The cyclical discourse of humanitarian aid for Palestinians

RAMONA WADI

More than 70 years after the Nakba, US politicians are rendering the Nakba irrelevant, even as the Holocaust narrative, by no means solely a Jewish narrative, is being exploited to support Israel’s colonial presence in Palestine. 

During the Democratic presidential primary debate on Wednesday the 20th of November, US Senator and presidential contender Bernie Sanders appeared to have, at face value, distinguished himself from other candidates by speaking, unprompted, about Palestine and Israel. Yet his comments were framed against the prevailing Zionist narrative in the US. 

“It is no longer good enough for us simply to be pro-Israel. I am pro-Israel, but we must treat the Palestinian people as well with the respect and dignity that they deserve,” he stated. To put it succinctly, Sanders is asserting that any concessions to the Palestinian people – respect and dignity is not tantamount to political rights – must not overstep the boundaries of being pro-Israel, which he asserts yet again as a prelude to the rest of his statement. 

During Israel’s latest assault on Gaza this month, following the killing of Islamic Jihad Leader Bahaa Abu Al-Ata, Sanders tweeted a false equivalence between the coloniser and the colonised, also stating: “The US must lead the effort to end the crisis in Gaza and the persistent violence that threatens everyone.” On what grounds should the US be leading is left unspecified. 

Rival Democratic contender Pete Buttigieg unequivocally supported Israel’s “right to defend itself against acts of terror”, with reference to the rocket fire from Gaza in retaliation to Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations of resistance leaders. 

Is there a choice to be made when Palestinians will ultimately have to deal with yet another US presidency which, at best, will maintain the status quo of US diplomacy and its preferential treatment for Israel? 

At the J Street conference last October, Sanders suggested a fragment of the $3.8 billion allocated to Israel annually for military aid “should go right now into humanitarian aid in Gaza.” J Street describes itself as an entity that “organises and mobilises pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the Jewish people.” For this aim, Nakba narratives are, of course, irrelevant to J Street.

Yet, despite the divergence in rhetoric, Sanders is not moving away from the Zionist narrative. More than 70 years after the Nakba, US politicians are rendering the Nakba irrelevant, even as the Holocaust narrative, by no means solely a Jewish narrative, is being exploited to support Israel’s colonial presence in Palestine. 

In addition, the refusal to acknowledge the Nakba sets the foundations for eliminating the necessary discussion about Palestinian political rights. There is political affirmation in Sanders stating he is pro-Israel. To offer a fragment of Israel’s US-allocated billions in military aid to Palestinians in Gaza for humanitarian reasons is a departure point in US politics, yet it can also be read as inadequate compensation for colluding in thwarting Palestinian rights. Furthermore, within the context of the Trump administration’s withholding of financial aid for Palestinians, Sanders’ suggestion stands in greater contrast, while still offering little in terms of altering Israel’s colonial violence. 

Since US President Donald Trump took office, the US has become increasingly overt in expressing its collusion with Israel. The withholding of humanitarian aid, its unilateral declaration of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, as well as the recent statement regarding Israeli settlements, have set the US apart from the international community in terms of what has long been deemed international consensus regarding the two-state paradigm. Would Sanders revoke these US decisions, or would the possible allocation of humanitarian aid to Gaza have to contend with an increasing backdrop and lenience for Israel to retain the violations it has committed?

In the end, the narrative is not really about humanitarian aid for Gaza, but rather seeking the means to justify US military aid for Israel. The humanitarian narrative has already been set by the international community – Sanders’ return to this paradigm, albeit from the military budget allocated to Israel by the US, does not speak much in terms of Palestinian rights. The bottom line is that politicians worldwide speak about Palestinians as an afterthought, in reaction to committed violations and always through elimination of the Palestinian narrative. So far, Sanders has failed to prove otherwise. 

Ramona Wadi

Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger specializing in the struggle for memory in Chile and Palestine.

