CP12. Patriarchy, theocracy, & reproductive rights.

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The struggle for women’s equal rights is incomplete and ongoing. In several countries, women are still subject to male guardianship and/or confining dress-code mandates. In parts of several African countries, girls are subjected to female genital mutilation. Misogynist violence against women persists nearly worldwide. Even where rights have been conceded with respect to ownership and management of property, voting, holding political office, employment, et cetera; exclusionary practices and abuses persist. Clearly, progress is incomplete.

Currently, criminalization of abortion and obstructions of access to contraceptive devices are a major issue impacting women (and families).

1. Patriarchal roots.

In much of the world, women are compelled to carry unwanted pregnancies to term as illiberal organizations and their followers use concerted action and/or the state power to deprive women (and couples) of their natural rights with respect to pregnancy termination and/or the use of some or all contraceptive devices. Many women’s rights and social justice advocates recognize that this movement to deprive women of their reproductive autonomy is largely a carryover from a patriarchal past, wherein the men and women of the laboring classes were ruled and exploited by the lords or capitalists, while women were subjugated under the authority of the men and generally treated like property.

The modern anti-reproductive-rights movement consists primarily of a number of religious and allied political organizations seeking to impose controversial theocratic strictures which deprive women of their natural human right to limit their childbearing, especially when this involves termination or prevention of an unwanted pregnancy. A part of this movement even goes to the extreme of acting to deprive people of their personal-liberty right to use the medically-approved contraceptive devices with which they could avoid creating unwanted pregnancies ^[1]. Such organizations typically claim to belong to a so-called “right-to-life” movement; but they usually focus exclusively upon preserving what grows in a woman’s womb, while manifesting far less, if any, concern for the lives of living breathing human persons (despite the massive and preventable loss of lives to: wars, imperial economic sieges, famines, lack of access to life-saving healthcare, and other oft-times lethal privations).

2. Evolution of the conflict.

Until the 20^th century, there were no reliable means of contraception other than abstinence. Throughout recorded history until then, women aborted their unwanted pregnancies for various reasons, namely:

fear of maternal death (especially when still recovering from a difficult previous pregnancy or in such frail health as to pose a threat of mortality in childbirth),
poverty and lack of means to properly provide for another child,
desire to limit number of children,
to avoid adverse consequences (shame and ostracism and/or other punishment) for an out-of-wedlock pregnancy,
pregnancy resulting from rape.

Abortions were generally performed with assistance from experienced female associates (family members or friends and/or midwives) using tried and trusted methods (abortifacient herbs and/or pressure, sometimes invasive physical procedures) handed down by older female family members or acquaintances. These abortions were generally safe. ^[2]

In the first decades of the 19^th century, with growing US industrialization, many young women were employed in jobs away from their family homes. Thus, they no longer had ready access to the traditional providers of female healthcare. Professional provision of healthcare was then an unregulated business; and a proliferation of entrepreneurial individuals began capitalizing upon the demand for pregnancy terminations, by advertising abortifacient drugs (which were often concocted with dangerous ingredients). Moreover, some unqualified individuals advertised offers to perform manual abortions. Resort to such quack providers often resulted in death or serious injury to the patient. ^[3]

It was not until well into the 19^th century that abortions were criminalized in the US and other English-speaking countries. By the 1860s, physicians organized in the American Medical Association [AMA], were lobbying for criminalization of abortion; and “states” then began doing as asked. Concerns were expressed on moral grounds as well as over the rise in deaths from unsafe abortions. However, the primary motive of the AMA’s academically trained all-male physicians was to eliminate competition in female reproductive healthcare from the cheaper competition: of female midwives who were systematically disparaged for their non-academic training and for being female, as well as from the untrained largely male practitioners and drug peddlers who were the primary cause of abortion-related deaths and injuries. ^[4]

By 1910, all US “states” had outlawed abortion, and the medical establishment’s hostility had marginalized midwifery ^[5]. By then, for many women in the US, access to assisted abortion was limited to illegal practitioners all too many of whom were dangerous “back-alley” providers. Not all illegal abortions were provided by unqualified operatives, but those performed by trained physicians were generally too expensive for most women. The Jane Collective in Chicago, using properly trained women volunteers, made safe illegal abortions available and affordable locally and provided same to some 12,000 patients (1969—73) ^[6].

By the 1960’s, pressure from women’s rights organizations was causing rethink as to the criminalization of abortion. The US Supreme Court finally recognized (1973) the Constitutional privacy right of women to obtain legal abortion by qualified healthcare professionals, during the first 2 trimesters. A strident mostly patriarchal and theocratic movement of opposition then arose seeking to nullify that right.

3. Religious views.

Although many religious people disapprove of some or all intentional abortions, most do not embrace the extreme viewpoint of those who denounce all abortion as the killing of an “unborn child” and/or assert that personhood begins at the point of fertilization. In fact (at least with respect to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), there is no scriptural basis for such extreme contentions concerning personhood. Moreover, there is no consensus within any of the major religions concerning the point at which, or the conditions under which, abortion is morally impermissible.

Buddhists hold divergent views with respect to the issue, but abortion is generally regarded as negative to one’s karma. It is often discussed, not in the language of rights (to life or choice), but of benefit and harm; and the Dalai Lama has asserted that its propriety depends upon the particular circumstances. Abortion is permitted by law in several predominantly Buddhist countries. ^[7]
There is no definitive Hindu position with respect to the propriety of abortion. Hindu theology generally regards it as governed by context with respect to obligation for least harm (to mother, family, fetus, and community). Some theologians hold that personhood begins at three months thereby implying that abortion may be generally permissible during the first 3 months of gestation. Abortion is legal in predominantly Hindu India. In the US, 68% of Hindus surveyed believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. ^[8]
The Jewish law as presented in the Torah (first 5 books of the Hebrew Bible [Christian Old Testament]), Exodus 21:22, views causing the abortion of a woman’s pregnancy as not a homicide or violation of law from God ^[⁑]. The Talmud interprets said scripture as holding that the fetus is not a person until delivered. Said interpretation is based upon Genesis 2:7 wherein the body of the first man became a person (Adam) when God caused it to breathe (an activity which a fetus does not do). Nevertheless, some medieval and pre-modern Jewish theologians, operating within a male-supremacist milieu, wrote in condemnation of most abortions. Present-day Jewish denominations diverge, with patriarchal Orthodox denominations largely anti-abortion, while more liberal denominations are generally permissive. The latter often hold that the decision should not be taken lightly but that it is decision for the pregnant woman to make. 79% of Jewish-Americans hold that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. ^[9]
There is no prohibition of abortion in the Christian Bible (New Testament). Despite the lack of any scriptural basis, some (not all) ancient and medieval Christian theologians (including Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas with their patriarchal view with respect to the place of women in family and society) found rationales for condemning abortion as sinful. But even Augustine and Aquinas did not consider abortion until some point (based upon Aristotle’s doctrine of ensoulment at 40 days for a male embryo, 90 days for a female) after conception to be the killing of a person. Present-day Christian views regarding abortion vary across the entire range from total opposition to acceptance (often conditional in the final trimester) until childbirth. ^[10]
The Qur’an does not speak of abortion. The earliest hadith held that the fetus acquires a soul after 120 days. Islamic law has no explicit prohibition against a woman’s decision to abort. Views regarding the moral permissibility of elective abortion have ranged from never to 120 days, and actual prohibitions have been imposed at times in various places. However, Islamic law with respect to abortion is universally interpreted to prioritize the life of the mother over that of the fetus. 12 predominantly Muslim countries permit unrestricted access to abortion. ^[11]

Clearly, opinion among present-day adherents of every major religion is divided with those on one side (generally those more patriarchal) condemning abortion as a grave sin in all or nearly all circumstances and those on the opposing side (generally those more supportive of women’s rights) holding that it is morally wrong to deprive a woman of her natural right to control her own body and its womb.

[⁑] Note. If a woman’s miscarriage was caused by another contrary to her will, then the offender was to pay compensation for the loss. It was deemed to be a loss, because the birth of a child was generally welcomed and valued as an addition to the family’s labor force. Causing an abortion was not deemed a homicide for which the penalty would have been death (life for life), Exodus 21:28—29 and Exodus 21:12—14.

4. Reproductive facts.

Human pregnancy involves several stages ^[12].

Requisite preparatory acts: copulation, ovulation, and insemination.
Fertilization. Following the monthly release of an ovum from the woman’s ovaries, a sperm cell from the man unites with it thereby creating a zygote (fertilized egg). This generally occurs within the fallopian tube before descent into the uterus. [“Conception” is typically identified with fertilization, but that event cannot be observed or its time precisely determined in any individual case. Fertilization is not the beginning of actual pregnancy.]
Cleavage. Cell division transforms the zygote into a morula (cell mass).
Cavitation. The morula divides into 2 connected structures, trophoblast and embryoblast with a cavity between them, thereby becoming a blastocyst.
Implantation. The blastocyst implants into the wall of the woman’s uterus (10^th day after fertilization) thereby creating a pregnancy.
Structural formation. Several additional processes bring the formation, from the cells of the blastocyst, of several structures, including: embryonic placenta, umbilical vesicle, chorion, amnion, umbilicus, and embryonic disc. This stage includes gastrulation which begins about the 17^th day after fertilization with the formation of the “primitive streak”, within the embryonic disc. The primitive streak is that part of the embryo which will evolve into the fetus.
Fetal inception. The primitive streak, evolves (by 9^th week) into a primal fetus (weighing about 8 grams ^[13], less than one 400^th as much as a newborn baby).
Continued organogenesis. The organs of the fetus then continue to develop until it becomes a fully-formed potential infant (at about 40 weeks) weighing about 3,300 grams (7.2 pounds).
Lastly, childbirth and placental expulsion (a.k.a. afterbirth). Afterbirth tissue includes fetal placenta and other structures with the same genetic content (chromosomes) as the newborn, structures which had nourished and protected the fetus.

The process often terminates naturally without resulting in a live birth ^[14]. Only a tiny fraction of ova will be fertilized; and only an infinitesimal fraction of sperm cells will ever encounter an ovum. In a large percentage of fertilizations (an estimated 60%), the blastocyst will not implant, and no pregnancy will occur. Moreover, in many pregnancies (around 25%) there will be a spontaneous abortion (a.k.a. miscarriage) or stillbirth at some point after implantation. Thus, 70% of fertilizations result naturally in failure to produce a live birth. Given those large numbers, the notion, that personhood begins with fertilization, leads necessarily to the conclusion that Nature, or God as Creator of Nature, is responsible for far more abortions than live births; and Nature or God must therefore be the “Great Abortionist”.

5. Personhood.

The fetus does not eat, drink, breath, see, learn, think, act for specific objectives, or perform other functions which are intrinsic in actual persons (including babies). Except for reflex motions, the fetus is a purely passive creature within the prospective mother’s womb and wholly dependent upon her body for all of its needs and for its continued functional existence. Naturally, a fetus in the womb, in contradistinction to a baby in the world, cannot be a social person.

Historically, from ancient times until premodern times, influential moralists (invariably men) held widely divergent views with respect to abortion ^[15]. In polities which punished women who deliberately aborted; it was often, not for offense against the fetus, but for offense against the prospective father ^[16]. Some opponents of women being permitted to terminate their pregnancies used ensoulment doctrine to classify the “fetus” as a “person” and thereby justify their opposition ^[17]. Actually, authorities differed in their opinions as to the time of “ensoulment”, and proposed times varied over the entire range from conception to childbirth (when learning and purposeful activity can begin) ^[18]. Moreover, many proponents of pre-birth ensoulment, perhaps recognizing the absurdity of attributing personhood to a zygote or microscopic mass of undifferentiated cells, chose a time later than conception, that time being either: at an arbitrary fixed number of days, or at quickening when fetal movement begins to be felt in the womb. Beliefs about the time of pre-birth ensoulment then affected doctrine as to when abortion should be deemed impermissible. Nevertheless, even when abortion (nearly always performed by the woman and/or her female associates and often with the assistance of a midwife ^[19]) was outlawed, the law often went unenforced as affected women ignored it.

Contemporary anti-abortion groups often evade the actual history of ensoulment doctrine in order to falsely portray abortion rights as an immoral 20^th century invention. The Catholic Church, although admitting that the Christian Church has not always held that personhood begins at fertilization, asserts (falsely) that the Church always regarded abortion as sinful. In fact, for many centuries, early-stage abortion was generally accepted within the Church and often not counted as abortion. [It is only in the second trimester that the fetus has grown large enough for the woman’s pregnancy to become apparent.] It was only since 1869 that the Catholic Church definitively decided that abortion was sinful from the time of fertilization and sought criminalization throughout pregnancy. ^[20]

Those who insist that personhood begins at fertilization often “justify” this claim based upon the fertilized ovum then having the exact “human” genetic content as will a child which develops from it. However, even in a completed pregnancy, much live human cellular material which develops from said fertilized ovum will become tissue to be sluffed off as afterbirth; and said tissue, which possesses the same chromosomes and genetic content as does the newborn infant, is clearly not a child. Hence, genetic content alone cannot define personhood.

Another argument offered by anti-abortion activists is that the ovum’s potential, from the moment of fertilization, makes a “child” entitled to be born. This is a leap into illogic. By way of analogy, an acorn may have the potential to sprout and grow into a sapling which could then grow into an oak tree; but it is nearly always no more than food for a squirrel or other animal. Clearly, potential is not actuality.

Anti-abortion groups also argue that the presence of a “fetal heartbeat” after about 6 weeks of gestation qualifies the “fetus” as a person (“child”, “baby”). Actually, at six weeks, the embryo has not yet formed the primal fetus, and said “heartbeat’ is only an electro-chemical flutter in tissue which will not develop, until after another 4 to 6 weeks, into a fully-formed actually beating heart ^[21]. Even setting aside the anatomical misrepresentations, the personhood claim is an arbitrary doctrinal imposition. T here is a huge difference between a fetus (in the womb) and a baby or child (as an actor in the world); actual childhood begins at birth, not before.

Some anti-abortion activists assert that modern medical science has established that the evolving embryo is a person. Although said science has elucidated many details of embryogenesis which were not knowable in the past, science cannot be the basis for determining when personhood begins. According to the National Academy of Sciences, science simply does not make such value judgments; it only ascertains material facts. The beginning of personhood is a value judgment (commonly religion-based) upon those facts ^[22]. Moreover, proponents of the notion of science-based determination of personhood (based upon some physical feature as it evolves in the embryo), typically also insist that the fertilized ovum (a single cell with no brain or other organs) is a “person” (simply because it is genetically human). Clearly, they resort to inconsistent arguments to support their preconceived conclusion, an approach which is contrary to actual science.

! The foregoing evasions, falsifications of history, controversial religious dogma, imaginary embryology, and illogical arguments are misused as “justification” for moves to criminalize abortion.

6. Vilification.

Anti-abortion groups commonly disparage abortion seekers and providers as “baby-killers”. Moreover, some anti-abortion activists allege that women seeking repeat abortions choose it as their means of birth control. That allegation fails the test of logic: if a woman could have prevented her unwanted pregnancy (there being a number of obstacles which can prevent some women from doing so), why would she instead choose to endure the burdens and discomforts of pregnancy plus the inconvenience and expense and stigma of abortion, if it were always so simple for her to avoid getting pregnant in the first place! In fact, an NIH [National Institutes of Health] study (Repeat abortions: blaming the victims) debunks that notion and also finds that said abortion-seekers overwhelmingly reject said allegation ^[23].

7. Hypocrisy.

Patriarchal Christian churches (Catholic, Orthodox, and evangelical Protestant), whose leaders and their faithful followers currently seek criminalization of abortion, pretend: a reverence for human life (from the moment of fertilization), and a love for innocent “unborn children”. In fact, their purported reverence for human life and love for innocent children is inconsistent with their violent histories. Examples.

+ Throughout several centuries, the Catholic Church incited crusades (“holy wars”) and inquisitions, with much killing of people on account on different religious belief.

+ Many of the anti-abortion Protestant Churches had previously provided warped theological “justifications” for chattel slavery, white supremacy, and often-genocidal wars to dispossess the Indigenous nations in what is now the US. The Southern Baptist leadership at first welcomed the Roe v. Wade decision for abortion rights (as upholding religious liberty); but, with overt support for white supremacy and segregation no longer tenable, it soon after embraced the anti-abortion cause as a substitute (reaffirming its patriarchy).

+ While the hierarchies of the Roman Catholic and of some evangelical Protestant Churches, purportedly for the sake of the “unborn child”, demand laws criminalizing abortion from the time of fertilization; they (notably the Catholic, the Southern Baptist, and number of other evangelical Protestant Churches), for many generations, simultaneously abetted child molestation by many of their clergy and lay-leaders. Specifically, they concealed the crimes and shielded the perpetrators from exposure and prosecution despite the severe trauma inflicted upon huge numbers of actual child victims ^[24].

+ The Catholic Church in Belgium and Italy made a practice (1950—70) of coercing unwed mothers to place their babies or small children with the Church, which then sold them as purported “orphans” to misled adoptive Catholic parents in the US and then lied to said mothers (as to the actual disposition of said children) and to their stolen children (falsely alleging maternal abandonment) ^[25].

Church leaders, now seeking to criminalize abortion by redefining legal personhood as beginning at fertilization, have clearly not given up their theocratic proclivities. While they demand absolute religious freedom for themselves ^[⁑], patriarchal Church leaderships and fellow theocrats seek to impose their controversial sectarian moral stricture upon the entire population, most of which opposes said imposition. If they succeed in outlawing abortion; they can be expected to move on to target other alleged sins: same-sex relationships, gender dysphoria, erotica, sex education, blasphemy, et cetera. In fact, they have already done some such in multiple US “states”. These theocrats mimic the medievalist Islamist regimes in countries (Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan) where morality police are used to enforce the subjugation of their women.

[⁑] Example. The Roman Catholic Church (as well as Eastern Orthodox Churches, which also condemn abortion) displays crucifixes and statues of the Virgin in its places of worship despite the Biblical Commandment prohibiting the use of any “graven image” in worship [Exodus 20:4]. Yet, Church leaders (who justify said practice with double-standard rationalizations: when pagans do so, it is idolatry, but when Christians do the same, it is merely “veneration” ^[26]) would certainly claim persecution if their practice (condemned in Judaism, in Islam, and by many Protestant churches) were criminalized.

8. Using wombs.

In the pre-Civil-War US, the slaves were the most valuable property in the republic. With importation of slaves prohibited, and with slaves being all too often worked to death on cotton and sugar plantations; breeding slaves was a routine aspect of the business. US slave owners routinely, thru inducement or coercion, pressured their female slaves to become pregnant and produce slave offspring. Masters often selected her mate with the objective of producing such offspring as would be expected either: to bring a good price in the slave market, or to provide useful labor to his own business. Slave women, who failed to become pregnant, were often subjected to extra abuse. There were certainly instances of insubordinate slave women resisting, not only dictated matings, but also compulsory motherhood, including by acting to abort resulting pregnancies. Nowadays, anti-abortion absolutists, like the slave-masters of the past, act to deprive women of their human right to control their own wombs and reproduction; but, instead of the whip, they use: guilt-tripping indoctrination, direct harassment, and legislated obstructions and criminalization. ^[27]

9. Involuntary servitude.

Relevant articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted by the United Nations in 1948) include: “Article 1 – All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”; and “Article 4 – No one shall be held in slavery or servitude”. In addition, most countries have laws prohibiting involuntary servitude. For example, the 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution states “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude […] shall exist within the United States”. Moreover, said Constitution’s 14^th Amendment states “No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens […]”; and its 9^th Amendment (which was ratified in 1791, when anti-abortion laws did not exist in the US, and pre-quickening abortions were common) states “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”.

It is true that the foregoing Amendments were not contemporaneously intended (by the exclusively male enactors) to protect the rights of women, who were then generally subject to the patriarchal authority of their husbands or other male guardians ^[28] as well as subject to forced sexual intercourse (only in recent decades criminalized as marital rape ^[29]) at the whims of their husbands. However, the enactment (in 1920) of the 19^th Amendment, which prohibits denial of voting rights on account of sex, provided equal citizenship rights to women and extended to them, at least in principle, the equal protection of the aforementioned Constitutional rights.

