200,000 DIE EVERY YEAR FROM PESTICIDES

Dr Owusu Afriyie Akoto, Minister of Agriculture

By John Stone 

A UN Report says 200,000 die each year from pesticide poisoning. It lists an array of serious illnesses and health issues with suspected links to pesticides, including cancer, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, hormone disruption, birth defects, sterility, and neurological effects.The report also explains that pesticides are having 'catastrophic impacts' on human health and environment while failing to end hunger.

"In some countries, pesticide poisoning even exceeds fatalities from infectious diseases," it said. The report blamed "systematic denial, fuelled by the pesticide and agro-industry" for "the magnitude of the damage inflicted by these chemicals". According to the UN report, people can be exposed to dangerous levels of pesticides in a wide variety of ways, ranging from farmers who use it on their crops to babies drinking their mother's contaminated breast milk. "Few people are untouched by pesticide exposure. They may be exposed through food, water, air, or direct contact with pesticides or residues." The UN report also highlighted profound effects on the environment.

"Pesticides sprayed on crops frequently pollute the surrounding ecosystem and beyond, with unpredictable ecological consequences. Furthermore, reductions in pest populations upset the complex balance between predator and prey species in the food chain. "Pesticides can also decrease biodiversity of soils and contribute to nitrogen fixation, which can lead to large declines in crop yields, posing problems for food security."

Jay Feldman, executive director of the Washington DC-based non-profit environmental organisation Beyond Pesticides, told Al Jazeera the $43bn organic food industry in the US is the best example of how the world does not need to rely on pesticides. "There are non-toxic approaches that could meet food production goals, fight starvation, and not contaminate the environment," said Feldman. He highlighted how developing countries are much more susceptible to harmful impacts of pesticides because of a lack of regulation. "Developing countries lack any infrastructure to ensure those handling the chemicals are using them to avoid causing dangerous levels of exposure or contamination. "We don't export nuclear technology to countries that we don't trust would use it properly ... so we should not be exporting hazardous materials or technologies to countries that we know do not have the proper system to ensure protection of public health and the environment."

Paul Towers, a spokesman for Pesticide Action Network North America, an environmental group, told Al Jazeera about a growing movement towards "agroecology".

"Agroecology is the science behind sustainable agriculture, from the ground up. It encourages democratic, decentralised decision-making by farmers and incorporates practical, low-cost and ecology-based technologies for productive farming. Not only do agroecological farming methods strengthen ecological and economic resilience in the face of today's climate, water and energy crises, they offer a path forward for growing food to feed us all."

The Socialist Party position is that it is not merely the manner of farming that is at fault but the motive that farmers grow food...to make a profit, just like Big Ag.

Editorial

PESTICIDES

The disclosure by the United Nations that as many as 200,000 people die every year from the use of pesticides must be a source of serious worry to those responsible for agriculture.

It is the warning sign that the time has come to move away from pesticides and to try and grow food organically.

The use of chemicals in agriculture has been demonstrated over the years to be very deadly and yet Ghana and other third world countries continue to use their hard earned foreign exchange to import deadly pesticides.

There is no reason why Ghana cannot shift completely to organic agriculture.

The Ministry of Agriculture must learn important lessons from this disclosure and take steps to free agriculture from pesticides.

I didn’t divert campaign funds – Victor Smith

Victor Smith

By Kobina Welsing

The National Democratic Congress’ parliamentary candidate for Abuakwa North in the 2016 elections, Victor Smith has dismissed claims that he diverted funds meant for campaign activities during last year’s polls.

A member of the NDC in the constituency, Alhaji Dan Baba, had alleged that Mr Smith diverted cash meant for the NDC’s campaign into his building project.

Dan Baba also alleged that Mr. Smith hoarded clothes, cutlasses, sewing machines and other things meant for campaign in the constituency.

However, in a statement, the former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom dismissed the allegations describing them as baseless.

Among other things Mr. Smith said, “He paid for 3 boreholes to be drilled in 3 different areas within the constituency and paid for electricity lights and poles in Boso Odumase and…communication centers in Anywoabeng and nobi.”

Below is the Mr. Smith’s full statement

Re- Victor Smith diverts campaign cash

1. My attention has been drawn to a publication on Ghanaweb of an interview of a certain individual referred to as Dan Baba on an Accra FM radio station called Accra FM, in which the interviewee accuses me, among other things, of using Party campaign cash to rehabilitate my father’s house which I used as my campaign headquarters for both 2012 & 2016 campaigns.

