Vajpayee covered genuine dilemmas with
deliberate doublespeak. He questioned the clamour among some BJP men to
rename his constituency of Lucknow as Lakshmanpur (Ram’s brother
Lakshman apparently having founded the city), just as the state
government was hoping to rename Allahabad as Prayagraj. On a tour of
rural Lucknow, local party workers greeted him with cries of ‘Jai Shri
Ram’. After a while, the usually calm MP lost his temper: ‘Why don’t you
say Jai Hind occasionally?’ The embarrassed slogan-warriors slunk away.
Elsewhere, though, he bragged that his party was not afraid for the UP
government: Kalyan Singh was going about ‘with the resignation letter in
his pocket’. On his travels, he also often appealed to Muslims to
relinquish their claim on Babri, ‘keeping in view the sentiments of the
crores of Hindus’ who believed the spot to be the birthplace of their
most revered god.
…The BJP national executive members, who met in Bhubaneshwar in mid-November, were mostly cheerleaders. Even so, the four BJP chief ministers did not want to lose their executive jobs, and, between them, Shekhawat — who had been involved in the backchannel negotiations with three prime ministers — volunteered to speak out. The Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Shanta Kumar recollected the scene the next day:
“The cry of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ was so loud there that Shekhawat did not stand up. I reminded him, but he was hesitant: ‘Chhodo, chhodo’.
After a while I stood up arguing that since lakhs of people would
congregate in Ayodhya on 6 December — and since we were governing the
[UP] state, and were no longer in opposition — we ought to act
responsibly. But I was snubbed by the crowd, and forced to sit down: ‘Baitho-baitho, baitho-baitho.’ Atalji was quiet; he just kept looking all around.”
There was near consensus within the BJP now
to bring down the mosque. Over the decades since 1992, more robust
circumstantial evidence has emerged of the rigorous plan to raze the
three-domed Babri Masjid. Among the documents that reveal the psychology
of the saffron brotherhood on the eve of the demolition is the memoir
of a senior IB official who had been a Sangh fellow-traveller for
decades — someone who was thick with the top BJP-RSS brass — but
disagreed with their present strategy:
“I gathered an impression that they had
adopted a multi-layered operational plan by assigning specific role to
each segment of the Parivar. The VHP, Bajrang Dal and other associate
bodies were under instructions to go ahead with the demolition of the
disputed structure and their volunteers were trained at different
locations under expert supervision. The BJP leadership was assigned the
role of putting on ‘mukhotas’ (masks) of political rhetoric mixed
with frenetic religious appeal. Leaders like Vajpayee and Advani
managed to display the moderate face of the plan. However, most of them
were fully aware of the plan of demolition of the mosque.”
All through November, Vajpayee moved between
Delhi and the state capitals — Patna, Lucknow, Bhopal — to mobilize the
state units for the kaarsewa. It seems he did not mind this mid-rank
leadership as compared to the brains trust. For the same reason, he may
have been unaware of the more granular details of the conspiracy.
Three and half years ago, the EU suddenly remembered that Moldova
exists. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant that overnight, Moldova had
become a frontline state. The small country of 2.4 million shares a
759-mile border with Ukraine, and since February 2022 nearly two million
have fled across it. Even more concerning was Transnistria, a breakaway
region on Moldova’s eastern flank nestled between the Dniester River
and the Ukrainian border. The unrecognized statelet seceded from Moldova
after the collapse of the Soviet Union and remains under de facto
Russian control: it hosts an estimated 1,500 Russian troops and half of
the population have a Russian passport. With the conflict raging next
door, it was feared that the region could become the next flashpoint in
Europe’s hot war.
Geopolitics and a wartime state of exception defined last weekend’s parliamentary election. A few days before the vote, Zelenskyy told the UN General Assembly that ‘Europe cannot afford to lose Moldova’. President Maia Sandu declared the election the ‘most consequential’ in her country’s history. EU leaders also emphasized its unprecedented significance. At the end of August, on Moldova’s Independence Day, Macron, Tusk and Merz held an outdoor rally with Sandu in Chisinau. ‘Each and every day Russia attempts to destabilize all of our European countries’, the German chancellor told a sea of young Moldovans. ‘We need Europe to be united in these challenging times’. Tusk and Macron offered up Reaganite platitudes about freedom and prosperity delivered in Romanian, Moldova’s national language. Moldova is new to such attention from Europe’s leading lights. The country is constitutionally neutral so cannot join NATO, but in June 2022, the EU hastily granted it EU candidate status, aiming to send a message of European unity in the face of Russian aggression. Sunday’s parliamentary election was presented to Moldovans and the world at large as nothing less than a battle between the forces of good and evil – a civilizational ultimatum, where the choice was between moving forward into a luminous European future, or backward into Oriental despotism and darkness.
