Bulletin N° 800
Subject : Up
Against the Wall in the Gaza Concentration Camp: the freedom to choose how to
be murdered by Zionists !
16 May 2018
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends of CEIMSA,
As the relentless, mechanical murders and
mutilations in Gaza continue –revealing imperialist intents, cloaked in
religious pretentions – the demonstrated urge for freedom among Palestinians
has become contagious. What right do these self-identified Zionists have to
take possession of this land and systematically murder its people? The
criminality extends beyond the act of pulling the trigger; we are all
implicated in this massive crime against humanity!
We have been recruited to collaborate, either
actively or passively, with this “identity politics” run amok in a death trap.
The stakes are now unbelievably high - nothing less than the extinction of our species!
We invite CEIMSA readers to look once more at the
words of Etienne de La Boétie (
1530-1563) from his famous essay, The
Discourse of Voluntary Servitude, to examine the nature of tyranny,
servitude, and obedience, and the cultures that have historically reproduced
this destructive phenomena.
[I]t
is fruitless to argue whether or not liberty is natural, since none can be held
in slavery without being wronged, and in a world governed by a nature, which is
reasonable, there is nothing so contrary as an injustice. Since freedom is our
natural state, we are not only in possession of it but have the urge to defend
it. Now, if perchance some cast a doubt on this conclusion and are so corrupted
that they are not able to recognize their rights and inborn tendencies, I shall
have to do them the honor that is properly theirs and place, so to speak, brut
beasts in the pulpit to throw light on their nature and condition. The very
beasts - God help me! if men are too deaf - cry out to
them “Long live Liberty!” Many among them die as soon as captured: just as the
fish loses life as soon as he leaves the water, so do these creatures close
their eyes upon the light and have no desire to survive the loss of their
natural freedom. If the animals were to constitute their kingdom by rank, their
nobility would be chosen from this type. Others, from the largest to the
smallest, when captured put up such a strong resistance by means of claws,
horns, beak, and paws, that they show clearly enough how they cling to what
they are losing; afterwards in captivity they manifest by so many evident signs
their awareness of their misfortune, that it is easy to see they are
languishing rather than living, and continue their existence – more in
lamentation of their lost freedom than in enjoyment of their servitude. What
else can explain the behaviour of the elephant who,
after defending himself to the last ounce of his strength and knowing himself
on the point of being taken, dashes his jaws against the trees and breaks his
tusks, thus manifesting his longing to remain free as he has been and proving
his wit and ability to buy off the huntsmen in the hope that through the
sacrifice of his tusks he will be permitted to offer his ivory as a ransom to
his liberty? We feed the horse from birth in order to train him to do our
bidding. Yet he is tamed with such difficulty that when we begin to break him
in he bites the bit, he rears at the touch of the
spur, as if to reveal his instinct and show by his actions that, if he obeys,
he does so not of his own free will but under constraint. What more can we say?
Even
the oxen under the weight of the yoke
complain,
And
the birds in their cage lament,
as I expressed it some time ago,
toying with our French poesy . . . . And now, since all beings, because they feel,
suffer misery in subjection and long for liberty; since the very beasts,
although made for the service of man, cannot become accustomed to control
without protest, what evil chance has so denatured man that he, the only
creature really born to be free, lacks the memory of his original condition and
the desire to return to it?
There are three kinds of tyrants; some
receive their proud position through elections by the people, others by force
of arms, others by inheritance. Those who have
acquired power by means of war act in such wise that it is evident they rule
over a conquered country. Those who are born to kingship are scarcely any
better, because they are nourished on the breast of tyranny, suck in with their
milk the instincts of the tyrant, and consider the people under him as their
inherited serfs; and according to their individual disposition, miserly and
prodigal, they treat their kingdom as their property. He who has received the
estate form the people, however, ought to be, it seems to me, more bearable and
would be so, I think, were it not for the fact that as soon as he sees himself
higher than the others, flattered by that quality which we call grandeur, he
plans never to relinquish his position. Such a man usually determines to pass
on to his children the authority that the people have conferred upon him; and
once his heirs have taken this attitude, strange it is how far they surpass
other tyrants in all sorts of vices, and especially in cruelty, because they
find no other means to impose this new tyranny than by tightening control and
removing their subjects so far from any notion of liberty that even if the
memory of it is fresh it will soon be eradicated. Yet, to speak accurately, I
do perceive that there is some difference among these three types of tyranny,
but as for stating a preference, I cannot grant there is any. For although the
means of coming into power differ, still the method of ruling is practically
the same; those who are elected act as if they were breaking in bullocks; those
who are conquerors make people their prey; those who are heirs plan to treat
them as if they were natural slaves.