2. It would have been useful if this ignorant character, who has been wrongly described as a leading member of the Party in the story, had indicated how much Party funds came to me and was used to rehabilitate my father’s property.

3. This same character, who I believe has been put to this mischief by disgruntled individuals most of whom are constituency executives and some who are bitter because I, as campaign coordinator, did not give them the opportunity to squander resources meant for the campaign as they have always done in the past.

4. A number of the current constituency executives have always held this unfortunate notion that NDC will never win in the Abuakwa North constituency and as such have always had a lackluster approach to the hard work that needed to be done to push us towards our goal of taking the seat.

5. Again because of their unwillingness to push harder for victory for NDC, these executives, especially the leadership, have always been preoccupied with how much of campaign resources from Party and other sources, as well as opportunities, they can grab for themselves and their relations at every turn.

6. The man who granted the interview also makes reference to certain funds meant for Election Day activities. Any serious political party official who has had Election Day experience would have a fair idea of the amount of money political parties use on the day’s activities including monitoring, feeding of agents, paying T&T for voters who have travelled from far and near, fueling vehicles hiring taxis to help with transportation etc.

7. I wasn’t going to hand over Party funds to these characters who I have known quite well for years, over their handling of resources including cash, which leave much to be desired.

8. He also refers to certain items which arrived from Party sources a few days before Election Day, which they expected me to hand over to them to share amongst themselves, and themselves alone, as they have always done, to the displeasure of the foot soldiers of the Party.

9. This time round, I, as coordinator of the campaign, decided to hold onto the items till after the elections, since we had distributed enough over the preceding 2 months to various communities within the constituency.

10. I informed the executives that I intend to use the items to set up a vocational facility to give opportunity to the constituents to acquire dressmaking and hairdressing skills and also be able to generate funds to build the Party in the years ahead.

11. As campaign coordinator I took decisions to serve the best interest of our Party and i have pushed to bring development & progress to this constituency over the last 4-5years.

12. My loyalty to the NDC cannot be questioned by any politician in this country, certainly not those selfish & greedy characters in Abuakwa North. Some of us have died enough for the NDC and country, so let no ignoramus come and attempt to tarnish our image.

13. It is perhaps time for the NDC to bring on a new crop of experienced , selfless & courageous leaders to crack down on the indiscipline that is eating the rank and file of the Party.

14. It may be useful for readers at this juncture if I cited a few of my personal efforts to help steer the NDC towards our goal of securing the Abuakwa North seat:

• I personally funded all jogging events, campaign launch and paid T & T @ 20ghc each for all 69 branch execs ( 9 execs in each branch) each time we had to bring them to a meeting.

• Personally paid for some road improvement work in Anyinasin, within Kukurantumi and Tafo

• I paid for 3 Boreholes to be drilled in 3 different areas within the constituency;

• I paid for electricity lights and poles in Boso Odumase and …. communication centers in Anywoabeng and nobi;

• I paid for spraying machines and weedycides and over 2000 cutlasses for the Community.

• I personally sponsored youth games including football tournaments.

• I paid funeral and other donations from my own pocket on behalf of constituency and execs.

• I personally donated items including cutlasses, rice, cooking oil and some campaign items and cash to Constituency Execs to motivate them in their work during campaign.

• Today Kukurantumi, a major town within the constituency, can boast of a 96-bed community hospital and a 500 capacity morgue, a project that I promised the constituency in 2012.
Signed : Ambassador Victor Smith

Source:Starrfmonline

Bawumia Makes a Promise

Dr Mahamudu Bawumia

By Lawrence Segbefia

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia has disclosed that government will address three main policy pillars which are financial inclusion, the national identification project as well as property addressing system by close of this year.

According to him, the government’s economic team has set this year as the benchmark to achieve all three pillars to propel the country into economic development.

Speaking at the Ghana Economic Outlook and Business Strategy Conference, Dr. Bawumia explained that the three pillars which have been pursued by previous governments in the past 60 years will be the foundation needed for development.

“This are the three pillars of formalization that this government is really trying to make sure that we deal with. One , financial inclusion. If you include everybody in the financial system, then you bring everybody into the formal framework of transaction. So it’s very important, financial inclusion is one of the pillars of formalization,” he said.

“Then you have two other pillars, the national identification for transaction. That is the second pillar and the third pillar is the property addressing system. If you have these three pillars then you have the necessary backbone for the formal economy,” he added, stressing that, “These are the three key pillars that we really want to attack this year. I’m not talking of next year, I am talking 2017”.

Dr. Bawumia bemoaned the current state of development of the country and blamed it on the non-existence of the three pillars he outlined.

