A huge protest against the Biden/Netanyahu genocide in Gaza took place at the consulate of the Zionist entity in Los Angeles Jan. 6. After a short rally in front of the consulate, a truck led thousands of young people east, taking over a lane of traffic on Wilshire Blvd.

Vinie Burrows, actriz, educadora y activista política quien representó a la Federación Democrática Internacional de Mujeres (FDIM) ante las Naciones Unidas, falleció el pasado 25 de diciembre a los 99 años en la ciudad de Nueva York.

Vinie, con la familiaridad con que la llamábamos todas en la FDIM, fue ejemplo vivo del propósito de nuestra organización. Sus acciones, tanto en su vida personal como en la profesional siempre demostraron la coherencia de sus convicciones políticas por la paz con justicia social y económica, en contra del racismo, por el derecho de la mujer y los niños y niñas de vivir sin violencia y poder desarrollar todas sus capacidades.

Fue fiel a las palabras de la primera presidenta de la FDIM Eugénie Cotton “En un mundo decidido a cambiar el estado de cosas que ha llevado a los hombres a librar dos horribles guerras mundiales en 25 años, el nuevo elemento, el poder de la masa de mujeres activas en la vida pública, puede y debe ser de gran importancia”.

Como representante de la FDIM, viajó a varios países en misiones de solidaridad internacional, invitada por organizaciones hermanas. En estos viajes, no solo demostraba su apoyo para con las luchas locales, sino que también exponía la cruel realidad que se vivía — y se vive aún — en su país de origen, los Estados Unidos. 

Recordemos que fue Estados Unidos quien le retiró el estatus consultivo a la FDIM en las Naciones Unidas en el 1954, furioso porque la FDIM publicó el documento “Yo Acuso” que exponía las atrocidades cometidas en ese entonces contra Corea del Norte. Eventualmente, en el 1967, se readmitió a la FDIM con estatus consultivo.

Vinie fue actriz de teatro que protagonizó piezas junto a conocidos actores y actrices, recibiendo muchos premios y reconocimientos, incluyendo un doctorado honorario de la Nueva Escuela (New School). Entre los múltiples artículos y entrevistas realizados a lo largo de su carrera, se destaca uno del New York Times donde la llaman la “Reina del Teatro Negro”, por su gran influencia en este arte.

Precisamente, fue su huella mayor en el arte, su exquisitez dramática como solista, que supo llevar a niveles nunca antes vistos en el teatro negro de la ciudad que presume ser la capital del teatro estadounidense. Estos soliloquios surgieron como respuesta al racismo y la exclusión de artistas negros y negras en el ámbito artístico de ese país.

Uno de los muchos ejemplos, fue el espectáculo “Walk Together Children” (Caminemos juntos niños), una pieza montada en un teatro de Greenwich que exponía a través de los escritos de personas esclavizadas, la horrible experiencia del pueblo afroamericano en los Estados Unidos. La audiencia, hay que recalcar, era mayormente blanca.

Vinie creía en la salud tanto del cuerpo como del espíritu, llamando ese espíritu conciencia política. Nadie le creía su edad, pero su apariencia juvenil era más bien el resultado de una gran esperanza en la humanidad, de su positivismo y activismo político que le daba la mejor razón para vivir. Además, como responsabilidad política, alimentaba su cuerpo sanamente y se ejercitaba con regularidad. Muchas recetas y consejos se aprendieron de ella.

A las compañeras de Grannies’ Peace Brigade y Women for Racial and Economic Equality, con las cuales Vinie Burrows trabajaba, les damos nuestro más sincero pésame con la esperanza de que podamos seguir colaborando juntas.

The tragically all-too-familiar sound of a U.S. airstrike rang out across Baghdad on Jan. 4 as a drone struck a logistic center for the Popular Mobilization Forces, killing Commander Abu Taqwa Al-Saeedi and one other PMF senior leader. Six additional individuals were wounded. 

Al-Saeedi’s assassination comes on the heels of a U.S. airstrike on Iraqi military positions on Dec. 27 that killed one Iraqi soldier and wounded 18 people. 

The PMF functions as a paramilitary wing of the Iraqi government and has provided military assistance to the Palestinian resistance since Oct. 7. For this, the U.S. has carried out a terror campaign against Iraq over the past weeks, including multiple strikes against the PMF. 