The Rambo Saga films through the eyes of US imperial foreign policy

REZA JOHN VEDADI

[Rambo: Last Blood spoiler alert]

With the release of yet another Rambo movie in one of the longest-running action franchise in Hollywood history, we examine the progression of the Rambo films through the eyes of US foreign policy, Republican nationalism, and white saviour tropes, along with anti-Soviet and recent anti-Mexican sentiments thrown in. To understand the plot background and motivations for all of the Rambo films, one must have an understanding of the foreign wars and policies that the US governments have been involved in during the release of each film. 

The first film in the series was First Blood released in 1982. It was based on a more violent novel of the same name published in 1972, written by David Morrell. First Blood the movie tells the story of Rambo, a Vietnam war veteran returning to the US and wandering the country, as he finds it hard to settle down due to the post-traumatic stress disorder suffered during his time in combat. 

The film sheds light on how the US found it hard to deal with the remnants of the US combat troops who returned from one of the bloodiest chapters in US foreign policy. The war in Vietnam created thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in combat and became ill physically and psychologically. Rambo returns home to find anti-war groups waiting for him, “protesting me, spitting, calling me baby killer”, as Rambo explains to his commanding officer Trautman in the ending of the first film of the series.  

The second film in the series Rambo: First Blood Part II was released in 1985, and co-written with James Cameron who later went on to direct the global box office successes like Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009). First Blood Part II was released 6 months into Ronald Reagan’s second term as US president. President Reagan was a staunch anti-Communist and Republican. Sylvester Stallone, who plays John Rambo and has written the screenplay for the last four movies, is known to support and endorse Republican candidates throughout his career without being an outright Republican party member. It is no surprise that the second movie in the franchise becomes a poster for US Republicanism, as Rambo is flown into Vietnam, this time to assist in the rescuing of American prisoners of war (POW) held captive in communist Vietnamese jungle prisons assisted by evil Russian Soviets communists. 

The one thing this second film promotes above all is that the communists, with the assistance of Russian Soviets, are hurting US interests even in South East Asia, and it requires a strong, fighting ideology to counter them, something that then US President Reagan was offering in bucket loads. The US spent approximately $3 trillion on their defence budget during the two terms Ronald Reagan was president. Compare that to China’s GDP over the same period which came to $2.5 trillion. The US spent more on its military than the Chinese economy generated in the same period. To justify such high defence budgets and war mongering foreign policies by the US government, films like the Rambo series have gone a long way to promote the scourge and threat of international communism and the Soviet enemy. 

President Reagan in 1985 was quoted as saying: “Boy, after seeing ‘Rambo’ last night, I know what to do the next time this happens,” about dealing with the next hostage crisis. A dangerous case of life imitating art, which in turn was inspired by the dangerous policies of that reality. 

“You can’t squelch patriotism,” Sylvester Stallone was quoted as saying after the release of First Blood Part II and its box office success. Peddling US patriotism in the 80s was a lucrative formula for Stallone, as six months after First Blood Part II, he released another film of his iconic franchise Rocky IV (1986). This time Rocky Balboa beats the heartless, muscular and powerful Russian Soviet communist challenger in his own home country, and wins over the hostile Soviet crowd. 

This Soviet communist bashing continues into Rambo III released in 1988, towards the end of Ronald Reagan’s second term presidency. The Rambo in this film ends up supporting the Afghan Mujahedeen against the Soviets, but little did Rambo know that the same Mujahedeen he defended end up fighting the US and creating the second Vietnam of the US foreign military wars. In the search for finding creative ways of representing Soviet communist in as many movies as possible, and to prop up support for the US foreign policy in Afghanistan during the 1980s against the Soviets, Stallone may have got carried away and partnered with the wrong resistance fighters, if only hindsight was 20/20.

The fourth instalment of the series Rambo was released in 2008, during the last year of George W. Bush’s second term as president. There is no surprise that Myanmar has become the new landscape for John Rambo’s rampage, and no surprise that Myanmar is governed by a socialist government. This film in the series contains more violence than the previous films in the franchise, which is not an easy accomplishment, considering how violent the previous films where. 