He maintained that the three pillars are the foundation upon which every economic development policy can be erected.

“We have been [here for] 60 years trying to do these things. The benefit of shared experience across countries would allow us to do this this year,” he noted.

For the country to experience rapid economic growth, Dr. Bawumia argued that the country must have a reliable data base to measure policies and its effects.

“For citizens really to register and use the mobile money and digital payment system they really need an identification system. In January this year, I inaugurated a committee to start work on a country having National ID System at the direction of the president,” he said.

Ursula Owusu Ekuful lauds Omane Boamah

Ursula Owusu

By Iddi Yire, GNA

Mrs Ursula Owusu Ekuful, the Minister of Communications, has hailed her predecessor, Dr Edward Omane Boamah, and his team for laying a good foundation for the Ministry.

She said governance was a continuous process - the present, the past and the future; “and if we don't know where we've come from, we won't have a clear idea of how to get to where we want to get to.”

Mrs Owusu Ekuful made these remarks in Accra at a send-off reception to appreciate Dr Omane Boamah and his team for their good works during their tenure.

The post-transition reception was meant also to appreciate the transition team.

“This is just to appreciate Dr Omane Boamah and those who worked with him to bring the Ministry of Communications and its agencies up to this level to hand the baton over to us, to also do what we can do,” she said.

“It is important that we all recognise that at the end of the day, it is what we can do for our country which matters.

“We need to look beyond politics. We've done that and we have hurt ourselves a lot. But in this Ministry, let's set the standard and let people see that yes we can think together, we can work together, we can share ideas and we can do things which can move the nation in the direction that we all want,” she said.

Dr Omane Boamah expressed gratitude to Mrs Owusu Ekuful for organising the post-transition interaction and said it was a demonstration of the fact that the transition process was a success.

Referring to the new seven-storey building of the Communications Ministry, Dr Omane Boamah described it as a solid edifice.

He said he and his team were available to assist in whichever way to promote Ghana's development “because at the end of the day, we are in the same boat, the boat called Ghana. If this boat sinks, no one is going to be saved. God forbid.

“And that is paramount. That is the overriding reason and purpose for which we all engage in the enterprise called politics.”

He said there were very critical milestones that would have to be looked at, some of which concerned the Government's share in Vodafone and Airtel; which he described as very tricky decisions to make.

Also at the reception were Mr George Andah and Mr Vincent Sowah Odotei, both Communications Deputy Ministers designate.

The event was attended by both current and former heads of agencies under the Ministry.

They included Mr Issah Yahaya, Chief Director, Communications Ministry, Mr Joe Anokye, Director General, National Communications Authority and Mrs Teki Akuettey Falconer, Executive Director, Data Protection Commission.

Some members of the previous government's team were Mr Edward Ato Sarpong, former Deputy Minister of Communications; Professor Nii Narku Quaynor, former Chairman, National Information and Technology Agency (NITA), and Mr Georta Atta-Boateng, former Director General, NITA.

The transition team members present were Mr Osei Bonsu Amoah, Madam Abena Asafo-Adjei, Mr Augustine Blay and Mr James Kwoffie.

GNA

Foreign Affairs Ministry Is broke – Ayorkor Botchway

Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey

By Mohammed Awal

The Minister of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has disclosed that her ministry is cash-strapped.

Her comment comes at a time the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta,  is preparing to slash the ministry’s Internally Generated Fund (IGF), a move she warns will be inimical to the effective running of the Ministry.

The Ministry has projected to collect GHc 149,831,338.93 as IGF from its missions’ operations abroad.

However, the finance Ministry plans on slashing the amount, allowing the foreign Ministry to retain only 51,570,645, a move that contravenes the convention of 100% IGF retention by the Ministry.

Expressing her disgruntlement over the finance Minister’s move in an interview with Starr News’s Parliamentary correspondent Ibrahim Alhassan Thursday, Mrs. Botchway lamented that the development will cripple the ministry, and that she and the foreign Affairs committee of Parliament engaged Mr. Ofori Atta to rescind his directive.

“We might not be able to do anything and would be a sad situation for us,” she said, adding that “we have made contact with them [finance Ministry] and they understand our plight.

“This Ministry is the most cash-strapped Ministry. There is no money…we don’t even have money to recruit staff, to run goods and services, assets….we are not given that much and so we rely on the 35% that we return of the 100% retention to run the missions,” maintained Mrs. Botchway.

Meanwhile a total amount of GHc 398,676,632.00 has been approved by parliament for the activities of the Ministry.