The U.S. imperial line has been that these strikes against Iraq are self-defense and only retaliation for recent PMF attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria. 

Oh, the poor billion-dollar U.S. military! Who will look out for them?

It’s laughable how the imperialist military beast justifies its crimes. There would not be PMF attacks on U.S. military bases in Iraq and Syria if there were no unwanted U.S. military bases in two sovereign nations. Further, there would not have been an escalation of PMF attacks on U.S. military bases if the Zionist entity (“Israel”) did not similarly escalate its genocidal efforts in Gaza. 

Assassination of Soleimani

The strike that killed Al-Saeedi quickly invoked comparisons to the illegal Jan. 2, 2020, U.S. drone strike that murdered Iran Revolutionary Guard general and hero in the fight against ISIS, Qassem Soleimani. 

In some sort of sick irony, that strike also killed the deputy chairman of the PMF at the time, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. Then-President Donald Trump also claimed that this assassination was a matter of self-defense.

All U.S. military presence in Western Asia is a crime, as it only serves to spread violence in the furtherance of the Western oil and defense industry profits. 

There is no justification. Oppressor violence in response to resistance and solidarity is not self-defense. It is just more oppressive violence. 

These sort of targeted killings against government-affiliated officials by the U.S. are widely recognized, even amongst bourgeois institutions, as violations of international law, let alone human rights. Yet, the U.S. carries out these strikes with continued impunity. 

As solidarity with Palestine continues to grow in the Arab and Muslim world, so will the imperialist crimes against humanity grow throughout the region. Workers and oppressed people across the world must continue to stand in solidarity and fierce resistance, even in the face of repression. 

Long live Iraqi resistance to imperialism! Long live the Palestinian resistance! When people are occupied, resistance is justified! 

How many Palestinian children can a 155-millimeter artillery or tank shell kill? These munitions are 6.1 inches wide.

Genocide Joe Biden rushed 14,000 of these munitions, costing $106 million, to apartheid “Israel” on Dec. 9 without congressional approval. By that time, the Zionist state had dropped 29,000 bombs and shells on Gaza.

Over 23,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 8,000 children. Nearly 70% of the homes in Gaza were destroyed or damaged. Dozens of hospitals were attacked.

This mass murder doesn’t faze Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who claims the weapon shipments are “vital to U.S. national interests.” What interest do poor and working people in the United States have in massacring children in Gaza?

Less than a month later, the White House shipped another $147.5 million of associated fuses, charges, and primers without Congress giving an okay. Even Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s 2008 running mate, denounced the bypassing of Congress. 

Isn’t this what President Reagan did when Congress refused to fund a terrorist war against Nicaragua? The people of the Central American country, led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), overthrew the U.S. puppet dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979.

Wall Street wanted Nicaragua back as its colony. Racist Reagan urged Congress to finance a dirty war using Somoza’s thugs and torturers, who were called “contras.”

Over 22,000 Nicaraguans were killed, and a quarter-million people were driven from their homes. In Gaza today, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced by U.S.-made and financed bombs.

War crimes and crack

People in the United States didn’t want another Vietnam War, this time in Central America. Congress refused to finance the contras.

That didn’t stop the Reaganites. Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams shook down U.S. vassals like the Sultan of Brunei to help finance Somoza’s terrorists.

Abrams was the godfather of CIA death squads in Central America and helped cover up the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador. He was convicted of lying to Congress.

That didn’t stop Biden from nominating this war criminal to chair the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy.

Going around Congress to fund a war is an impeachable offense. The Democratic leaders in Congress did nothing.

The CIA and their contras collected more money by starting the crack epidemic. Journalist Gary Webb exposed this in his “Dark Alliance” series of articles.

Webb was later driven to suicide or perhaps was “suicided.”

Eighty-one million people who cast their ballots for President Biden weren’t voting for turning Gaza into rubble. Hundreds of thousands have protested against Israeli Prime Minister

Netanyahu’s war of extermination, which would be impossible without U.S. support.

We need to organize the power of the people to stop the war against Palestine. Come to Washington, D.C., on Saturday, Jan.13, to stop Biden’s and Netanyahu’s war crimes.