In connection with this, let us imagine some
newborn individuals, neither acquainted with slavery nor desirous of liberty,
ignorant indeed of the very words. If they were permitted to choose between
being slaves and free men, to which would they give their vote? There can be no
doubt that they would much prefer to be guided by reason itself than to be
ordered about by the whims of a single man. The only possible exception might
be the Israelites who, without any compulsion or need, appointed a
tyrant*. [The reference is to Saul who
in the Bible was anointed by Samuel.] I can never read their history without
becoming angered and even inhuman enough to find satisfaction in the many evils
that befell them on this account. But certainly all men, as long as they remain
men, before letting themselves become enslaved must either be driven by force
or led into it by deception; conquered by foreign armies, as were Sparta and
Athens by the forces of Alexander** [Alexander the Macedonian became the
acknowledged master of all Hellenes at the Assembly of Corinth, 335 B.C.] or by
political factions, as when at an earlier period the control of Athens had
passed into the hands of Pisistrates.* [Athenian tyrant, died 627 B.C. He used
ruse and bluster to control the city and was obliged to flee several times.]
When they lose their liberty through deceit they are not so often betrayed by
others as misled by themselves. This was the case with
the people of Syracuse, chief city of Sicily when, in the throes of war and
heedlessly planning only for th
present danger, they promoted Denis,* [Denis or Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse,
died in 367 B.C. Of lowly firth, this dictator imposed himself by plotting,
putsches, and purges. The danger from which he saved his city was the invasion
by the Carthaginians.]
It is incredible how as soon as a people
becomes subject, it promptly falls into such complete forgetfulness of its
freedom that it can hardly be roused to the point or regaining it, obeying so
easily and so willingly that one is led to say, on beholding such a situation;,
that this people has not so much lost its liberty as won its enslavement. It is
true that in the beginning men submit under constraint and by force; but those
who come after them obey without regret and perform willingly what their
predecessors had done because they had to. This is why men born under the yoke
and then nourished and reared in slavery are content, without further effort,
to live in their native circumstance, unaware of any other state or right, and
considering as quite natural the condition into which they were born. There is,
however, no heir so spendthrift or indifferent that he does not sometimes scan
the account books of his father in order to see if he is enjoying all the
privileges of his legacy or whether, perchance, his rights and those of his
predecessor have not been encroached upon. Nevertheless it is clear enough that
the powerful influence of custom is in no respect more compelling than in this,
namely, habituation to subjection. It is said that Mithridates
trained himself to drink poison.* [Mithridates
(135-63 B.C.) was next to Hannibal the most dreaded and potent enemy of Roman
power. The reference in the text is to his youth when he spent some years in
retirement hardening himself and immunizing himself
against poison. In his old age, defeated by Pompey, betrayed by his own son, he
tried poison and finally had to resort to the dagger of a friendly Gaul.] Like
him we learn to swallow, and not to find bitter, the venom of servitude. It
cannot be denied that nature is influential in shaping us to her will and
making us reveal our rich or meager endowment; yet it must be admitted that she
has less power over us than custom, for the reason that native endowment, no
matter how good, is dissipated unless encouraged, whereas environment always
shapes us in its own way, whatever that may be, in spite of nature’s gifts. The
good seed that nature plants in us is so slight and so slippery that it cannot
withstand the least harm from wrong nourishment; it flourishes less easily,
becomes spoiled, withers, and comes to nothing. Fruit trees retain their own
particular quality if permitted to grow undisturbed, but lose it promptly and
bar strange fruit not their own when engrafted. Every
herb has its peculiar characteristics, its virtues and properties; yet frost,
weather, soil, or the gardener’s hand increase or diminish
its strength; the plant seen one in spot cannot be recognized in another.
Whoever could have observed the early
Venetians, a handful of people living so freely that the most wicked among them
would not wish to be king over them, so born and trained that they would not
vie with one another except as to which one could give the best counsel and
nurture their liberty most carefully, so instructed and developed from their
cradles that they would not exchange for all the other delights of the world an
iota of their freedom; who, I say, familiar with the original nature of such a
people could visit today the territories of the man known as the Great Doge*
[The ruler of Venice.], and there contemplate with composure a people unwilling
to live except to serve him, and maintaining his power at the cost of their
lives? Who would believe that these two groups of people had an identical
origin? Would one not rather conclude that upon leaving a city of men he had
chanced upon a menagerie of beats? Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta,* [A
half-legendary figure concerning whose life Plutarch admits there is much
obscurity. He bequeathed to his land a rigid code regulating land, assembly,
education, with the individual subordinate to the state.] is reported to have reared two dogs of the
same litter by fattening one in the kitchen and training the other in the
fields to the sound of the bugle and the horn, thereby to demonstrate to the Lacedaemonians that men, too, develop according to their
early habits. He set the two dogs in the open market place, and between them he
placed a bowl of soup and a hare. One ran to the bowl of soup, the other to the
hare; yet they were, as he maintained, born brothers of the same parents. In
such manner did this leader, by his laws and customs, shape and instruct the
Spartans so well that any one of them would sooner have died than acknowledge
any sovereign other than law and reason.(pp.51-57)
The 4 items below include first a photo essay
sent by Mark Crispin Miller on the current massacre of civilians in Gaza by
Israelis along with an appeal for financial support for emergency medical care
for the victims of this murderous Zionist campaign against Palestinians; then a
film review by Chris Hedges of Max Blumenthal and Dan
Cohen's new documentary, “Killing Gaza”; then the latest edition of the If Americans Knew Blog, "Essential news about Palestine, Israel, and related topics from IsraelPalestineNews.org"; and finally Norman Finkelstein's three-part analysis of the Gaza massacre.