Source:StarrFMonline

The digital storm: Blowing away the human mind

By John Stanton

"Temporal compression, as it is technically called, is an event that concretely modifies everyone's daily life at the same time. In the face of this acceleration of daily life, fear has become an environment even in a time of peace. We are living in the accident of the globe, the accident of instantaneous simultaneity and interactivity that have now gained the upper hand over ordinary activities...With the phenomena of instantaneous interaction that are now our lot, there has been a veritable reversal, destabilizing the relationship of human interactions and the time reserved for reflection in favor of the conditioned responses produced by emotion...

Promoting progress means that we are always behind: on the high-speed Internet, on our Facebook profile, on our email inbox. There are always updates to be made: we are the objects of daily masochism and under constant tension."

The Administration of Fear, Paul Virillio

The electromagnetic/digital storm emanating from television, computer and cell phone screens flood the neural pathways of the brain drowning synapses.

The ferocious digital winds from the storm twist and rattle axons, neurons and dendrites like the winds from a powerful thunderstorm that shears leaves off of trees and bends branches to and fro. The lightning strikes from this digital storm randomly sever connections in the cerebral cortex, just as a lightning strike violently amputates the limbs from a tree. And, at times, the electromagnetic field and its constituents, now having translated itself into images, sounds and text, crash into the cerebral cortex send shock waves through the entire structure of the brain down to the base of the spinal cord. The cerebral cortex has been trashed.

The New Cocaine?

The digital storm, though ultimately damaging, is stimulating. It rushes to find the nucleus accumbens and floods it with dopamine which the hippocampus, in turn, 'memorizes' as rapid stimulus for satisfaction or pleasure. The amygdala then 'records' the event making sure that the human response is 'conditioned' to find pleasure and, indeed, seek it out desperately.  The brain reboots itself and in so doing its human face. Addiction ensues and brains/humans change.

The digital storm forms a 'new brain' and, hence, human character. Transmogrification becomes complete. Perhaps it's all evolution's plan. But interesting symptoms appear indicating this could be devolution.

The addiction to the digital storm is so overwhelming that the brain creates a punishing craving mechanism: connection insecurity.  Its emotion is fear, the fear of not being connected, or being seen, or taking part in the social scene. It's the fear of missing out on the daily on-line world and being MIA to comment on the latest incidental text, image or sound. To eliminate connection insecurity the brain creates an addiction that resembles the cocaine addict's frenzied search for more having snorted up the buy and the stash.

- See more at: http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/feedback/02-03-2017/136984-digital_storm-0/#sthash.fMKyXG2t.dpuf

You can see it in the mothers and fathers that push their infant children down the sidewalk talking into the cell-phone rather than talking to the child. What does that child store in the brain? Gossip? Recipes? Sports trivia?

Or at the family dinner table where adults and children feel compelled to check email or take calls not wishing to be offline for 60 minutes at Sunday dinner. Worse still, the dinner hosts have to remind the cell-phone users to 'please silence your cell-phones' as if in the movie theater.

And walking down the street, the ability to say 'good morning or good evening' has been eroded as everyone seems to be working a conversation via the cell-phone or looking down at email. It's a world of people walking with their heads-down on the street. It's heads-down in elevators, offices and even in church pews on Sunday.

The brain's pause and contemplative thought functions have been degraded and exist like abandoned and rusty rail road tracks.  The brain has replaced these two elements with a reflexive response mechanism from the unconscious and unfiltered mind.

Such is the mind of the President of the United States, Donald Trump and his penchant for Twitter, television and newspapers. His thinking, like the bulk of the American citizenry, is limited to 150 characters a thought.  Producing 150 characters is an exhaustive effort for most these days. No doubt, a student has been assigned to describe the novel War and Peace in 150 characters. Tell us what is unique about your life in 150 characters, they'll ask.

And don't dare write an article of more than 500-750 words on a subject, because 'readers' will not stick with it, they say. 'Give me all bullet points, our President says.

When in falling asleep, or in your dreams, you 'see' text scrolling vertically / horizontally (and you can read some of it) or you observe images of computer screens with data displayed (which you can interpret) your brain and you have been altered. And when you notice that these images start to appear in your recurring dreams and it seems to be altering your deepest consciousness, it's probably time to seek shelter from the digital storm. Think about it, if you can.

"'She watches with the raptor's eye, trained on distance as she is, and dark---so when she turns to what is close, so intimate and huge, she keeps the gift of sight beyond herself, neither sentimental or detached....'Who, indeed, watches the passing show with the raptor's eye?

