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| Praise from one racist Israel’s Prime Minister to Donald Trump – it’s what I’ve already done Netanyahu tweeted |
Only Israel and Netanyahu Welcome the Mexican Wall and the Ban on Muslims
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| Completely blocked – the intersection of Bartholomew Square, where Brighton town hall is situated, with Prince Albert Street and The Laines, with Cafe Rouge on the corner |
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| On the steps of Brighton Town Hall – Momentum and Brighton & Hove PSC – no Zionists or Jewish Labour Movement were to be seen – probably because opposition to anti-Muslim racism is anti-Semitic! |
demonstrated in April 2003 at the start of the Iraq War. Some 4,000 school students demonstrated in
2010 against the massive increase in tuition fees but this was the largest demonstration
I can remember in 40 years. People came
from everywhere. Bartholomew Square in
which the town hall was situated was packed solid. It was impossible to get anywhere near the
demonstration as Prince Albert Street was impassable. So too were the Laines approaches.
nature of the demonstrators but the fact that this represented a cross-section
of Brighton and Hove. Parents with their
children, old people and of course veteran protestors like me! The chanting focussed on the racist bigotry
of Trump’s measures against Muslims. ‘Refugees
are welcome’ was the cry. Even a few of
our New Labour councillors, such as Emma Daniels, a strong supporter of Israel’s
racist anti-Muslim politics, showed her face before scuttling away. It was also good to see Brighton and Hove’s
Green Mayor Pete West.
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| Photograph taken from Prince Albert Street which was impassable |
The hypocrisy of Trump’s measures, whichconveniently excluded Saudi Arabia, the country from which the 9/11 bombers had
come, made it clear what the purpose of the immigration ban was – to demonise
Muslims and Arabs. It was an attempt to
use the race card to divide American society.
What is gratifying, at a time when New Labour politicians are allowing
Brexit to divide people in Britain, is the strength and size of the opposition
to Trump in America.
votes even than the detested Hilary Clinton, has little legitimacy in the eyes
of a majority of American voters. Most
American Presidents enjoy a honeymoon when elected. Trump has started out with negative ratings.
American people but also with the majority of the American capitalist class and
its political establishment. It’s not
simply his policies. There is a lot of
truth in the argument that what Trump does aloud Obama did behind closed doors.
That Obama too banned Iraqis from visiting America for 6 months. That Obama also presided over mass deportations
of Mexicans. But Trump makes a virtue
out of his racist reaction. He
deliberately plays footsey with the American far-Right who are in ectasy. He deliberately stirs up racial divisions in
order to prop up US corporations. He
uses race in order to satisfy his lumpen working class support.
stripping the United States of its moral legitimacy as the leader of the
democratic world. To socialists and
lefties this has always been a dubious and hypocritical proposition. Chile, Iraq, El Salvador – the list of
countries that the United States has despoiled is endless. Its support for Israel is well known.
loud-mouthed bigot, who wears his racism on his sleeve, who is on record of
boasting about sexual attacks on women, who has called all Mexicans rapists and
who has appointed open racists and anti-Semites like Steve Bannon of Breitbart
as his Strategic Advisor. Tonight his
immigration ban has been countermanded by the Acting Attorney General, an
almost unprecedented action.
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| Brighton’s Bartholomew Square |
I predict that
Trump may serve one of the shortest terms of any American
President. It is almost certain that evidence
is going to be provided of his many misdemeanours and crimes – from rape and
sexual assault to fraud in the way his charity operated to tax evasion. New York State already has an investigation into
Trump’s charity underway. I think it is
odds on that Trump is going to be impeached.
At the end of the day it will only be America’s far-Right Zionists, White
Supremacists and Fundamentalist Christians who will be his supporters. Although Republicans have lined up in his
support for the moment that is unlikely to last.
Theresa May went to pay homage to Trump in America without saying a word
about his anti-Muslim rhetoric and racist
tirades against Mexicans says everything you need to know about this tawdry
woman who goes begging, from one tyrant to another, seeking a way out from her ‘hard
Brexit’. May is demonstrating, despite
her fine words on succeeding to Cameron, that she is willing to support
anything and anyone who provides her with an economic escape route from her
difficulties on Europe and Brexit. It
was toe curlingly embarrassing to see her hand in hand with a man who boasts
about grabbing women by the ‘pussy’. It
is or should be a good example to those who believe that having a woman in
power is a good thing in itself.
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| Brighton’s Bartholomew Square |
world that welcomed Trump’s anti-Muslim
directives. That was the State of Israel
which has pioneered racial profiling. Israel
has, as Netanyahu boasted, constructed its own wall on the Egyptian border to
keep out African refugees. Israel has
refused to accept any Syrian refugees and has called those refugees who did
manage to gain entry before the Egyptian wall ‘infiltrators’ (a comparison with
Palestinian refugees from 1948 who sought to return to their lands).
60,000 African refugees who did obtain entry in the early years of this decade,
to leave. Methods include indefinite imprisonment
in the Holot detention centre in the Negev Desert. A number of those who were forced out of Israel
ended up dead at the hands of ISIS in Libya.
