Avi Shlaim: ‘Three Worlds – Memoirs of an Arab – Jew’
This beautiful, inspiring, elegiac book is the story of the author’s journey – a journey from Baghdad to Israel in 1950, aged five, and from Israel to England. But Avi Schlaim’s journey was at different levels. It was geographical and it was cultural. It also became a political journey to his own position today.

His personal experiences illustrate a bigger story of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in 1950 following the creation of Israel in 1948. His story and his words speak more eloquently than any reviewer can, and so for the most part, I quote directly from his memoir.

The book is “a glimpse into the lost and rich world of the Iraqi-Jewish community”. Perhaps, coming from what he describes as a prosperous, privileged family, he may see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But his memories are precious.

“We belonged to a branch of the global Jewish community that is now almost extinct. We were Arab-Jews. We lived in Baghdad and were well integrated into Iraqi society. We spoke Arabic at home, our social customs were Arab, our lifestyle was Arab, our cuisine was exquisitely Middle Eastern and my parents’ music was an attractive blend of Arabic and Jewish…We in the Jewish community had much more in common, linguistically and culturally, with our Iraqi compatriots than with our European co-religionists.

Of all the Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, the one in Mesopotamia was the most integrated into local society, the most Arabised in its culture and the most prosperous… When the British created the Kingdom of Iraq…the Jews were the backbone of the Iraqi economy”

Jewish lineage in Mesopotamia stretched as far back as Babylonian times, pre-dating the rise of Islam by a millenium.

“Their influence was evident in every branch of Iraqi culture, from literature and music to journalism and banking. Banks – with the exception of government owned banks – and all the big markets remained closed on the Sabbath and the other Jewish holy days.” By the 1880s there were 55 synagogues in Baghdad.

He describes how in Iraq there was a long tradition of religious tolerance and harmony. “The Jews were neither newcomers nor aliens in Iraq. They were certainly not intruders”. By the time of the First World War, Jews constituted one third of the population of Baghdad.

He contrasts Europe and the Middle East. “Unlike Europe the Middle East did not have a ‘Jewish Question’. “Iraq’s Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persecution and genocide that marred European history. There were of course exceptions, notably the infamous pogrom against Jews in June 1941, for which the actions of British imperialism must take substantial responsibility.

By 1941, antisemitism in Baghdad was on the increase but was more a foreign import than a home grown product. There was a violent pogrom against the Jewish community named the farhud. The Jews were seen as friends of the British. 179 Jews were murdered and several hundred injured. It was completely unexpected and unprecedented. There had been no other attack against the Jews for centuries. Avi gives many examples of Muslims assisting their Jewish neighbours.

And yet he writes: “The overall picture, however, was one of religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism, peaceful co-existence and fruitful interaction.”

The critical moment was the creation of Israel. “As a result of the Arab defeat, there was a backlash against the Jews throughout the Arab world. “What had been a pillar of Iraqi society was increasingly perceived as a sinister fifth column”, with Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists identifying the Jews in their countries with the hated Zionist enemy.

Palestinians “were the main victims of the Zionist project. More than half their number became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. But there was another category of victims, less well known and much less talked about: the Jews of the Arab lands”.

The sub-title of the book refers to ‘Arab-Jews’. “The hyphen is significant. Critics of the term Arab-Jew see it as… conflating two separate identities. As I see it, the hyphen unites: an Arab can also be a Jew and a Jew can also be an Arab…We are told that there is a clash of cultures, an unbridgeable gulf between Muslims and Jews… The story of my family in Iraq -and that of many forgotten families like mine – points to a dramatically different picture. It harks back to an era of a more pluralist Middle East with greater religious tolerance and a political culture of mutual respect and co-operation.”

Yet the Zionists portray the Jews as the victims of endemic Arab persecution and this is used to justify the atrocious treatment of the Palestinians. Thus the narrative of the ‘Jewish Nakba’ to create a ‘false symmetry between the fate of two communities. This narrative is not history; it is the propaganda of the victors.”

On 29th November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for the partition of mandate Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The General Council of the Iraqi Jewish community sent a telegram to the UN opposing the partition resolution and the creation of a Jewish state. “Like my family, the majority of Iraqi Jews saw themselves as Iraqi first and Jewish second; they feared that the creation of a Jewish state would undermine their position in Iraq… The distinction between Jews and Zionists, so crucial to interfaith harmony in the Arab world, was rapidly breaking down”.