Despite the general acceptance of the foregoing human rights in the abstract; in actual practice, many governments have imposed, by law and/or other means, involuntary servitude upon their women with respect to the reproductive functions of the women’s bodies. In the US, 6 Justices of the US Supreme Court (in 2022) substituted their anti-abortion prejudices for the actual content of the US Constitution with their ruling to permit “states” to impose reproductive bondage upon every woman wanting to terminate her problem pregnancy. As of 2024 July, 14 US “states” had enacted laws which criminalized, with often extreme punishments, virtually all abortions; and several others had imposed such severe restrictions as to largely deny access.

10. Deceitful pretexts.

In order to “justify” legislation which obstructs access to family-planning medications and/or procedures, some anti-reproductive-rights groups deceitfully use false assertions that such obstructions are for the purpose of protecting the women who would use them.

In response to pressure from anti-reproductive-rights politicians, the US government’s Food and Drug Administration [FDA] disregarded (in 2006) its own medical science experts’ recommendation to make the emergency contraceptive pill (which prevents pregnancy when taken within 72 hours after sexual intercourse) available to women under age 18 without prescription. The pretext for this denial of access was a pretended concern for the safety of the young women who would use said emergency contraception. The actual result was 7 years of unnecessary extra costs, burdens, delays, and health risks for affected young women, as well as otherwise avoidable unwanted pregnancies. ^[30]

Other actions purporting to serve women and/or healthcare providers. In the US, even before the (2022) overturning of Roe v. Wade, abortion obstructionists had sometimes obtained “state” legislation imposing such onerous restrictions and burdens upon abortion providers that they were forced to cease operation thereby depriving many women of access. Obstruction was clearly the actual purpose of a failed 2023 lawsuit to severely restrict access to mifepristone, the drug widely used for safe medication abortions.

Although the proponents of such measures have often justified their advocacy with deceitful assertions such as that the purpose of such restrictions was to prevent risk to the life and health of the pregnant woman; in fact, childbirth presents a much greater risk to a woman’s life and health than does abortion performed by a qualified healthcare provider. Statistically, the maternal death rate from childbirth in the US (1998—2005) was 14 times greater than the rate from abortion ^[31].

11. “conscience rights”.

Reproductive rights have also been attacked with laws purporting to recognize a so-called “conscience right” whereby employers and service-providers (licensed pharmacies, religiously-affiliated hospitals and clinics, private universities, and government-funded contract providers of social services) are allowed to opt out of civic mandates to provide access to those reproductive health services which they purport to disapprove upon moral grounds. Case in point, some “state” governments in the US have gone to the extreme of permitting licensed pharmacists to abuse the public trust inherent in their licenses by refusing to provide prescription and non-prescription contraceptives and/or other FDA-approved family planning devices to patients ^[32]. Provision of healthcare services by employers and service providers is, in fact, a component of the social contract between the parties and is (or certainly should be) to satisfy the healthcare needs of the employee or patient or service recipient, not to indulge the employer’s or service provider’s desire to impose its sectarian religious strictures. Under such laws, the rights of affected employees and patients are effectively voided by the entities which have contracted to serve them.

Of course, from a rights perspective, those individuals, who believe that it is immoral to use artificial contraception or to abort a pregnancy, have the right to decide for themselves to refrain from personally engaging in those practices. However, when they arrogate to themselves the prerogative to make that decision for others (whether employees, or patients, or fellow humans); they certainly perpetrate an abusive intrusion into the private lives of those who are thereby deprived of control over their own bodies.

12. Disparate impact. Obstructive measures do not generally prevent affluent women (those with the requisite funds and/or the means to travel to jurisdictions with more liberal policies) from accessing safe and effective abortion services and/or medically-approved contraceptive devices. It is poor women who are either: prevented from obtaining needed abortions and/or contraceptives, or driven to resort to do-it-yourself or other dangerous options.

Noted sources.

[1] Filipovich⸰ Jill: How American women could lose the right to birth control (Time, 2024 May 20) @ https://time.com/6977434/birth-control-contraception-access-griswold-threat/ .

[2] Blakemore⸰ Erin: How U.S. abortion laws went from nonexistent to acrimonious (National Geographic, 2023 Apr 11) @ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/the-complex-early-history-of-abortion-in-the-united-states .

[3] same as [2].

[5] same as [2].

[6] Horwitz⸰ Rainey: The Jane Collective (1969—1973) (Embryo Project Encyclopedia, 2020 Oct 02) @ https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/jane-collective-1969-1973 .

[7] Wikipedia: Buddhism and abortion (2024 Oct 15) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism_and_abortion .

[8] Wikipedia: Hinduism and abortion (2024 Aug 28) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_and_abortion .

[9] Wikipedia: Judaism and abortion (2024 Oct 09) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism_and_abortion .

[10] Wikipedia: Christianity and abortion (2024 Oct 19) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_abortion .

[11] Wikipedia: Islam and abortion (2024 Sep 24) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_abortion .

[12] Wikipedia: Human embryonic development (2024 Oct 25) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_embryonic_development .

[13] Wikipedia: Fetus (2024 Oct 25) ~ § Development in humans @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetus#Development_in_humans .

[14] Wikipedia: Implantation (embryology) (2024 Aug 16) ~ § Implantation failure @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantation_(embryology)#Implantation_failure .

[15] Wikipedia: History of abortion (2024 Oct 01) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion .

[16] Muir⸰ Brianna: An Archaeology of Personhood and Abortion (Sapiens, 2022 Aug 25) @ https://portside.org/2022-08-28/archaeology-personhood-and-abortion .

[17] Wikipedia: Ensoulment (2024 Nov 02) ~ §§ Ancient Greeks, Christianity @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensoulment .

[18] Wikipedia: Beginning of human personhood (2024 Oct 20) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beginning_of_human_personhood .

[19] Planned Parenthood: Abortion is central to the history of reproductive health care in America (© 2024) @ https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/issues/abortion/abortion-central-history-reproductive-health-care-america .

[20] Wikipedia: Catholic Church and abortion (2024 Oct 16) ~ § Early writings @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_abortion#Early_writings .

[21] Rettner⸰ Rachael: Is a ‘fetal heartbeat’ really a heartbeat at 6 weeks? (Live Science, 2021 Sep 01) @ https://www.livescience.com/65501-fetal-heartbeat-at-6-weeks-explained.html .

[22] same as [18].

[23] Howe⸰ Barbara, Kaplan⸰ H Roy, & English⸰ Constance: Repeat abortions: blaming the victim (National Library of Medicine, entity within the National Institutes of Health, 1979 Dec) @ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1619322/ .

[24] Smith⸰ Peter & Meyer⸰ Holly: #Church Too revelations growing, years after movement began (AP, 2022 Jun 12) @ https://www.yahoo.com/news/churchtoo-revelations-growing-years-movement-133243328.html .

[25] Whitaker⸰ Bill: Vatican sent Italian children born out of wedlock to America as orphans (CBS News, 2024 Oct 13) @ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vatican-sent-italian-children-born-out-of-wedlock-to-america-as-orphans-60-minutes-transcript/ .

[26] Wikipedia: Idolatry (2024 Oct 21) ~ § Christianity @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idolatry#Christianity .

[27] Schwartz⸰ Marie Jenkins: Birthing a Slave: Motherhood and Medicine in the Antebellum South (Harvard University Press, © 2006) ~ “Good Breeders” (excerpt in Slate, 2015 Aug 24) @ http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_history_of_american_slavery/2015/08/how_enslaved_women_s_sexual_health_was_contested_in_the_antebellum_south.html .

[28] Wikipedia: Timeline of women’s legal rights in the United States (other than voting) (2019 Sep 29) ~ [excerpts: Married women granted separate economy, first in Maine and Massachusetts (1844); Bradwell v. State of Illinois, SCOTUS ruled that states could deny professional licenses to women (1873); Minor v. Happersett, SCOTUS ruled that states could deny voting right to women citizens (1875); Wyoming Constitution, gave women the right to vote (1890); 19^th Amendment, gave women voting rights throughout the US (1920); Civil Rights Act, prohibited sex discrimination in employment (1964); Griswold v. Connecticut, recognized Constitutional right to privacy (1965); model abortion law (1967); Roe v. Wade (1973)] @ https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timeline_of_women%27s_legal_rights_in_the_United_States_(other_than_voting)&oldid=918605601 .

[29] Wikipedia: Marital rape (2024 Oct 10) ~ §§ History, Legal aspect @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape .

[30] New York Times: F.D.A. Easing Access to Morning After Pill (2009 Apr 22) @ http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/health/23fda.html?_r=1 ; U.S. Drops Bid to Limit Sales of Morning-After Pill (2013 Jun 10) @ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/11/us/in-reversal-obama-to-end-effort-to-restrict-morning-after-pill.html?emc=na&_r=0 .

[31] Raymond⸰ E G & Grimes⸰ D A: The comparative safety of legal induced abortion and childbirth in the United States (NCBI – part of NIH, 2012 Feb) @ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22270271 .

[32] Pharmacy Times: Pharmacists Refusing to Fill Spark National Controversy (2015 Aug 11) @ http://www.pharmacytimes.com/contributor/alex-barker-pharmd/2015/08/pharmacists-refusing-to-fill-spark-national-controversy .

Author: Charles Pierce. Date: 2024 Dec 09, replaces previous report dated 2019 Jul 13.

CP14. “Genocide Joe” and “fascist” Trump: What To Do!

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{published with the hyperlinks retained and the listing of sources omitted @

https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/07/genocide-joe-and-fascist-trump-what-to-do/ }

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“Genocide Joe” and “Fascist” Trump: What to Do!

by Charles Pierce / July 2nd, 2024

Joe Biden and other Democrat politicians portray the 2024 Presidential election as a choice between fascism and democracy. Many avowed “socialists” echo that assertion. Are they correct; or, are they misguided (given that the Party, which they back, is dominated by politicians who primarily serve capital and monstrous empire)?

Palestine. Biden and most Congress people of both parties evade the facts of Israeli persecution of Palestinians. For them: Israeli lives (seen as worthy) matter, Palestinian lives (seen as other) don’t. In fact, the Zionist colonial-settler state (which Biden and nearly all of Congress supports) entitles Jewish Israelis to liberal civil rights such that they generally cannot be imprisoned without a fair hearing in a court of law. Meanwhile, although Biden et al will not acknowledge it, any Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza can be imprisoned and routinely tortured by Israel: for any, or no, reason with no court hearing whatsoever; or, if they do receive a hearing, it is in a kangaroo-style military court where the conviction rate is over 99%. In fact, Palestinians imprisoned by Israel numbered nearly 10,000 at last report. Israelis elect their government; Palestinians are not permitted to do likewise. Moreover, the Palestinian Presidential governing regime in the occupied West Bank (which actually governs only a fifth of that territory, the remainder being under mainly or exclusively Israeli military rule) has not stood for election since 2005 and has become largely a subservient client regime (agent) of the Zionist state. Gaza has been under an increasingly suffocating Israeli economic siege ever since Hamas (defining itself as a Palestinian resistance organization) became its governing authority after fairly winning the last-permitted Palestinian legislative election in 2006. Israel has periodically subjected Gaza to murderous bombardments (sometimes with huge death tolls: 1,400 in 2008 and 2,300 in 2012) in response to rocket attacks which were provoked by preceding ceasefire-breaking Israeli violence (including assassinations of Palestinian resistance leaders). Zionist Israelis can and do rob Palestinians of their homes and properties and/or murder them with impunity. Previously, the Zionist state had used terrorist violence (in 1947—49) to expel 60% of the Palestinian population, bar their return, and confiscate their property.

The US and allied governments have consistently evaded the foregoing reality; and the US has consistently vetoed UN Security Council resolutions seeking to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against Palestinian humanity. It is only the massive public outrage over the current genocidal Israeli mass murder of the overwhelmingly unarmed population of Gaza (only about 2% [40,000] being armed resistance fighters) which has compelled Biden and other liberal Israel-apologists to respond. That response: lip-service concern for the suffering Gazans and token action to provide grossly inadequate humanitarian relief for Gazans dying from lack of food, clean water, proper sanitation, medical supplies, and other essentials for life. While Israel deliberately deprives Gazans of those necessities, the US (President and Congress) and its imperial allies abet the mass killing by providing billions in military aid to Israel. As a staunch defender of the Jewish-supremacist state, Biden (along with most Congress people of both Parties) obviously believes that democracy and rule of law are good for some people and that fascist-like apartheid and genocidal mass murder (until abetting it becomes an electoral liability) are acceptable for others. Biden and most Congressional Democrats, like most Congressional Republicans, operate with an unadmitted racist mindset. (For relevant background facts regarding Zionism, Hamas, and the current war in Gaza, see here!)

[1] Al Jazeera: Occupied and Imprisoned: Palestinian Prisoners | The Full Report (YouTube, 2024 Feb) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbfiZC-VlPA .

[2] Isaac Chotiner: The brutal conditions facing Palestinian prisoners (The New Yorker, 2024 Mar 21) @ https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-brutal-conditions-facing-palestinian-prisoners .

[3] Alice Panepinto & Triestino Mariniello: Settler violence: Israel’s ethnic cleansing plan for the West Bank (Al Jazeera, 2024 Feb 26) @ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/26/settler-violence-israels-ethnic-cleansing-plan-for-the-west-bank .

[4] Charles Pierce: Gaza War: deceptions, distortions, misperceptions. What are the relevant actual facts? (Dissident Voice, 2024 Feb 29) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/02/gaza-war-deceptions-distortions-misperceptions/ .

Immigration. Whereas Trump panders to xenophobic racism, Biden pretends to oppose it.

But Biden summarily deported some 20,000 Haitians in his first year despite the horrific conditions in Haiti and his authority to grant “temporary protective status”. That 20,000 is more than Trump and his 2 predecessors deported in their cumulative 20 years.
Despite his campaign promises to rescind Trump’s racist border policies, Biden largely continued them: first by continuing Trump’s deceitful “title 42” rule, and subsequently by imposing comparable obstructions. Moreover, he backed a bipartisan Senate proposal with immigration and asylum restrictions nearly as onerous as those demanded by MAGA Republicans. Those restrictions would violate international humanitarian law, notwithstanding that the migrants are fleeing the economic and political havoc wreaked by Western imperialism upon the countries from which they come (havoc wreaked thru: invasions, coups, electoral interference, inequitable trade and investment impositions, et cetera). Now Biden has issued an executive order to largely close off entry and effectively deprive migrants of their legal right to apply for asylum.
Biden also continues Trump’s economic sieges which are designed to starve and otherwise punish the peoples of Cuba and Venezuela, actions which also violate international humanitarian law (as well as driving even more international migration).

Evidently, Biden’s humanitarian sympathies are no more than minimally, if at all, better than Trump’s when it comes to Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, and desperate immigrant people of color.

[1] Quixote Center: Biden has deported almost as many Haitians in his first year as the last three presidents – combined (2022 Feb 18) @ https://quixote.org/biden-has-deported-nearly-as-many-haitians-in-his-first-year-as-the-last-three-presidents-combined/ .

[2] Colleen Long: Title 42 has ended. Here’s what it did, and how US immigration policy is changing (AP, 2023 May 12) @ https://apnews.com/article/immigration-biden-border-title-42-mexico-asylum-be4e0b15b27adb9bede87b9bbefb798d .

[3] Ayurella Horn-Muller: Biden’s border restrictions are stranding climate migrants in extreme heat (Grist, 2024 Jun 12) @ https://grist.org/politics/bidens-border-restrictions-are-stranding-climate-migrants-in-extreme-heat/ .

[4] Dario Calvisi: Biden Administration Prolongs Economic Warfare on Cuba (Covert Action Magazine, 2024 Feb 09) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/02/09/biden-administration-prolongs-economic-warfare-on-cuba/ .

[5] Edward Hunt: The U.S. economic war on Venezuela has fueled the migrant crisis (Foreign Policy in Focus, 2023 Jan 18) @ https://fpif.org/the-u-s-economic-war-on-venezuela-has-fueled-the-migrant-crisis/ .

Biden’s antiracism? Let us not forget:

that Biden, pandering to racist white constituents, joined with segregationists in opposition to court ordered bussing for school desegregation; and
that he, finding that Reagan’s tough-on-crime policies were popular with many of his white voters, spent a decade pressing for legislation culminating in the 1994 crime bill which has given the US the world’s largest per capita prison population (which is disproportionately racial minority).

[1] P R Lockhart: Joe Biden’s record on school desegregation bussing, explained (Vox, 2019 Jul 16) @ https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/6/28/18965923/joe-biden-school-desegregation-busing-democratic-primary .

[2] Branko Marcetic: Joe Biden, Mass Incarceration Zealot (Jacobin, 2018 Aug 09) @ https://jacobin.com/2018/08/biden-crime-mass-incarceration-police-prisons .

Voting rights. Red-state Republicans impose restrictions to discourage voter participation by Democrat-favoring segments of the electorate, to marginal effect. Far more consequential, both Democrats and Republicans act to rig elections for partisan advantage: gerrymanders to obtain disproportionate representation in legislative elections, and ballot access rules to exclude third parties and independent candidates from the ballot. Most politicians in both establishment parties rely heavily upon big-money campaign funding, the result (which neither Trump nor Biden will change) being policy largely dictated by capital.

[1] Roger D Harris: Trump/Biden debate immigration: US foreign policy as a driver is ignored (Dissident Voice, 2024 Jun 30) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/06/trump-biden-debate-immigration-us-foreign-policy-as-a-driver-is-ignored/ .

Human rights. Trump panders to bigoted reaction. In red states, Republicans respond by abrogating some human rights: abortion access, LGBTQ+ equality, secular government, diversity-equity-inclusion policies, et cetera. Blue states have responded by enacting laws to protect those rights (which capital often supports as so doing curries favor with much of its workforce and customer base and does not adversely impact its profits). Biden and Congressional Democrats, when they had both houses of Congress, could have precluded most of those bigoted reactionary red-state measures. However, they lacked the will to take decisive action on crucial rights legislation: police accountability, gun regulation, abortion rights, voting rights, removal of rogue Supreme Court Justices, et cetera.

[1] Charles Pierce: How to correct the unconstitutional rulings of the current Supreme Court (Dissident Voice, 2022 Jul 14) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/07/how-to-correct-the-unconstitutional-rulings-of-the-current-supreme-court/ .

Labor rights.

When Democrats (in 2009) had a 60-vote majority in the Senate, they failed to enact the very minimal Employee Free Choice Act to make it a little easier for workers to obtain collective bargaining. Most Congressional Democrats will vote for pro-union legislation; but for many, such votes (which they know will not actually win enactment), are more pretense than real commitment.
As for Biden, he pretends to be pro-labor, but he stopped the rail workers from exercising their right to strike over oppressive attendance requirements and safety violations. Trump would have done no worse.

[1] Communications Workers of America: Employee free choice act – case study (accessed 2024 Jun) @ https://cwa-union.org/pages/employee_free_choice_act_case_study .

[2] Jeff Schuhrke: Here’s how rail workers are fighting on after Biden blocked a national strike (In These Times, 2023 Jan 18) @ https://inthesetimes.com/article/rail-workers-strike-biden-congress-paid-leave .

Environment. Biden pretends to be pro-environment; but he prioritizes those projects (renewable energy projects, electric vehicles) from which capitalists can profit, and he avoids actions to which powerful capitalists object. Moreover, Biden defied the environmental community by acquiesced to pressure from the fossil fuel industry with his approvals of:

drilling on the Willow Project in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve,
the Sea Port Oil Terminal (in Texas) for export of crude oil,
the Mountain Valley fracked-gas pipeline,
US government financing of multiple foreign fossil fuel development projects.

Biden also demands massive military spending plus weapons deliveries to fuel ongoing US-backed wars, both of which add considerably to global warming as well as being extremely wasteful and destructive. Trump’s record and rhetoric are obstructive of calls for transition to climate-friendly energy; but he is opposed: to continued fueling of the Ukraine War, and to US financing of foreign development projects. One must question whether Biden is actually much, if at all, better for the climate than Trump.