Israel refuses to recognise that Eritrea, where most refugees come from,
is a country with a horrific human rights record.
described how
‘On
Saturday, the Israeli prime minister applauded Trump’s decision to set up a
wall with Mexico, with the disputable claim, phrased in Trump-style syntax, “I built a wall along Israel’s southern
border. It stopped all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.” Netanyahu’s
arguments in opposing the entry of refugees were explicitly racist. It wasn’t about terrorism or lowering wages
but identity – admitting non-Jewish refugees would dilute the Jewish majority:
currently stands at 60,000 could grow to 600,000, and that threatens our
existence as a Jewish and democratic state,” Binyamin Netanyahu said at
Sunday’s cabinet meeting. “This
phenomenon is very grave and threatens the social fabric of society, our
national security and our national identity.” Israel
PM: illegal African immigrants threaten identity of Jewish state]
with the BICOM journal Fathom, Isaac Herzog, Leader of the Israeli Labour Party
put it more elegantly than Netanyahu but
he sang from the same hymn sheet:
complicated because one doesn’t want to create a precedent which could affect
the equilibrium of the nation. There are millions out there who may want to
come to Israel.’
next national target: Eritrea in the Jerusalem Post Herzog urged that
Eritrean refugees, who form 2/3 of Israel’s refugees be sent back. He repeated this on the eve of the 2015
elections.
later this year. A petition opposing the
visit has already garnered 1.5m signatures.
It is a sign of the opposition that there will be on the streets when or
if Trump shows his face.
Netanyahu’s
anti-Jewish support for Trump’s anti-Muslim decree
Banning Syrian refugees and Muslim immigrants will help
anti-American propaganda more than U.S. national security.
U.S President Donald Trump is a hero now for Muslim-haters who,
in some countries, might even be the majority. He is being lauded by the
hard-right in America, extolled as a man’s man in Vladimir Putin’s Russia,
glorified as a god among racist parties in Europe and enjoys wall-to-wall
support from his groupies in Israel, who are now being led, unabashedly, by
Benjamin Netanyahu.
On Saturday, the Israeli prime minister applauded Trump’s
decision to set up a wall with Mexico, with the disputable claim, phrased in
Trump-style syntax, “I built a wall along Israel’s southern border. It stopped
all illegal immigration. Great success. Great idea.” Netanyahu’s intervention
on a topic that is in sharp political dispute in the U.S. is questionable
enough, but the timing of his decision to identify so strongly with Trump, just
after the president issued his executive order on Syrian refugees and Muslim
immigrants – a move viewed widely as a declaration of hate against Muslims – is
a reckless gamble. For no discernible rhyme, reason or political imperative,
Netanyahu has placed himself – and Israel, by extension – solidly behind a
morally dubious move and a leader who could soon become the world’s most hated.
Trump’s spokespersons claim that the move is aimed at
countering threats to U.S. national security, but that’s an obvious ruse. The
U.S. already conducts the world’s most stringent screening for refugees. To
this day, not one Syrian refugee or immigrant from any of the seven blacklisted
countries has engaged in terrorist activities – while those who did attack
America, including the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks,
came from countries that were not included in Trump’s list, either because
they’re too vital to U.S. interests or too lucrative for Trump’s business
empire.
On the other hand, the damage that Trump’s move may cause,
directly or indirectly, in the short term or in the long, is undeniable. The
reports of refugees stuck on their way to the U.S. or in American airports,
along with the shocking announcement by the Department of Homeland Security
that green-card holders who are abroad will be barred from rejoining their
families or their jobs, place a disturbing human face on the bureaucratic
jargon of Friday’s executive order. Much of Muslim public opinion is likely to
be outraged by Trump’s actions – and they will be aided and abetted by hostile
governments and jihadist groups eager to stoke the flames of hate. Friendly
regimes, in places such as Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, will be under
pressure to distance themselves from Washington. Preachers of radical Islam
will be able to use the photo of Trump signing the order as proof of their
age-old claim that America and the West are on a crusade against Islam. ISIS,
which has been on the defensive for the past year and, according to some
experts, on the verge of collapse, has been handed a propaganda victory and a
new slogan for attracting new recruits.
Trump’s decision is bound to increase polarization between
left and right, between liberals and some, but not all, conservatives. What
supporters of the move will portray as a defensive imperative, its opponents
will view as institutional discrimination and an assault on values. “Tears are
running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty,” Senator Chuck Schumer said.
The famous line of American-Jewish poet Emma Lazarus’ The New Colossus “Give me
your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” which is
engraved in stone at the footsteps of Lady Liberty, will now need an asterisk
that clarifies “ *Unless they happen to be Muslim.”
Trump’s decision is also bound to increase tensions in the
American Jewish community, between the right wing that has adopted and
compounded their Israeli counterparts’ anti-Muslim narrative and the more
centrist and moderate elements – including most of the Jewish establishment –
that remains loyal to the community’s traditional liberal values. Most Jews
still view themselves as a vulnerable minority, just like Muslims. Most are
deeply committed to the values of immigration and sanctuary. Most still carry
the traumatized memories of their parents and grandparents of an America that
locked its gates for Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. Netanyahu’s imprudent
encouragement of Trump, along with the overzealous welcome that Trump has
received from the Israeli government, further expand the growing divide between
the Jewish State and the world’s biggest Jewish diaspora.
One wonders of course about the silence of the GOP
chickens, who were quick to blast Trump’s offer to ban Muslims when his
prospects to become the party’s presidential candidate looked slim but who are
now laying low out of fear and expediency. First and foremost of these is House
Speaker Paul Ryan who was rightfully enshrined for a few hours on Saturday on
the Wikipedia page for spineless invertebrates. Photos of Likud lawmakers who
have been similarly struck dumb when asked about Netanyahu’s corruption charges
and other shady shenanigans also deserve a place of honor in the same gallery
of cowards. They and their patrons, Trump and Netanyahu, are the proverbial
birds of a feather that mock us together.
