Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

https://medium.com/media/aa838fbf8a21b41d9e33613a2cf3c215/href

❖

In the span of just a few hours we learned that Israel committed a horrific massacre at al-Shifa hospital, struck an Iranian consulate in Syria killing multiple Iranian military officers, and killed a vehicle full of international aid workers in an airstrike. This murderous regime is out of control.

❖

Israel is so dedicated to protecting civilian life that it’s deliberately gunning down unarmed Palestinians whenever they walk within firing range and then adding them to its “Hamas terrorists killed” tally. Haaretz reports that the IDF has set up “kill zones” in Gaza where they just shoot anything that moves, with an IDF reserve officer saying the number of Hamas members Israel claims to have killed is massively inflated because “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.” Haaretz notes that the three escaped Israeli hostages the IDF gunned down in December had wandered into one of these kill zones.

❖

A Doctors Without Borders physician went on Sky News to talk about Israel’s deliberate destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system, and the Murdoch shill anchor who was interviewing her asked her if Hamas was active in al-Shifa hospital fighting Israelis. The doctor, Tanya Haj-Hassan, told him “I am just shocked that we’re still having this conversation” and went on to describe how Israel’s assault on Gazan healthcare workers is so methodical that Gazan hospital staff have been changing out of their scrubs before leaving work because Israeli troops are picking off anyone in scrubs.

Saul Staniforth on Twitter: ""Do you know if Hamas were there [in Al Shifa hospital]?"@Tanyaalih: "I am just shocked that we're still having this conversation. [The Israelis] executed tens of people point blank, including one of our colleagues, Dr Ahmed Almaqadma, & his mother, who's also a physician" pic.twitter.com/zqImcL5MH2 / Twitter"

"Do you know if Hamas were there [in Al Shifa hospital]?"@Tanyaalih: "I am just shocked that we're still having this conversation. [The Israelis] executed tens of people point blank, including one of our colleagues, Dr Ahmed Almaqadma, & his mother, who's also a physician" pic.twitter.com/zqImcL5MH2

❖

At the beginning of the year I tweeted, “Gaza is a live laboratory for the military industrial complex. Data is with absolute certainty being collected on all the newer weapons being field-tested on human bodies in Gaza (just like has been happening in Ukraine) to be used to benefit the war machine and arms industry.” Since then we’ve learned that the IDF has been experimenting with new military robots in its Gaza assault, and that Israeli startups are now looking to start exporting new AI-powered war machinery marketed as having been “battle-tested” in Gaza.

❖

Israel is a synthetic, artificially created state. It did not arise organically from the naturally existing conditions of the land and its people; it was unnaturally forced into existence by outside powers. It is more synthetic than meth. It is more synthetic than Pete Buttigieg.

❖

Normal person: Stop doing genocide

Crazy person: But the TV told me rape happened six months ago

❖

Netanyahu: [livestreams himself kicking a Palestinian baby off a cliff]

Netanyahu: [staring into camera] I kicked a Palestinian baby off a cliff because I hate Palestinians and I want to genocide them.

State Department press corps: Any comment on the video of Netanyahu kicking a Palestinian baby off a cliff and saying he wants to commit genocide?

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller: [smirking] Uh, I have seen that video, and I can say that we’re looking into it and we’re in touch with our counterparts in Israel on this issue. Beyond that I would only reiterate our position that claims that Israel is committing genocide are unfounded and anti-semitic in nature, and I have nothing further to add at this time.

❖

I’ve been mentally referring to Matthew Miller as “Smirkula”.

❖

Another one of the extremely stupid things Israel apologists ask us to believe is that Israel was right on the cusp of agreeing to give Palestinians a state before October 7, but because of October 7 that generous prospect is now off the table.

❖

Rightists who see through the empire propaganda on the Ukraine proxy war but unquestioningly swallow all empire propaganda about Gaza are even dumber than people who’ve swallowed both, because they’re just letting their favorite political faction do their thinking for them.