Compatriots:

We arrive at the 65th anniversary of the triumph of our socialist Revolution. Many have been the challenges we have had to face to reach this point; but it has been worth it, the work of the Revolution and its social achievements, even in the midst of difficulties, corroborate this.

For Fidel has been the first thought of Cubans in this historic commemoration, especially here, in the heroic city of Santiago de Cuba that treasures his immortal remains, and also for all those who have fallen in the noble purpose of achieving and preserving the independence of the homeland.

We are gathered in the same place where Fidel proclaimed on January 1, 1959, the triumph of the only Revolution that has ever existed in Cuba, initiated on October 10, 1868, by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the Father of the Homeland, whose name this square bears.

By paradoxes of history, the then-nascent Yankee empire consummated the military occupation of Cuba on January 1, 1899; therefore, its total domination over our island lasted exactly 60 years.

One of the most shameful and outrageous acts of the occupier in those days was to prevent the entry into the city of the troops of the Liberation Army commanded by Major General Calixto Garcia, without whose action there is no doubt that the Spaniards would have defeated those arrogant, but quite inept invaders all along the line. That is why Fidel when he was at the gates of Santiago, said in his speech on Radio Rebelde: “This time the Mambises will enter Santiago de Cuba […] The history of ’95 will not be repeated”, he concluded.

I remember that memorable night of January 1st, 1959. As many know, by decision of the Commander in Chief, I had arrived hours earlier in Santiago with the mission of consolidating the surrender of the garrison of the Moncada Barracks, some 5,000 men who were in this city, in addition to the main force of the Navy, and I was, as one more, among the crowd that filled this square.

Fidel, upon seeing me, ordered me to go up to the tribune and speak to those present, I only said a few brief words that have not been preserved but that is not important. The words of Fidel, who on that occasion warned us: “The Revolution begins now; the Revolution will not be an easy task, the Revolution will be a hard enterprise full of dangers”. Eight days later, after his triumphal entry into the capital, he insisted on this when he said: “The joy is immense. And yet, there is still much to be done. Let us not fool ourselves into believing that everything will be easy in the future; perhaps everything will be more difficult in the future,” he said.

It was his early warning not to overestimate successes and to prepare to face the most difficult option, and life proved him right. The road we have traveled has not been easy, we have had to face the permanent and perverse aggressiveness of the enemy, which has even resorted to military invasion, terrorism, and a ruthless and cruel blockade, condemned by the overwhelming majority of the nations of the world, in its failed attempt to destroy our Revolution and erase its inspiring example for other peoples, that it is possible to build a just and humane society, with equal opportunities for all.

The policy of permanent hostility and blockade of the United States Government is the main cause of the difficulties of our economy. There is no doubt about this reality, even though the enemy invests millions of dollars and much effort to hide it. It is seconded by some who act against their own homeland, either out of a desire for profit or simply out of the spirit of serfs. Others allow themselves to be misled by his lies and, in a certain way, unconsciously play along with him, overwhelmed by daily difficulties. With the latter, we cannot lose patience, we must listen to them explain to them until we convince them with the powerful weapon of truth, which is on our side.

This does not mean in any way that we are unaware of our shortcomings and errors, which have never been of principle. The leadership of the Revolution has been characterized, throughout these 65 years, by its transparency and self-critical spirit, by discussing with the people any insufficiency, aware that only together we will be able to eradicate them.

On the unknown road of building socialism in a poor country subjected to constant aggressions, we have been forced to create our own ways of doing things, evidence that the Cuban revolutionary process has always been characterized by an immense creative capacity.

Today, we can say with healthy pride that neither external aggressions, nor the blows of nature, nor our own mistakes have prevented us from reaching this 65th anniversary. Here we are, and here we will be! (Applause.)

This has been possible, in the first place, because of the proven resistance and self-confidence of our heroic people; because of the wise leadership of the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz; because of the existence of a Party that has become a worthy heir to the trust placed by the people in its leader, and because of the unity of the nation.

Comrade Díaz-Canel referred a few moments ago to this trajectory in his review of the epic lived by the Cubans during these 65 years, which extends to the difficult and unforgettable moments of the Moncada, the Granma and the struggle in the Sierra and the plains, until reaching the true triumph, a day like today.

