The expectation that Palestinians under thumb for 75 years can plan, present, and articulate as well as the Israelis or are even expected to is a form of Apartheid in itself. Colonisers for hundreds of years have been running arguments like this. Australia for one has been doing it for 200 years
Mahmoud Abbas hasn’t been an effictive leader, and certainly not for a very long time, and his outbursts are just embarrassing. Had he taken the opportunity of the stage in Berlin to bring home to a German audience the magnitude of the human rights crisis faced by Palestinians, he might have done some good. As it is, by trying, pitifully, to appropriate the language of Holocaust for his people’s dilemma, he made himself look small, and a little crazed.
We should examine the oppressor, not the oppressed, otherwise all hope is lost, writes Gerry Georgatos. OPPRESSION IS NOT a phenomenon of modernity but a deliberation through the human ages. We are born with inherent rights to live in ways that warm the soul, but human beings have devolved to ways birthrights and choices are denied to us. Those who resist become outlaws. All recorded human history describes the oppressor and the oppressed and has imbibed punch-drunk justifications for ruling classes, tyrannies and carceral estates.
Let us hope this is the last time we have to deal with this nonsense (unlikely). The christian community needs to learn and accept that speech has consequences, particularly when you work for a company that values its reputation.
The final, and most important actual lessons from this are as follows
1 Society has evolved past the point where they require a book to tell them how to act.
2 Disagreeing with, and legislating away, your ability to discriminate against people is not discrimination against you!
3 As Anita Sarkeesian said ‘When you are used to privilege, equality seems like oppression’
The land of the free where all citizens aren’t equal (ODT)
Fort Worth is suffering a crisis of democracy – just 6% of electors voted in the last midterms – so why is it aggressively pursuing those who mistakenly cast ballots?
Ed Pilkington
Crystal Mason, who is facing five years in Texas prisons because she mistakenly cast a provisional ballot when she was not allowed to do so.
Crystal Mason, who is facing five years in Texas prisons because she mistakenly cast a provisional ballot when she was not allowed to do so. Photograph: Ed Pilkington for the Guardian
When Crystal Mason appears in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, this week she has been warned by her lawyers to be prepared for the worst. Pack a bag, they told her, talk to your children, be ready to go to prison.
As the clock ticks down to her court hearing on 30 August, she finds herself unable to take that advice. “No, I’m not prepared! I can’t go to prison. I’m not leaving my kids,” she said.
Mason, a 43-year-old mother of three, has been sentenced to five years in Texas state penitentiary – with extra time pending in federal lock-up. All because she committed the crime of voting.
On 8 November 2016, as the world waited with bated breath for the outcome of the Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton election, she walked to her local Fort Worth polling station to perform her civic duty as a US citizen. To her surprise, her name wasn’t registered on the voting rolls, so she cast a provisional ballot pending further checks.
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In the small print of the form it read: “I understand that it is a felony of the 2nd degree to vote in an election for which I know I am not eligible.” She didn’t read those words, focused as she was on correctly entering her personal details.
The Haaretz correspondent for the occupied territories and author of “Drinking the Sea at Gaza” has angered Israeli and Palestinian leadership with her uncompromising honesty. – 2016/06/27
olddogthoughts 
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