The forces of light were victorious, assisted by a little divine intervention from the state.
Your ‘boundaries’ might be ruining your friendships
Everyone is setting boundaries these days, but friends are starting to wonder what it is costing us
Everywhere you look, people are talking
about boundaries; how to set them, how to keep them, how to walk away
when they are crossed. The message is everywhere: in therapy reels,
pastel quote cards, and late-night group chats about “protecting your
peace.” The urgency feels justified.
For many young adults, the injuries of childhood – neglect, control,
invisibility – were never named or healed. Studies show that Millennials
and Gen Z report higher rates of trauma than older generations.
Research from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child finds that
younger adults score higher on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE),
meaning they grew up with more instability and stress.
Unlike their parents, they talk about it openly. They post about
family dysfunction, therapy, and the boundaries they are learning to
set. Vulnerability has become a shared language. But in learning to
guard themselves, many have built walls that no one knows how to open.
The cracks show most clearly in friendship. At first, boundaries
helped people feel safe after years of being overlooked or overextended.
But as the idea spread online, the meaning began to shift. “I know it
is important to have boundaries,” said Alina, 25.
“But sometimes it feels like everyone is walking on eggshells. One
wrong word and it is over. I miss when people gave each other more
chances.” Her unease captures what has changed, emotional awareness has
grown, but so has the fear of getting hurt.
Psychologist Dr Amnah Khan sees this pattern daily. “People are far
more aware of what hurts them now,” she said. “That is progress. But it
can slip into avoidance. We have begun to see discomfort as danger. And
connection and comfort cannot always coexist.” What was meant to protect
people from harm is now leaving many more isolated.
Social media makes it easy to cut people off the moment things feel
uncomfortable. You can block, mute, or unfollow instead of working
things out. Over time, that same habit seeps into real life: friendships
start to feel temporary, as if people can be replaced just as easily as
accounts online. It is a strange paradox: a world more connected than
ever but full of people who feel completely alone.
This is not just a digital problem; it reflects the reality we live
in. In most big cities today, people move fast and live alone. The pace
rewards self-reliance more than connection. Work spills into nights,
rest becomes a privilege, and exhaustion is treated as a personal
failure instead of a structural one.
Sociologists call this the privatization of struggle: when collective
issues like burnout or loneliness are reframed as personal problems to
be solved through “self-care.” As Astra Taylor writes in The Age of
Insecurity, “The language of self-care thrives when collective care
erodes.”
When institutions no longer hold people up, they start trying to hold
themselves together. Boundaries become both a coping tool and a symptom
of a culture that has forgotten how to share the load. That is why
balance matters. Boundaries are not the problem. They protect time and
help people rest.
But they were meant to give space, not build distance. Friendship has
never been a perfectly equal exchange. It bends, it forgives, it
changes. “When boundaries become rigid, they leave no room for repair or
difference. In protecting our peace, we risk building lives that are
quiet but lonely,” said Dr Amnah.
That loneliness comes with a cost. Decades of research from Harvard’s
Study of Adult Development show that the strongest predictor of
long-term health and happiness is not wealth or success, but the quality
of one’s relationships. Loneliness, the study found, is as harmful as
smoking or alcoholism.
Israel’s former top general sought donations from David Ellison and his father, Larry, as part of a billionaire coterie to fund digital paramilitaries aimed at sabotaging pro-Palestine activists. The leaked documents show one planner explaining, “In the jungle, we need more guerrillas and less IDF.”
With Paramount and CBS News now under his control, the younger Ellison has installed self-described “Zionist fanatic” Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief.
The new owner of Paramount, David
Ellison, participated in an Israeli government-led plot to surveil and
suppress pro-Palestine activists in the US, leaked emails show.
Originally dubbed “12 Tribes,” a reference to the dozen Jewish
billionaires solicited to underwrite the operation, the scheme sought
out American faces to fund surveillance firms run by Israeli
intelligence veterans on behalf of Tel Aviv, as it targeted American
citizens participating in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS)
movement.