And the greater the difficulties and dangers, the greater the demands, discipline, and unity required. Not a unity achieved at any price, but one based on the principles so accurately defined by Fidel in his reflection of January 22, 2008, and I quote:

“Unity means sharing the struggle, the risks, the sacrifices, the objectives, ideas, concepts and strategies, arrived at through debates and analysis. Unity means the common struggle against annexionists, sellouts and corrupt people who have nothing to do with a revolutionary militant”.

And he added another essential idea: “We must avoid that, in the enormous sea of tactical criteria, the strategic lines are diluted and we imagine non-existent situations.”

Such is our unity, which did not arise by magic, which we have patiently built among all of us, brick by brick. In the Cuban Revolution, there has been room for every sincere patriot, with the only requirement of being willing to confront injustice and oppression, to work for the good of the people, and to defend their conquests.

In that forge of action and thought our Party was forged, alien to authoritarianism and impositions, listening and debating the different criteria and giving participation to all those willing to join in the work. Modesty, honesty, adherence to the truth, loyalty, and commitment have been the key. In socialism and its work, in unity and revolutionary ideology, our capacity to resist and win is sustained (Applause).

Unity is our main strategic weapon; it has allowed this small island to succeed in every challenge; it sustains the internationalist vocation of our people and its prowess in other lands of the world, following Marti’s maxim that homeland is humanity. Let us take care of unity more than the apple of our eye! I have no doubt that this will be so. I am convinced that the Pinos Nuevos, our combative youth, will guarantee it.

The unity formed by the Party, the Government, the mass organizations, and all our people, and as part of this the combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, is the shield against which will crash, once again, all the subversive plans of the enemy, which include from the systematic use of lies to terrorism.

Today I can state with satisfaction that the Cuban Revolution, after 65 years of existence, far from weakening, is getting stronger (Applause), and as I already said a decade ago, on a day like today and in this very place, with no commitments to anyone at all, only to the people (Applause).

Compañeras and compañeros:

I know that I express the sentiment of the Historic Generation in ratifying the confidence in those who today occupy leadership responsibilities in our Party and Government and in the other organizations and institutions of our society, from the highest positions to the tens of thousands of grassroots leaders who are in the front line of combat. In very difficult circumstances, the vast majority of them have been demonstrating with their actions the necessary revolutionary firmness and will to overcome the current difficulties and move forward together with our people.

Those who, due to insufficient capacity, lack of preparation, or simply because they are tired, are not up to the level demanded by the moment should give their place to another comrade willing to assume the task.

I call on all our cadres to meditate every day on what more can be done to justify the trust and exemplary support of our compatriots, even in the midst of so many needs, not to be naïve or triumphalist, to avoid bureaucratic responses and any manifestation of routine and insensitivity, to find realistic solutions with what we have, without dreaming that something will fall from the sky. Likewise, within the many daily tasks and challenges find time to overcome, knowledge has always been an essential weapon, and even more so in the present.

If the current challenges and difficulties are great, greater is the work of the Revolution, which constitutes its best and irrefutable defense against the infamies of the enemy, a palpable work in any corner of Cuba in the material and spiritual order.

The Revolution dignified Cuba and Cubans. The very concept of power took on a new dimension when politics ceased to be the fiefdom of an elite, and all the people became the protagonists of their destiny. That is why we have to defend and carry forward this Revolution of the humble, by the humble, and for the humble.

History has taught us where resignation and defeatism lead. Let us not limit ourselves to resist. Let us get out of these difficulties, as we have always done, by fighting! (Applause), with the same determination of Baraguá, of Moncada, of Granma, of Girón and with the firm convictions instilled in us by the Commander in Chief.

This translates today into working harder and, above all, doing it well. This is our commitment to the glorious history of the homeland and the best tribute to the fallen.

As the Prime Minister, comrade Manuel Marrero, explained in a clear way just a few days ago in the National Assembly of People’s Power, in the complex and unpostponable economic battle, it is imperative to advance in productivity, order, and efficiency, even if it implies some sacrifices to create the conditions that will allow us to get out of the current situation and develop.