[1] Oliver Milman, Nina Lakhani, & Maanvi Singh: Biden approves controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska (The Guardian, 2023 Mar 13) @ https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/13/alaska-willow-project-approved-oil-gas-biden .

[2] Matthew Daly: Environmentalists protest Biden Administration approval of huge oil export terminal off Texas coast (AP, 2024 Apr 11) @ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/environmentalists-protest-biden-administration-approval-of-huge-oil-export-terminal-off-texas-coast .

[3] Allie Rosenbluth: Biden’s fossil fuel hypocrisy is betraying the planet (Al Jazeera, 2023 Jul 30) @ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/7/30/bidens-fossil-fuel-hypocrisy-is-betraying-the-planet .

[4] same as 3.

Abuse of power. Trump, odious demagogue that he is, nevertheless surprised the Democrats by fairly winning the 2016 Presidential election. Disappointed Democrat leaders then acted to discredit Trump’s victory with grossly overblown claims of Russian meddling.

Moreover, in a scheme to discredit his Presidency, Congressional Democrats followed with a purely partisan (and failed) impeachment. They alleged that Trump’s temporary holdup of military aid to Ukraine in order to obtain Ukraine’s investigation of possible corruption involving Hunter Biden (son of the then-VP during the Obama Presidency) was a violation of national security. In fact, temporary holds on Congressionally budgeted military aid had occurred in that prior (Democrat) administration, without anyone calling it criminal. Moreover, Hunter Biden had no special qualification for being on the Board of the Ukrainian Burisma Gas Company, and his appointment thereto was obviously intended to shield said company from being investigated for its corrupt acts. Even though Trump evidently acted from partisan motivations, and even though no evidence of criminality by either Biden was ever discovered; Trump’s request for said investigation was entirely legitimate, and only partisan Democrats would say otherwise.

That abuse by Congressional Democrats provoked Trump (already habituated to violating inconvenient laws as long as he thinks his elite status will grant impunity) to respond in kind. He did so by attempting to subvert the 2020 Presidential election with a scheme to falsify the electoral count, ultimately backed by a seditious riot. [For that act, Trump incurred a second and justified impeachment plus a number of criminal indictments.] Nevertheless, the Democrats, having forgotten the adage “as you sow, so shall you reap”, set the example with their own abuse of power.

[1] Andrew Prokop: A new study says Russian trolls didn’t sway the 2026 election. Was the threat overhyped? (Vox, 2023 Jan 20) @ https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/20/23559214/russia-2016-election-trolls-study-email-hack .

[2] Polina Ivanova, Maria Tsvetkova, Ilya Zhegulev, & Luke Baker: What Hunter Biden did on the board of Ukrainian energy company Burisma (Reuters, 2019 Oct 18) @ https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1WX1P6/ .

Repression. Trump has advocated repression of peaceful Black-lives-matter and other leftist protest. But now liberal power-holders have joined those on the right in using police repression to suppress pro-Palestine campus protests. Politicians of both parties support legislation to criminalize boycott of the Zionist state. They enact laws defining advocacy, of replacing that racist genocidal apartheid state, as “antisemitic” and cause for punitive action. Biden et al, while purporting to defend the right to free speech and peaceful protest, vilify speech and peaceful protest in defense of Palestinian humanity as “disruptive” and “threatening” and therefore criminal. Biden, like Trump, is hardly a real defender of civil liberties when used for causes with which he disagrees.

[1] Julian Epp: Campus protests for Gaza are proliferating – and so is the repression (+972 Magazine, 2024 Apr 26) @ https://www.972mag.com/campus-protests-gaza-us-students/ .

[2] Stephen Zunes: The crackdown on campus protests is a bipartisan strategy to repress pro-Palestine speech (The Progressive, 2024 May 01) @ https://progressive.org/latest/the-crackdown-on-campus-protests-is-a-bipartisan-strategy-to-repress-propalestine-speech-zunes-20240501/ .

Dictatorship? Trump evidently wishes that he could be an autocrat; but, narcissist and opportunist demagogue that he is, Trump is no Hitlerian fanatic. In pursuit of votes, he panders to Zionist Jews and also to Judeophobe racists. He makes campaign appeals to Black or Hispanic audiences one day and to white supremacists the next. He panders to bigotry for political gain, not to create a thousand-year Reich. Trump wants another 4 years in the Presidency so that he can: personally profit from it, boost his ego, and escape accountability for his past and future business and political crimes. It is not his proclivity for abuse of office, but the shameless blatancy with which he does so, which sets him apart.

Despite Trump’s extreme campaign talk, there is no basis for concluding that he would be able to abrogate elections or disband the Congress or abolish the courts, in order to rule by decree. He and his doctrinaire reactionary allies (Federalist Society and Heritage Foundation with its Project 2025 wish list) are seeking control of the 3 branches of the federal government in order, in the name of “freedom”, to “legally” effectuate:

their reactionary culture-war policies to rescind protections for the rights of women and vulnerable minorities (all in deference to a voter base upon which they rely, one which is under the influence of theocrats and bigots); and
their primary objective which is antisocial policy, including capital-friendly tax and regulatory policy (to eliminate constraints upon capitalist freedoms).

They seek to reinterpret the Constitution in accordance with a corruptly inconsistent and reactionary so-called “originalism”, not to abrogate it.

Fascism? Centrist Democrats are asserting that a 2^nd Trump Presidency would result in a fascist autocracy with: extraordinary nullification of Americans’ civil and human rights, and/or all-out repression of the progressive left. In support of this prediction: they erroneously equate MAGA populist reaction to a Hitlerite fascist movement, and they assert that Trump will have learned from the fiasco of his failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election of Joe Biden and be able to seize absolute power. However, for reasons as follows, the factual evidence does not support said prediction.

Definitions, which said liberals neglect to provide, are essential to this analysis. Bigoted populist reaction in control of the state power has occurred historically in 3 forms: (1) anti-liberal fascist autocracy, (2) semi-fascist regime, (3) liberal “democracy” in the grip of regressive reaction.
Under pluralist liberal bourgeois “democracy” (whether under welfare-state social-liberal, centrist, or neoliberal administration); capital rules while multiparty competition provides the illusion of popularly-chosen government. [Note. Marxists, including this author, hold that the abusive rule of capital and the resulting social evils of capitalism cannot be ended thru serial piecemeal reforms but only thru revolutionary conquest and holding of state power by the people (working class and its allies) led by their revolutionary socialist party.]
Populist reactionary regimes (all 3 forms) always serve the capitalist class and depend upon its support or acquiescence for their continuation.
Political conditions, which resulted in the coming to power of fascist autocracies in the 1920s and 1930s, do not now exist in developed Western “democracies”. In the cases of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, and Pinochet, a dominant section of the capitalist class chose to cede control of the state power to the fascist autocracy; because it regarded that as necessary in order to suppress the threat of impending anti-capitalist revolution. No such revolutionary threat exists now; and, absent such threat, most capitalists prefer the liberal pluralist pseudo-democracy, because, with a fascist autocracy, they give over to the unaccountable autocrat their power to largely dictate public policy. After the threat of anti-capitalist revolution has passed; the dominant factions in the capitalist class support the repressed liberals in demanding and obtaining a restoration of the pluralist liberal “democratic” regime (as occurred in Greece [1974], in post-Franco Spain [1975—78], and in Pinochet’s Chile [1990]).
In recent years, parties of regressive reaction (pandering to bigotry and taking advantage of popular discontent with economic and/or other personal-security conditions under government by traditional liberal-democratic parties) have obtained (thru election) governing power in several countries. These include: Orban in Hungary (2010), Law and Justice Party in Poland (2015—23), Bolsonaro in Brazil (2019—23), Meloni in Italy (2022), Milei in Argentina (2023). None of those regimes have abolished elections, although one has tilted the field in favor of the ruling party (a longstanding routine practice in much of the liberal “democratic” US). Opposition parties and media continued to operate freely. Mass popular antigovernment protest rallies could still occur (and did in Hungary, Poland, Brazil, and Argentina). In 2 of those (Brazil and Poland), the reactionary party has lost power in the most recent election.
In political-assassination-riven India, where Modi’s semi-fascist regime has severely persecuted religious minorities, periodic elections are held while opposition parties and media continue to operate normally.
It is in politically unstable countries (such as Erdogan’s coup-prone Turkey) that fascistic leaders have been able: to seize autocratic power, to eviscerate the liberal-democratic civil liberties and freedom for dissent, and to impose exceptionally repressive fascistic regimes. The potential, for any such regime in the US or most of Europe, is currently close to nil.

Centrist Democrats and their liberal “socialist” apologists are promoting a grossly exaggerated fear (fantasizing fascist autocracy and extraordinary repression) as a scare tactic to seduce progressive voters into voting for Biden (or his substitute).

Imperialism.

Trump and his isolationist MAGA Republicans opposed more billions for Biden’s proxy war (using Ukrainians as cannon fodder) against Russia. Trump lacks any firm commitment to the imperial NATO alliance, whereas Biden acts to consolidate its hold upon Europe and to expand its purview to the Asia-Pacific.
But for overwhelming opposition within the bipartisan US foreign policy establishment, then-President Trump may well have negotiated a long overdue peace treaty with North Korea. Biden clearly would never do so.
Trump initiated a trade war with China for purported America-first economic advantage. Biden has continued Trump’s anti-China trade policies; but he also (despite the longstanding US commitment to the one-China principle) threatens a real war, if the independence faction in Taiwan secedes (which Biden and many Congressional Democrats are actually encouraging), and if China then responds with military action to stop it. Trump could be expected to do no worse.
Biden backed the 2003 US regime-change invasion of Iraq and defended the US-NATO military intervention to oust the Gaddafi regime in Libya. Both actions produced failed states and immense suffering (with hundreds of thousands killed) for the peoples of those countries.
In service to the politically powerful war-profiteering arms industry, Biden (and bipartisan majorities in Congress) insist that the US, with a 38% share of all of the world’s military spending compared to Russia’s 3.1%, needs to spend ever more.
Biden backs every US regime-change intervention and aggressive military move in pursuit of US “full-spectrum dominance” of the world. Isolationist Trump does not really care about imperial US alliances; he pursues foreign interventions selectively (where it panders to voter groups whose support he seeks).
Biden and most Congressional Democrats have committed the US to new cold wars against both Russia and China. They worship imperial domination and refuse to accept the need for peaceful coexistence and international cooperation to address the major threats to humanity (threats of: impending climate catastrophe, wars involving states with nuclear weapons, pandemics, famines, et cetera).

[For a comprehensive analysis of contemporary imperialism, see: Charles Pierce:Conflicting “left” views of capitalist imperialism.]

[1] Jonathan Cook: By making China the enemy, NATO is threatening world peace (Dissident Voice, 2022 Jul 13) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/07/by-making-china-the-enemy-nato-is-threatening-world-peace/ .

[2] SIPRI: SIPRI Fact Sheet (2022 Apr) ~ Table 1 @ https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2022-04/fs_2204_milex_2021_0.pdf .

[3] Kevin Liptak, Donald Judd, & Nectar Gan: Biden says US would respond ‘militarily’ if China attacked Taiwan, but White House insists there’s no policy change (CNN, 2022 May 23) @ https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/23/politics/biden-taiwan-china-japan-intl-hnk/index.html .

[4] Monkholmᵒ Johan Lau: The Pursuit of Full-Spectrum Dominance: The Archives of the NSA (Surveillance & Society 18(2), 2020) ~ pp 244—56 @ https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/13266/9304 .

[5] Charles Pierce: Conflicting “left” views of capitalist imperialism (Specter-CP, 2024 Jun) @ https://specter-cp.home.blog/2024/06/08/cp5-conflicting-left-views-of-capitalist-imperialism/ .

Credit where due.

There are some issues wherewith Biden has actually made some relatively progressive difference: many (not all) of his appointments to regulatory bodies, most of his judicial appointments, and some actions on culture-war issues (which are important to progressive voters whose votes Biden needs). From a social justice standpoint, his spending choices are mixed: domestically some beneficial, but overwhelmingly bad in foreign relations.
Trump’s domestic policies were largely detrimental, and his jobs promises were/are mostly illusory. However, isolationist America-first Trump, to his credit, is less thoroughly imperialist than Biden and the centrist Democrats; though Trump may be somewhat more reckless (as exhibited by his decision to assassinate an Iranian General).

Centrist Biden and demagogue Trump may tell themselves, as well as their prospective voters, that their beneficial actions and proposals are out of concern for the public welfare. We should not be deceived. In fact, such actions and promises (increasingly as election nears) are to win votes, without unduly offending capitalist campaign funders.

[1] BBC: Qasem Soleimani: US strike on Iranian general was unlawful, UN expert says (2020 Jul 09) @ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53345885 .

America first leftism. The regress which Americans would experience under another 4 years of Trump in the Oval Office is nowhere near the total deprivation of civil and human rights which Israel and the US (continuing under Biden) have imposed upon the Palestinians. And there are hundreds of millions of other victims whose lives have been taken or ruined by the Biden-backed imperial US foreign policy. Meanwhile, Trump has opposed continued US funding for the US-NATO proxy war in Ukraine. Although Trump and his isolationist America-first MAGA Republicans are certainly not consistently anti-imperialist; they, unlike Biden and his centrist Democrats, take some positions which are objectively antiwar and anti-imperialist. Sadly, with avowed “socialists” shelving anti-imperialism to back Biden for the sake of purely domestic political concerns; said “socialists” thereby embrace an “America-first” policy of their own, one which is objectively racist and imperialist. Moreover, the abusive rule of capital cannot be ended in a major power as long as it rules a belligerent empire, oppressing vulnerable other states and their peoples, and striving to subjugate insubordinate states.

Bigoted reaction. After decades of center-left parties (Labour in Britain, Socialist in France, Social-democrat in Germany, Democrat in US, et cetera) embracing antisocial neoliberal policy; economic conditions for most working people have stagnated or worsened (housing unaffordability and increased homelessness, employment precarity and persistence of poverty, inflation exceeding wage increases, et cetera). Said parties have effectively abandoned their previous popular constituencies. Consequently, antisocial reactionary parties, led by demagogues pandering to latent bigoted prejudices and scapegoating immigrants and othered minorities, have increasingly seduced much of the now discontented populace. Meanwhile, instead of demanding return to popular Keynesian policies which actually served working people to some extent (at some tolerable cost to capital), centrist politicians cry “fascist” and assert that they will save “democracy” from an alleged threat of impending autocracy. As that anti-fascist appeal increasingly loses traction, they defensively embrace some of the inhumane policy demands of the reaction, especially against politically powerless victim groups such as immigrants.

Lesser-evil-ism. Liberal “socialists” are habituated to giving electoral allegiance to the thoroughly imperialist center-left party in hopes of saving domestic reforms, previously extracted (by popular pressure) from capital. They embrace a policy of electoral lesser-evil-ism. As a means for stopping the rise of bigoted reaction, this policy has been an absolute failure. It results in the center-left becoming ever weaker while antisocial bigoted reaction grows ever more potent, and progressive reforms previously conceded by capital are increasingly nullified. As the adage goes: repeating the same failed action, and expecting a different outcome, is an insanity. With avowed “socialists” and avowed “anti-imperialists” having backed capital-serving imperialist center-left parties for decades, their “left” has sunk ever deeper into the sinkhole of lesser-evil-ism. And in every succeeding election, it becomes yet more painful, and more urgent, for the progressive left to climb out of that sinkhole.

What to do. Whether Trump again or another 4 years of Biden, neither is an acceptable choice. Reliance upon centrist Democrat politicians is a recipe for failure. It enables said Democrats to mislead and cynically use social-justice voters while persisting with their policies of militarism, imperialism, supremacy of capital, and political perfidy, and yet remain largely ineffective against MAGA-Republican abuses and obstructions.

The popular front against fascism (then the most vicious oppressor and most dangerous threat against the left) was appropriate in the 1930s. Replicating it in the very different current conditions would be allying with the world’s current principal enemy of social justice, namely US-led Western imperialism. Our real need is not for a “broad popular front against MAGA fascism” (which would mean campaigning for “Genocide Joe” and US imperialism). Our real need is to build our indivisible social-justice activist movement for: economic justice, environmental justice, human rights, civil rights, and international justice. Said movement must be one which is truly independent of both major US Parties:

one which does not give its allegiance to the Democratic Party;
one which allies with Democrat politicians only when and insofar as they actually act for social justice;
one which backs their election only selectively and for sound tactical reasons (such as to deny Trump a Congressional Republican majority in the House);
one which backs actual pro-social-justice challengers, beginning in primary elections, and an actual progressive (such as Jill Stein) for commander-in-chief;
one which does not abandon anti-imperialism and international solidarity with the victims of Western imperialism in order to pursue limited domestic reforms (often to be unenforced or otherwise later nullified);
one demanding people-power reforms (in preference to the limited ameliorative measures favored by left liberals), people-power capable of seriously challenging the abuses perpetrated by capital and its agents (whether business firms, neoliberal ideologues, reactionary demagogues, MAGA Republicans, or perfidious and unreliable Democrats).

Biden, at least as much as Trump, is a racist promoter of mass murder. Neither is capable of actually earning the votes of people seeking comprehensive social justice. Unless we (like Biden and most Congressional Democrats) devalue the humanity and lives of Palestinians, Haitians, Venezuelans, et cetera; how can we accept liberal “left” assertions, that Biden (or his substitute) is any savior of humanity and democracy and must therefore be reelected?

Charles Pierce is a social-justice activist (since his youth in the early 1960s), a former/retired labor activist (union steward & local officer), and currently a researcher and writer on history and politics. He can be reached at cpbolshi@gmail.com. Read other articles by Charles, or visit Charles’s website.

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CP11. How to correct the … Supreme Court.

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{Published by DV (2020 Jul 14) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/07/how-to-correct-the-unconstitutional-rulings-of-the-current-supreme-court/ .}

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How to Correct the Unconstitutional Rulings of the Current Supreme Court

by Charles Pierce / July 14th, 2022

OPTIONS. There are three means by which the unconstitutional rulings by the current Supreme Court could be lawfully corrected: (1) thru new legislation, or (2) & (3) thru changing the composition of the Court (either by adding 4 addition Judges or by removing and replacing the rogue Judges) followed by obtaining reconsideration of said rulings by the reconstituted Court.

(1) Corrective legislation is currently not achievable because the Senate majority is unable to muster the unity and will to reform the filibuster. Moreover, even if the Supreme Court’s rogue rulings were reversed by legislation; there is a strong possibility that said Court would nullify said legislation thereby bringing the effort to naught.

(2) Expanding the Court could only provide temporary protection against future rogue rulings, because future Republican control of the Senate and Presidency (a likely event after the 2024 election) could further expand the Court to restore a rogue-Judge majority.

(3) “Remove and replace” would maintain the current size of the Court, make it more difficult for Republicans to restore domination by rogue Judges, and provide more legitimacy for the reconstituted Court than the other option for reconstituting it. Consequently, “remove and replace” is the best option.

REMOVALS. The Constitution states and/or implies the procedures for removals of federal government office-holders as follows.

1. The Constitution explicitly provides two different procedures for removing misbehaving office-holders: one applicable to the legislative branch (Congress), and another applicable to Executive-branch office-holders (and possibly Judges) who have committed specified crimes. It does not explicitly provide a procedure or procedures for removals of office-holders in the Executive and Judicial branches in cases of noncriminal misbehavior (or other dissatisfaction with their performance); however, procedures in those cases are implicit in the Constitution.

2. Pursuant to Article I, section 5, removal (for cause) of a member of Congress is thru expulsion by a 2/3 vote by the membership in the targeted member’s legislative chamber.

3. Pursuant to Article II, section 4, the procedure for removal of “President, Vice President, and all civil Officers”, in cases of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, is by impeachment (pursuant to Article I, section 2, [2]) by majority vote in the House of Representatives and conviction (pursuant to Article I, section 3, [6]) by 2/3 vote in the Senate.