The newest instalment of the series Rambo: Last Blood (2019) focuses on Rambo’s return and life in the US. He has inherited his father’s ranch in Arizona and has built a simple but idyllic life with a Mexican friend Maria and her granddaughter Gabrielle. Gabrielle decides to visit Mexico alone to find out why her father left her and her mother when she was young. She is then kidnapped and sold into forced prostitution against her will. 

Rambo tries to free her and fails at the first attempt, and is beaten and hurt badly. He then makes a second attempt and manages to save Gabrielle from a brothel, but it is too late as she dies from a drug overdose on the way back home to Arizona. 

From that point the film takes a turn towards classical revenge plot line. 

Last Blood is set in the Republican era of the Donald Trump presidency, and does not have the Soviet or communist enemy to defeat, even though currently the liberals in the US are trying hard to create an enemy of the Russians. President Trump in 2015 famously said: “They’re sending people that have a lot of problems… They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” Basically that quote sums up the latest Rambo film’s plot. 

The Mexican character archetypes of Last Blood are only two types: helpless and villain. They either need Rambo to save them and protect them, or they are so bad and evil that Rambo ends up dealing with them through violence, usually with death as the end result. 

Hidden in the last four Rambo films is the ideology of the white saviour, most evidently in this latest film. It is true in some of the films Rambo saves other American soldiers and his own commander, however in film two and three he saves Vietnamese and Afghans and in the Last Blood, he saves Mexicans from the Mexican cartel. In one of the most blatant anti-Mexican parts of the film, the local Mexican police are shown raping girls in the movie, which in no way forwards the plot, thus perpetuating the myth that all Mexicans are rapists and cannot administer justice, in the era of Make America Great Again.         

Not only does Last Blood promote Trump’s racist and xenophobic rhetoric, but it is not even an original or well-written film, as it turns out to be a basic revenge movie. The Rambo creator and author David Morrell even goes as far as saying: “The film is a mess. Embarrassed to have my name associated with it”.

Maybe it’s time John Rambo hangs up his bow and arrow and goes into retirement.

Reza John Vedadi

MA in Film Production & MA in Islamic Studies, film and documentary director, producer and writer based in London.

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Sources:

Sylvester Stallone on Donald Trump, Republicans and Running for Office

US Military Spending

National Bureau of Stats on China

Trump’s Comments on ‘Rapist’ Mexicans

Is ‘Rambo: Last Blood’ any good? Critics call it a ‘MAGA fantasy,’ ‘orgy of death’

David Morrell Agrees with Critics

America’s Mass shootings – What’s really driving this insanity?

Imran Shah

It’s become an almost every day occurrence in America. Mass shooting incidents has become so normalised in the country with staggering statistic of 251 shootings in just 2019.

El Paso, Texas was the scene of the 252nd mass shooting. One of three in that day alone, but El Paso stood out for a number of key reasons.

One was the scale of the massacre. 20 were confirmed dead and another 24 injured. The suspect, Patrick Wood Crusius, wrote a manifesto that was published on 8CHAN 20 minutes before going out with an assault rifle. It was filled with White supremacist rhetoric and had clear language expressing hatred towards immigrants and Latinos in particular.

It also expressed ideas that are regular soundbites for Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Republican Party, such as “Hispanic invasion“, Democrats are using “open borders“, and “free healthcare for illegals” to attract new voters.

His social media praised Trump and, in particular, his effort to build a wall across the border. El Paso is also known to be a place along the Mexico-US boarder that is frequently visited by Mexicans.

Everything points towards this being a targeted terrorist attack. His motive and act of violence was designed to maximise terror and was deeply ideological and political. Yet Crusius is not being charged as a terrorist, but rather as a murderer who committed a hate crime. Why?

Media outlets have been shy in calling him a terrorist as well. Despite the information about his support of Trump and the contents of the manifest being made known by Sunday morning, majority of outlets including UK media did not report them. CNN reported that same morning that the FBI is investigating the incident as “domestic terrorism”. A piece of information that didn’t make it to the BBC or any other media outlet for the rest of the day. Again, why?

