Zenpolitics: Scotland for Palestine: Along the Boardwalks – News Block

Accompanying an evocative Waters/Pink Floyd catalog – with nods to their own Scottish heritage – the performance featured an impressive array of mass-screen imagery, from anti-war statements and indictments of neoliberal capitalism, to the brutal apartheid wall of Israel and the unrelenting suffering of Palestinians.

In another great expression of solidarity, Waters and his tour management granted special dispensation for two groups to campaign in and around the arena: one in support of Palestine and the Flotilla’s sailing; the other against the evil imprisonment of Julian Assange.

In brave defiance of the Israel lobby spurious claims when trying to close his concerts, he was inspiring to witness Waters sending such strong messages from this waterfront to Palestinians living under occupation and siege between his river and sea.

And in an exemplary display of how to confront the forces of the establishment that are trying to bring it down, as they did with the great humanitarian hope and Palestine defender Jeremy Corbyn – Waters has shown the most brilliant resolve in denouncing the lobby’s deceitful efforts to smear him and his show as ‘anti-Semitic’.

In a truly remarkable on-camera piece for Double Down News, Waters provides a true blueprint for how to handle your bullies and the lying charlatans who try to cancel you out. If anyone has any doubts about the futility of trying to appease the pro-Israel crowd, check out this master class on assertive resistance.

Nor is Waters, in the face of the same establishment vilification, stingy in his condemnation of the prevailing proxy war propaganda, denouncing Western gun advocates with his damningly repeated The Bravery of Being Out of Range.

Spread support in Scotland

In fortunate timing, Waters’s heroic show has also coincided with the release of Asa WinstanleyThe extraordinary new book from , Weaponising Anti-Semitism, a rather brilliant forensic account of how the same dark forces deployed their fabricated narrative to bring down Corbyn.

Again, like Waters, Winstanley fully understands the need to take a critically offensive, rather than pleadingly defensive, stance against such reactionary elements.

Winstanley further reinforced this vital message by teaming up with Scottish journalist Yvonne Ridley (member of a 2008 flotilla that reached Gaza), Israeli dissident ronnie barkanand a multitude of other excellent activist/cultural voices in a recent series of pro-Palestine public rallies in Glasgow, Edinburgh and other places in Scotland.

Israel can only commit such acts knowing that it can expect impunity from its international patrons and silence from the cowardly media.

Another key theme that emerged from the discussions by Barkan and others was how tenuous Israel’s grip on the Palestinians is becoming, as it teeters towards an even more extreme form of theocratic fascism and possible implosion, much to the alarm of its supporters. liberal zionists.

Of course, the zealous abilities of the Israel lobby and the establishment in general cannot be underestimated.

Witness Keir Starmer’s ruthless purge of the Labor Left, along with his display of uncompromising service to Israel.

In fact, Starmer himself shameful letter denouncing Waters as ‘anti-Semitic’, despite all the obvious evidence to the contrary, shows just how low this figure approved by the establishment as a McCarthyite witch hunter has descended, flag-carrying jingo authoritarian and warmongering in the Blair style.

Nor, unfortunately, does there seem to be any sincere or decisive support for the Palestinian cause here from the SNP-led Scottish government. Despite Humza Yousaf’s marital family ties to Gaza, the The new Prime Minister has merely paid lip service on the issue, refusing even to endorse the outspoken statements by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem that Israel is an apartheid state.

However, as with the breakdown of apartheid in South Africa, it is argued basic activism that is driving the Palestinian case – all, of course, as additional support for the Palestinians’ own agency and legitimate resistance.

Backed by international law, rising art boycotts, and growing support from the global south, the same critical tipping point looms for this unsustainable entity.

Indeed, as the internal contradictions of Israel’s fortress system play out, the crisis of its settler colonial project is becoming all too apparent to many disillusioned Jews, who are now leaving Israel for its western shores, and to many, too. , which they observe with increasing distance from them. .

The vision of such a return for the occupied, cornered and exiled Palestinians may seem like a more distant prospect. But it is no less a reality than the increasingly distant horizon of the failed state of Israel.

Seeking one land of equality, dignity and democracy for all, as the only real, just and lasting solution.

As it does, we can take good heart from the resilient body of pro-Palestinian solidarity organisations, human rights campaigns and other staunch supporters here in Scotland who advocate for that one true country.

In the same forward-thinking spirit as Roger Waters’ tour, the Flotilla crew will soon set sail from Glasgow in their valiant effort to break the siege of Gaza, a deadly port where fishermen risk their livelihoods and lives to haul their boats beyond Israel. illegally imposed nautical limit.

And who can forget the brutal murder of the four young children by Israel in 2014: Ismail Muhammad Subhi Bakr aged nine, Ahed Atef Ahed Bakr aged ten, Zakariya Ahed Subhi Bakr aged ten and Muhammad Ramez Ezzat Bakr aged eleven – playing football on the beach in Gaza?

In memory of them and all the other little souls taken by this savage regime.

Wishing those aboard the fine ship Handala a safe voyage, much publicity for your valuable expedition, and best wishes in your honorable quest to save Palestinian lives.