They’re also dumber because they saw and understood that the mass media churn out propaganda constantly, but still assumed we’re being told the truth about Gaza. They broke out of the propaganda matrix, then jacked their minds right back into it. They’re like someone who pulled his head out of his ass, looked around, and then shoved it right back in.

❖

If only the Democrats who rallied so aggressively against a fictional conspiracy between Trump and Russia could harness that same energy to oppose a real genocide by Biden and Israel.

❖

Just ignore anyone who condemns Israel’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza but still supports Biden. Their Israel-Palestine rhetoric is just for show.

_______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Adobe Stock.

Those who admonish Palestinian Resistance, armed or otherwise, have little understanding of the psychological ramifications of resistance, such as a sense of collective empowerment, honor and hope.

But resistance is not just a rifle or a rocket launcher. The latter are but one manifestation of resistance, and if not backed by strong popular support, they hardly have much impact.

Indeed, all forms of sustainable resistance have to be rooted in culture, which helps it generate new meanings over time.

In the case of the Palestinian struggle, the concept of resistance is multifaceted and strongly embedded in the collective psyche of generations of Palestinians, which allows it to surpass the ideological and political confines of factions and political groups.

Though the symbols of this resistance – for example, the keffiyeh, the flag, the map and the key – are part of this generation of meanings, they are mere signifiers of ideas, beliefs and values that are truly profound.

No matter how hard Israel has tried to discredit, ban or recounter these symbols, it has failed and will continue to fail.

In the early 2000s, for example, Israeli fashion designers created what were supposed to be Israeli kuffiyehs. From a distance, the Israeli scarves looked similar to the Palestinian traditional scarves, except that they were mostly blue. At a closer look, one would be able to decipher that the Israeli replica of the Palestinian national symbol is often a clever manipulation of the Star of David.

This could easily be classified under the banner of cultural appropriation. In actuality, it is far more complex.

Palestinians did not invent the keffiyeh, or hatta, one of the most common neck or even head scarves throughout the Middle East. But they did take ownership of it, giving it deeper meanings—dissent, revolution, unity.

The keffiyeh’s prominence was partly compelled by Israel’s own actions and restrictions.

After occupying the remainder of historic Palestine, namely East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel immediately banned the Palestinian flag. That ban was part of a much larger restrictive campaign aimed at preventing Palestinians from expressing their political aspirations, even if symbolic.

What the Israeli military administration could not prevent was the use of the keffiyeh, which was a staple in every Palestinian home. Subsequently, the keffiyeh quickly became the new symbol of Palestinian nationhood and resistance, at times even replacing the now-banned flag.

The history of the keffiyeh goes back many years before the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing of historic Palestine by Zionist militias in 1947-48.

In fact, if one examines any revolt in Palestine’s modern history, from the 1936-39 Palestinian strike and rebellion to Palestinian resistance during the Nakba to the Fedayeen movement in the early 1950s, all the way to the present, the keffiyeh has featured prominently as arguably the most important Palestinian symbol.

Yet, the real rise of the keffiyeh as the symbol of global solidarity with Palestine and the Palestinians did not become a truly international phenomenon until the First Intifada in 1987. It was then that the world watched in awe an empowered generation only armed with rocks facing the well-equipped Israeli army.

Palestinian protesters wearing keffiyehs hurl rocks at occupying Israeli soldiers in Nablus, Jan. 16, 1988. Max Nash | AP

Two Types of Symbols

It is worth noting that when we talk about the ‘symbolism’ of Palestinian cultural symbols and counter-Israeli cultural symbols, we refer to two types of symbols: one laden with intangible, although quintessential representations—for example, the watermelon—and another with tangible and consequential representations—for example, the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque is a symbol of Palestinian spirituality, history, and nationalism, and it is also an actual physical structure located in an occupied Palestinian city, Al-Quds, East Jerusalem. For many years, Israel has perceived the Mosque with alarm, countering the Palestinian claim by alleging that, beneath Al-Aqsa, there lie the ruins of the Jewish Temple, whose resurrection is critical for Jewish spirituality and purification.