The Fox And The Wolf

Malcolm X talks about his concept of “the wolf and the fox”. The wolf is unashamed of their hatred towards you, whilst the fox pretends to be liberal, modern and compassionate. In reality, they both harbour the same hatred and are after the same thing, upholding a system of exploitation via discriminating minorities.

The liberal media is not much different from the fox. They spend a lot of the time denouncing and condemning Trump and others for his overt racist views, but their subtle coverage during terrorist attacks has been clearly discriminatory, both in terms of focus and the manner of coverage. And despite social media pointing this out every time, little has changed.

They helped generate the noise that made the public believe Muslims were the major cause of terrorism and the cover for the growing White Supremacist threat is now undeniable.

Till this day, the same media outlets have whitewashed the coverage of White terror incidents. They’ve described them as mentally ill or lone wolves rather than focusing on the clear ideological underpinnings of their actions as they have done with terrorists of Muslim background.

Doesn’t Western media understand that this kind of discriminatory coverage led to the rise of Trump and his White Supremacists?

After all the white washing, they have given hate preachers in power a free pass. How else could Trump get away with deflecting blame from himself by saying Crusius was “mentally ill” if western media, across the board, did not already cement that narrative? The liberal media in the US and generally across the West may be against Trump but have hardly been on the side of minorities.

It’s All About The Benjamins

The NRA had been lobbying the government to pull the US out of an International Arms Trade treaty, which as signed by Obama in 2013, is to help prevent the use arms for war crimes and human rights abuses. This stopped the US selling arms to the likes of Syria, North Korea and others. Trump realised the NRA’s goal and took the US out of the treaty.

The NRA opposed this because it cuts the main revenues for the US arms trade: autocratic militarized states and areas of the world where conflict is proxy and escalating. Nations such as North Korea and Syria essentially.

But it’s not just the US. The NRA has financial ties to companies that operate globally such as Beratta and Glock and work globally. The NRA are also actively lobbying countries such as Brazil and One Nation in Australia.

The NRA…serves as a spiritual godfather to gun groups around the world.”

Foriegn Policy, Oct 19th 2009

All the lobbying the NRA does makes guns more available in those countries, but it affects countries that do have gun laws in place.

According to the US Government Accountability Office, 70% of traceable guns that were seized in Mexico between 2009-2014 were sourced from the US, smuggled into the US, and used across the country. In 2017, the total number of deaths due to gun violence in Mexico reached 30,000.

On top of that NRA has lobbied for laws to stop collecting data on where the guns and who the guns are going to. Any accountability and transparency, much like the International Arms Trade treaty, is just bad news for their bottom line.

Responsible Gun Laws Anywhere Are A Threat to Gun Markets Everywhere

As soon as ethical standards for selling of guns are legitimised and in force domestically, of course conversation of similar global standards will be legitimised too. And vice versa. This will invariably lead to less sales. The NRA and others say it is a threat to their freedom and it’s a narrative works well among White (and pro-Trump) Americans. But really, it’s a threat to their bottom line.

It’s also clear they are willing to use racism and Islamophobia to their advantage. Whether it’s the War of Terror or demonising Black Lives Matter or protecting the biggest buyers of arms in the US, white people, from feel guilty in buying a gun, its all good. Sales must only go up.

In short, the same vampiric greed of the US arms industry and the NRA, that has caused needless wars and destroyed countless lives beyond US borders, is the same force that refuses to allow needless killing to stop by introducing reasonable gun control.

The same media and US citizens that supported those illegal wars with all their national fever allowed their benefactors to grow so big, those same benefactors are now feeding off the blood of their own countrymen. It’s the same benefactors that have profited from White Supremacy and supported the rise of Trump. The chickens have come home to roost.

The violence we see in the US is directly linked to the violence it exports abroad. Its media is just as united on narrative when it comes to US foreign policy as it is when it comes to domestic terrorism.

Will their liberal factions and their media realise their role in all of this or will they continue to be in denial? Perhaps they are in on the deal. Who knows? But if Trump’s and his racist movement cannot make them look at themselves critically, then nothing will change and US violence will continue to plague themselves and the world.