Iraq’s participation in the war for Palestine fuelled tensions between Muslims and Jews. Iraqi Jews were widely suspected of being secret supporters of Israel. With the defeat of Palestine a wave of hostility towards Israel and the Jews living in their midst swept through the Arab world. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad shouting “Death to the Jews.” And the government needing a scapegoat did not simply respond to public anger but actively whipped up public hysteria and suspicion against the Jews.

At this point official persecution against the Jews began. In July 1948 a law was passed making Zionism a criminal offence punishable by death or a minimum sentence of seven years in prison. Jews were fired from government jobs and from the railways, post office and telegraph department, Jewish merchants were denied import and export licences, restrictions placed on Jewish banks to trade in foreign currency, young Jews were barred from admission to colleges of education and the entire community was put under surveillance.

The number of Jewish immigrants leaving Iraq to the end of 1953 numbered almost 125,000 out of a total of 135,000. The Jewish presence going back well over 2,000 years was destroyed.

And yet for all this the mass exodus did not occur till 1950/1951 in what was known as the ‘Big Aliyah”. The majority of Iraqi Jews did not want to leave Iraq and had no affinity with Zionism. Most who emigrated to Israel did so only after a wave of five bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad. It has long been argued that the bombings were instigated by Israel and the Zionists to spark a mass flight of Iraqi Jews to Israel, needed as they were to do many of the menial jobs and to boost numbers in the army.

The author makes a forensic examination of the evidence – based on examination of documents and on interviews – and concluded that three out of the five bombings were carried out by the Zionist underground in Baghdad, a fourth – the bombing of the Mas’uda Shemtob synagogue, which was the only one that resulted in fatalities – was the result of Zionist bribery and there was one carried out by a far right wing, anti-Jewish Iraqi nationalist group.

When the Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel, their experience fell short of the Zionist myth. At the airport in Israel, many were sprayed with DDT pesticides “to disinfect them as if they were animals.” They were then taken to squalid and unsanitary transit camps. Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by policemen. The immigration and settlement authorities had no understanding of their customs and culture. “They thought of them as backward and primitive and expected them to take their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy and be grateful for whatever they were given… The lens through which the new immigrants were viewed was the same colonialist lens through which the Ashkenazi establishment viewed the Palestinians.”

“We were Jews from an Arab country that was still officially at war with Israel. European Jews.. looked down on us as socially and culturally inferior. They despised the Arabic language…I was an Iraqi boy in a land of Europeans.”

For his grandmothers, Iraq was the beloved homeland while Israel was the place of exile. “Migration to Israel is usually described as Aliyah or ascent. For us the move from Iraq to Israel was decidedly a Yeridah, a descent down the economic and social ladder. Not only did we lose our property and possessions; we also our lost our strong sense of identity as proud Iraqi Jews as we were relegated to the margins of Israeli society.” The experience was to break his father.

“The unstated aims of the official policy for schools were to undermine our Arab-Jewish identity… A systematic process was at work to delegitimise our heritage and erase our cultural roots” It was a clash of cultures. The Mizrahim were earmarked to be the proletariat – the fodder to support the country’s industrial and agricultural development. As one author put it, “We left Iraq as Jews and arrived in Israel as Iraqis.” They were clearly, to borrow from current jargon, “the wrong kind of Israeli”.

His journey was a political one too. His message and his warnings are unequivocally universalist. “The Holocaust stands out as an archetype of a crime against humanity. For me as a Jew and an Israeli therefore the Holocaust teaches us to resist the dehumanising of any people, including the Palestinian ‘victims of victims’, because dehumanising a people can easily result, as it did in Europe in the 1940s, in crimes against humanity.”

He had previously argued that it was only after the 1967 war that Israel became a colonial power, oppressing the Palestinians in the occupied territories. However, “a deeper analysis… led me to the conclusion that Israel had been created by a settler-colonial movement. The years 1948 and 1967 were merely milestones in the relentless systematic takeover of the whole of Palestine… Since Zionism was an avowedly settler-colonial movement from the outset, the building of civilian settlements on occupied land was only a new stage in the long march… The most crucial turning point was not the war of 1967 but the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.”