4. It is implicit that the President and Vice President, as office-holders elected by and accountable to the electorate, cannot be removed except thru the aforementioned impeachment process or defeat in the next quadrennial election. (The President can be suspended, but not removed, pursuant to procedures provided in the 25th Amendment.)

5. Pursuant to Article III, section 1, Judges “shall hold their Offices during good Behavior”. Although not explicitly stated, it is clearly implied that Judges shall be removed upon engaging in bad behavior. Article III does not state a procedure for such removal. Therefore, that procedure or procedures must be ascertained by logical inference from what is stated elsewhere in the Constitution.

6. Officials appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate, as unelected appointees, can be (and have been) removed: by means other than the impeachment procedure, and for reasons other than the crimes specified in Article II, section 4. That procedure is implicitly inferred by the procedure thru which they are appointed.

7. Pursuant to Article II, section 2, the appointment procedure (with respect to “Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges […], and all other Officers […]”) is thru nomination and appointment by the President “with the Advice and Consent” (by majority vote) “of the Senate”. In the absence of any stated procedure for the removal of Presidential appointees for cause other than the crimes specified in Article II, section 4; by inference, the procedure for removals of said appointees must be thru reversal of the appointment procedure. Consequently, two removal procedures are Constitutionally applicable for Presidential appointees.

For removals in cases of “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”, the impeachment procedure, which does not require consent of the President, certainly may be utilized.
For removals in cases wherein the impeachment procedure is inapplicable (as with non-criminal misbehavior) or is not preferred for other reasons, the logical inference is that said procedure should be a reversal of the appointment procedure, which is to say by proposal of the President with consent (by majority vote) in the Senate.

8. Legality. Historically, the power of the President to remove Presidential appointees has been an issue in controversy.

Congress, in the Tenure of Office Act (1867) and in an 1876 Act specific to postmasters, required Senate approval for the President to remove Senate-approved Executive branch Officials. However, the Supreme Court (in a split decision with 3 dissents) ruled, in Myers v. United States (1926), that the President may unilaterally remove Executive Branch Officers sans Senate consent. Subsequently, in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the Court narrowed that ruling so that Officials occupying quasi-legislative and quasi-judicial positions could be removed only thru procedures set by Congress, thereby limiting the President’s power to unilaterally remove Senate-approved Officials to those who are directly subordinate to the President.
Because Judges serve in a separate and independent branch of government (established by Article III); it is implicit, and has always been accepted, that the President lacks the power to unilaterally remove them. However, it is entirely consistent with the Constitution, to recognize the power of the first two branches (Legislative and Executive) to hold Judges accountable to their oaths (required by Article VI) by removing misbehaving Judges thru Presidential proposal with consent of the Senate. It makes no sense to require a 2/3 Senate vote to remove a misbehaving Judge when a mere majority is sufficient to appoint said Judge. Could the Courts rule such removal procedure unlawful? Because of their conflict of interest, the Courts would lack standing to decide the issue. Consequently, the power to make the removal of Judges, thru Presidential proposal and consent of the Senate, procedurally operational rests with the President and Senate.

9. Noncriminal misbehavior is neither covered by Article II, section 4 nor explicitly addressed elsewhere in the Constitution. Cases wherein such misbehavior would justify removal of a Judge (upon proposal by the President and with the consent of the Senate), includes judicial rulings by which a Judge substitutes his/her personal prejudices and preferences for the actual provisions of the Constitution and/or other valid laws, that is to say cases wherein the Judge abuses his/her power and thereby violates his/her oath (Article VI) by engaging in “judicial activism” and “legislating from the bench”.

RULINGS IN NEED OF CORRECTION. Rogue Judges on the current Supreme Court have perpetrated multiple rulings which violate their oaths to rule in accordance with the actual content of the Constitution and other valid laws. Some examples, far short of a complete list.

1. Using the “major question” pretext, six Supreme Court Judges, in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), nullified public interest regulations clearly authorized by statute, namely with respect to the regulation of climate-harming power-plant CO2 emissions. Said Judges “justified” so doing with the implausible assertion that the relevant statute is insufficiently specific in granting, to the regulatory agency, the power to make such regulation.

2. Using an inherently arbitrary and abuse-prone “originalism”, five Supreme Court Judges are cherry-picking historical events in order to create their pretext for nullifying civil and human rights, rights explicitly and/or implicitly provided by the Constitution. Case in point, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), said Judges ignored the historical fact that abortion prior to quickening (4 months) was a right accepted, allowed, and commonly practiced by women at the time of enactment of the Constitution and its 9th Amendment which implicitly prohibits state action to “deny” unenumerated “rights” “retained by the people”. Moreover, in permitting states to impose reproductive bondage upon pregnant women by compelling them to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, said Judges ignored the 13th Amendment prohibition against “involuntary servitude” and the 14th Amendment prohibitions which disallow any law which would “abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens” or “deprive any person of […] liberty […] without due process of law”. Even if, as the rogue Judges assert, the foregoing Amendments, when enacted, were not intended to protect the rights of women; certainly, the enactment of the 19th Amendment, which provides for women to be full citizens, extended the protections in those Amendments to women.

3. Using an arbitrary and implausible presumption of state-legislature innocence in their partisan and racially discriminatory redistricting decisions despite their histories of abuse, five Supreme Court Judges ruled, in Abbott v. Perez (2018), that anti-democracy gerrymanders, which give voters of one political Party and/or race disproportionate political power, in violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and of the 14th Amendment prohibition against denial of “the equal protection of the laws”, cannot be nullified by the federal Courts.

4. Using a concocted extension of 1st Amendment rights (free speech and religious liberty) to business corporations to which the Constitution never intended said rights to apply; rogue Supreme Court Judges, in accordance with their pro-business and religious biases, nullified valid regulatory laws thereby violating Article I, section 8 which gives Congress the power to “regulate Commerce”, a power which must be construed in accordance with the relevant purpose of the Constitution as stated in its Preamble, namely “to promote the general Welfare”. Said corporations, the existence of which is nowhere acknowledged in the Constitution, are artificial entities which exist only thru the granting of their Charters. Said Charters are granted by the state and specify the powers and purposes of said corporate entities. Those specified purposes involve commerce; they do not include voting or religious activity, activities in which only human persons can engage. Moreover, it is implicit that the owners of said corporations, being shielded from liability for the wrongful acts of said entities, have no right to extend personal rights (free speech and religious liberty) to said entities. Cases in point: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) which gives corporations unlimited campaign-spending political speech, and Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., which permits some corporations to claim religious objection in order to refuse compliance with a legally valid healthcare mandate to provide specified healthcare benefits for their employees. Said Judges purport to being “originalists” when it comes to depriving people of rights actually provided by the Constitution, but not when creating, for corporations, rights which do not exist for them in said Constitution.

5. It is not only in recent history that Supreme Court Judges have made rulings wherein they substituted their personal prejudices for the Constitution. Notorious past examples include: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decided 7 to 1, Buck v. Bell (1927) decided 8 to 1, and Dennis v. United States (1951) decided 6 to 2. In those cases, victims and Constitutionalists lacked the political power to overcome the consequent injustices. Currently, the Democrats, who purport to oppose the abuses of judicial power by the current six Republican appointees to the Court, control the Presidency and possess the power to rule both chambers of the Congress. Consequently, if they can muster the unity and the will, they possess the power (the filibuster being inapplicable to appointments of Judges) to remove and replace those rogue Judges and then obtain reconsiderations on the Court’s wrongful rulings.

WHAT TO DO. In order to correct the anti-democratic abuses perpetrated by the Republican-appointees on the Court, it will be necessary for activists to think outside the box and to induce the Democrats to take bold action.

1. Necessary measures.

(1) Organize a broad coalition (of the many constituencies harmed by the Court’s various unconstitutional rulings) to stage massively huge protest rallies to demand the removal and replacement of the rogue Supreme Court Judges (mass protest actions which should be achievable given the widespread popular outrage over said Supreme Court rulings).

(2) Persuade Senate Democrats to depoliticize federal Court appointments: by creating a Federal Judicial Commission (as described in 2 below) to make recommendations for appointments and removals of federal Judges.

(3) Persuade the President and Senate Democrats to then use said Commission to remove and replace the misbehaving Supreme Court Judges.

(4) Persuade the reconstituted Court to reconsider and reverse the wrongful rulings of the current rogue Judges (most urgently in West Virginia, Dobbs, and Abbott).

(5) If predominantly Republican gerrymanders cannot be reversed before the 2022 Congressional elections, induce Democrats in the House to refuse to seat as many of the elected Republicans as are disproportionately elected due to their unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders and to order their states’ elections to be repeated with newly drawn districts which are compliant with the VRA and the 14th Amendment, districts to be drawn so as to produce representation proportional to each party’s share of the statewide vote).

None of the foregoing actions require abolishing or reforming the Senate filibuster. At least two Democrat Senators refuse to even reform the filibuster so as to prevent its use against legislation to enforce human and civil rights provided by the Constitution; they evidently delude themselves that Senator McConnell and his Republicans will preserve it when it stands in their way when they regain a Senate majority (which is very likely if Democrats continue to fail to deliver for their base constituencies).

2. The proposed Federal Judicial Commission should be formed as follows.

Said Commission will be composed of a set number of independent Constitutional law experts, possibly to be recommended by an appropriate body to be established by the American Bar Association [ABA]. It will be the responsibility of the Senate, probably in consultation with the ABA, to create said Commission.
Said Commission will select and maintain a sufficient panel of qualified candidates for appointment as federal Judges, a panel from which the President would be required to select his appointees to Judicial vacancies. (The President, as well as Senators, could, of course, propose candidates for consideration by the Commission.) Only candidates, who satisfy the following criteria, will be deemed qualified. (1) They must be genuinely committed to uphold all of the human and civil rights (including unenumerated rights) provided to humans by the Constitution. (2) They must be committed to interpret the Constitution: beginning with the text, but recognizing that deviations from the text will be necessary in contemporary circumstances which the framers did not anticipate, insofar as their current counterparts would reasonably be expected to modify said text as appropriate in order to serve the purposes of the Constitution as stated in its Preamble and in its provisions of civil and human rights.
The Senate will adopt rules: that it may not consider any Judgeship nominee who has not been vetted and approved by the Commission, and that it will provide prompt consideration and decision with respect to any properly vetted Presidential nominee.
Whenever a credible complaint of misbehavior by a sitting Judge is presented to the Commission, it will investigate and make a finding. If it finds, after providing the accused Judge with an opportunity to answer the pertinent accusations, that the accused Judge is guilty of misbehavior justifying removal; it will recommend that action. Thereupon, the President, will be expected (though not Constitutionally required) to propose to the Senate that the subject Judge be removed. If the Senate concurs, said Judge will then be removed.

3. What if removed Judges or their supporters resist? Then the President, as Commander-in-Chief in control of the coercive state power, can and must employ that power to induce compliance. Mass protest rallies in support of the foregoing “remove and replace” option will make it much easier to effectuate it.

4. With their bold campaign promises, and with their incapacity and failure to deliver, and with their longstanding subservience to big-money special interests to the detriment of much of their disheartened base constituencies; Biden and his Democrats, as it stands currently, are likely to lose their potential to control the federal government, in the upcoming 2022 and 2024 elections. Moreover, they appear oblivious to the adage “use it or lose it”. Trump Republicans, where they control government, exhibit no such hesitation. With their current policies and given the near-certain 2022 election outcome (Democrat loss of its House majority and doubt as their holding their ineffective majority in the Senate), the Democrats have everything to gain and nothing to lose by taking the bold action proposed herein.

5. Given how weak-willed and faint-hearted so many Democrat politicians are, persuading them to take the bold action, which is necessary, may be a long shot. That could be the case with respect to the any of the aforementioned three options. Nevertheless, for progressive activists not to demand and seriously press for bold action is not an acceptable option.

Charles Pierce is a social-justice activist (since his youth in the early 1960s), a former/retired labor activist (union steward & local officer), and currently a researcher and writer on history and politics. He can be reached at tcarylzp@gmail.com. Read other articles by Charles, or visit Charles’s website.

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CP10. Gaza War (2023–24): relevant actual facts.

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{A previous version of this report was published as follows:

Charles Pierce: Gaza War: Deceptions, Distortions, Misperceptions. What are the relevant actual facts? (DV, 2024 Feb 29) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/02/gaza-war-deceptions-distortions-misperceptions/ .
Charles Pierce: Gaza War: Deceptions, Distortions, Misperceptions. What are the Relevant Actual Facts? (DV, 2024 Feb 29) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2024/03/29/gaza-war-deceptions-distortions-misperceptions-what-are-the-relevant-actual-facts/ .}

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Gaza War: Palestine, Zionism, imperialism, Hamas, previous wars, atrocities. What are the relevant actual facts?

by Charles Pierce 2024 Apr 29.

CONTENTS:

ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT.
HAMAS.
GAZA WARS.
ATROCITIES?
CONCLUSIONS.
NOTED SOURCES.

Responses to the current violence in, and from, Gaza vary as follows.

Israeli leaders, much of the Israeli public, and Zionists in the West, thirsting for vengeance, call for genocidal mass murder and/or wholesale ethnic cleansing operations against the people of Gaza.
Israel’s Western imperial allies (US et al): evade the actual causes (Palestinian grievances for which peaceful appeals for redress invariably go unanswered); condemn all resorts to violent resistance by the long-persecuted Palestinians; and side with their oppressing Israeli ally against its Palestinian and other victims.
Many liberal leftists, evidently obsessive to distance themselves from all US-and-allies-designated “terrorists” and other alleged enemies of “democracy”, always preface any condemnation of Israeli crimes against the Palestinians with an absolute condemnation of the October 07 attack against Israel by resistance forces in Gaza. Thusly, they join the imperialists in purveying a false moral equivalence between the violence of the oppressed and that of their oppressor.
A very few partisans of the Palestinian cause have asserted that all Israeli suffering from the October 07 attack by Gaza resistance fighters was deserved, thereby exhibiting a lack of recognition and empathy for the innocent victims thereof. In fact, innocent victims are generally inevitable in war, even in just and necessary wars, but nevertheless deserving of sympathetic recognition.
Consistent activists for social justice: condemn the Zionist persecution of the Palestinian people; acknowledge the right of the oppressed to resist, including by violent means when left with no viable alternative; acknowledge obvious faults and mistakes in the resistance forces; and sympathize with all innocent victims, whether deliberately targeted or unavoidably caught in the crossfire.

Unfortunately, after decades of racist distortions by Zionists and allied imperial Western states, and given hard-to-avoid reliance upon a dominant and biased Western mainstream media; even consistent supporters of the Palestinian cause sometimes take, as fact, notions which have become generally accepted as “true” (unaware that critical investigation may disprove it). Consequently, mistakes can occur when there is rush to judgment and publication without questioning and scrutinizing so as to ascertain what are the relevant actual facts.

ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT. The current Gaza War can be fully and accurately understood only when placed in the context of Jewish and Palestinian history.

Defining Palestine. Prior to the 16^th century BCE, the territory on the eastern edge of the Mediterranean was populated by small Canaanite city-states. In the 10^th and 9^th centuries BCE, 3 small kingdoms (Israel, Judah, and Philistia) occupied the territory south of the Lebanon. From the Assyrian conquest (BCE 8^th century) until CE 1917 the territory was nearly always under the rule of a succession of tributary empires, the Ottoman being the last of those. Throughout those centuries, various episodes of oppression and revolt, as well as opportunities in other places, resulted in a large Judean/Jewish diaspora. After the Roman Empire made trinitarian Christianity the established religion (CE 4^th century), the population in Palestine began increasingly to convert (from Judaism, Samaritanism, paganism, other forms of Christianity, et cetera) to the established faith. Similarly, following conquest by the first Islamic empire, the population gradually began converting to Islam, until it was more than 80% Muslim by mid-19^th century. Imperial Britain, which conquered the country in 1917, was given a League of Nations Mandate over Palestine, specifically defined as the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Since then, the term “Palestine”, despite Zionist objections (that a larger expanse of land is rightfully theirs or alternatively that there is no such country as Palestine and no such people as “Palestinians”), has generally meant the Mandate territory “from the river to the sea”.

“Jewish problem”? European Jews had experienced centuries of persecution (segregation into ghettos, abusive impositions, and pogroms) under medieval Christian European autocracies. In the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, Jewish activists responded to the most recent pogroms and other persecutions in two opposing ways: whereas anti-racist secularists (liberal democrats and socialists) strove, along with likeminded gentiles, for equal rights for Jews in their home countries; Zionists, defining Jewish presence in gentile countries as a “Jewish problem” [1], embraced a racial conception of Jews and refused to do so [2]. They sought instead to remove Europe’s Jews to colonial settlements in Palestine where they intended to eventually displace the indigenous population in order to establish a “Jewish state” [3].

Resistance to Judeophobia? Until the Axis War (1939—45), Zionist organizations routinely colluded with Judeophobe governments (including Nazi Germany) in facilitating Jewish removal (with preference for emigration to Palestine) [4]. Moreover, in the face of extreme persecution in Nazi Germany (1933—39), the Zionist Organization (formed in 1897) discouraged efforts, as at the Évian Conference (1938), to obtain refuges for persecuted European Jews in countries (United States, Canada, Australia, Latin America, et cetera) other than Palestine.

Jewish-Arab conflict. Unlike in much of Europe, Palestinian Jews (about 4% of the population in 1880) lived amicably with their Muslim and Christian neighbors until the in-migration of European Zionist colonizers in the early 20^th century. Zionist settlement was sponsored by some European and American Jewish capitalists who provided money for land acquisitions (generally from absentee landlords who owned most of the arable land). The Zionists then evicted the indigenous Arab tenant farmers thereby violating the traditional rights of the latter. Moreover, the Zionist sponsoring organization (Jewish Agency) and its landholding body (Jewish National Fund) required that Jewish employers hire only Jews and prohibited the sale of any Jewish-owned land to Arabs. Such racial discrimination was standard practice within the Zionist settlements; and it quite predictably provoked Palestinian Arab resentment against the Zionist settlers. [See UNISPAL: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917—1947 (Part I) ~ §§ V & VI].

Imperialism. After other colonialist powers had turned down Zionist applications; imperial Britain decided, with its Balfour Declaration (in 1917), to sponsor the Zionist project of establishing a European Jewish colonial settler state in Palestine [5]. Britain visualized said state as developing into a useful protectorate [UNISPAL: The Origins … (Part I) ~ § II] thru which to project British imperial and commercial power over a part of the world in which British capital and empire were already heavily invested (notably in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company [now BP Inc.], Shell Oil, and the Suez Canal).

Democratic governance denied. Throughout its (1917—48) rule over Palestine, Britain, deferred to the Zionists by refusing to meet its obligations (pursuant to Article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant), which required the Mandatory power to respect the wishes of the country’s population and to prepare said country for independence by establishing a democratically-elected representative governing body [UNISPAL: The Origins … (Part I) ~ §§ IV—IX]. Why? Because such body would undoubtedly have opposed continued moves to transform Palestine into a Zionist nation-state and would have demanded an end to: unconstrained Zionist immigration, Zionist land acquisitions, evictions of Arab tenant farmers, and racially discriminatory employment practices.

Revolt. Throughout its first nearly 2 decades of colonial rule, Britain refused any consideration of mostly peaceful appeals and protests for redress of the foregoing Palestinian grievances. When Palestinians finally lost patience and revolted (1936—39); Britain armed, trained, and used Zionist militias to help put down said revolt with massively murderous violent repression, killing thousands of Palestinian Arabs. Said militias would be constituted, in 1948, as the Israeli army.

Partition [UNISPAL: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917—1947 (Part II) ~ §§ I—IV]. The then 57-member United Nations [UN], dominated by mostly European and American states ruled by white and/or Eurocentric* elites, proposed (in 1947) a partition of Palestine (then with a population 32% Jewish and 68% Arab) such that: a “Jewish state” would have 55% of the territory, a Palestinian Arab state would have 42%, and 3% around Jerusalem would be under UN administration. Moreover, the “Jewish state” was to rule over a huge Arab minority (more than 40% of Palestinian Arabs), while the “Arab state” would have almost no Jews. Representative democracy was evidently deemed unacceptable where Arabs were the majority, but acceptable where Jews (mostly recent immigrant colonists from Europe) were the majority. [* Note. Although most Latin American countries’ populations were majority non-white (indigenous, mestizo, et cetera); their ruling elites belonged to racial groups (white and/or mestizo) which identified with their European ethnic heritage.]