Finding an answer to these difficulties is an unavoidable duty of all Cuban revolutionaries. On such a significant date, I ask our people to join consciously and responsibly, as we are accustomed to, in this endeavor that the homeland demands today.

I reiterate a conviction that I expressed in the Cuban Parliament on August 1, 2010: “We, Cuban revolutionaries, difficulties do not keep us awake at night, our only path is to continue the struggle with optimism and unshakable faith in victory” (Applause).

In this supreme endeavor, the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, faithful and sure guardians of the Revolution, will participate decisively. If yesterday, from the victorious arms of the Rebel Army, emerged free, beautiful, powerful, and invincible the new homeland, today I can affirm that in the face of any threat or weakness, its combatants will not renounce to continue being, together with the Party, the soul of the Revolution (Applause).

Dear compatriots:

As the Commander-in-Chief stated in his message upon the formation of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution thirty years ago: “…There are no generational contradictions in the Revolution for one simple reason: because there is no envy or craving for power among its sons.

“None of us old fighters cling to positions nor do we consider ourselves creditors of the homeland for having rendered it a service, and as long as we have strength left we will be in the post assigned to us, however modest it may be.” So much for Fidel’s words, which seem to have been spoken today.

On this date of such significance, I can affirm that our greatest pride and satisfaction is to have been with Fidel in every moment of joy, indignation, or sadness; to have learned from him the decisive importance of unity; not to lose serenity and confidence in triumph no matter how insurmountable the powerful obstacles of the enemies or how great the dangers may seem; to learn and draw strength from every setback until transforming it into victory.

Faithful to his teachings and his example, here we are, and from the heroic Santiago de Cuba, we ratify that we remain with our foot in the stirrup and ready to charge with the machete, together with the people and as one more combatant (Applause), against the enemy and our own mistakes, certain that the Mambi cry will always resound in this land:

Viva Cuba libre! (Exclamations of: “Viva!”)

(Ovation)

Source: Cubadebate, unofficial translation by Resumen Latinoamericano – English

Join the MLK People’s March & Vigil:
No to U.S./Israeli Genocide in Gaza
Money for Food, Housing, Jobs, Healthcare & Education –
Not for War & Genocide!

Gather 2 pm MLK Blvd & Western Ave for March to a 5 pm Vigil in Africa Town Square to honor fallen warriors from Dr King to Kwazi Nkrumah and the 10s of 1000s of Palestinians, 60% women and children, martyred by US/Israeli monstrous weapons of genocide.

Orgs: Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, Black Alliance for Peace, Al-Awda Right to Return Coalition, Martin Luther King Coalition of Greater LA, Union del Barrio, Black Autonomy, Code Pink, Harvard Blvd Block Club, Justice for Palestine – LA, Anakbayan, All African Peoples Revolutionary Party, Black Men Build, Diaspora Pa’lante

The following is based on a statement originally written for a protest at Rep. Adriano Espaillat’s office In Washington Heights, New York City, because he refused to join the worldwide call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Since then, Espaillat has plastered the windows of his office with pictures of Israeli hostages seized by Hamas. The problem is not in calling for the release of the Israeli captives, but it is outrageous to have not even one picture of a Palestinian when over 20,000 Palestinians, including 8,000 children, have been massacred in Gaza in the past two and a half months. Does only Israeli life matter in the face of a genocidal war on Palestinians? What recognition is there by the congressman of this district of the value of Palestinian life? I have been living in Washington Heights, in particular in Representative Espaillat’s district, for over 40 years. I feel very much like part of the community and have raised my family here as both a mother and grandmother. The Representative’s racism, although he is a Dominican living in a multi-ethnic community, is unacceptable.

We must distinguish between Zionism and Judaism: Zionism is a fundamentally racist ideology

I was born before World War II in Nazi Europe to religious Jewish parents in Belgium who had come from Germany and Poland. We were part of a large extended family. Once the Nazi occupation took hold in Belgium, most of our family tried to escape. My nuclear family traveled all over Europe and North Africa for a year before we found a haven in Mozambique. All four of us survived, but 2/3 of my extended family, aunts, uncles, and cousins, including six of my mother’s siblings, perished both in Poland and Belgium in the ghettos and concentration camps.