And more: “the two-state solution is dead or, to be more accurate, it was never born… The outcome I have come to favour is one democratic state… with equal rights for all its citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion.” He is absolutely right in my view.

His family’s story “serves as a corrective to the Zionist narrative which views Arabs and Jews as congenitally incapable of dwelling together in peace and doomed to permanent conflict and discord… My experience as a young boy and that of the whole Jewish community in Iraq, suggests there is nothing inevitable or pre-ordained about Arab-Jewish antagonism… Remembering the past can help us to envisage a better future… Arab-Jewish co-existence is not something that my family imagined in our minds; we experienced it, we touched it.”

Optimistic? Yes, perhaps over-optimistic. But towards the end of this masterpiece, Avi Schlaim justifies his message. “Recalling the era of cosmopolitanism and co-existence that some Jews, like my family, enjoyed in Arab countries before 1948 offers a glimmer of hope… It’s the best model we have for a better future.”


https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/avi-shlaim-three-worlds-memoirs-of-an-arab-jew/

Avi Shlaim: ‘Three Worlds – Memoirs of an Arab – Jew’
This beautiful, inspiring, elegiac book is the story of the author’s journey – a journey from Baghdad to Israel in 1950, aged five, and from Israel to England. But Avi Schlaim’s journey was at different levels. It was geographical and it was cultural. It also became a political journey to his own position today.

His personal experiences illustrate a bigger story of the Jewish exodus from Iraq to Israel in 1950 following the creation of Israel in 1948. His story and his words speak more eloquently than any reviewer can, and so for the most part, I quote directly from his memoir.

The book is “a glimpse into the lost and rich world of the Iraqi-Jewish community”. Perhaps, coming from what he describes as a prosperous, privileged family, he may see the past through rose-tinted glasses. But his memories are precious.

“We belonged to a branch of the global Jewish community that is now almost extinct. We were Arab-Jews. We lived in Baghdad and were well integrated into Iraqi society. We spoke Arabic at home, our social customs were Arab, our lifestyle was Arab, our cuisine was exquisitely Middle Eastern and my parents’ music was an attractive blend of Arabic and Jewish…We in the Jewish community had much more in common, linguistically and culturally, with our Iraqi compatriots than with our European co-religionists.

Of all the Jewish communities in the Ottoman Empire, the one in Mesopotamia was the most integrated into local society, the most Arabised in its culture and the most prosperous… When the British created the Kingdom of Iraq…the Jews were the backbone of the Iraqi economy”

Jewish lineage in Mesopotamia stretched as far back as Babylonian times, pre-dating the rise of Islam by a millenium.

“Their influence was evident in every branch of Iraqi culture, from literature and music to journalism and banking. Banks – with the exception of government owned banks – and all the big markets remained closed on the Sabbath and the other Jewish holy days.” By the 1880s there were 55 synagogues in Baghdad.

He describes how in Iraq there was a long tradition of religious tolerance and harmony. “The Jews were neither newcomers nor aliens in Iraq. They were certainly not intruders”. By the time of the First World War, Jews constituted one third of the population of Baghdad.

He contrasts Europe and the Middle East. “Unlike Europe the Middle East did not have a ‘Jewish Question’. “Iraq’s Jews did not live in ghettos, nor did they experience the violent repression, persecution and genocide that marred European history. There were of course exceptions, notably the infamous pogrom against Jews in June 1941, for which the actions of British imperialism must take substantial responsibility.

By 1941, antisemitism in Baghdad was on the increase but was more a foreign import than a home grown product. There was a violent pogrom against the Jewish community named the farhud. The Jews were seen as friends of the British. 179 Jews were murdered and several hundred injured. It was completely unexpected and unprecedented. There had been no other attack against the Jews for centuries. Avi gives many examples of Muslims assisting their Jewish neighbours.

And yet he writes: “The overall picture, however, was one of religious tolerance, cosmopolitanism, peaceful co-existence and fruitful interaction.”

The critical moment was the creation of Israel. “As a result of the Arab defeat, there was a backlash against the Jews throughout the Arab world. “What had been a pillar of Iraqi society was increasingly perceived as a sinister fifth column”, with Islamic fundamentalists and Arab nationalists identifying the Jews in their countries with the hated Zionist enemy.