Couple the quick tweet and modalities of social networking with the videoing and blogging obsession, immersion in video games, overtime on the Internet and the constant interruption of face to face interaction by the cell phone, and you have a recipe for attention deficit in the life world. What are educational institutions to do in the culture of online engrossment and the fast electronic update? The humanities might rearticulate its worth in a climate of unexamined absorption." A Field Guide to a New Meta-Field, Barbara Stafford

John Stanton

Why The UN Branded Israel An Apartheid State

By Juan Cole

Apparently the Trump administration at Israeli urging threatened to defund the UN if this report was not withdrawn. The UN Secretary-General caved, and the executive director of ESCWA (who was also an under-secretary general of the UN), Rima Khalaf, has resigned. The legal case built by the ESCWA report remains sound.

A shouting match has been provoked this week by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, which issued a report this week concluding definitively that Israel is guilty of Apartheid practices toward the Palestinians. The report is careful to say that it is not using the term merely as a pejorative but is rather appealing to a body of international law with precise definitions, definitions that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians easily and transparently meet. Here’s the short blog version of the report, which runs to 76 pages.

Apartheid is a Dutch word meaning “apartness” and was used to describe the system of racial segregation deployed by the ruling Afrikaner minority in South Africa 1948-1991. In international law, however, it has been generalized to any government practicing systematic racial domination.

Article II of the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (1973) defines it this way:

“The term “the crime of apartheid”, which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practiced in southern Africa, shall apply to… inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.”

The 2002 Rome Statute, which has 150? signatories among the nations of the world, and which established the International Criminal Court, contained a definition of Apartheid.

“The crime of apartheid’ means inhumane acts . . . committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime…”

Apartheid is one of the listed “crimes against humanity” along with enslavement, torture, war rape, and forcible deportation. A crime against humanity is the systematic and continuous commission of war crimes.

Because of these international law instruments (the Rome Statute is a multilateral treaty), Apartheid now refers to a generalized crime, not just the policy of the old South African government.

As a result, the Court can under some circumstances charge individual politicians with the crime of Apartheid. Those circumstances are that:

1) the country has signed the Rome Statute or

2) that the UN Security Council has forwarded the case of a war criminal to the ICC.

Neither of these circumstances fits Israel, since it is not a signatory and the US would veto any attempt to charge a major Israeli politician at the International Criminal Court. This inability to bring Israeli officials to the Hague, however, is merely procedural. As a matter of law, Israel can still be guilty of Apartheid practices.

The UN report is concerned with specific legal infractions as spelled out by international law, and with the intention behind those infractions. Intent to dominate another people is important to the definition of Apartheid.

The report points out that

“The Israel Lands Authority (ILA) manages State land, which accounts for 93 per cent of the land within the internationally recognized borders of Israel and is by law closed to use, development or ownership by non-Jews.”

Going back to the colonial Jewish National Fund, there has been a practice that once land is owned by Zionist institutions, including the Israeli state, it can never be sold to a non-Jew– it is permanently taken off the market on a racial basis.

The Law of Return is another discriminatory practice. Any Jew anywhere in the world can emigrate to Israel. But no Palestinian family expelled in 1948 can return to their ancestral homeland.

Jewish councils may reject applications for residence from Palestinian-Israelis. An Israeli Jew who married an American Christian is allowed to bring the spouse to Israel; but an Israeli Jew who married a West Bank Palestinian may not.

The report argues that in the Israel-Palestinian context, Palestinians are a “race.” I would add that the exclusion of Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens underlines this definition, since one characteristic of race is endogamy or marrying within the in-group.

Other UN decisions have recognized the Palestinians as a people entitled to self-determination (and indeed such recognition goes back to the correspondence of League of Nations states overseeing the British Mandate over Palestine in the 1920s).

The document says:

“This report finds that the strategic fragmentation of the Palestinian people is the principal method by which Israel imposes an apartheid regime. It first examines Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid how the history of war, partition, de jure and de facto annexation and prolonged occupation in Palestine has led to the Palestinian people being divided into different geographic regions administered by distinct sets of law. This fragmentation operates to stabilize the Israeli regime of racial domination over the Palestinians and to weaken the will and capacity of the Palestinian people to mount a unified and effective resistance.”