Throughout my growing up, wherever we were, I was always very conscious of being Jewish. Our home was a traditional Jewish home, and my parents always sought out other Jewish families. But we were not Zionists. Even in the one year we spent in Palestine from 1944 to 1945, I don’t think I ever heard my parents speak about us being in the Holy Land. In fact, they chose to leave Palestine as soon as we gained entry into the U.S. 

It was not until the State of Israel was established in 1948 that I became conscious of Zionism in our home, in our synagogue, and in the parochial school, a Yeshiva, that my brother and I attended. Zionism became a part of our life for the first time. I recently found a composition I wrote in 1949 when I was in the 7th grade, that talked about how Israel was a small and weak country, surrounded by many hostile Arab nations, which it miraculously defeated. 

We became part of the growing Zionist consciousness and community in New York. I did not understand the supposed irrational hostility of the Arab nations toward Israel. But by the 1967 Arab-Israel War, I could see that Israel was no longer this small, weak country that it always claimed to be. There was even an Israeli song we all sang: “Our country, our tiny country.” Israel had defeated the Arab nations and was hailed for its military prowess. This 1967 war had hugely increased Israel’s size, now occupying land that had not been part of its original boundaries as established by the 1947 US-Great Britain-backed UN Partition Plan, which had already greatly favored the Zionists and had not included the indigenous people in its development. 

I began to seriously question the narrative I had been hearing since 1948. Israel was not that “tiny,” and the image of an innocent bystander was less and less credible, with the national hero of Israel, Moshe Dayan, honored around the world for his military feats and projected as a macho Israeli leader. The myths were being chipped, eventually cracked, and finally, I seriously questioned what I had been learning as dogma. I became a skeptic about Zionism.

After college, I checked out the autobiography of the founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl. I was horrified by his Eurocentric and self-hating worldview as a Jew. Yet many years later, in 1975, I was very upset when the UN General Assembly passed a resolution that Zionism was racism. What? Jews were so much, by definition, seen as victims of anti-Semitism, certainly a form of racism. How could Zionism, espoused as an ideology and vision by Jews, be considered racist? Yet, deep down, I knew there was something to this. As I became more politically active in opposing the War in Vietnam and learned about unjust occupations, I came to seriously question the U.S. and Israeli narrative about the Zionists v. the Palestinians. 

Perhaps most dramatic was the map of Palestine showing a very diminished Arab section and a larger and larger Jewish section, totally changing even the unfair partition imposed by the UN. After the Oslo Accords in the 1980s and 1990s, I learned about the separate roads for Israelis v the Palestinians in Israel and the torturous checkpoints for Palestinians. I more and more recognized the Apartheid nature of Israel. I learned that I (along with millions of others, Jews and non-Jews) had been lied to about the history of Zionism and the creation of the state with the backing of the British and U.S. Empires. In the past decade, I was further outraged by what I learned about the original intentions of the Zionist leaders to rely on ethnic cleansing as “necessary” to displace the Palestinians and secure the State of Israel and the boundaries the Zionist movement sought. 

My family’s experience and devastation in the Nazi Holocaust taught me the vow of NEVER AGAIN FOR OUR PEOPLE AND ALL PEOPLES. The more I learned about the reality of the Zionist vision and its practice, the more alienated I became from Zionism. I am today an anti-Zionist and yet remain very much Jewish and tied to the culture, religion, and history. It is not anti-Semitic to oppose Zionism. 

A distinction is finally being made between Judaism and Zionism. Judaism is not the same as Zionism. One can reject Zionism, a product of the late 1800s, and still love or accept Judaism (even with its contradictions). In 1898, Herzl announced his vision of Zionism as a movement to settle Jews in the “empty” land of Palestine. This was a white supremacist agenda and not only excluded non-Jews, including the indigenous people, but also brown and black Jews. Differentiating between Zionism and Judaism has made it possible to speak out against Israel and still remain Jewish. It has made the charge of anti-Semitism levied against anyone opposing Israel or Zionist ideology a ridiculous charge. 

