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mr.drs.Bou:

42 Gazans killed in protests since march 30

mr.drs.Bou:

Het is altijd nog erger dan je denkt, zelfs als je denkt dat het nog erger is…

‘Youtube’ Removes Video Tribute to Palestinian Journalist and other Gaza Victims as ‘Sensational’ Incitement

April 26, 2018 “Information Clearing House” – Check out this stirring anthem to freedom in Gaza. It begins with a Palestinian child saying “We shall overcome” and an image of Martin Luther King Jr. and then in many still pictures of the “Great March of Return” conveys the strength of the unarmed resistance to the blockade–including the killing of Yaser Murtaja, the Palestinian journalist who was one of six Palestinian journalists shot by Israeli snipers on April 6.

The imagery is by Sana Kassem, and the video was posted by Norman Finkelstein yesterday on youtube. The song is “Wings to Fly,” by Susan Boyle. The copy accompanying the video was simply: “A video dedicated to the people of Gaza as they struggle to break out of Israel’s infernal prison.”

Then Youtube took it down today, Finkelstein says, and he and Kassem have posted it now on Vimeo.

Youtube sent Finkelstein a notice that suggests that it regarded the video as a “sensational” and “shocking” incitement to “violence” or “dangerous activities.”

Upon review, we’ve determined that it violates our guidelines. We’ve removed it from YouTube and assigned a Community Guidelines strike, or temporary penalty, to your account…

If a video contains violent or graphic content that appears to be posted in a shocking, sensational, or disrespectful manner, it’s less likely to be allowed on YouTube. We also don’t allow content that’s intended to incite violence or encourage dangerous activities.

Finkelstein comments on the removal on his own site, and satirizes Youtube’s policy:

However, Youtube will continue to post videos like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3iBVxLPqsc, [a stabbing attack in Rishon Lezion, evidently of a Jewish victim, in Nov. 2015]

and like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-u2mVStPRA, [the video concerns two Israelis killed by an Arab]

“Youtube wants visitors to know that this was not an easy decision to make. However, after many hours of agonizing reflection we concluded that, whereas all lives are worthy, some lives are more worthy than others.

Sana Kassem is a Palestinian refugee who grew up in Lebanon and works as a Chemistry teacher in Athens. She has been working with Finkelstein for almost 10 years as his website master and administrator of all his social media. “I really hope that you use the story of this censorship to highlight the situation in Gaza. I feel that the international community (including myself) is not standing up enough to all the sacrifices of the brutally imprisoned people of Gaza,” she says.

For a time this video parodying Lorde’s song “Royals” to highlight Palestinian conditions was also barred by Youtube, a few weeks ago. Now it’s back up.

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.

Lees vooral nog even door!

mr.drs.Bou:

Abby Martin & Joe Rogan on Israel’s Massacre at Gaza Border duurt 24 minuten.

mr.drs.Bou:

The Ghost of Herut: Albert Einstein on Israel, 70 Years Ago

70 years after Israel’s independence and Einstein’s letter, the country’s legacy is still marred with blood and violence. Despite the ongoing party in Tel Aviv, there is no reason to celebrate and every reason to mourn.

by Ramzy Baroud

Albert Einstein, along with other Jewish luminaries, including Hannah Arendt, published a letter in the New York Times on December 4, 1948. That was only a few months after Israel had declared its independence and as hundreds of Palestinian villages were being actively demolished after their inhabitants were expelled.

The letter denounced Israel’s newly-founded Herut party and its young leader, Menachem Begin.

Herut was carved out of the Irgun terrorist gang, famous for its many massacres against Palestinian Arab communities leading up to the Nakba, the catastrophic ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people from their historic homeland in 1947-48.

In the letter, Einstein, and others, described Herut (Freedom) party as a “political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to Nazi and Fascist parties.”

For a letter of this nature to appear a mere few years after the end of World War II and the devastation of the Holocaust is a profound indication of the clear chasm that existed among Jewish intellectuals at the time: the Zionists who supported Israel and its violent birth, and those who took the high moral ground and objected to it.

The White Helmets Tried To Recruit Roger Waters With Saudi Money

Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters was courted by a PR firm representing the White Helmets called The Syria Campaign, which invited him to a lavish dinner organized by a Saudi billionaire Hani Farsi.

by Max Blumenthal | The Grayzone Project

Waters said he also concluded that The Syria Campaign — the PR firm behind the White Helmets — was not simply the humanitarian voice it purported to be, but a corporate outfit that represented much more prosaic interests.

During a Barcelona concert on April 13, Roger Waters denounced the Syrian White Helmets as “a fake organization that exists only to create propaganda for jihadists and terrorists.” Warning that the groups’ unverified claims about chemical weapons attacks across insurgent-held territory were aimed at triggering Western military intervention, Waters cautioned his audience, “If we were to listen to the propaganda of the White Helmets and others, we would encourage our governments to start dropping bombs on people in Syria. This would be a mistake of monumental proportions for us as human beings.”

In fact, Waters had first hand experience with the powerful pro-war PR operation behind the White Helmets. Back in October 2016, a public relations firm representing the White Helmets called The Syria Campaign attempted to recruit Waters by inviting him to a lavish dinner organized by a Saudi-British billionaire, Hani Farsi. The rock legend and renowned activist was told that by signing on to the organization’s mission, he could help “elevate the voices of Syria’s peaceful heroes”

Just days before his recent concert in Barcelona, Waters was lobbied again to support the White Helmets, this time by an eccentric French photojournalist affiliated with what he described as a “very powerfull [sic] syrian network.” The activist demanded to join Waters on stage and deliver a message for the “children of syria.”