As for the specifics of Apartheid in the Occupied West Bank, the UN document observes that this territory is virtually a textbook case in Apartheid governance:

“Domain 3 is the system of military law imposed on approximately 4 .6 million Palestinians who live in the occupied Palestini an territory, 2 .7 million of them in the West Bank and 1.9 million in the Gaza Strip. The territory is administered in a manner that fully meets the definition of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention: except for the provision on genocide, every illustrative “inhuman act” listed in the Convention is routinely and systematically practiced by Israel in the West Bank. Palestinians are governed by military law, while the approximately 350,000 Jewish settlers are governed by Israeli civil law. The racial character of this situation is further confirmed by the fact that all West Bank Jewish settlers enjoy the protections of Israeli civil law on the basis of being Jewish, whether they are Israeli citizens or not. This dual legal system, problematic in itself, is indicative of an apartheid regime when coupled with the racially discriminatory management of land and development administered by Jewish – national institutions, which are charged with administering “State land” in the interest of the Jewish population.”

Palestine: Resistance against Occupation, Colonialism and Apartheid

Interview with Hatem Abudayyeh

By Hatem Abudayyeh and Edu Montesanti

Hatem Abudayeeh, an Arab leader in the United States, speaks out on the Question of Palestine. An American son of Palestinians, Hatem is Executive Director of Arab American Action Network (AAAN), and co-founder and national coordinating committee member of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).

Edu Montesanti: How do you see the meeting between President Donald Trump and Prime-Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 15, especially the following observations by the American president: “I’m looking at two-state and one-state” formulations, Mr. Trump said during a White House news conference with Mr. Netanyahu. “I like the one that both parties like. I’m very happy with the one that both parties like. I can live with either one”?

Hatem Abudayyeh: Half of what Trump says is based on a lack of knowledge and understanding of domestic or foreign policy. He says the first thing that comes into his head with no regard for precedent or ramifications. He wants to run the U.S. like he runs his businesses and his relationships with women, like an autocrat. But the other half of what he says is based on an ultra-right wing worldview, so this could be that.

This sounds like he wants to help Israel achieve the Ersatz (Greater) Israel dream of the most fascist and rabid of zionists, not the one state solution that most progressive Palestinians like we in the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) would want.

Edu Montesanti: Why cannot Israel and the Palestinians decide alone the question? Why do Palestinians need a third party to get an agreement?

Hatem Abudayyeh: The Palestinian question is not only one that affects us and the settler-colonialist Europeans who live on our land, but the entire region of the Arab World and the Middle East.  So it’s a global question that does not necessarily need only a third party, but many parties. 

We know clearly that the U.S. is not an honest broker and has never been one, so we have absolutely no interest in Trump or his ideas, even if he has invited Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to the White House.

The Israelis will not accept any political or diplomatic pressure, so the pressure must instead come from the Palestinian resistance, in all its forms.

Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) has become an international phenomenon, even in the U.S., and Palestinians inside the borders of historic Palestine, including those who live inside the 1948 territories, must continue organizing and struggling to put pressure on the racist Israeli regime.

Edu Montesanti: The passage of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 voted on December 23 last year, condemning the Israeli settlements as a flagrant violation of international law and a major impediment to the achievement of a two-state solution, changes nothing on the ground between Israel and the Palestinians. UN member states “agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council” according to the UN Charter. Human rights and the international community also condemns the Israeli settlements and military attacks against Palestinians. As journalist Daoud Kuttab observed last month in Al-Jazeera, in the article US and Israel join forces to bury Palestinian statehood:”Ever since the 1967 occupation, the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly expressed the illegality of the occupation, as in the preamble of Resolution 242 “emphasizing inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war.” Why does nothing change year by year, massacre after massacre?

Hatem Abudayyeh: Nothing changes because of the U.S., which uses and needs Israel as its proxy state in the Arab World.  Many people misrepresent the conflict and believe that the zionists dictate U.S. foreign policy, whether those zionists are in Israel, Europe, the U.S., or even the Arab World.  But in reality, it is U.S. imperialism that unequivocally supports Israel diplomatically, politically, militarily, and financially, because the U.S. needs Israel to safeguard its economic interests in the Arab World.

The U.S. knows that the Arab masses will not stay silent, and will rise up to overthrow dictators like they did in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen in 2011. The white, settler-colonialist state of Israel provides the U.S. security that Arab states (regardless of how corrupt and autocratic they are) cannot.

So it is U.S. policy that allows Israel to continue to violate the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people, including self determination, the Right of Return, and independence.

Edu Montesanti: You know the Western media distorts the facts involving this massacre against Palestinians. Please number the crimes or at least some of them committed by Israel.

Hatem Abudayyeh: Collective punishment, home demolitions, expropriation of land, administrative detention, settler violence and killings, military violence and killing, racist legislative and judicial decisions inside Israel affecting 1948 Palestinians, and many others.