Tens of thousands of Jews and non-Jews are now able to differentiate between Zionism and Judaism. That differentiation has had a profound impact on the growing powerful and leading Jewish opposition to the ongoing genocidal war against Palestine. In these past two months, a major disruption of travel at New York’s Grand Central Station on a Friday afternoon rush hour, the takeover of the Statue of Liberty, the takeover of the Congressional Rotunda in Washington, and so on are actions initiated by Jews against the Zionist agenda in Gaza and all of Palestine. A liberated Left Jewish voice, a long-silenced one, is finally being heard again. I would never have predicted even a year ago such a huge Jewish rebellion against Zionism, against the horrors of Israel with its racist and fascist leadership, and its right-wing popular support. 

So many of us were wrongly convinced by the U.S. and Israeli propaganda (“Hasbara”) that the only answer to the Nazi Holocaust was a Jewish State. In that spirit, we call for an immediate ceasefire, an end to the genocidal war we are witnessing in Gaza and the West Bank, and an end to the occupation of Palestine.

Suzanne Ross, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, educator, and anti-imperialist activist. suzannewross@aol.com

The holidays didn’t stop thousands of people in New York City from demonstrating against the murder of Palestinian children, adults, and elders. Genocide Joe Biden has sent another $150 million worth of bombs and shells to the Zionist apartheid regime without even asking for Congressional approval.

Over 500 people joined the Dec. 30 Children’s March for Palestine in Brooklyn, organized by the Al-Awda NY Mothers Committee. People rallied in the Bay Ridge neighborhood’s Palestinian community. Children as young as four years old spoke, demanding freedom for Palestine. They will see it. People then marched through Bay Ridge with drivers honking their horns along with people on sidewalks showing their support.

The next day, on New Year’s Eve, people gathered at Columbus Circle in Manhattan. People denounced the mass murder of Palestinians in Gaza.

The action was called by the Shut It Down for Palestine Coalition. Among its members are the Palestinian Youth Movement; National Students for Palestine; ANSWER coalition; Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; The People’s Forum; International Peoples’ Assembly; and the Palestinian Community Center (PACC), New Jersey. The Party for Socialism and Liberation, City Workers for Palestine, and Health Care Workers for Palestine are also members of the coalition.

One of the favorite chants was, “Yemen, Yemen, make us proud! Turn another ship around.”

Big Oil and its U.S. Navy have 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to terrorize the oppressed. Yet they can’t stop the people of Yemen — who’ve been bombed and starved by the U.S. client state of Saudi Arabia — from shutting down the Suez Canal.

Speakers, including Manolo De Los Santos, the co-executive director of the People’s Forum, demanded an end to the genocide in Gaza.

At least 2,000 people marched past the glitzy hotels on Central Park South before turning onto filthy-rich Fifth Avenue. While Palestinian people are starving, the wealthy patronize Tiffany’s and other luxury boutiques. Marchers paused at Trump Tower to demand freedom for Palestine.

People doing window shopping at these famous stores were friendly. Protesters marched over 40 blocks to reach Union Square.

Marchers then went up to Herald Square. The power of the people will stop the slaughter in Gaza.

On January 1, 2024, it will be exactly 65 years since the Cuban rebels led by Fidel Castro achieved victory over the dictator Batista, supported by the United States. It was the beginning of 65 years of building a utopia, a new and better society, and as many years of resisting the continuous attempts to liquidate the revolution by the imperialist superpower of the North.

In an interview we once did with Roberto Fernandez Retamar, one of the great intellectuals of the Cuban revolution and then president of Casa de las Americas, he recounted how the victory over tyranny on January 1, 1959, thrilled the entire population and the unforgettable impression caused by the entry of Fidel and his fighters into Havana a week later. “We knew we were going to have many difficulties ahead of us. You didn’t have to be very shrewd to know that. But we also knew it was an extraordinary opportunity to change society and life.”

The young Revolution succeeded in keeping the United States out. The Bay of Pigs invasion, financed, organized, and directed by the U.S., led on April 19, 1961, to what Cubans proudly and rightly called “the first defeat of imperialism in Latin America.”

But in the meantime, a whole gear of measures was set in motion to drive the Cuban people through exhaustion, hunger, and scarcity in order to rebel against their revolutionary leaders. The April 1960 memorandum from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester Mallory is eloquent. Since it is clear that the majority of the population supports Castro and there is no internal opposition, “the only possible way to extract internal support is through disillusionment and disgust based on economic discontent and deprivation.”

