Common Grounds


Our Wednesday News Analysis | Colonization of Palestine: Crusades and Zionism

June 21, 2023

Source: Al Mayadeen English
https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/opinion/colonization-of-palestine:-crusades-and-zionism

 

By Susana Khalil
Published June 15, 2023

 

Democracy is nowadays implemented as the secular point of reference for colonial and imperial motives… whether religious or secular, the imperial, colonial atrophy does not stop.


 

The monotheistic Jewish, Christian, and Muslim trilogy is a Semitic heritage that constitutes the mosaic of the Arab world today.

 

This triad not only comes from the Arab ancestral mosaic;
in its essence, root, and doctrinal trunk it stands as one and the same, with one being the continuation of the other...

 

 

Those who expanded in the world were not Jews, Christians, or Muslims themselves. What spread in the world were the respective religious doctrines. It is necessary to explain this to the European egocentric gluttony, which ignores the other, and by ignoring the other, it becomes ignorant by antonomasia. There is an irresponsible attempt to establish a factual scientific mindset from a mere egocentric base. Such mindset structurally operates as a whole epistemicide (programmed destruction of the knowledge base and wisdom of an ethnic group, to assimilate them to a European colonial cosmovision). Ubiquitous mass media is also utilized as a tool alongside the intellectual and academic establishments to propagate the current epistemicide.

 

Today, Europe is deeply secular, and it took centuries and so much bloodshed to reach this philosophical value, but despite the culture, maturity, and secular sensibility, Europe now supports a "nation-state" of the Jewish religion. Europe is not able to discern Judaism and nationhood, it is not able to discern Arab ethnicity and Islam. They are astonished to see that there are Christian Arabs or Jewish Arabs. There are even atheist Europeans who see Jews as a people. There are others on the left who call this colonialism ("Israel") an ethnocracy. This ignorance is programmed, of a grandiloquence in favor of the falsification of History...

 

Read more: Colonization of Palestine: Crusades and Zionism

 

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THE UNEXAMINED MIND IS A MENACE TO HUMANITY: WHO IS THE REAL ENEMY?

Source: Palestine Chronicle
https://www.palestinechronicle.com/the-unexamined-mind-is-a-menace-to-humanity-who-is-the-real-enemy/

 

By Richard Forer
Published June 14, 2023

 

From the perspective of a presumed Jewish identity, I once defended any and all Israeli behavior but I never defended the real Israel. What I defended were idealistic images of Israel I had projected onto the real Israel.

 

Palestinian refugees were forced by Zionist militias to flee their homes during the 'Nakba' - The Catastrophe - of 1948 . (Photo: via UNRWA)

 

 

"Centuries of anti-Semitism, culminating in the Holocaust, traumatized an entire people, convincing them they could never trust the other because the other was a mortal threat, while revealing that if we identify with the role of the persecuted, the scapegoat, or the victim, we will interpret the behavior of those we fear, such as anyone whom we have persecuted, scapegoated, or victimized, as intending to persecute, scapegoat, or victimize us."

 

 

Heeding the call of manifest destiny, the doctrine that white Christians had a divine mission to spread “democracy” throughout North America, Americans slaughtered the indigenous people and laid waste to their culture. Convinced of the superiority of their race, they professed biblical justification for the enslavement of Africans. When slavery was outlawed they devised Jim Crow laws to enforce racial segregation.

 

Europeans defended their genocidal loathing of Jews with accusations of deicide, the murder of Christ.

 

Before they can carry out their atrocities, perpetrators must project enemy images onto their prospective victims. In so doing, they deny the humanity of the other and forfeit their own humanity. But how many of us, who have never pulled a trigger or wielded a sword, have cheered on or made excuses for the atrocious behavior of groups or movements we identify with? Whether through denial, indifference or moral collaboration, how many of us have helped to create a climate where such atrocities are even possible?...

 

Read more: The Unexamined Mind is a Menace to Humanity: Who is the Real Enemy?

 

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WORLD REFUGEE DAY: SYRIAN, PALESTINIAN REFUGEES NEED UNDERSTANDING, NOT PLATITUDES

Source: Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2324251

 

By RAMZY BAROUD
Published June 19, 2023

 

Fadi, a survivor of the migrant boat tragedy in the Mediterranean, meets his brother at the port of Kalamata, Greece (Reuters)

 


"… the world’s refugees, who are estimated to number more than 100 million,
are not “celebrated,” but mostly vilified.

 

They are seen as a burden, not an opportunity to confront and fix
the underlying problems, old and new,
that led to their original displacement."

 

 

Fadi, a Syrian teenager with curly hair and an acne-covered face, miraculously survived one of the greatest migrant boat disasters in the modern history of the Mediterranean.

 

Only 104 people have been rescued from a boat that was carrying an estimated 750 refugees when it capsized on June 13 in the open sea near the Greek coastal town of Pylos.

 

Scores of bodies have been pulled from the water and many more have washed ashore. Hundreds are still missing, feared dead, including many women and children who were huddled together on the lower deck of the 30-meter boat.

 

Fadi survived. A heart-rending photo shows the young Syrian sobbing as he met his older brother, Mohammed, who had rushed to the port of Kalamata, Greece, to see him. The two brothers could not embrace, as Fadi was still trapped behind metal gates in a confinement area made for the survivors...

 

Read more: World Refugee Day: Syrian, Palestinian refugees need understanding, not platitudes