Therefore, Al-Aqsa cannot be considered a mere symbol, serving the role of a political representation. On the contrary, it has grown in terms of imports to carry a much more profound meaning in the Palestinian struggle. It would not be an exaggeration to argue that the survival of Al-Aqsa is now directly linked to the very survival of the Palestinian people as a nation.

According to renowned Swiss linguist Fernand de Saussure, every sign or symbol is composed of a ‘signifier’, meaning the form that the sign takes, and the ‘signified’, the concept that it represents.

For example, although a map is commonly defined as the geographic representation of an area or a territory merely showing physical features and certain characteristics of the place, it can take on a different ‘signified’ when the territory or land in question is an occupied one, as Palestine is. Therefore, the physical representation of Palestine’s borders became, with time, a powerful symbol, reflecting the injustice inflicted upon the Palestinian people throughout history.

The same process was applied to the keys belonging to those very refugees, the victims of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The only difference is that while the villages existed and then ceased to exist, the key existed as a physical object before and after the Nakba. The house and the door are, perhaps, gone, but there is a physical key that still, symbolically, unlocks the dichotomy of the past, with the hope of, one day, restoring the door and the house as well.

In view of this, the segment of land stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea ceased to be just sand, water, grass, and stones and became a representation of something else entirely.

It must be denoted that the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ neither references actual topography nor politics. It is based on the understanding that a disruptive historical event has wrought a great deal of injustice, pain and hurt to historic Palestine. Confronting this injustice cannot be segmented, and it must take place through a wholesome process that would allow the land but, more importantly, the native inhabitants of that land to restore their dignity, rights and freedom.

Watermelons and Red Triangles

Some symbols, although employed even before the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, became far more popular after October 7. The watermelon, for example, has been used repeatedly throughout Palestine’s modern history, specifically when Israel banned the ownership or display of the Palestinian flag. The fruit itself, aside from being a symbol of the richness of the land of Palestine, also features the same colors as the flag: black, red, white, and green.

Another related symbol is the red triangle. A small red triangle began appearing as a functional tool in videos produced by the Al-Qassam Brigades, merely to point at a specific Israeli military target before it was struck by a Yassin 105 an RPJ shell or any other.

With time, however, the red triangle began acquiring a new meaning, regardless of whether it was intended by the designers of the Qassam videos.

Some connected the red triangle as a symbol to the Palestinian flag, particularly to the red triangle on the left, situated over the white color, between black and green. In truth, the origins of the small red triangle do not matter. Like other Palestinian symbols, it, too, has the generative power to accumulate new meanings over time.

Culture and Counter-culture

Like the ‘Israeli keffiyeh,’ Israel has tried to counter Palestinian culture. They did so mostly by devising laws to prohibit Palestinians from communicating or embracing their cultural symbols.

Another tactic that Israel used was claiming Palestinian symbols as if their own. This is quite common in clothes, food and music. When Israel hosted the Miss Universe Beauty Pageant in 2021, contestants were taken to the Arab Bedouin city of Rahat. Being obviously unaware that Bedouin culture, with its embroidered clothes, food, music and numerous cultural manifestations, is a uniquely Palestinian Arab culture, beauty pageants took to social media to express their excitement about being part of “a day in the life of a Bedouin,” with the hashtag #visit_israel.

Such episodes may highlight the degree of deception on the part of Israel but also expose, to a large extent, Israel’s feeling of cultural inferiority. A quick examination of Israeli symbols, whether it is the flag with the star of David, the Lion of Judah or national war songs, such as Harbu Darbu, seem to be largely extracted from biblical references and religious heroics that have existed even prior to the existence of Israel itself.