Nakba [UNISPAL: The Origins … (Part II) ~ § V]. The Zionist militias waged a terrorist war of conquest thru which they: massacred peaceful Palestinian villagers, seized and annexed (1947—49) half of the territory allocated by the UN for the Palestinian Arab state, and forcibly expelled over 80% of the Palestinians (directly and/or thru terrorist threat) from territory which came under Israeli control. Four Arab states intervened militarily with mostly ill-trained and poorly-equipped military forces in ineffectual defense of the Palestinians. The Zionist state confiscated: all of the properties of the expelled Palestinians (whom it barred from returning) and nearly 40% of the landholdings of the Palestinians who remained in its territory. It also subjected the latter to repressive military rule for the next 18 years [6].

Later conquests. Israel, in secret conspiratorial alliance with France and Britain, launched a surprise war of conquest (1956); but US pressure forced it to give up its conquests (Gaza and Sinai) and to abort its planned seizure of the West Bank and southern Lebanon. In its 2^nd surprise war of conquest (1967), US acquiescence allowed Israel to seize and retain much the same territories which it had wanted to annex in 1956. Subsequent Israeli rule (over Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Syria’s Golan, and Lebanon’s Sheba’a Farms) since 1967 has subjected their Arab populations to persistent violations of their human rights, continuing to the present day.

Subsequent aggressions. Murderous Israeli aggressions against its neighbors (especially Syria and Lebanon) persist until the present day. In addition to repeated violations of territory, said aggressions include multiple large-scale military invasions of Lebanon. These included using a false allegation, of PLO involvement in an assassination attempt on an Israeli ambassador, as pretext for invasion and occupation (1982) of 40% of Lebanon in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to impose a subservient client regime. Death toll: Arabs (Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians) 14,000 to 19,000 (mostly civilians); Israelis fewer than 400 (mostly soldiers). Israel made partial withdrawals until 1985, but (despite most Palestinian resistance forces having been removed (in 1982) it occupied a swath of southern Lebanon until persistent armed Lebanese resistance (by Hezbollah, Amal, and units of the Lebanese Army) induced its withdrawal (in 2000).

Holocaust weaponized. Ever since the Axis War (1939—45), Zionists and their supporters have manipulated popular sympathy for the Jewish victims of the European holocaust in order to obtain support for Zionism. They speak as though Jews were nearly the only victims of the deliberate Nazi mass murder (systematic mass killing plus intentional starvation programs in occupied territory and POW camps). In fact, the actual death toll was more than 17 million (at least 11 million Slavs, some 5.9 million Jews, and probably more than 250,000 Romani). Zionists and supporters insist that the world must atone for the genocide of the six million Jews by granting them Palestine for a “Jewish state”; but they evade the fact that justice would require any such territorial compensation to be borne by Christian Europe, which perpetrated and/or permitted the genocide, not by the Palestinian Arabs, who had no part in it.

Antisemitism? Zionists and their supporters routinely attempt to silence opponents of Zionism and critics of Israeli crimes against humanity by smearing said critics as purveyors of “antisemitism”, the word which Zionists and their allies use exclusively to mean Judeophobia (hatred of Jews), even though the Arab victims of Zionism are also Semitic in language and ancestral origin. When their critics are Jewish, as many are; Zionists routinely disparage and dismiss them as “self-hating Jews”. As Zionists obsessively smear their anti-racist critics, they generally give much less attention to actual Judeophobes. With growing popular opposition to Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, states abetting those crimes have increasingly enacted laws criminalizing free-speech activities in support of said Palestinians. Those enactments include: prohibitions against boycott and divestment [BDS] participation; and laws defining opposition to Zionism as “antisemitism”, using the Zionist IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition which includes, as “antisemitism”, opposition to the existence of Israel as a Jewish supremacist state.

HAMAS. Israel, its Western allies, and their mainstream media portray Hamas as a “genocidal” “terrorist” organization. Relevant actual facts, listed below, mostly go unreported, distorted, or falsified.

Origin. Hamas originated (1987) in Palestine as a transformation of Mujama al-Islamiya, which had been formed (1973) as a Palestinian affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas, unlike the Brotherhood, embraced a Palestinian national liberationist political orientation.

Governance doctrine. Like the Brotherhood, Mujama al-Islamiya adhered to a Salafist (patriarchal and theocratic) approach to governance; whereas a majority of Palestinians preferred the progressive secularism of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]. However, Western alliance and Israeli motivations for condemning Hamas have nothing to do with its Salafist leanings; they are solely on account of its militant resistance to Zionist oppression of the Palestinians. In fact, Western supporters of Israel make no complaints where autocratic Arab states (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar), allied to the West, impose patriarchal and theocratic policies similar to those embraced in Brotherhood doctrine. It must be noted that Hamas’ doctrine and actual practice (since obtaining governing power) have been inconsistent. For example, in Gaza, a local faction (along with some rival Islamist groups), has periodically attempted to impose the Brotherhood interpretation of sharia law (including hijab) thru religious coercions and persecutions, in defiance of the contrary policy prescribed by Hamas’ more permissive leadership. In fact, said leadership (though still embracing widely-held patriarchal views on the role of women) has not decreed any such imposition.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad [PIJ]. Most commentators make no effort to recognize the differences between PIJ and Hamas. PIJ (founded 1981) is, unlike Hamas, a purely anti-colonial and anti-imperialist Palestinian national-liberation organization. Whereas Hamas is a multifaceted (political, religious, and social-welfare) movement; PIJ is strictly an organization of revolutionary activists. PIJ, in contradistinction to the theocratic faction in Hamas, has no interest in Islamist religious impositions; it is “Islamist” only in that it embraces the Islamic principle of struggle (jihad) against injustice. As national liberation organizations, Hamas and PIJ, though their doctrinal and strategic visions diverge, largely cooperate in the common struggle against Israeli oppression.

Muslim Brotherhood versus PLO. Gaza (along with the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Syria’s Golan, and Lebanon’s Sheba’a Farms) had been, and remain, under repressive Israeli occupation since Israel’s 1967 war of conquest. From its founding, Mujama al-Islamiya (as a Salafi Islamist organization) competed with the secular PLO for support among Palestinians, and their competition sometimes erupted into violent clashes. Israel exploited that antagonism by enabling the activities of the Islamist organization as an alternative to the far-more-popular PLO which then represented the militant Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation and persecution.

Intifada [Arabic for “uprising”]. Ongoing Israeli repression (land seizures for illegal settlements, arbitrary detentions, torture of detainees, days-long curfews, indiscriminate killings, deportations, home demolitions, et cetera) provoked a spontaneous mass resistance, the First Intifada (1987—93), which included: strikes, boycotts, mass protests, road-blocks, use of stone-throwing and petrol bombs against Israeli police using violence to suppress protests, and other acts of civil disobedience. Israeli government ministers responded with calls for wholesale expulsion of the Palestinian population (a policy too extreme to be condoned by Israel’s Western allies in need of credibility with Arab states). Israel’s indiscriminate intensified repression affected all Palestinians, Islamists and PLO-sympathizers alike. Some leaders of Mujama al-Islamiya, concerned that inaction would render it irrelevant, decided to join that militant resistance; and they then created “Hamas” (Arabic acronym for “Islamic Resistance Movement”). For the first year of the Intifada, there was a near-totally-adhered-to policy (prescribed by a soon-established PLO-influenced local leadership) of refraining from lethal attacks against Israelis. Nevertheless, Israel responded to the Intifada with its “iron fist” policy including lethal force, ultimately killing 1,087 Palestinians including 240 children.

Oslo peace process (1991—93). When the Fatah-dominated PLO agreed, in the Oslo negotiations, to recognize the “Jewish state” on 78% of Palestine in return for duplicitous promises of negotiations toward the establishment of a Palestinian state in the 22% of Palestine then classified as Israeli-occupied territories; it effectively abandoned the demand for the human rights of all Palestinians throughout Palestine and in the diaspora. In fact, no Israeli government has ever been willing: to accept a genuinely independent and sovereign Palestinian state in any part of Palestine, or to grant equal rights to Palestinian Arabs in any part of the territory, or to permit the return of Palestinian refugees. The Oslo agreements produced the Fatah-dominated Palestinian National Authority [PNA] (a quasi-government for the West Bank and Gaza) which has devolved into a corrupted client regime with no effective capacity to prevent: Israeli land grabs (which every Israeli government has actively encouraged since the 1967 conquest), and the many other persecutions of the Palestinians whom it purports to serve. The Palestinian response to Oslo was divided with Hamas and allies (including PIJ), along with some factions of the PLO, refusing to concede legitimacy to the Zionist state. Whether we like it or not, Hamas soon thereafter became the leading organized force of the Palestinian resistance (which is why it won all-Palestine legislative elections in 2006).

Judeophobia? The US and its principal allies join Israel in branding Hamas as a Jew-hating “genocidal” “terrorist” organization. It is true that Hamas first Charter (1988), advocating armed struggle to liberate Palestine from Israeli occupation, embraced some discredited Judeophobe tropes (Articles 7, 22, 28, 32). However, pursuant to said Charter, Hamas: (Article 6) “strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine [so that] followers of all religions can coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned”; and (Article 31) “is guided by Islamic tolerance when dealing with the followers of other religions” (which would include Christianity and Judaism). Assertions, that Hamas wanted to kill all Jews or kill them because they were Jews, rest upon fished-up out-of-context interpretations of references to ancient Islamic quotations pertaining to specific Jewish communities which were then at war with the Muslim community. Moreover, its revised Charter (2017), transcending the amateurish inconsistency of 1988, drops the aforementioned Judeophobe tropes and clearly states (Article 16) that its fight is against Zionist oppressors and not against Jews in general. While Hamas believes that all of Palestine ought to be governed by an officially Islamic state; it embraces the Qur’anic obligation (sura 2:62) to respect the rights of peaceful non-Muslims (including resident Jews) to live and prosper in the land as long as they are not oppressing others.

“Terrorism”. Until Israeli forces killed more than 20 unarmed Palestinians protesting the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre of 29 Muslim worshipers (1994) by an Arab-hating Israeli extremist; Hamas policy was to avoid targeting Israeli civilians. Since then, Hamas, like Israel, has permitted its forces to attack any enemy target, civilian or military; whereas the Zionist state, throughout its existence, has routinely engaged in such indiscriminate killings of Palestinians. Moreover, Hamas has repeatedly offered to end violent attacks upon Israelis conditional upon Israeli reciprocation which has never been forthcoming for very long. In Israel and its Western enablers: Hamas attacks are always branded as “terrorism”, while far more massive Israeli violence against Palestinians (including unarmed civilians of both sexes and all ages) never is.

Equating to the Islamic State [IS] or Al Qaeda [AQ]. In 2008, a small group of AQ sympathizers organized in Gaza as Jund Ansar Allah [JAA]. They denounced Hamas: for being “too lenient” by not enforcing Sharia law, and for being “no different than a secular nationalist state”. JAA also executed violent attacks (including bombings) against Gazan entities which they deemed to be in violation of Islamist morality, and they declared an “Islamic Emirate” in Gaza. Hamas then took forceful action to suppress said JAA. Hamas has likewise opposed other Salafi-jihadist Gazan groups which embrace AQ or IS. Whereas AQ and IS oppose democratic elections and pragmatic political compromises, Hamas embraces them. Whereas the former make war on alleged apostates and infidels and condemn Hamas for its tolerance; Hamas, in accordance with the Qur’an, embraces (though some local supporters have sometimes acted otherwise) an acceptance of respectful religious diversity. Despite the actual facts, Israel and its apologists persist in propagating lies to equate Hamas with Al Qaeda et al.

Democracy. Hamas surprised Israel and the US by fairly winning Palestinian legislative elections (2006 Jan) and thereby obtaining the right to lead the PNA. Obstruction by Israel and the West has prevented any subsequent Palestinian election. Israel and its Western allies responded to the 2006 election outcome by demanding that Hamas abandon its commitment to fundamental Palestinian human rights by legitimizing Israeli apartheid and ethnic cleansing. That demand was designed to produce a Hamas refusal, so that said refusal could then be used as pretext for acts designed to cripple Hamas’ efforts to govern. The US then pressured PNA President Abbas (of Fatah) to dismiss the fairly elected Hamas administration in defiance of the will of the Palestinian electorate. The Hamas Prime Minister (Ismail Haniyeh) attempted to overcome the hostility by asking Fatah to participate in a unity government (which Fatah refused), and by inducing Hamas ministers to formally resign their memberships in Hamas, all to no avail. Moreover, Abbas, under US pressure, provoked a power struggle (in Gaza) over control of security services in a move to undermine and marginalize the Hamas administration. The resulting violent conflict ended: with Hamas firmly in control in Gaza; and with the PNA in control of a fraction of the West Bank, most of which was and is under Israeli military rule.

Peace proposals. Hamas, has repeatedly (since 2006) proposed peace thru hudna (Islamic decade-long renewable truce resolving issues upon which current agreement can be obtained while negotiating upon remaining issues in effort to reach a final peace agreement). Hamas’ proposed truce terms would include provisional acceptance by Hamas of Israel as an existential current reality, in return for a Palestinian state in the occupied territories with East Jerusalem as its capital (same as PLO except that Hamas would not concede legitimacy to the ethnic cleansings of 1948 and 1967 nor to the racial supremacist and apartheid character of the Zionist state). Hamas would continue to seek eventual acceptance by Israel of all Palestinian civil and human rights (the effect of which would be to end its apartheid, its ethnic cleansing, its other persecutions, and its continuation as a “Jewish state”). Israel, making Hamas’ refusal to give de jure recognition of the racist apartheid “Jewish state” as its pretext, has consistently refused to negotiate toward any peace agreement.

GAZA WARS. Since the end of the Second Intifada (2005), Hamas has repeatedly sought and, when possible, entered ceasefire agreements with Israel. In fact, since seeking a role in government, Hamas evidently took seriously its obligation to serve the people of Palestine. Other resistance groups, often in defiance of Hamas, have sometimes committed small-scale violations of ceasefires, generally in response to Israeli violence. Whereas Hamas has striven to preserve said ceasefires, Israel has repeatedly perpetrated major violations thereby provoking resumption of violent conflict.

Israeli response to 2006 election outcome. Israel and all significant Palestinian resistance factions, including Hamas, had agreed (2005 Feb and Mar) to a ceasefire under which the resistance would cease violent attacks upon Israelis on condition that Israel cease military operations against said resistance organizations. Despite Hamas having respected said ceasefire agreement, Israel responded to Hamas electoral victory (2006 Jan) by imposing, upon Gaza, a suffocating economic blockade (an act of war as well as an act of collective punishment which is illegal under international law). Said blockade (still in effect) ultimately included denial of access to 1/3 of Gaza’s already limited arable land and 85% of its fishing areas. Moreover, Israel blatantly violated the ceasefire by assassinating (2006 June) the Hamas-appointed security chief (Jamal Abu Samhadana). Hamas responded by resuming attacks against Israel, which then commenced its “Operation Summer Rains” bombing of Gaza. Death toll: 416 (mostly noncombatant) Gaza Palestinians and 11 Israelis.

“Cast Lead”. A mediated 6-month ceasefire ended (2008 Nov 04) with an Israeli raid which killed several Palestinians in Gaza. Resistance organizations responded with rocket fire into Israel. Israel then commenced “Operation Cast Lead”, bombing Gaza in December and invading in January. Israeli war crimes included using Palestinian children as human shields and use of white phosphorus weapons with indifference to its horrific injuries to civilians (both being war crimes under international law). Amnesty International and other independent investigators found no substantiation for Israeli allegations that Hamas: made a practice of using civilians as human shields, or used healthcare facilities as bases for military operations. Death toll: 1,400 Palestinians (85% non-combatants), 13 Israelis.

“Returning Echo”. Israel not only refused to lift its suffocating economic siege of Gaza, it assassinated (2012 Mar 09, by airstrike) the secretary-general (Zohair al-Qaisi) of the Popular Resistance Committees (then the 3^rd largest armed resistance group in Gaza) thereby provoking retaliatory rocket attacks by resistance groups in Gaza. Israel then commenced its “Operation Returning Echo”, consisting of additional murderous airstrikes. Death toll: 28 Palestinians, no Israelis.

“Pillar of defense”. Repeated Israeli attacks (from 2012 July) upon Palestinian fishermen, farmers, and other civilians provoked some additional clashes. Hamas and PIJ proposed (Nov 12) discussions to establish a ceasefire. Two days later, Israel assassinated the Hamas military chief (Ahmed Jabari) in Gaza thereby provoking an escalation of attacks from both sides. Israeli forces followed with “Operation Pillar of Defense”, a massive bombardment striking some 1,500 sites in Gaza (including residential apartment buildings). Death toll: 174 Palestinians (60% noncombatants) and 6 Israelis.

“Protective Edge”. Hamas and Israel agreed to a mediated ceasefire (2012 Nov 21). Israel violated that ceasefire the very next day, killing a Palestinian farmer and wounding 19 other Gazans. A week later Israeli forces opened fire on a peaceful Palestinian fishing boat. On Nov 30, Israeli soldiers killed another man in Gaza. On Dec 01, Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned that it would respond militarily to any further Israeli violations. In the 1^st 3 months of the ceasefire, Israeli firing into Gaza killed 4 and wounded another 91; and there were 13 armed Israeli incursions into Gaza and some 30 attacks on Gazan fishermen. These attacks provoked rocket attacks from Gaza by PIJ and other resistance groups, attacks which Israel then used as pretext for further attacks and intensification of the blockade. Despite all of that, Hamas complied with the ceasefire agreement and acted, with some success, to minimize attacks by other resistance groups. After PNA President Abbas agreed to include Hamas in a unity government (formed 2014 Jun 02), Israel (opposed to any unified Palestinian leadership) acted to destroy it. Specifically, Israel stepped up its attacks upon Palestinians, thereby provoking more rocket launches from Gaza. Ultimately, Hamas, unable to persuade armed resistance forces to desist from retaliatory rocket attacks against Israel, abandoned (in early July) the already-ineffective ceasefire. Israel then responded (2014 Jul 08) with its (“Operation Protective Edge”) ground invasion and bombing of Gaza. Death toll: 2,300 Gazans (65% civilian) and 72 Israelis (all but 5 being soldiers).

“Guardian of the Walls”. Multiple Israeli provocations (2021 Apr and May) in Jerusalem (including: ethnic-cleansing confiscations of Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem [in violation of international law], unimpeded settler violence, police harassment of Palestinian residents, and police invasions and denials of Muslim access at the Al Aqsa Mosque) provoked Hamas and PIJ rocket fire into Israel. Israel responded (2021 May 16—21) with a bombardment of Gaza (“Operation Guardian of the Walls”). Death toll: 256 Palestinians and 13 Israelis. 72,000 Gazans were displaced by the Israeli bombing.

“Al-Aqsa Flood”. Hamas and PIJ had demonstrated a willingness to establish and maintain truces (long-term and short-term) with the Zionist state. Israel, however, evidently expected, despite ceasefires in effect, to have impunity as it perpetrated attacks, including assassinations, upon Palestinian resistance organizations. Then, when resistance organizations responded with counter-attacks; Israel subjected Gaza to grossly disproportionate violence. Moreover, the current extreme racist Israeli government had increased its persecutions and violations of Palestinian human rights: impunity for settler attacks upon West Bank Palestinians, stepped up grabs of land and water-rights, dispossessions and expulsions, arbitrary detentions, increased killings of unarmed Palestinians, blockings of Muslim access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, continued assassinations of resistance leaders, et cetera. Finally, Hamas responded with its “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” (2023 Oct 07) against Israeli forces in areas around Gaza.

ATROCITIES? The nature of warfare is such that, it would be unrealistic to presume that none of the October 07 Gaza fighters (some of whom were not affiliated with either Hamas or PIJ) committed excesses in violation of Hamas’ rules of engagement or in the heat of the moment. That said, lurid sensationalized allegations of mass atrocities by those Gaza fighters are fundamentally false (refuted below and in the noted sources).