Edu Montesanti: How do you evaluate the Western media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

Hatem Abudayyeh: Ultimately, the media is the tool of the government in the U.S. and other Western countries.  As I stated above, the U.S. needs Israel to safeguard its interests in the Arab World and Middle East, so its media coverage of the conflict must reflect almost unequivocal support of Israel as well.

That is why there is no balance in the Western media coverage, and why independent media is so important in this day and age.

Edu Montesanti: Would you please comment a little more about the Zionist lobby in US politics? And comment please how it interferes in the peace process in the Question of Palestine.

Hatem Abudayyeh: The zionist lobby is powerful, we acknowledge, but it is not the ultimate determinant of U.S. foreign policy.  It has money and political capital, of course, and definitely pushes Israeli propaganda in the U.S. Congress and across the country, but even if it were non-existent, the U.S. government would still support Israel the way it does currently.

Edu Montesanti: Professor Avi Shlaim observed weeks ago, in Al-Jazeera: ”Sadly, the Palestinians are handicapped by weak leadership and by the internal rivalry between Fatah and Hamas.” Your view on the internal politics among Palestinians, please.

Hatem Abudayyeh: The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank became a comprador years ago, and the cabal around PA President Mahmoud Abbas will continue to work with the enemy to repress Palestinian resistance.

There are many elements of Fatah that are patriotic and want to resist Israel, but ultimately, they never truly challenge the PA. Hamas, on the other hand, has recently played the most leading role in the military resistance against Israel, so its popularity has risen accordingly over the years.

But it is also guilty of some repression against non-Hamas Palestinian forces in Gaza, and it has not been able to administer the Gaza Strip in a way that makes people’s lives better, but this is mostly due to the Israeli and Egyptian siege on the tiny piece of land.

The vast majority of Palestinians want peace and justice, and know that can only happen if we continue our resistance against the oppressor.

The best way for that to happen is to give up on the notion that we are in a “state building” stage of our revolution. We are not. We are still in the national liberation stage, so it doesn’t matter who the president of the PA is, or even that there are two PAs right now, one in the West Bank and one in Gaza.

What needs to happen is for true national unity that includes not only Fatah and Hamas, but all the other Palestinian political parties and forces as well.  The Palestinian victory against Israel in 2014 was won because the resistance was unified, and only political unity can win freedom and independence.

We need a re-formed PLO that does not make concessions to Israel and the U.S., and that truly represents all the resistance forces and social sectors of Palestinian society.

Edu Montesanti: What could we expect from Arab leaders from now on?

Hatem Abudayyeh: Most Arab leaders in the Arab World are corrupt tools of the U.S., and by extension, Israel.  These leaders will do nothing to challenge the status quo, and only care about keeping themselves in power.

On the other hand, the Arab masses can and will make a difference, by winning their own independence in their own countries, and then providing leadership that supports the Palestinian people in our struggle for freedom.

Edu Montesanti: What is the solution to the conflict?  What are the principal obstacles to a fair agreement and solutions?

Hatem Abudayyeh: The solution is a simple one.  We do not accept the notion of a racist, white, settler-colonialist state, like the one in South Africa during the Apartheid regime there.

Israel is a racist state, and so it must be dismantled like Apartheid South Africa was. If this happens, and if Palestinian refugees are able to return to their homes and lands inside historic Palestine, and if the military occupation is defeated and ended, then all the people can live together in one, single state.

This is the only solution, because Palestinian refugees will never give up their Right of Return, and Israel will eventually be forced to end its occupation and oppression of Palestinians in the 1948 territories, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.

When the racist structures of zionist Israel are dismantled, then there can be equality for all people living there.  And this will happen as long as the international community continues to organize BDS campaigns, the people of the U.S. continue to strike blows against U.S. imperialism they way they have been in the anti-Trump movement, and the Palestinians continue their legitimate resistance against occupation, colonialism, and apartheid.

Hatem Abudayeeh, an Arab leader in the United States, speaks out on the Question of Palestine. An American son of Palestinians, Hatem is Executive Director of Arab American Action Network (AAAN), and co-founder and national coordinating committee member of the U.S. Palestinian Community Network (USPCN).

Remembering Melba

Melba Hernandez del Rey's with Commandante Fidel Castro

By Lauren Céspedes Hernández 

She was from a family with a mambí heritage. She was one of those women who, in the 20th century, left her university title hanging next to her lawyer’s gown and devoted herself, body and soul, to the struggle against the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship.