The Obama Wars

By David Swanson

President Barack Obama waves at the conclusion of his remarks to
U.S. troops at Bagram Airfield in Bagram, Afghanistan, Sunday,
May 25, 2014. (Pete Souza/White House)

Obama’s legacy of warmaking has largely been maintained, advanced, and imitated by bipartisan consensus and by Donald Trump.

By “the Obama wars” I don’t mean some overgrown infants on television screaming racist insults or pretending that opposing racism requires cheering for Obama.

I mean: the widespread indiscriminate murder of human beings with missiles — many of them from robot airplanes — let loose to threaten any non-white country on earth by Obama and expanded by Trump. I mean the catastrophic destruction of Libya — still continued by Trump. I mean the war on Afghanistan, the vast bulk of which was overseen by Obama, though Bush and Trump have had minor roles. I mean the assault on Yemen, begun by Obama and escalated by Trump. I mean the war on Iraq and Syria escalated first by Obama and then by Trump (following the de-escalation locked in place by Bush though Obama fought it tooth-and-nail).

I mean the conflict with Iran, heightened by Obama and then dramatically again by Trump. I mean the expansion of conflict-producing troops and bases across Africa and Asia. I mean the creation of the new cold war with Russia. I mean the buildup in nuclear weapons and the delusional rhetoric about “usable” nuclear weapons. I mean the support for Israel’s wars on Palestinians. I mean the coups in Ukraine and Honduras. I mean the threats to Venezuela. I mean the normalization of fantastical excuses for the gravest crimes. I mean the practice of campaigning on ending wars, never ending any of them, and never having anyone really care. I mean the constant shattering of past records in military spending.

Obama’s legacy, despite all sorts of variations, many of them superficial, and despite its role in defeating Hillary Clinton at the ballot box, has largely been maintained, advanced, and imitated by bipartisan consensus and by Donald Trump.

If you want to review what Obama did in that quirky little area of his job to which some 60% of federal discretionary spending is devoted, and which puts us all at risk of nuclear disaster, pick up a copy of Jeremy Kuzmarov’s book Obama’s Unending Wars: Fronting the Foreign Policy of the Permanent Warfare State. Kuzmarov places Obama in historical context and outlines his parallels with Woodrow Wilson, another extreme militarist generally understood as a peace visionary. Kuzmarov reviews — and adds information that many of us probably never knew to — the story of Obama’s rise to power and the story of all of his many wars.

We tend to forget that right up through the presidency of George W. Bush wars were thought of as temporary things that had endings. Now they’re hardly thought of at all, but they’re understood to be permanent. And they’re thought of in partisan terms. We sometimes forget that candidate Obama, like candidate Trump, promised a larger military. Candidate Obama promised a larger war on Afghanistan. And when it came time for Obama’s re-election to a second term, he reached out to the New York Times and asked that paper to write an article about how good he was at killing people, about how he carefully studied a list of men, women, and children and picked out the ones in whose name he would send missiles into clusters of unidentified victims. Obama’s claim, in his own words, was “I’m really good at killing people.” Nobody who liked Obama and didn’t like murder allowed themselves to become aware of this aspect of Obama’s re-election campaign; and they never will become aware of it.

The reason it matters is that over 20 Democrats are now campaigning for president, some of whom are promoting the same sort of militarism, some of whom are opposing it to some degree, and some of whom have revealed little or nothing about their positions on such matters. One of them, Joe Biden, was part of Obama’s wars. Biden is the guy who claimed of the mass-slaughter of people in Libya “We didn’t lose a single life.” Kamala Harris is the woman who will never ever question whether by “life” he meant “non-African life.” She’s too busy worrying that peace might break out in Korea. The stupidity of tokenism will plague us until we at least have the decency to regret having fallen for it before. The stupidity of militarism will plague us until we stop glorifying and excusing it and start supporting efforts to create peace.

David Swanson

David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio and is a 2015 Nobel Peace Prize nominee.