Numbers and identities. “1,400” “innocent” Israelis murdered (Oct 07) by Hamas? In fact, around 200 of the dead were apparently Gazan resistance fighters; and the actual number of Israeli dead as acknowledged by Israel has been revised down to “around 1,200”. Moreover, of the 1,133 identified and listed by Israel, 369 (32%) were soldiers, police, and other armed security personnel (most of whom were enforcing the Gaza blockade and/or had offensive or supportive roles in Israeli attacks upon Palestinians in Gaza). Further, more than 421 (another 37%) of the 764 listed as “civilians” were of the age (20 to 40) at which most Israelis are obligated to be military reservists, and many of those were killed (often while resisting capture) at kibbutz[es] (which are constituted as militarized settlements built upon land stolen from expelled Palestinians).

Killed by whom? A great many of the Israeli civilian dead were killed: in crossfire, others (including many of the dead at the music festival) by indiscriminate Israeli air attacks failing to distinguish Israelis from Gazan resistance fighters, and some deliberately by Israeli forces to prevent their becoming bargaining-chip captives in Gaza.

Decapitated babies? Israeli babies and toddlers decapitated by Hamas fighters? Absolutely false allegation, subsequently retracted.

Rape? We are asked to believe that Hamas and PIJ fighters, in difficult combat against Israeli armed forces, diverted their attention in order to amuse themselves by raping and murdering Israeli women, despite: that their essential objective was to bring as many captives as possible back to Gaza, and that such conduct would violate the Qur’an[’s] rules mandating humane treatment of captives. Israel refuses: to provide real evidence, or to permit any independent investigation of this allegation. Moreover, accusers misuse photos and videos of scantily dressed woman captives as “evidence”, despite that some (including many participants at the music festival) were undoubtedly thusly clothed when captured. Israel evidently is using said allegations of mass sexual abuse as a defamatory racist portrayal of Palestinians so as to excuse the very real atrocities currently being perpetrated by Israel against the people of Gaza. Meanwhile, captives released by Hamas generally report having been treated humanely.

Dehumanization and genocidal intent! In their propaganda war, Israel and its Western allies evade the injustices perpetrated by the Zionist state and falsely portray Palestinian resistance fighters as genocidal Jew-hating extremists. In actual fact, it is Israeli leaders and their Western apologists who routinely dehumanize and express genocidal intentions (including for ethnic cleansing and mass murder), not only against those who fight, but against an entire victimized population. Some examples.

Soon-to-be-appointed Israeli Justice Minister, Ayelet Shaked, endorsed (2015 summer) an Israeli writer’s statement asserting: that Israel is in a war, “not against terror”, but “a war between two peoples”, the “enemy” being “the entire Palestinian people”; that Palestinian children are “snakes”; and that “the mothers” also should die to prevent their raising more “little snakes”.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in his guidance for Israeli action in the current outbreak of violence, twice referenced (Oct 28 & Nov 03) a biblical passage (about the Israelite war against the people of Amalek) which states “Spare no one, but kill alike men and women, infants and sucklings”.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog asserted (Oct 12) “Its an entire nation … that is responsible [for Oct 07].
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stated (Oct 09) that Israel was “imposing a complete siege on Gaza. No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. … We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly”.
Minister of Heritage, Amichai Eliyahu, posted (Nov 01) “The north of the Gaza Strip, more beautiful than ever. Everything is blown up and flattened, simply a pleasure for the eyes”.
Deputy Speaker of the Knesset, Nissim Vaturi, ‘tweeted’ (Oct 07) “we all have one common goal — erasing the Gaza Strip from the face of the earth.”
Minister of Agriculture, Avi Dichter, stated (Nov 11) “[w]e are now actually rolling out the Gaza Nakba”.
Former Head of the Israeli National Security Council, Major General Giora Eiland, said (Oct 07) “The people should be told that they have two choices; to stay and to starve, or to leave. If Egypt and other countries prefer that these people will perish in Gaza, this is their choice.” He later asserted (Nov 06) that there should be no distinction between Hamas combatants and Palestinian civilians, saying: “‘They’ are not only Hamas fighters with weapons, but also all the ‘civilian’ officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population”.
One former Knesset member called for all Palestinians in Gaza to be killed saying: “I tell you, in Gaza without exception, they are all terrorists, sons of dogs. They must be exterminated, all of them killed”.
South Africa’s indictment lists several additional such comments by additional Israeli leaders.
When a group of Israeli soldiers and settlers assaulted three Palestinians in the West Bank (Oct 12); the three were beaten, stripped naked, bound, tortured, and urinated upon. Such abuse was nothing new. During the First Intifada (1987—93), this kind of humiliation by Israeli forces was routine. Men would be threatened with the rape of their wives or sisters; women would be threatened with sexual violence.
In response to Al-Aqsa Flood, multiple US political leaders have urged genocide against Gaza: US Senator Lindsey Graham urged (Oct 10 on Fox News) “level the place”; US Senator Marco Rubio wrote on social media (Oct 09) “Israel must respond disproportionately”; US Republican Presidential Candidate Nikki Haley (Oct 7 or 8 on Fox News) urged Israel to “finish them”, the Palestinians. Although US President Biden and his aides have not made such extreme public statements, his actual policy has been to abet those genocidal actions.

Israel’s “Arab problem”. Despite Netanyahu’s denial, Israel’s policy vis-à-vis Palestinians (whether in Israel, in the West Bank, or in Gaza) is to make their conditions as oppressive as possible (within the limits to which its Western allies will acquiesce) so that said Palestinians will out migrate to other countries. That is in accordance with Zionist prescriptions from the time of Herzl (1890s) [7], to solve the “Arab problem” thru “population transfer” (that is ethnic cleansing).

Media bias. In the first days after October 07, the Western mainstream media, having given minimal attention to similarly large numbers of Palestinian victims of past Israeli violence, focused almost exclusively upon grieving Israelis. It was only after the killings, destruction, and extreme suffering in Gaza became so unavoidably blatant and massive that it began reporting on that. The racist anti-Palestinian bias of the Western mainstream media is exemplified by its response to reports of the 3 Hamas-captured Israeli men (shirtless, hands raised, holding a white flag of truce, and speaking Hebrew) nevertheless killed (Dec 15) by trigger-happy Israeli soldiers. That was reported as a horrific tragedy, but there was no thought to question how, with Israeli soldiers acting thusly with captured Israelis, do they act toward unarmed Palestinians.

Biden’s humanitarian concerns. US President Biden (along with most Congressional Democrats) expresses lip-service concern regarding Israel’s mass murder of tens of thousands of Gaza Palestinians (no more than 3% of whom could be armed resistance fighters). Biden could force a stop to it by supporting deployment of a neutral UN force into appropriate locations in Gaza, with US guarantees of their safety, to protect: hospitals, schools, desalination plants, sewage treatment facilities, humanitarian aid shipments, food and water dispensers, and UNRWA relief operations. Hamas et al would undoubtedly welcome the introduction of such humanitarian intervenors as long as they are truly neutral. Meanwhile, for Israel to attack them would put it in armed conflict with the US (and its allies) upon which it is extremely dependent. Instead of intervening in any real way to save lives in Gaza, Biden (along with most of Congress) shows his true colors: by sending munitions to Israel, by demanding billions of dollars for more no-strings military aid to the Zionist state, by preventing UN Security Council action against the many blatant Israeli violations of international law, and by vetoing near-unanimous UN demands for a ceasefire.

CONCLUSIONS.

Racist hypocrisy. The Zionists, abetted by their Western imperial allies, have subjected the Palestinian Arabs to a century of systematic subjugation and persecutions. Now, Western government leaders, including Joe Biden, embrace a racist mindset which evades the essential historical context, including the facts of ongoing Israeli persecution of the Palestinians. In that mindset: Israeli lives (seen as white) matter, Palestinian lives (seen as other) don’t. In fact, the Zionist state entitles Jewish Israelis to liberal civil rights such that they generally cannot be jailed without a fair hearing in a court of law. Meanwhile, although Biden et al will not acknowledge it, any Palestinian in the West Bank or Gaza can be imprisoned and often tortured by Israel (nearly 10,000 imprisoned at last report): for any, or no, reason with no court hearing whatsoever; or, if they do receive a hearing, it is in a military court where conviction (at the 99%+ rate) is a virtual certainty. Israelis elect their government; Palestinians are not permitted to do likewise. Hateful Zionist Israelis can and do rob Palestinians of their homes and properties and/or murder them with impunity. The Zionist state expels Palestinians from their homeland and bars their return. Biden, notwithstanding his lip-service concern for suffering Palestinians, vetoes UN Security Council resolutions condemning Israeli crimes against Palestinian humanity, crimes which include the current genocidal mass murder in Gaza. As a staunch defender of the Jewish-supremacist state, Biden (along with most US Congress people of both Parties) obviously believes: that liberal democracy and rule of law are requisite for some people, whereas fascist-like apartheid and genocidal mass murder (until it becomes an electoral liability) are allowable and necessary for others.

Zionist objective. The Zionists’ ultimate objective is the expansion of their racist colonial settler state to encompass all of Palestine (plus parts of Syria and Lebanon). Given that there are nearly equal numbers of Palestinians and Jews in the Israeli-ruled territory (between “the river and the sea”), the Zionist state wants to eliminate the threat to Zionist Jewish supremacy by removing most of the remaining indigenous Palestinian population: thru expulsion and mass murder whenever they can find pretext acceptable to Western allies, and by making life so difficult for Palestinians that they will choose to out migrate. Systematic oppression always provokes resistance by the oppressed (including violent resistance when peaceful appeals prove futile), and Palestinians are no exception. Israel has always responded to that resistance (even peaceful protests) with repressive violence, attempting to bludgeon the Palestinians into passive acceptance of their Zionist-intended fate. That fate: to be treated as subhuman, to be denied their right to equal civil rights and democratic self-government, to be robbed of their property, to be murdered and even massacred with impunity, to be permanently expelled from their homeland, and (for those allowed at least temporarily to remain in Palestine) to be exploited as cheap labor to perform work which Israelis choose to avoid.

Western allies’ objectives. The US et al see Israel as a useful and valued ally which helps them to police the region, by attacking and undermining those regional states which resist Western imperial dictates. Its belligerent presence creates a geopolitical reality which: results in most Arab states de facto abandoning the Palestinian cause in order to partner with Western capital; preserves Western access to coveted resources, especially oil; provides lucrative markets for munitions produced by the West’s war industries; and bolsters Western imperial geopolitical domination. Consequently, Western governing politicians, executive officials and most legislators, side with Israel against the Palestinians. Their only substantive difference with Israel is that they are resistant to Israeli policies of genocide and overt ethnic cleansing (because of overwhelming international outrage and domestic opposition). Western government spokespersons and foreign policy “experts” almost universally respond to the current humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza by fantasizing a future “settlement” based upon the discredited “2-state solution”, wherewith they propose: (1) a Palestinian mini-state (as hitherto in a fraction of the West Bank) as a subservient client regime of Israel; and (2) Palestinian acceptance, as fait accompli, of the expansive Jewish supremacist state plus abrogation of the right of return for diaspora Palestinians.

End. This conflict and the inevitable resulting violence will not end until: Israel has eliminated most of the remaining Palestinian population; or its Western abettors have been compelled (by organized popular pressure) to cease enabling it (enabling: thru funding and arming the Zionist state, thru preventing Israel from being held accountable for its crimes, and by refusing to intervene in support of the victimized Palestinian population).

NOTED SOURCES (those which lack URL’s).

[4] Brenner⸰: ~ chapters 5, 6, 7, 12.

[5] Sachar⸰: ~ pp 96—109.

[6] Sachar⸰: ~ pp 386—389.

[7] same as [3].

Charles Pierce is a social-justice activist (since his youth in the early 1960s), a former (retired) labor activist (union steward and local officer), and currently a researcher and writer on history and politics. He can be reached at cpbolshi@gmail.com.

====================================================’

SOURCES (either in links or in end notes).

{ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT}

[h1] Wikipedia: Mandate for Palestine (2024 Feb 01) ~ § Key issues (Borders) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandate_for_Palestine#Borders .

[4] Brenner⸰: ~ chapters 5, 6, 7, 12. {collaboratn with Judeophobe powers}

[h6] Wikipedia: Évian Conference (2024 Jan 22) ~ § Proceedings @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89vian_Conference#Proceedings .

h[7] UNISPAL: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917—1947 (Part I) ~ §§ V & VI @ https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-i-1917-1947/ . [Jew-Arab conflict]

[5] Sachar⸰: ~ pp 96—109. [British imperial sponsorship]

[h9] UNISPAL: The Origins … (Part I) ~ § II. [British imperial sponsorship]

[h10] UNISPAL: The Origins … (Part I) ~ §§ IV—IX. [democracy prevented]

[h11] Wikipedia: 1936—1939 Arab revolt in Palestine (2024 Feb 02) ~ §§ (introduction), Response (Role of the Mandate Government and the British Army, British and Jewish co-operation) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936%E2%80%931939_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine .

[h12] Wikipedia: United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine (2024 Jan 01) ~ § The vote @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine#The_vote .

[h13] UNISPAL: The Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917—1947 (Part II) ~ §§ I—IV @ https://www.un.org/unispal/history2/origins-and-evolution-of-the-palestine-problem/part-ii-1947-1977/ . [partition]

[h14] UNISPAL: The Origins … (Part II) ~ § V. [nakba]

[h15] Such⸰ Rod: Zionist Left: The ‘Pacifist’ Arm of the Nakba [book review of Areej Sabbagh-Khoury: Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of Palestine] (Politics Today, 2023 Dec 21) @ https://politicstoday.org/zionist-left-the-pacifist-arm-of-the-nakba/ .

[h16] Wikipedia: Nakba (2024 Jan 14) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba .

[6] Sachar⸰: ~ pp 386—389. [nakba]

[h18] Wikipedia: Protocol of Sèvres (last edited 2023 Dec 20) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_of_S%C3%A8vres .

[h19] Wikipedia: Israeli occupied territories (2023 Dec 28) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli-occupied_territories . [later conquests]

[h20] Wikipedia: 1982 Lebanon War (2023 Dec 26) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_Lebanon_War . {subsequent aggressions}

[h21] Wikipedia: Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon (2023 Nov 07) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_occupation_of_Southern_Lebanon .

[h22] Wikipedia: Holocaust victims (2024 Feb 10) ~ § Scope of usage @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Scope_of_usage .

[h23] Stefanini⸰ Pietro: Outlawing BDS and the Repression of Solidarity with Palestine (The Legal Agenda, 2023 Nov 09) @ https://english.legal-agenda.com/outlawing-bds-and-the-repression-of-solidarity-with-palestine/ .

[h24] reserved.

{HAMAS.}

[h25] Wikipedia: Hamas (2024 Feb 14) ~ § History (Origins) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Origins .

[h26] Wikipedia: Hamas (2024 Feb 14) ~ § Religious policy @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Religious_policy .

[h27] Skare⸰ Erik [interview by Rekawek⸰ Kacper]: Interview … on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2023 Nov 10) @ https://www.icct.nl/publication/interview-erik-skare-palestinian-islamic-jihad-pij .

[h28] same as [19]. [1967 war of conquest]

[h29] same as [25]. [alternative to PLO]

[h30] Wikipedia: First Intifada (2023 Dec21) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Intifada .

[h31] Wikipedia: Hamas (2024 Feb 14) ~ § History (First Intifada) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#First_Intifada .

[h32] Wikipedia: Oslo Accords (2024 Jan 22) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oslo_Accords .

[h33] Wikipedia: Israeli settlement (2024 Jan 06) ~ § History @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_settlement#History .

[h34] Wikipedia: Hamas (2024 Feb 14) ~ § Policy and attitudes towards Israel @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Policies_and_attitudes_towards_Israel .

[h35] Wikipedia: 1988 Hamas charter (2024 Jan 02) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1988_Hamas_charter .

[h36] Hamas: A Document of General Principles and Policies (Internet Archive, 2017 May) @ https://web.archive.org/web/20170510123932/http://hamas.ps/en/post/678/ .

[h37] Islam: Qur’an ~ sura 2:62 @ https://quran.com/2?startingVerse=62 . [religious tolerance]

[h38] Wikipedia: Cave of the Patriarchs massacre (2023 Dec 03) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of_the_Patriarchs_massacre .

[h39] Wikipedia: Hamas (2024 Feb 14) ~ § History (Oslo years) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Oslo_years . [decision to target civilians]

[h40] Wikipedia: Hamas (2024 Feb 14) ~ § History (Second Intifada) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Second_Intifada . [Hamas’ peace proposals]

[h41] Wikipedia: Jund Ansar Allah (2024 Jan 14) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jund_Ansar_Allah .

[h42] Wikipedia: Khaled Mashal (2024 Jan 24) ~ § Views @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khaled_Mashal#Views .

[h43] Marks⸰ Monica: What the World Gets Wrong About Hamas (Time, 2023 Oct 30) @ https://time.com/6329776/hamas-isis-gaza/ .

[h44] Wikipedia: 2006 Palestinian legislative election (2023 Dec 31) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Palestinian_legislative_election . [nullification]

[h45] Wikipedia: Battle of Gaza (2007) (2023 Dec 26) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Gaza_(2007) . [contravention of democracy]

[h46] same as [40]. [hudna peace proposals]

[h47] reserved.

{GAZA WARS.}

[h48] Wikipedia: 2006 Gaza cross-border raid (2024 Jan 07) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Gaza_cross-border_raid . [Operation Summer Rains]

[h49] Wikipedia: 2014 Gaza War (2024 Jan 04) ~ § Background (untitled introductory section) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War#Background . [background to Gaza siege]

[h50] Wikipedia: Gaza War (2008—2009) (2024 Jan 04) ~ §§ (introduction), 2008 six-month ceasefire, Controversies regarding tactics @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_War_(2008%E2%80%932009) . [Op Cast Lead]

[h51] Wikipedia: March 2012 Gaza-Israel clashes (2024 Jan 23) ~ § (introduction) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_2012_Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_clashes . [Op Returning Echo]

[h52] Wikipedia: 2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip (2023 Oct 13) ~ §§ (introduction), Background, Pre-operative events @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Israeli_operation_in_the_Gaza_Strip . [Op Pillar of Defense]

[h53] Wikipedia: 2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip (2023 Dec 11) ~ § Ceasefire @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Israeli_operation_in_the_Gaza_Strip .

[h54] Wikipedia: 2014 Gaza War (2024 Feb 14) ~ §§ (introduction), Background @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Gaza_War . [Op Protective Edge]

[h55] Wikipedia: 2021 Israel—Palestine crisis (2023 Dec 15) ~ §§ (introduction), Background, Escalation @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Israel%E2%80%93Palestine_crisis . [Op Guardian of the Walls]

[h56] Wikipedia: Sheikh Jarrah controversy (2023 Nov 15) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheikh_Jarrah_controversy .

[h57] Sen⸰ Somdeep: There is nothing surprising about Hamas’s operation (Al Jazeera, 2023 Oct 08) @ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/8/there-is-nothing-surprising-about-hamass-operation .

[h58] Baconi⸰ Tareq: An Inevitable Rupture: Al-Aqsa Flood and the End of Partition (al shabaka, 2023 Nov 26) @ https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/an-inevitable-rupture-al-aqsa-flood-and-the-end-of-partition/ .

[h59] reserved.

{ATROCITIES?}

[h60] Times of Israel: 14 kids under 10, 25 people over 80: Up-to-date breakdown of Oct 7 victims we know about (2023 Dec 04) @ https://www.timesofisrael.com/14-kids-under-10-25-people-over-80-up-to-date-breakdown-of-oct-7-victims-we-know-about/ . [numbers & classification]

[h61] Ritter⸰ Scott: Debunks Israeli lies about the Hamas military raid on October 7 (Socialist Action, 2023 Dec 04) @ https://socialistaction.org/2023/12/04/scott-ritter-debunks-israeli-lies-about-the-hamas-military-raid-on-october-7/ . [kibbutz = militarized settlement]

[h62] same as [61]. [Israelis killed by Israelis]

[h63] The Cradle: Israel implemented ‘mass Hannibal’ directive on 7 October: Israeli pilot (2023 Nov 20) @ https://new.thecradle.co/articles-id/13145 . [Israelis killed by Israelis]

[h64] Al Jazeera English: Did Hamas Behead babies? Fact Check (YouTube, 2023 Oct) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0el9wiOBmmM .