And, while Palestinian symbols reflect the desire of Palestinians to return to the land of their ancestors and to reclaim the rights and justice that they have been long denied, Israeli symbols seem to lay claims – ancient, religious, unverifiable merely. If this reflects anything, it tells us that, despite nearly a century of Zionist colonialism and 75 years of official existence as a state, Israel has failed to connect to the land of Palestine, to the cultures of the Middle East, let alone carve for itself a place in the yet to be written history of the region, a history that will surely be written by the native inhabitants of that land, the Palestinian people.

Feature photo | Illustration by MintPress

Romana Rubeo is an Italian writer and the managing editor of The Palestine Chronicle. Her articles appeared in many online newspapers and academic journals. She holds a Master’s Degree in Foreign Languages and Literature and specializes in audio-visual and journalism translation.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out’. His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

The post On Keffiyeh and Watermelon – Revealing the Meaning of Palestinian Symbols appeared first on MintPress News.

Human rights organisation reports further IDF war crimes

Image: Euro Med Monitor

Human rights group Euro Med Monitor )EMM) has reported another “blatant violation of international law” by Israeli occupation forces during the IDF’s assault on Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital. Israeli soldiers have executed at least 13 children near the hospital, a shameless war crime and a crime against humanity.

EMM reports that for almost two weeks Israeli forces have carried out prolonged and deadly operations at the hospital, including extrajudicial executions and deliberate killings of Palestinian civilians that have been widely attested. The murdered children were between the ages of four and 16, some inside their family home and others as they tried to flee via supposedly ‘safe’ routes after being ordered to evacuate or face being bombed. Israeli troops also fired on those trying to help the children.

The news of the infanticides comes as video emerged of IDF forces shooting men holding white flags as they tried to leave the area, then bulldozing the bodies – an apparent show of contempt for the International Court of Justice’s order to allow immediate humanitarian aid into Gaza, which Israel has ignored.

SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

https://medium.com/media/113273690969ff95c527a80090754846/href

The Zionist plan for the Palestinians is to kill them and drive them off their land by whatever cruelty is necessary, with the understanding that one day people will look back on it in the same way they look back on the genocides of other indigenous populations, saying “Yeah it was bad, but that was in the past so there’s nothing we can do about it.”

The Zionists take a long view of history, understanding that all the outrage and backlash they’re facing over Gaza right now will one day be irrelevant if they can carry out their plan for the territory today. They know that future generations of Israeli settlers will be able to say “Sure there was an ethnic cleansing in Gaza and a bunch of mass atrocities were committed, but that all happened before I was born; I had nothing to do with it. What do you want me to do, give up the home I’ve lived in all my life? That’s nuts.”

And they’re absolutely right: if Israel succeeds in driving the Palestinians out of Gaza (and assuming humanity doesn’t destroy itself via nuclear armageddon or environmental collapse), that is exactly the future they can expect to have. The genocidal atrocities against the Palestinians will be something kids learn about in history class. Israel itself might even be able to be a lot more honest about what happened, once the Palestinian problem has been fully resolved and the threat of a Palestinian state no longer exists.

So they do what they need to do in the meantime, with the understanding that this will one day all be rubbed away by the sands of time. They commit what atrocities they need to commit, they lie in whatever ways they need to lie, and they exert influence wherever they need to exert influence until they can get this thing locked down. Once they have, they can sit back and let old father time do the rest of the work for them.

That’s why it’s so important to oppose this thing now: because once Palestine is erased, it’s highly unlikely that it can ever be restored. We see what an uphill battle it is to obtain any rights at all for indigenous populations in other nations founded on genocidal settler-colonialism, and they haven’t even been driven out of their national borders into foreign countries.

The sins of the present and the recent past are much, much easier to correct than the sins of the distant past. That’s why the Zionists are so keen to move these atrocities into the “sins of the distant past” category.

______________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to find video versions of my articles. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

Featured image via Adobe Stock.