The emails documenting the foreign influence campaign to counter BDS were first identified
by journalist Jack Poulson, who discovered them in a trove leaked by
the Handala hacking collective in 2024. The files show former Israeli
Defense Minister Benny Gantz was tasked with recruiting wealthy
Westerners to fund surveillance firms operated by Israeli intelligence
veterans as they stalked and harassed people whom the government of
Israel suspected of harboring pro-Palestinian sympathies.
In the emails, Hollywood talent agency executive Adam Berkowitz identified Ellison as “very interested” in “helping out with the BDS movement.” Berkowitz introduced Ellison to the Israeli general in a group email: “Benny meet david. David meet Benny,” Berkowitz wrote on December 23, 2015, explaining that he “told david briefly about your [Gantz’s] 12 tribe idea which you can expound on to him which he seemed very interested in.”
Two days later, Ellison replied, “Mr
Gantz it is a pleasure to meet you over e-mail. I very much look forward
to discussing everything you are working on, and in the mean time hope
you are enjoying the holiday season.” He added, “I will be back in LA on
January 3rd and look forward to connecting in the New Year.”
A planning spreadsheet
names other Zionist billionaires sought for the Israeli effort. They
included David’s father, Oracle founder and Friends of the IDF board
member Larry Ellison; Israeli-American billionaire and top Democratic
Party sugar daddy Haim Saban; and Google founder Sergey Brin, whose
“Israel-support” was still “tbd.” One of those named, Canadian bookchain
owner Heather Reissman, had “already agreed” to donate.
The document also listed other
hyper-wealthy Zionist activists as potential 12 Tribes members,
alongside the following descriptions:
Qateel Shifai (1919 – 2001), whose real name was Muhammad Aurangzeb Khan, lost his father at a young age. He went into business, but encountered failure. He moved to Rawalpindi and began working for a transport company. In 1946, he worked as an assistant editor at a literary magazine, finally, in 1947, he joined the film industry.
In January 1947, Qateel got an offer to pen the songs for Dewan Sardari Lal’s film Teri Yaad. The film was released on August 7, 1948 and was the first Pakistani film. Pakistan gained independence form the British when India became divided on August 14 and 15, 1947, respectively.
He wrote over 2,500 songs for Indian and Pakistani films. He also wrote non-filmy poems and his autobiography was titled: Ghungroo Toot Gaye.
Ghunghroo toot gaye are also the words of one of his most famous songs. It was originally sung by Mala Begum for Pakistani film Naz. It became very popular and has been vocalized by many singers in both India and Pakistan.
The song in the following video starts at 1:15minutes. Music is by Nisar Bazmi. The actress is Shabnam and the male actor is Mohammad Ali.
VIDEO/Mirsa’s Vintage Music Collection/Youtube.com
One of his very good songs, which is also my favorite is dil ke virAne meiN from 1965 Pakistani film Naila. Playback singer is Mala Begum and music is by Master Inayat Hussain. It was picturized on Shamim Ara, one of my favorite actresses.
Original lyrics
dil ke virAne meiN ik shammA hai ab tak roshan
dil ke virAne meiN ik shammA hai ab tak roshan koi parvAnA magar ab na idhar AyegA
zindagi beet gayee pyAr meiN jalte jalte koi ummid bar Ayee na koi bAt banee jagmagAyA na sitArA koi armAno kA hamne dil ko bhee jalAyA toh siyAh rAt banee diljaloN par koi mahshar sa guZar jAyegA koi parvAnA magar ab na idhar AyegA
dil ki dhaDkan meiN sunee ham ne wafAon ki sadA Akhar-e-kAr wohi ban gaye pathar ke sanam na sajhi hAathon pe mehandi na bajhi shehnAyi ab to kartA huvA apni hee wafA kA mAtam pyAr maqtal ki taraf khAk-basar jAyegA koi parvAnA magar ab na idhar Ayega
kitne gAte hue armAnoN kee barsAt ke bAd As kee jheel me laharAye the kuchh nilkaNval kyA khabar thee ke woh mahfil bhi ujad jAyegee jis meiN gAyee thi kabhi hamne mohabbat ki gazal apnA har naghmA alAoN me bikhar jAyega koi parvAnA magar ab na idhar AyegA
kitni be-his o huA farq nahee ahl-e-wafA jAne kyA soch ke tauheen-e-wafA kee tune koyi jhonkA bhee jise chhu na sakA tere bagair apne hAthoN se wahee shammA bujha dee tune kya khabar thi terA ahsAs bhee mar jAyegA ban ke parvAnA kabhi tu na idhar AyegA
Translation
in my heart’s desolation, a candle is still shining
in my heart’s desolation, a candle is still shining alas, no moth is now going to come here
life passed by while burning in the fire of love no hope was realized, nor did anything work out not a single star of yearning radiate any sparkle even when I ignited my heart; I got a dark night as if the jilted ones had faced the day of judgement but, now no sweetheart is going to come over here
in the heartbeats, I heard the sound of loyalty but, eventually, became a stone-hearted idol neither hands had henna nor any wedding music played now my heart is lamenting its own fidelity my affection is on the gallows to be crushed into dust but, now no sweetheart is going to come over here
after many rainy seasons of melodious longings a few blue lotus had fluttered in the lake of desire who knew that the party will become deserted where once we had sung the ghazal of love our every song will disperse in agonizing wailing but, now no sweetheart is going to come over here
such callousness doesn’t affect faithful people what was your thinking when you insulted my loyalty except you, not even the breeze had touched me but with your hands, you extinguished the candle of love how would I have known your feelings would perish as my sweetheart, you’re never going to come back here
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com
Plestia Alaqad is publishing her diaries from Gaza: “A dystopian world”
by LEX McMENAMIN
Palestinian journalist Gaza Journalist Plestia is seen holding her own book The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience IMAGE/Dawn
The 23-year-old journalist tells Teen Vogue about her new book, The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience.