Francis
Feeley
Professor
emeritus of American Studies
University
Grenoble-Alpes
Director
of Research
University
of Paris-Nanterre
Center
for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements
The University
of California-San Diego
1.
From:
"Mark Crispin Miller" <markcrispinmiller@gmail.com>
To: "newsfromunderground"
<newsfromunderground@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday 16 May, 2018
Subject: [MCM] Today in Gaza
Here are photos from yesterday in Gaza. The first three show the relatives of Leila al-Ghandour, mourning that 8-month-old baby girl, who died of tear gas inhalation in East Gaza.
These pictures give us a much clearer sense of the atrocity of Israel's actions than we're getting the euphemistic, coldly "balanced" coverage by the US press, whose timorousness Joe Lauria nails in this piece: https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/14/u-s-media-whitewashes-gaza-massacre/.
(On the other hand, the Gaza coverage is a model of unflinching honesty compared to the US press blackout on the endless Saudi slaughter in Yemen—"the world's worst humanitarian crisis," as the New York Times has called it several times, without actually reporting on it.)
In any case, the nurses dealing with the massacre in Gaza badly need our help. We're still trying trying to get those funds returned to those of you who generously sent them via PayPal. Meanwhile, GoFundMe appears to have suspended the nurses' account; and so the nurses have set up a new account elsewhere, as this latest email from Amal Arafa tells us.
MCM
From Amal
Arafa:
After
closing our account the previous time and now closes the second account for us,
but without any losses or lack of contributions on the fundraising platform Yokarinq.
After a full month of murder and violation of human and children's
rights, and women's rights as well, after the killing of more than 110 people
in a month, and in particular 64 people in one day, May 14th, and more than
14,000 injured—most of them cases of amputation, and serious cases that need
intensive care—we need your help in raising more donations, as the number of
wounded doubled in one day. We established
a new campaign with high safety.
Please help us on the following link:
https://fundrazr.com/81M6q5?ref=ab_27HuG0
And Paypal account
bi.erouq@gmail.com
Thank you for everything you do for us.
Thank you very much.
Amal
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
k.
l.
m.
n.
============
2.
Killing Gaza
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/killing-gaza/
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Israel’s
blockade of Gaza—where trapped Palestinians for the past seven weeks have held
nonviolent protests
along the border fence with Israel, resulting in scores of dead and some
6,000 wounded by Israeli troops—is one of the world’s worst humanitarian
disasters. Yet the horror that is Gaza, where 2 million people live under an
Israeli siege without adequate food, housing, work, water and electricity, where
the Israeli military routinely uses indiscriminate and disproportionate
violence to wound and murder, and where almost no one can escape, is rarely
documented. Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen’s powerful new film, “Killing Gaza,”
offers an unflinching and moving portrait of a people largely abandoned by the
outside world, struggling to endure.
“Killing Gaza” will be released
Tuesday, to coincide with what Palestinians call Nakba
Day—“nakba” means catastrophe in
Arabic—commemorating the 70th anniversary of the forced removal of some 750,000
Palestinians in 1948 by the Haganah, Jewish
paramilitary forces, from their homes in modern-day Israel. The release of the
documentary also coincides with the Trump administration’s opening of the new
U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem.
● Starting Tuesday, May 15, “Killing Gaza” can be
seen at Vimeo
On Demand.
============
From: "IAK Blog" <contact@ifamericansknew.org>
Sent: Wednesday, 16 May, 2018
Subject: Dozens killed protesting embassy move, Noura Erakat, Breaking the Silence/If Not Now, and more...
|
4.
Norman Finkelstein on Israel’s ‘Murderous Assault on Nonviolent Protesters’ in Gaza
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/49428.htm
Watch - Real News - Broadcast May 11, 2018
Gaza’s non-violent protest, "The Great March of Return" threatens not Israel, but its occupation.