[h65] Wikipedia: Prisoners of war in Islam (2024 Jan 14) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoners_of_war_in_Islam .

[h66] Pannu⸰ Kareena: Despite lack of evidence, allegations of Hamas ‘mass rape’ are fueling Israeli genocide in Gaza (Mondoweiss, 2023 Dec 08) @ https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/despite-lack-of-evidence-allegations-of-hamas-mass-rape-are-fueling-israeli-genocide-in-gaza/ .

[h67] Cook⸰ Jonathan: Why the Guardian’s “Hamas Mass Rape” Story doesn’t Pass the Sniff Test (Dissident Voice, 2024 Jan 21) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/01/why-the-guardians-hamas-mass-rape-story-doesnt-pass-the-sniff-test/ .

[h68] Bryan⸰ Rob: The refreshing bluntness of Ayelet Shaked (Mondoweiss, 2015 Oct 03) @ https://mondoweiss.net/2015/10/refreshing-bluntness-shaked/ .

[h69] Republic of South Africa: Application instituting proceedings against the State of Israel (2023 Dec 28) ~ pp 59—67 @ https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20231228-app-01-00-en.pdf .

[h70] thru [h78] same as [h69].

[h79] Baroud⸰ Ramzy: Urinating on Prisoners: Why Humiliation is Functional in Israel’s War on Palestinians (CounterPunch, 2023 Dec 21) @ https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/12/21/urinating-on-prisoners-why-humiliation-is-functional-in-israels-war-on-palestinians/ .

[h80] Wilkins⸰ Brett: ‘Level the Place,’ Declares Lindsey Graham as Israel Does Exactly That to Gaza (Common Dreams, 2023 Oct 11) @ https://www.commondreams.org/news/lindsey-graham#:~:text=Appearing%20on%20Fox%20News%20on,yourselves%3B%20level%20the%20place.%22 .

[h81] Roy⸰ Sara: The Long War on Gaza (New York Review of Books, 2023 Dec 19) @ https://portside.org/2023-12-28/long-war-gaza .

[7] same as [4]. [population transfer]

[h83] Teibel⸰ Amy: An Israeli ministry, in a ‘concept paper’, proposes transferring Gaza civilians to Egypt’s Sinai (AP, 2023 Oct 30) @ https://apnews.com/article/israel-gaza-population-transfer-hamas-egypt-palestinians-refugees-5f99378c0af6aca183a90c631fa4da5a .

[h84] McGreal⸰ Chris: CNN Staff Say Network’s Pro-Israel Slant Amounts to ‘Journalistic Malpractice’ (The Guardian, 2024 Feb 04) @ https://portside.org/2024-02-04/cnn-staff-say-networks-pro-israel-slant-amounts-journalistic-malpractice .

[h85] BBC: Israel Gaza: Hostages shot by IDF put out ‘SOS’ sign written with leftover food (2023 Dec 18) @ https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67745092 . [media bias]

[h86] reserved.

{CONCLUSIONS.}

[h87] Al Jazeera: Occupied and Imprisoned: Palestinian Prisoners – The Full Report (YouTube, 2024 Feb) @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbfiZC-VlPA .

[h88] Chotiner⸰ Isaac: The brutal conditions facing Palestinian prisoners (The New Yorker, 2024 Mar 21) @ https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-brutal-conditions-facing-palestinian-prisoners .

[h89] Panepinto⸰ Alice & Mariniello⸰ Triestino: Settler Violence: Israel’s ethnic cleansing plan for the West Bank (Al Jazeera, 2024 Feb 26) @ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/2/26/settler-violence-israels-ethnic-cleansing-plan-for-the-west-bank .

**********************************************************************’

CP9. Ukraine War, divided “left”.

*********************************************************************’

{Published 2022 Sep 17 by Covert Action Magazine at https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/09/17/ukraine-war-divided-left-social-patriots-and-the-anti-imperialism-of-fools/.}

====================================================’

Ukraine War, divided left: “social patriotism” and the “anti-imperialism of fools”!

By Charles Pierce

Since Russia’s military operation commenced on February 24, the socialist left has been divided in its response to the armed conflict in Ukraine.

On one side are those who align with the US, NATO, and the Ukrainian state in denouncing Russia as the principal villain. In opposition are those who view: the conflict as the outcome of the West’s new cold war against Russia, and the post-coup regime in Ukraine as a willing pawn of the West (US and its geopolitical allies) in that new cold war.

There are also some groups who condemn both: Russia for its February 24 military action, and the US and NATO for their provocations against Russia’s national security concerns. Many of the left’s published commentaries: repeat invalid assumptions, evade crucial issues, and/or misrepresent the realities of the conflict.

Divided left. There being differing political perspectives on the left is nothing new. For example, during the Vietnam War some avowed socialists (actually liberals) initially supported the US policy in Vietnam from a number of rationales.

Those rationales included: acceptance of the pretense that US foreign policy was about defending the “free world” for the sake of “democracy”, unswerving opposition to Communism as an existential enemy of liberal freedoms, being blind or indifferent to the racist realities of Western imperialism. As the War dragged on with no end in sight and as a large popular antiwar movement emerged, those prowar “socialists” either switched over to the antiwar side or became discredited.

Finally, realists in the foreign policy establishment and national politics, realizing that the War was undermining US influence around the world, switched over to the antiwar side (thereby dividing the ruling class). At that point, the antiwar forces were strong enough to force an end to US continuation in that War. Defeat in Vietnam was a setback for US imperialism, but only a temporary and limited one. It did not end US imperial interventionism or divisions within the “socialist” left.

In speaking about the current Ukraine War, every group branding itself as “socialist” claims to be “anti-imperialist”. However, they differ as to which imperialism to oppose in the current conflict: Russia, the US and NATO, or both.

With the conflict portrayed (by the bipartisan political establishment and the liberal mainstream news media) as having begun with an “imperial” Russia threatening and then invading an “independent” “democratic” Ukraine, and with images of Ukrainian suffering and heroic resistance in one-sided daily news broadcasts; it is all too easy to endorse the establishment narrative.

Meanwhile, any socialist who disputes that narrative must expect to be dismissed and/or denounced by those “anti-imperialists” who put all blame upon Russia. In fact, many leftist online publications have been publishing such dismissive, condescending, and/or denunciatory commentaries by Russia-blaming “socialists”. A few of the more erudite examples:

Fletcher, Bill Jr, Bill Gallegos, & Jamala Rogers [F&G&R]. “When Should We Stop Excusing the Russian Invasion?”. New Politics, May 11, 2022. (Republished by Portside and by LeftLinks – CCDS.)
Bilous, Taras [TB]. “Self-Determination and the War in Ukraine”. Dissent, May 09, 2022. (Republished by Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal and by Portside.)
Gosse, Van & Bill Fletcher Jr [G&F]. “Whose Side Are We On? The War in Ukraine and the Crisis of the Left”. Portside, April 19, 2022.

F&G&R are longtime left activists. Bill Fletcher Jr. has held leadership positions in: Black liberation, antiwar, and organized labor, and is a current leader in DSA. Bill Gallegos has held leadership positions in Chicano liberation and revolutionary socialism, and is a longtime leader in Liberation Road. Jamala Rogers has been a leader in Black liberation, revolutionary socialism, and Liberation Road.

Fletcher & Gallegos have history working within the Democratic Party. Gosse is: university professor of history, a member of DSA and of CC-DS, and also works within the Democratic Party. Taras Bilous, an historian, is a leading member of Social Movement organization, a liberal “socialist” organization in Ukraine.

This critique neither approves nor condemns Russia’s action. Its essential purpose is to refute the misinformation and misconceptions which have proliferated (especially those from the anti-Russia pro-Kyiv left) in US leftist commentaries.

Consequently, it takes issue with arguments propagated by those leftists who have evaded, or failed to ascertain, the relevant facts and context of the event. In fact, the anti-Russia left (like the mainstream liberal news media) has joined the US and its NATO allies in purveying falsehoods which portray the Kyiv regime as an innocent victim of unjustified or even “unprovoked” Russian aggression.

Unprovoked? Some of the evaded facts.

U.S.-NATO.

The U.S. and NATO violated their promise that NATO would not expand into central and eastern Europe, promise given in 1990 in order to obtain needed Soviet consent for the reunification of Germany.
The U.S. placed nuclear-capable missiles (capable of quickly striking Moscow and other Russian targets) in Poland and Romania (planned from 2008, installed in 2018). Not a provocation? Do we remember how the US pushed the world to the brink of nuclear apocalypse when the USSR placed such missiles in Cuba after the U.S. had placed similar missiles in Turkey?
NATO has repeatedly conducted war games, practicing for war against Russia, in the Baltic states on Russia’s border.
The U.S. and NATO consistently responded to the past 25 years of Russian protests (against the foregoing NATO threats to Russian national security) with an arrogant intransigence. Continued diplomacy was clearly not a viable means for obtaining redress.
The U.S., especially thru its National Endowment for Democracy [NED], has been funding and training anti-Russia pro-West political organizations in Ukraine (also in Belarus and other former Soviet states) since the collapse of the USSR. It funds and trains pro-Western media and civil society organizations in scores of countries (which have also included Russia). The NED was created by Congress in 1983 to replace the CIA as the principal U.S. agency for surreptitiously promoting regime-change in countries (including liberal democracies) which refuse to comply with U.S. dictates.
The U.S. incited and abetted the 2014 coup which, spearheaded by violent neo-Nazi militias, ousted the democratically-elected government of Ukraine. Why? Because said government had chosen to keep Ukraine neutral between Russia and the West. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the U.S. choice to lead Ukraine, then became Prime Minister.

The post-coup regime (far from innocent) has consistently pursued anti-Russia policies:

revocation of a 2012 law providing language rights for minorities, plus new legislation to restrict the use of the Russian language (the first language of 30% of Ukrainians);
outlawing and repressing Communists (under its 2015 decommunization law) and every other political party deemed to be in opposition to its anti-Russia policies;
giving impunity to neo-Nazi militias when they have terrorized Russian, Roma, and other national minorities;
lauding, as national heroes, wartime collaborators with Nazi Germany and participants in its genocidal crimes;
refusal to implement its promise (in the 2014 and 2015 Minsk accords) of autonomy for the Donbas regions which had resisted the 2014 coup and rebelled in response to regime attempts to crush that resistance by means of repressive armed force;
refusal to respect the will of the people of Crimea to reunite with Russia; and
pursuit of membership in the anti-Russia NATO military alliance.

The US had been arming and training Ukrainian military forces, including the neo-Nazi Azov regiment, for military operations against the Donbas rebels. These military operations resulted in thousands of civilian deaths and millions displaced and many others forced to live for years underground for protection.

There clearly was a lot of provocation: by the US, by NATO, and by the post-coup regime in Ukraine. Moreover, but for those provocations, this war would not have occurred.

The belligerents and their objectives. To reduce this war to a case of evil Putin-Russia preying upon innocent Ukraine is simplistic delusion. The current conflict (certainly since the 2014 coup) was never simply between Russia and Ukraine.

And now, the U.S. and NATO, with their economic siege (draconian sanctions) against Russia and their supplying of huge amounts of advanced weaponry to the Kyiv state, are very much belligerents even though not putting their own soldiers into the fight.

The belligerents’ objectives.

The U.S.-NATO objective (since before the 2014 coup) has been: to turn Ukraine into a client state of the West, to weaken Russia, to strip it of its limited sphere of influence, and to effectuate a regime change to replace Putin with someone who will be submissive to Western imperial dictates.
The post-coup Kyiv regime, prompted by the U.S. and dominated by chauvinistic Ukrainian nationalists (including neo-Nazis), has consistently pursued anti-Russian policies and sought: to make Ukrainian language and national identity dominant throughout the country, to marginalize or Ukrainianize national minorities, to eliminate Russian influence, to impose its absolute rule over predominantly-minority regions seeking autonomy or independence, and to integrate Ukraine into the West both economically and militarily.
Russia’s objective, contrary to assertions by anti-Russia “socialists” [F&G&R], has never been to eliminate Ukraine’s existence as a separate independent country. Russia has been striving: to prevent the presence of hostile military bases (including nuclear-capable missiles) in neighboring Ukraine, to uphold the decision of the people of Crimea to reunite with Russia (along with ensuring Russia’s continued control of its Crimean naval base), and to protect the rights of the predominantly ethnic Russian population in Donbas (which as part of Ukraine would also serve as an obstacle to Ukraine’s joining any anti-Russia alliance).

International law? The U.S.-NATO-Kyiv aligned part of the “socialist” left attributes this War (as in the words of F&G&R) to Russia committing violations of “international law” and of “the right of nations to self-determination” with “invasion of a sovereign nation”. This oversimplifies and worse.

Firstly, it evades the fact that the Kyiv regime, with U.S. encouragement and deliveries of ever more-lethal arms, remained intransigent in response to appeals by Russia and the breakaway Donbas Republics to resolve the Donbas conflict peacefully.

Kyiv was refusing to even talk to the leaders of said Republics and was evidently intent upon crushing them thru brute military force. Moreover, it was the coup regime in Kyiv which first resorted to violence when (in 2014) it sent newly-formed armed forces, including neo-Nazi militias, to crush resistance to said coup (the regular army then lacking sufficient motivation for doing so).

Russia insists that its military action against Ukraine is, in part, a response to Kyiv’s aggression in Donbas; and, in fact, it was the Kyiv regime which first resorted to armed force.

Thusly, Russia makes its case that its military action in Donbas was a justified response to Kyiv’s continued military aggression against the breakaway Donbas Republics, and therefore allowed under the UN Charter.

As for Russia’s invasion of the rest of Ukraine, Putin regards Kyiv’s collaboration with NATO’s increasing moves to threaten Russian national security as providing his justification. Although one may question the validity of one or both of those Putin rationales, it is not a clearcut case of Kyiv-NATO all right versus Russia all wrong.

Secondly, in their legalistic diatribes against Russia, the U.S.-NATO-aligned leftists either: (1) make unfair comparisons (specifically to the U.S.-British 2003 invasion of Iraq which was, in fact, purely an imperial regime-change war “justified” by nothing other than an absolute lie); and/or (2) evade the enormity of the history of repeated and massive violations of the UN Charter and of international law whenever said law has stood in the way of the unjust aggressions by their own imperialist states.

Those aggressions include:

arming violent reactionary insurgencies (such as the Mujahidin in Afghanistan and the Contras in Nicaragua) in resistant countries;
murderous economic sieges (Cuba, Iraq, Venezuela, Iran, …);
threatening war games (Baltic states, south Korea);
inciting and abetting coups, even against democratically-elected governments (Syria in 1949, Iran in 1953, Guatemala in 1954, and dozens more);
assassinations and attempts (Lumumba, Castro, Qasim, Allende, Gaddafi, …);
interference in many other countries’ elections (beginning with Italy in 1948);
devastating murderous military interventions on the side of repressive reactionary regimes in other countries’ civil wars (Greece, China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Colombia, …);
arming and shielding states which perpetrate massive crimes against human rights (the Zionist state, Saudi Arabia, …);
regime-change military invasions (Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Libya, …).

Many of those racist imperial interventions (scores of them since 1945) have left many tens of millions impoverished, terrorized, displaced, injured, or dead.

Finally, none of those victims of Western imperial violations of international law were able to have it enforced against their oppressors. In fact, the U.S. and its major allies routinely violate the UN Charter and international law; and, given the lack of any authority with the power to enforce said law against them, they (its major violators) are never held accountable.

Nevertheless, our anti-Russia “socialists” are now repeating the U.S.-NATO one-sided application and misapplication of international law in order to justify their backing for the West’s intervention against Russia.

They may argue that U.S. crimes are a separate case and therefore irrelevant. The fallacy in that argument is that the U.S. and NATO have been anti-Russia participants in this armed conflict ever since the 2014 coup.

Consequently, our U.S.-NATO apologists are, in effect, calling for the worst outlaw in a lawless world to enforce the law against a lesser alleged offender notwithstanding that said enforcer is itself a perpetrator acting in furtherance of its own criminal objectives. This is not support for law enforcement; it is giving de facto assistance to the worst criminal gang in the world.

“Imperial Russia”? G&F describe Russia as an “imperialist great power”. TB calls Russia “imperialist” and “fascist”. F&G&R accuse Russia of “aggression” as an “imperialist power” motivated by “revanchism”.

Thusly, our anti-Russia leftists make much of Putin’s Russia as an “autocratic”, “anti-democratic” “imperialist” state. While Russia’s economy has improved dramatically under Putin from the era of Boris Yeltsin (1991-1999), certainly, there is much to fault in Russia’s domestic policies (crony capitalism, favoritism for the Russian Orthodox Church, inaction on climate change, restrictive labor laws, rigging of elections).

There may even be valid criticisms for some aspects of Russia’s actions in Donbas and/or Crimea and/or elsewhere. Nevertheless, Russia’s efforts to preserve its limited sphere of influence are essentially defensive. Moreover, Russia (with military spending less than 1/17 that of NATO member countries collectively and with one military base outside of former Soviet countries) pales to insignificance in comparison with Western imperialism which: maintains hundreds of military bases all around the world, attempts to impose its will upon nearly every other country, exploits and oppresses all around the world, and is led and dominated by the world’s only current superpower.

Finally, Russia’s grievances against US-NATO imperialism and against the post-coup regime in Ukraine are real and valid. Making an issue of Russia’s deficiencies, while evading that reality, is simply a convenient pretext embraced by those in need of an excuse for aligning with Biden, Stoltenberg, and the Kyiv regime against Putin’s Russia.

“Democratic” Ukraine? Apologists for the Kyiv regime propose that Ukraine deserves support against “autocratic” Russia because it is (they assert) a “democracy”. F&G&R describe Ukraine as striving for “democracy”, and TB describes it as an imperfect “democracy worth defending”.

They omit and evade numerous contrary facts:

that the current regime was established thru the U.S.-backed 2014 coup against an actually popularly-elected government;
that Zelensky’s initial popularity rested largely upon his promise (broken soon after he took office) to make peace with the breakaway Donbas Republics;
that (in 2021) the leading opposition party (which was then beginning to outpoll Zelensky’s party) was suspended and its leader (Viktor Medvedchuk) placed under house arrest and subsequently charged with treason; and
that voices of opposition to Kyiv’s anti-Russia policies have been routinely repressed by the post-coup regime. In fact, many have been kidnapped and tortured and murdered by the state security forces, trained by the CIA in a Phoenix-style operation reminiscent of Vietnam.

While human rights abuses (some of them probably fabricated) alleged against Russian soldiers are expansively reported by Western states and their supportive mainstream news media; the Kyiv state’s reign of terror, with torture and murder of dissenting Ukrainians and of captive Russian soldiers go entirely unreported in said news media. In fact, the Kyiv state has long been far more repressive and anti-democratic than Putin’s Russia.

The national question? Some Russia-blaming “Marxists” concoct an issue of Russia allegedly violating the Leninist principle that nations (including Ukraine) have the right to self-determination and separate existence as an independent nation-state.

Even though Putin expressed disagreement with Lenin’s nationalities policy; the assumption and assertion (by F&G&R), that Putin has denied Ukraine’s present-day national legitimacy or sought to eliminate its existence as a separate and independent country, is an absolute falsehood.

What he actually said was that Russia and Ukraine, like Germany and Austria, have common ancestral and cultural roots and ought to have friendly relations. He definitively acknowledged: that “historical circumstances” had resulted in Ukraine being “a separate nation”; and that as to “How should we treat that? There is only one answer: with respect!” Substituting false imaginary extensions of Putin’s sentimentalities for his actual deeds and evident intentions, in order to justify siding with Western imperialism, is simply deceitful. The relevant facts.