Plestia Alaqad Zooms me from Beirut, Lebanon, tweaking her black
curls and throwing on her jean jacket — after all, “this is for Teen Vogue,”
she grins — as we settle in for our conversation. The journalist and
author, 23, has a sunny disposition, belying what we are there to
discuss: Her first book, The Eyes of Gaza: A Diary of Resilience.
The diary entries document the 45 days she spent reporting in her
native Gaza on the ground as Israeli forces began their invasion after
the October 7 Hamas attack.
“When I was reading my diaries again
and again, it was super triggering, because I’m reading real things that
happened,” Alaqad recalled of the book’s editing process. In that 45
day stretch, the then-21 year old Alaqad moves from couch to couch, one
temporary shelter to another, struggling to keep track of friends and
family while unable to take in the horrors she documented on her phone.
“Every time I read it, I just feel disbelief, like, is this real? Did I
really live that? Are there still thousands of people in Gaza living
that?”
Two years later, after relocating to Australia for safety, she’s promoting the book as the death toll still rises, and the starvation campaign that a United Nations-backed initiative called “man-made famine” in August 2025 continues. While the confirmed death toll hovers above 66,000, the number is likely far, far higher; in 2024, there were estimates placing the total anywhere from 80,000 to a projected 335,000 deaths. In recent months, Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, where Alaqad is now based, have increased.
Nonetheless, she continues using her platform to say much of what she’s been saying for the last two years, posting to her over 4 million Instagram followers to share stories of some of the youth included in her book, who struggle to access medical care amid the continued onslaught in Gaza. But even that, said Alaqad, feels compromised, limited, in the face of what it’s in response to.
“It feels like I’m living in two worlds. There’s a world where Palestinians are getting killed, and there is you behind the screen, trying to figure out a way to report on it without getting shadowbanned and with actually reaching people,” said Alaqad. “It often feels like it’s a dystopian world that we live in, and the only thing that is real is Gaza and what’s happening there.”
Teen Vogue:
Your book is composed of diary entries particularly from the time
before, and then the 45 days after, October 7th. What is it like to be
talking about this book right now?
Plestia Alaqad: I can’t believe that it’s almost — [she pauses]
no, it’s not almost, it’s actually two years. Okay, I can’t believe
that it’s been two years of this ongoing genocide. When I was reporting
in Gaza for 45 days, these 45 days felt like 45 years. And now it’s 200
days feeling like 200 years for the people who are actually still on the
ground facing bombing, displacement and starvation, which is being used
as a method by Israel. Israel is literally ethnically cleansing people
in Gaza, and we’re watching a genocide unfold live on TV.TV: As we speak in September 2025, a United Nations commission
has found that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. You use the word
throughout the book. In fact, you write on October 18th, 2023: “Today,
the ‘war’ ended. This isn’t an Aggression any more; it’s a Genocide.”
PA: I find it so cowardly that people — until now — are calling it a conflict. English is my second language, so correct me if I’m wrong, but what I learned in school is [that] a conflict is when, for example, my classmate is sitting next to me and we’re fighting over a pencil. That’s a conflict. But when you’re ethnically cleansing a whole nation, a nation killing them, starving them, that’s clearly a genocide, not a conflict.