Melba Hernández del Rey’s strong character was in line with her decision to become a guerrilla of the Cuban revolutionary movement led by Fidel Castro.

As one of the 1953 Moncada combatants, she was witness to the torture and assassination of her comrades-in-arms. During their trial she denounced the disappearance of some, such as Abel Santamaría, and denied the alleged death of Fidel in revolutionary action.

A “consecrated love for freedom, whose principles we are willing to die for,” had led her to participate in such a feat, as she stated in a radio broadcast after leaving prison.

This public confession made clear that Melba was moved by ideals. Nothing could be more firm, and all too risky, during the days of the military dictatorship.

She lived on the edge over the following years: 1954, 1955, 1956. She undertook meticulous work first in organizing the notes that Fidel was able to smuggle out from the prison where he was held, and then in the clandestine distribution of that plea, which came to be known as History Will Absolve Me. After barely resting in Mexico, where she helped organize the Granma yacht expedition and the resumption of armed insurrection in Cuba, as a member of the July 26 Movement she joined the group of rebels in the Sierra Maestra.

With the victory of the revolutionary forces, Melba did not rest. There was a lot to do yet and she was active in the new front, with different weapons, but the same aims of social justice and a love of all human beings.

In the opinion of Mirta Muñiz Egea, Melba’s co-worker during that period, her activities in the field of international solidarity were prolific following the 1959 revolutionary triumph.

She notes that she met Melba after the Moncada assault, and that at the beginning of the Revolution they shared a certain closeness, as they both undertook television work.

But it was a coincidence that united them in the same working team. Mirta explains that on December 20, 1963, she attended an act at the Cuban Workers’ Federation theater, where Che was to speak in defense of the people of South Vietnam, and when she arrived she noticed that “there was just Melba, sitting in an armchair, and him.” When Che saw her enter, he asked whether she had anything to do with the organization of the event, to which she replied with a no, and he then set her an irrevocable mission: “Well, from now on you will prepare these acts.”

She recalls that from that day forward, a campaign of solidarity with the Vietnamese cause began, presided by Melba Hernández, who managed to bring together people of different specialties and form the Solidarity with South Vietnam Committee initially and, as the war advanced, with other countries such as Laos and Cambodia.

In the 1960s, Melba put her boots and uniform back on, but this time as a solidarity missionary. On this occasion, her principles and faith in humankind took her to the mountains of Laos.

Mirta tells how they lived for a month in the caves where the Lao people sheltered, in one of which they met Prince Souphanouvong, who led the war in that territory.

“That man had a little map of Cuba behind his desk, and a copy of Granma newspaper before him, and told Melba: I’m trying to learn Spanish so when I meet Fidel I can speak to him in Spanish.”

“When we said goodbye, he went out, and in front of the cave he cut a flower for each of the women in the delegation, a sensitivity and concern for the human being in the midst of war, bombings, and horrors.”

Mirta, a woman who trained in the world of public relations, advertising, propaganda and journalism, recognizes that beyond being years of political activism and immense voluntary solidarity, that social mobilization and concern for the peoples of Asia was thanks to Melba’s organizational and persuasive capacity. “Fidel was the architect of this whole project and she was the one who made it a reality,” she states.

Mirta describes Melba as “a demanding woman, but very flattering when things went well.”

Not all bosses, she argues, are so quick to scold you and then to hail you. “If it was necessary to knock someone on the head she did so, and if it was necessary to give them a flower also.”

I never saw her demand what she did not demand of herself first. She was always willing to go wherever she was needed, to undertake the necessary work, Mirta adds.

“She was a person with great human sensitivity. The Vietnamese called her mom and she was very open, very human, she could pinpoint where the problems were and tried to solve them.”

Mirta highlights that following the Vietnamese victory in 1975, the Solidarity Committee Melba had formed dissolved, and friendship associations were created with each of these Asian countries, while Melba continued her work as General Secretary of the Organization of Solidarity with the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America (OSPAAAL).

The project to support other nations in conflict, including Korea, Syria, Algeria, Lebanon and others, was then expanded.

“For the publicity work and all the collaboration there was no specific budget and therein lies the great work of Melba, in which she signed people up to this cause who did not seek something in return but sought to contribute, and thus she managed to unite the wills of great scientists, doctors, Cuban artists; in which she ensured that workers and campesinos knew and talked about the Vietnamese or Lao people, and also that the voice of those countries was heard in international events through Cuba,” Mirta concludes.

A life devoted to others is how Mirta remembers her compañera of so many trips and causes, who helped to forge, to her understanding, one of the largest mass movements in favor of global solidarity.