Firstly, Putin has clearly acknowledged the impossibility of resurrecting the Soviet Union. He has evidenced no intent to deprive Ukraine of its existence as a separate independent country, but only to prevent it from becoming a threat to Russian national security.

He persisted for nearly eight years in seeking Ukraine’s implementation of autonomy within Ukraine for the Donbas regions (as Kyiv had agreed to do in the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements) even though much popular sentiment in said regions was for unification with Russia. In fact, the UN Security Council, including the U.S., had unanimously endorsed the Minsk Agreement in 2015.

Nothing, that Russia did, prevented Kyiv from implementing the promised autonomy. Moreover, the U.S. actually encouraged Kyiv in its refusal to implement. Those are crucial facts which the anti-Russia “socialist” commentators generally omit and always evade.

Secondly, these “Leninists” echo the US and NATO by branding Russia’s “annexation” of Crimea and its assistance to the breakaway Donbas regions as “violations of the sovereign territory of Ukraine”.

So say F&G&R who also brand the secession of Crimea as Russian “seizure of Crimea”. Meanwhile, TB embraces Kyiv’s goal (“victory”) as regaining absolute rule over Donbas and Crimea.

Those assertions depend upon a gross oversimplification and misapplication of the national question as applied here. These “Leninists” join the US and NATO in insisting upon the “right” of ethnic Ukrainians to exercise absolute sovereignty over the entire ethnically diverse territory of an independent country separate from Russia; but (contrary to Lenin) they deny the self-determination rights of national minority populations to even have autonomy within regions wherein they predominate.

Moreover, some of these “Leninists”, notably F&G&R, try to justify their one-sided application of national rights by questioning whether the peoples of Crimea and Donbas ever actually chose independence from, or autonomy within, Ukraine. They have evidently rushed to judgment without bothering to ascertain the relevant factual evidence.

1954. Khrushchev orchestrated the decision (of dubious legality) to transfer Crimea from the Russian Soviet Republic to the Ukrainian SSR without the consent or approval of the people of Crimea.
1991. At the breakup of the USSR, Crimea’s elected leaders attempted to obtain recognition of Crimea as an independent Republic separate from Ukraine.
1992. After disputes between Kyiv and Crimea over the scope of Crimea’s autonomy, Kyiv agreed to a compromise recognition of Crimea as an Autonomist Republic within Ukraine.
1995. Kyiv abolished the Constitution of Crimea, abolished its office of President, made the elected Crimean parliament’s choice of its Prime Minister subject to veto by Kyiv, and imposed other severe limits upon its authority (largely negating its autonomy).
2008. Polling by the Ukrainian Center for Economic and Political Studies (not an agent of Moscow) found that 64% of Crimeans would like Crimea to secede from Ukraine and join Russia.
2009—11. The United Nations Development Programme (not an agent of Moscow) conducted periodic opinion polls in Crimea. Each time, at least 65% of Crimeans favored Crimea leaving Ukraine and reuniting with Russia.
Crimea’s break with Ukraine was a direct popular response to the US-backed 2014 coup in Kyiv (Crimea having voted overwhelmingly for the ousted government). Assertions, that Crimea’s reunion with Russia was effectuated by a Russian “invasion”, is another falsehood. Although Russia’s authorized military forces already based in Crimea assisted local forces in effectuating the independence referendum and the subsequent secession and reunion with Russia, those actions were welcomed by a huge majority of Crimeans, they being already so inclined. Moreover, given the history of past denials of their self-determination rights by both Moscow (1954) and Kyiv (after breakup of the USSR); the people of Crimea had more than ample justification for seceding and reuniting with Russia. Lenin, insisting that socialists are “the most consistent enemies of oppression”, would have agreed.

Our anti-Russia “Leninists” have joined the US, NATO, and Kyiv in insisting upon national rights for Ukrainian nationalists but denying such rights for the peoples of Crimea and Donbas. They sanctify “territorial integrity” and “sovereignty”; but, contrary to Lenin, they negate the fight against oppression and injustice.

Trap? Some anti-imperialist analysts believe that the US, with its intransigence regarding Russian security concerns, deliberately set a trap for Russia; and there is precedent for that proposition. Jimmy Carter (beginning in 1979) armed the reactionary Mujahidin insurgency against the Soviet-allied revolutionary government in Afghanistan: in order to provoke Soviet military intervention in defense of that government, and (as his national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has stated) draw the USSR into a Vietnam-like quagmire.

A 2019 report titled “Overextending and Unbalancing Russia” by the US-military-funded think tank, Rand Corporation, proposed that the US goal should be “to undermine Russia just as it did the Soviet Union in the cold war”.

Until there is access to the internal communications of Biden’s national security team, we cannot say with certainty that they intended to trap Russia into a self-destructive war in Ukraine. However, there was apparent advocacy for that policy within the U.S. foreign-policy establishment; and, with the U.S. encouraging Kyiv intransigence in peace talks, that clearly is the current U.S. policy objective.

As for our anti-Russia “socialists”, they refuse to even acknowledge the clear fact that the U.S. and NATO were acting to isolate and weaken Russia. Why? Because, with their distaste for Putin’s Russia, these “socialists” evidently share that objective.

Domestic politics. Socialists, whatever their views of the war in Ukraine, are rightly concerned about the rise of bigoted reactionary political factions in many countries.

In the U.S., many liberal-reformist “socialists” habitually respond to Republican reaction by giving their allegiance to the Democrats despite the latter’s longstanding betrayal of their working-class electoral base. Moreover, virtually every Democrat politician at the national level supports U.S. imperialist hegemony over the world and the consequent imperial crimes in U.S. foreign policies.

Liberal “socialists”, with their commitment to the Democrats, can then give only lip-service to anti-imperialism. So, when Democrats are in control, such “socialists” generally do nothing to organize popular opposition to U.S. imperial crimes against peoples in foreign lands. In fact, they even become willfully blind to some of said crimes (as in the case of Ukraine).

The correct policy for socialists is to tactically ally with Democrat politicians when they actually fight for social justice. However, it is necessary at the same time to educate the people as to the perfidy and betrayals of social justice by said Democrats.

Failure to so educate is: to tail after the agents of capital, and to perpetuate existing ignorance and prejudices within the populace. We need to build a social-justice solidarity movement, not a constituency committed to the Democratic Party. Hence: temporary limited tactical alliances, yes; allegiance, no.

Prowar “socialists”. While the U.S. and NATO send ever increased and ever more lethal weapons which serve to prolong the horrors of this war, it is Ukrainian and Russian (not NATO-country) fighters and civilians who suffer and die.

Regardless of who prevails, both Russia and Ukraine will have paid a huge price. Meanwhile, transnational capital, especially in the arms industry and fossil fuel companies, will reap increased profits.

Yet, our anti-Russia “socialists advocate sending Western arms to Ukraine and draconian sanctions against Russia. Thusly, they give their support to the West’s new cold war (now hot) in Europe.

[Note. Socialists have appropriately given critical support for U.S. foreign military operations in those exceptional cases where it (for its own self-serving reasons) was an ally in just war against an oppressor enemy. The Ukraine War is clearly not such an exception.]

Principal contradiction. Portside (an avowedly “leftist” online publication) published a solidly anti-imperialist analysis of the Ukraine war by the US Peace Council [USPC], subsequently indicating that it did so in order to present an alternative viewpoint with which Portside did not agree. Shortly thereafter, Portside published 11 comments in response to the USPC statement, all but one opposing the USPC analysis, several in very denunciatory words.

Two of those joined a number of other anti-Russia leftist commentators in denouncing the anti-imperialist analysis as the “anti-imperialism of fools” or “idiots”. A third, avowed U.S. “Marxist” Carl Davidson (a former leader of the Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] and in revolutionary organizations, later and currently active within the Democratic Party, and currently in leadership in CC-DS), commented that the “principal contradiction” in this conflict is “the Russian invasion of a sovereign nation and Ukraine’s defense of their sovereignty”.

Evidently, anti-Russia “socialists”, that one among others, have decided that the contradiction, between Western imperialism and its worldwide numerous targets (Russia, China, Iran, Syria, DPRK, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, …) for containment, subjugation, and/or regime-change, is no longer paramount.

Being in sync with the US and NATO in this Ukraine conflict, they have devolved into social patriots. The term originates with the leaders of the socialist parties in the major belligerents who (in 1914) concocted pretexts to justify backing their respective imperial governments on both sides in the Great War (after having neglected for years to educate their members with respect to imperialism). Our present-day social patriots, obsessing over the need to prevent election victories by Trump bigots, apparently go along, consciously or unconsciously, with the imperialist liberals for the sake of political respectability and popular influence at the expense of principle.

Given their past contributions in fights for social justice, we can only hope that they, unlike their 1914 predecessors, will recognize and correct their error.

Our current task.

We may consider Russia’s military response in Ukraine to be an inappropriate excess or imprudent or both, and we may fault Russian methods in its military operations; but, while we may state our disapproving opinions, we have no capacity to influence Russia’s decisions.

Our job, as anti-imperialist social-justice activists in the West, is to condemn and vigorously oppose U.S.-NATO imperialism (including arms to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia).

We must expose the falsehoods in the Russophobe war propaganda; and we must persist in supporting the fight against that real enemy. That is our obligation even though we will be defamed by some avowed “socialists” as “Putin apologists,” “fools,” and “idiots.”

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The foregoing report is supplemented by the following report (not posted on this site).

Charles Pierce: Attack on Antiwar Activists Exemplifies Russophobia Among “Leftist” Apologists for Western Imperialism & a Fascist-Loving Regime (CAM, 2023 Mar 19) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/03/19/attack-on-antiwar-activists-exemplifies-russophobia-among-leftist-apologists-for-western-imperialism-and-a-fascist-loving-regime/ .

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Sources (embedded links).

[1] Van Gosse & Bill Fletcher Jr: Whose Side Are We On? The War in Ukraine and the Crisis of the Left (Portside, 2022 Apr 19) @ https://portside.org/2022-04-21/whose-side-are-we-war-ukraine-and-crisis-left .

[2] Taras Bilous: Self-Determination and the War in Ukraine (Dissent, 2022 May 09) @ https://portside.org/2022-05-09/self-determination-and-war-ukraine . (Republished by Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal and by Portside.)

[3] Bill Fletcher Jr, Bill Gallegos, & Jamala Rogers: When Should We Stop Excusing the Russian Invasion? (New Politics, 2022 May 11) @ https://portside.org/2022-05-11/when-should-we-stop-excusing-russian-invasion . (Republished by Portside and by LeftLinks – CCDS.)

[4] Jan Oberg: Ukraine: The West Has Paved the Road to War with Lies (Dissident Voice, 2022 Jan 22) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/01/ukraine-the-west-has-paved-the-road-to-war-with-lies/ . Promise to Gorbachev.

[5] Manlio Dinucci: U.S. missiles in Romania and Poland: Europe on the nuclear frontline (Il Manifesto, 2016 My 19) @ https://www.voltairenet.org/article191827.html .

Missiles to Poland & Romania.

[6] TheBalticWord: Baltic States at the epicenter of military exercises (World Defense, 2020 Sep 09) @ https://world-defense.com/threads/baltic-states-at-the-epicenter-of-military-exercises.8074/#:~:text=The%20Baltic%20States%20have%20become%20the%20scene%20of,exercise%20%E2%80%9CSword%202020%E2%80%9D%20will%20take%20place%20in%20Latvia. . War games in Baltic states.

[7] Alan Macleod: Documents Reveal US Gov’t Spent $22M Promoting Anti-Russia Narrative in Ukraine and Abroad (therundownlive, 2022 Feb 18) @ https://therundownlive.com/documents-reveal-us-govt-spent-22m-promoting-anti-russia-narrative-in-ukraine-and-abroad/ . NED.

[8] Alan Macleod: Documents Reveal ….

Support for coup. McCain & Nuland in Kyiv urging “rvlt”. Nuland’s choice for PM. Azov & Rt Sector leading role in coup (wi false flag atak).

[9] Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J S Davies: Are there really neo-Nazis fighting for Ukraine? Well, yes – but it’s a long story (Salon, 2022 Mar 10) @ https://www.salon.com/2022/03/10/are-there-really-neo-nazis-fighting-for-ukraine-well-yes–but-its-a-long-story/ .

US false denials of neo-Nazis. US worked wi extreme right to make coup. Right sector ldr PM for 1^st 2 yrs. Svoboda got 3 cabinet positions and 3 governorships.

[10] Wikipedia: Language policy in Ukraine (2022 Apr 03) @ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine .

Revocation of 2012 language law. Russian book ban in Ukraine (2022 Feb 06).

[11] Alan Macleod: Documents Reveal ….

Kyiv shut Rus language media, jailed pro-Rus voices, banned Rus lang from schools. US training Ukr military (? Azov regiment). Civil war ag Donbas. Neo-Nazis: Azov, Rt-sector. Promise to Gorbachev.

[12] Volodymyr Ishchenko: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties? (Left Links, 2022 Mar 21) @ http://links.org.au/why-did-ukraine-suspend-11-pro-russia-parties-sotsyalnyi-rukh . Repession.

[13] Branko Marcetic: Whitewashing Nazis Doesn’t Help Ukraine (Jacobin, 2022 Apr 07) @ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/04/ukraine-russia-putin-azov-neo-nazis-western-media .

Impunity for neo-Nazi violence.

[14] Volodymyr Ishchenko: Ukraine on the Brink (2019 Jan 27) @ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/01/ukraine-maidan-protests-elections-volodymyr-ishchenko.

Bandera lauded. Neo-Nazi in Maidan coup. Neo-Nazis in Donbas war. Neo-Nazis condoned by West. CP and Commie symbols banned. Azov merged into Natl Guard.

[15] Abdul Rahman: What are the Minsk agreements and what are their role in the Russia-Ukraine crisis? (peoples dispatch, 2022 Feb 22) @ https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/02/22/what-are-the-minsk-agreements-and-what-are-their-role-in-the-russia-ukraine-crisis/ .

Kyiv failed to redress grievances of Rus-speakers in Donbas, has not implemented Minsk hgt. Rus recognized indep of LPR & DPR; Rus says no otr option (aft 8 yrs intransigence). Donbas ldrs had appealed to Rus. Russophobe groups prevent Ukr from complying wi Minsk. Civ war began with Kyiv coup regime moves to crush opposition to coup regime policies (anti-Rus, pro-NATO). Anti-Rus forces prevented Zelensky form implementing Minsk. Rus raised isu in UNSC in Feb.

[16] Roger Annis: The Self-determination Struggle in Russian Crimea and the Pro-autonomy Struggle in Donbas (formerly eastern Ukraine) (Dissident Voice, 2021 Dec 20) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/12/the-self-determination-struggle-in-russian-crimea-and-the-pro-autonomy-struggle-in-donbas-formerly-eastern-ukraine/ .

Minsk hgt (US backing Ukr refusal to implement autonomy). Not separatists. Civil war began as resistance to coup. Crimea history (1954). Crimea had autonomist sts, not Donbas. Sentiment for indep or return to Rus (1990s). Popularity of secession and return to Rus (2014). Kyiv siege following referendum. Yanukovych dcsn 2013.

[17] Branko Marcetic: The CIA May Be Breeding Nazi Terror in Ukraine (Jacobin, 2022 Jan 15) @ https://www.jacobinmag.com/2022/01/cia-neo-nazi-training-ukraine-russia-putin-biden-nato .

CIA training neo-Nazis. US refusal of redress re Nato expansion.

[18] Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J S Davies: Are there really neo-Nazis ….

Zelensky yields to rt-wing pressure & refused to talk to Donbas ldrs.

[19] Medea Benjamin & Nicolas J S Davies: Are there really neo-Nazis ….

Gvt created new Nat Guard to fight resistors in Donbas wi Azov leading the fight. Azov retook Mariupol from resisters. Azov armed & trained by US.

[20] Stansfield Smith: Is Russia imperialist? (MRonline, 2019 Jan 02) @ https://mronline.org/2019/01/02/is-russia-imperialist/ .

[21] Volodymyr Ishchenko: Why did Ukraine suspend 11 ‘pro-Russia’ parties?

Repession.

[22] Jeremy Kuzmarov: CIA Behind Secret Plots to Kidnap, Torture and Assassinate Ukrainian Dissidents for President Zelensky, says Ukrainian Defector (Covert Action Magazine, 2022 Apr 25) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/04/25/cia-behind-secret-plots-to-kidnap-torture-and-assassinate-ukrainian-dissidents-for-president-zelensky-says-ukraine-defector/ .

[23] Max Blumenthal & Esha Krishnaswamy: “One less traitor”: Zelensky oversees campaign of assassination, kidnapping and torture of political opposition (The Grayzone, 2022 Apr 17) @ https://thegrayzone.com/2022/04/17/traitor-zelensky-assassination-kidnapping-arrest-political-opposition/ .

Reign of terror torture & murder) against dissenters and captive Russian POWs.

[24] Vladimir Putin: On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians (Wikisource, 2021) @ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians .

What Putin actually said.

[25] Roger Annis: Denunciation of Vladimir Putin’s Essay on History of Russia and Ukraine is Unwarranted (Covert Action Magazine, 2022 Jun 20) @ https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/06/20/denunciation-of-vladimir-putins-essay-on-history-of-russia-and-ukraine-is-unwarranted/ .

[26] Ivan Katchanovski: Lies About Ukraine Conflict Are Standing in the Way of a Peaceful Resolution (Truthout, 2022 Feb 16) @ https://truthout.org/articles/lies-about-ukraine-conflict-are-standing-in-the-way-of-a-peaceful-resolution/ .

Sniper atak in Maidan was by anti-Yanukovych militias. Opinion Polls before and after show most Crimean wanted secession and unn wi Rus. Poll in Donbas before civ war showed most ppl there wanted autonomy or independence from Ukr. Minsk hgts.

[27] Off-Guardian: Timeline: The Crimean Referendum (Aletho News, 2022 Mar 08) @ https://alethonews.com/2022/03/08/timeline-the-crimean-referendum/ . Relevant history.

[28] Lenin: The Right of Nations to Self-Determination (MIA, 2008) ~ § 4. “Practicality” in the national question @ https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/self-det/ch04.htm .

Socialist oppose oppression.

[29] Joe Lauria: Biden Confirms Why the US Needed This War (Consortium News, 2022 Mar 27) @ https://portside.org/2022-03-29/biden-confirms-why-us-needed-war .

US wants to replace Putin. Rand Corp & McFaul call for regime change in Rus. Sanctions to bring down Putin. 2014 coup & Russia-gate for that purpose. US NGOs in Rus fomenting opposition. 3 things US could have done (Minsk & redress NATO threat). Donbas voted for indep in 2014, Kyiv responded militarily to resistance ag coup. Brzezinski’s Afghan trap. Brzezinski on Ukraine.

[30] Rick Sterling: Rand Report Prescribed US Provocations against Russia and Predicted Russia Might Retaliate in Ukraine (Dissident Voice, 2022 Mar 27) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2022/03/rand-report-prescribed-us-provocations-against-russia-and-predicted-russia-might-retaliate-in-ukraine/#more-128174 .

Rand rpt goal to undermine Rus. Nuland billions to turn Ukr. 2014 coup. US training ultra-nat’nalist & neoNazi militias. Weapons (more and more lethal) to Ukr. Provocative milit threats ag Rus. US-Ukr pact on Nato-mbrshp & denial of rt of Crimea. US rebuff Rus proposal.

[31] Charles Pierce: Proposals for the 2020 US Elections (Dissident Voice, 2020 Mar 19) @ https://dissidentvoice.org/2020/03/proposals-for-the-2020-us-elections/ .

Dems betrayals of social justice.

[32] U.S. Peace Council: Statement on Russia’s Military Intervention in Ukraine (Portside, 2022 Mar 24) @ https://portside.org/2022-03-26/us-peace-council-statement-russias-military-intervention-ukraine .

[33] Portside: Readers Respond to U.S. Peace Council on Russia’s Military Intervention in Ukraine (2022 Mar 28) @ https://portside.org/2022-03-28/readers-respond-us-peace-council-russias-military-intervention-ukraine .

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