I don’t understand why the media is shying away from calling things
what they are. And it’s not only about the term conflict or genocide.
It’s even the term, calling it the Israel-Hamas war. If it was
“Israel-Hamas war,” then why are kids and babies, women and elderly
people and men getting killed and starved? These terms that they’re
using, it’s really misleading.TV: In the book, that was just after a hospital was bombed.
PA:
I was super ashamed of myself when I was happy that the hospital got
bombed in Gaza two years ago. But the only reason I was happy was
because I thought, oh, a hospital being bombed means the world will go insane. How is that possible? The genocide will end. But turns out, that’s only the beginning.TV: You mention Mohammed El-Kurd in the book, who earlier this year released his own book about the concept of a Palestinian “perfect victim.” It’s a phrase that comes up in The Eyes of Gaza, as well.
PA: After everything we’ve lived and experienced, and after everything we’re still seeing, the world still has the audacity to expect [Palestinians] to be the perfect victim.
By the way, there are many interviews that I did and it actually
didn’t air; and there are some interviews that I did with parts of what I
said was being cut off; and there are some interviews that I did where
the interviewer asked me questions that I didn’t want to answer, because
they were super irrelevant. I’m here to talk about us and what’s
happening. I’m here to talk about the stories of my people.TV:
After leaving Gaza, you went to Australia, and then enrolled in a
journalism masters program, where you received the Shireen Abu Akleh
Scholarship, named for the Palestinian journalist killed by the IDF in 2022. What was it like returning to school after being on the ground?
PA: In class, everyone has different experiences: some people have two years’ working experience, some people don’t have working experience. Then there’s you, who has experience reporting in a genocide. That’s something no one in class has experience in but me, but I wish I didn’t have experience in [it, either].
It feels a bit weird sitting in a classroom right now knowing that Israel bombed and [has even recently bombed] classrooms in Gaza, universities and schools, making education a target. Israel is afraid of Palestinian brains. Israel is afraid of Palestinians graduating, taking their diplomas. Because education is power. That’s why Israel is bombing universities and schools, to make us uneducated people.TV: In your entries, you note the student protests here in the US, in solidarity with Palestine.
PA:
Seeing everything that the students have been doing, honestly, brought
us so much hope, and it felt like these students are the ones who will
actually make change.
When you say you’re from Palestine, the person in front of you usually hears Pakistan, because they’ve never heard of Palestine, and they don’t know Palestine existed on maps. So now we went from people thinking Palestine is Pakistan, to people knowing where Palestine is on the map, and people knowing Gaza, Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, and actually knowing places in Gaza.
There was a building [at Columbia] they [named] after Hind Rajab, the young child that Israel shot [at] with [a reported] 335 bullets. This is history. This is change. I’m glad the world now knows about us and about our struggle, but I wish to live in a world where the world didn’t need to know us or about our struggles — or for this book not to even be written in the first place.
TV: We’re seeing protesters targeted by the US government for supporting Palestine, even being dragged into the Trump administration’s deportation goals. Do you feel like your speech is freer, now that you’re out of Gaza? Has anything changed for you?
Israeli officials describe social media as the ‘eighth front’ in their war to destroy Gaza and reshape West Asia
Israel
is paying US social media influencers thousands of dollars per post to
improve its image amid Tel Aviv’s efforts to destroy Gaza and starve its
population, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft reported on 2 October.
Citing a document
filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the institute
wrote that, “influencers are likely being paid around $7,000 per post on
social media such as TikTok and Instagram on behalf of Israel.”
The
document showed payment invoices submitted by the public relations firm
Bridges Partners to conduct a campaign known as the Esther Project. The
invoices were submitted to Havas Media Group Germany – an international
media group working for Israel.
The
Esther Project is part of a broader effort to shape the public option
that Israeli officials describe as the “eighth front” in its war against
Gaza and neighboring states, including Syria, Lebanon, and Iran.
The
invoices documented a sum of $900,000 to be used for “payments for
influencers and production,” between June and November this year.
The document stated that payments were to be made to a group of 14–18 influencers to create content.
After
subtracting administrative costs, an estimated $552,946 remained to pay
the influencers between June and September of this year.
Bridges
Partners expected the influencers to produce 75–90 posts in that time,
meaning they were paid between $6,143 and $7,372 for each post.
The
document did not detail which influencers are participating in the
program, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a meeting
last week gathering a number of young US influencers.