This led to a financial, economic, and commercial blockade that has completely upended the Cuban economy to this day. In addition, former U.S. President Trump included Cuba on his arbitrary list of countries sponsoring terrorism, with the result that international financial transactions with Cuba are almost impossible.

Cuba, as a small country, an island of 11 million people, and poor, is fighting against the greatest superpower of all time, and that is not an easy fight. But despite these difficult circumstances, the resilience of the Cuban people ensures that through all these years and until today, the utopia of a better world is being built. To name just a few elements: the island has one of the best educational systems in Latin America, a free and accessible high quality health system, as well as a decent standard of living without overburdening the planet. The latter was recognized in 2006 by WWF and the Global Footprint Network. Today, Cuba has a climate plan called “Tarea Vida”, which can serve as a model for the world. The international solidarity of the Cuban revolution in the countries of the global south, as well as in Europe during the Covid pandemic and until today, is impressive.

Of course, mistakes were also made, and there were significant failures. Cubans themselves are the first to acknowledge this. Perhaps the Cuban leadership is the only one that ever officially designated a period of its policy as: ‘Process of rectification of errors and negative tendencies.’

In recent years, since the pandemic paralyzed international tourism to the island and triggered a global economic crisis carried mainly by the working classes around the world, the Cuban people face enormous problems in their daily lives. Food, medicine, fuel, decent housing, everything is under pressure. Especially young people try to emigrate, temporarily or permanently, in an attempt to build a better personal future for themselves.

However, throughout these 65 years, new generations of young people have committed themselves to continue working for utopia. Retamar declined a professorship at Columbia University in New York in 1959 at the age of 29 to do so. Today, there are many young people who do not leave but continue to work in often difficult conditions. Like the young scientists working at the CIM (Center for Molecular Immunology), where they developed the five Cuban vaccines against COVID-19.

Or like the young Randy, Deborah, and Danilo, all three 31 years old, who continue working each one in his field to overcome the difficulties and make Cuba a better place. They do it from the realization that there is still much to do and improve to achieve that the utopia, the bet of the Cuban revolution, becomes a reality. They bear witness to this in the moving documentary “Donde están los girasoles” by the young documentary filmmaker Sergio Eguino Viera and the information platform Resumen Latinoamericano, which thus becomes an emotional and at the same time motivating birthday present for the Cuban people.

The same imperialists who have been trying to destroy the Cuban dream for more than six decades today are murdering the Palestinian people with the help of their Zionist acolytes. Thank you, Cuba, for being, in this terrible world, an example of commitment and resilience. Thank you for continuing to work for a better world in spite of all these great problems in the daily life of every Cuban family. Thank you for showing the world that there is an alternative to the destruction of human beings and the planet in the interests of ruthless capital.

Katrien Demuynck is a writer and coordinator of the Belgian chapter of the In Defense of Humanity – REDH

Source: Resumen

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine confirms that the suspicious movements of war criminal and zionist sympathizer “Tony Blair,” former Prime Minister of Britain, and his connection with the dubious international movement around the so-called “day after in Gaza,” indicate a zionist and Western insistence, sponsored by some Arab regimes, on attempting to pass suspicious plans targeting not only the Gaza Strip but the entire Palestinian cause.

The Front considers the return of the man behind the lie of “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” whose hands are stained with the blood of the Iraqi people, mercenary Tony Blair to the international and political scene, as an ominous sign, asserting that our people and their resistance will thwart any efforts or plans targeting voluntary displacement of our people, undermining the resistance, or achieving a fictitious victory for the zionist entity through attempts to pass political approaches that place the Gaza Strip under international custody or surveillance.

The Front renews its affirmation that the Palestinian people have expressed their stance that there is no guardianship or displacement, and that our people alone will decide the form of governance or political system in the Gaza Strip. The resistance will remain present and a guarantor for any political efforts contributing to arranging the Palestinian house, and will not be outside its framework.

Tony Blair, the liar, deceiver, and war criminal, will have the same fate as all war criminals, which is nothing but the dustbin of history, he and all those who conspire and participate in committing war crimes against peoples, especially the Palestinian people.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Department
1-1-2024

Source: Resistance News Network