Netanyahu
meets with US Influencers (most likely on Israel’s payroll) to discuss
how they can brainwash evangelicals back to supporting Israel
He explains the most important war for Israel is on social media & their 2 top targets are: 1. TikTok 2. X
Bridges
Partners describes its work as assisting with “promoting cultural
interchange between the United States and Israel.” The firm was founded by Israeli consultants Yair Levi and Uri Steinberg in June 2025 in the US state of Delaware.
The
Washington DC-based firm has employed Nadav Shtrauchler, a former major
in the Israeli Army’s spokesperson unit, as well as Pillsbury Winthrop
Shaw Pittman, a law firm that previously worked for the Israeli spyware company NSO Group.
Soon after its founding, Bridges Partners received “nearly $200,000 to recruit and coordinate US-based social media influencers,” the Times of Israel notes.
In
a separate but related deal, the Israeli daily reports that Tel Aviv’s
government agreed to pay $1.5 million per month to Brad Parscale, a
former campaign strategist for US President Donald Trump. Parscale, who
registered his firm Clock Tower X LLC as a foreign agent for Israel, is
being paid for “strategic communications” to combat anti-Semitism in the
US.
The German
firm Havas is also serving as intermediary between Israel and Parscale,
whose firm plans to conduct SEO campaigns using the MarketBrew AI
platform and efforts to shape outputs of GPT-based chatbots.
Former Vice President Henry Wallace, Physicist Albert Einstein, Lewis L. Wallace of Princeton University, and African American actor Paul Robeson meeting in Princeton, New Jersey. IMAGE/Medium
“We, the people, charge genocide.”
The two years that have passed since October 7, 2023 have
awakened the world to the plight of Palestinians since 1948: to the fact
that the indigenous people of Palestine have been living through a
77-year genocide, sanctioned by the white west, and conducted with
methodological brutality and astonishing cruelty by the zionists. Now,
because of Al-Aqsa flood, it is impossible to deny or doubt the
fact of this genocide. It is also impossible to ignore the terrible
irony that this genocide is being carried out in the name of those
people, “the Jewish people of Nazi Germany,” to use Paul Robeson’s
phrase, for whom the United Nations Conventions on Genocide were first
enacted back in 1946.
Robeson’s essay “Genocide Stalks the U.S.A.,” published in New World Review
in 1952, is worth returning to. He does not write about Palestine.
Instead, the essay focuses on the efforts by William Lorenzo Patterson
and the Civil Rights Congress to present the United Nations with a petition
charging the United States with committing genocide against African
Americans. However, Robeson offers us two things that help us understand
the question of Palestine: a reminder, and a methodology.
In the first instance, Robeson reminds us of the definition
of genocide according to the United Nations. He reminds us that the
opening articles of the UN Convention on Genocide do not only classify
the crime of genocide as the “mass extermination of a people” as so
often associated with Nazi Germany. Instead, the crime of genocide can
involve: “(a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily
or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on
the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical
destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to
prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of
the group to another group.” It was based on these clauses that the US
was charged with genocide against its Black population. These clauses
also remind us that genocide has long been deployed against the
Palestinians.
In the second instance, Robeson offers us a methodology for
not only understanding genocide, but also for researching how the state
aligns with capital to commit genocide. In the United States, the
repression of Black people occurred in the name of white supremacy, and
of profits. A similar thing can be said of Palestine. While the genocide
of the Palestinians is being justified through a set of racist
pronouncements by zionists and their allies, zionist-aligned
corporations and complicit states are reaping super-profits from land
dispossession, military contracts, and, increasingly monopoly control of
mass media and digital platforms. Who profits from the genocide of
African Americans, Robeson asks? We must also ask: who profits from the
genocide of the Palestinian people?
We reprint Paul Robeson’s essay “Genocide Stalks the U.S.A.” below.
The opening statement of this historic petition dispels the
generally held misconception that the crime of genocide can be charged
only when there is mass extermination of a people.
As defined in the United Nations Convention, genocide
includes “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
such: (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or
mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflicting on the
group conditions of life calculated to bring about its destruction in
whole or in part.”
It is not difficult to understand why this Convention has never been ratified by the Senate of the United States. This book [We Charge Genocide],
in fact, reveals that a determined effort has been made by white
supremacy to block U.S. signature. From the openly terrorist Ku Klux
Klan to the more suave spokesmen of the American Bar Association, there
has been a brazenly open recognition of the applicability of the
convention to the treatment of the Negro people in the United States.