Palestinians “were the main victims of the Zionist project. More than half their number became refugees and the name Palestine was wiped off the map. But there was another category of victims, less well known and much less talked about: the Jews of the Arab lands”.

The sub-title of the book refers to ‘Arab-Jews’. “The hyphen is significant. Critics of the term Arab-Jew see it as… conflating two separate identities. As I see it, the hyphen unites: an Arab can also be a Jew and a Jew can also be an Arab…We are told that there is a clash of cultures, an unbridgeable gulf between Muslims and Jews… The story of my family in Iraq -and that of many forgotten families like mine – points to a dramatically different picture. It harks back to an era of a more pluralist Middle East with greater religious tolerance and a political culture of mutual respect and co-operation.”

Yet the Zionists portray the Jews as the victims of endemic Arab persecution and this is used to justify the atrocious treatment of the Palestinians. Thus the narrative of the ‘Jewish Nakba’ to create a ‘false symmetry between the fate of two communities. This narrative is not history; it is the propaganda of the victors.”

On 29th November 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations voted for the partition of mandate Palestine into two states: one Arab, one Jewish. The General Council of the Iraqi Jewish community sent a telegram to the UN opposing the partition resolution and the creation of a Jewish state. “Like my family, the majority of Iraqi Jews saw themselves as Iraqi first and Jewish second; they feared that the creation of a Jewish state would undermine their position in Iraq… The distinction between Jews and Zionists, so crucial to interfaith harmony in the Arab world, was rapidly breaking down”.

Iraq’s participation in the war for Palestine fuelled tensions between Muslims and Jews. Iraqi Jews were widely suspected of being secret supporters of Israel. With the defeat of Palestine a wave of hostility towards Israel and the Jews living in their midst swept through the Arab world. Demonstrators marched through the streets of Baghdad shouting “Death to the Jews.” And the government needing a scapegoat did not simply respond to public anger but actively whipped up public hysteria and suspicion against the Jews.

At this point official persecution against the Jews began. In July 1948 a law was passed making Zionism a criminal offence punishable by death or a minimum sentence of seven years in prison. Jews were fired from government jobs and from the railways, post office and telegraph department, Jewish merchants were denied import and export licences, restrictions placed on Jewish banks to trade in foreign currency, young Jews were barred from admission to colleges of education and the entire community was put under surveillance.

The number of Jewish immigrants leaving Iraq to the end of 1953 numbered almost 125,000 out of a total of 135,000. The Jewish presence going back well over 2,000 years was destroyed.

And yet for all this the mass exodus did not occur till 1950/1951 in what was known as the ‘Big Aliyah”. The majority of Iraqi Jews did not want to leave Iraq and had no affinity with Zionism. Most who emigrated to Israel did so only after a wave of five bombings of Jewish targets in Baghdad. It has long been argued that the bombings were instigated by Israel and the Zionists to spark a mass flight of Iraqi Jews to Israel, needed as they were to do many of the menial jobs and to boost numbers in the army.

The author makes a forensic examination of the evidence – based on examination of documents and on interviews – and concluded that three out of the five bombings were carried out by the Zionist underground in Baghdad, a fourth – the bombing of the Mas’uda Shemtob synagogue, which was the only one that resulted in fatalities – was the result of Zionist bribery and there was one carried out by a far right wing, anti-Jewish Iraqi nationalist group.

When the Iraqi Jews arrived in Israel, their experience fell short of the Zionist myth. At the airport in Israel, many were sprayed with DDT pesticides “to disinfect them as if they were animals.” They were then taken to squalid and unsanitary transit camps. Some camps were surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by policemen. The immigration and settlement authorities had no understanding of their customs and culture. “They thought of them as backward and primitive and expected them to take their place at the bottom of the social hierarchy and be grateful for whatever they were given… The lens through which the new immigrants were viewed was the same colonialist lens through which the Ashkenazi establishment viewed the Palestinians.”

“We were Jews from an Arab country that was still officially at war with Israel. European Jews.. looked down on us as socially and culturally inferior. They despised the Arabic language…I was an Iraqi boy in a land of Europeans.”

For his grandmothers, Iraq was the beloved homeland while Israel was the place of exile. “Migration to Israel is usually described as Aliyah or ascent. For us the move from Iraq to Israel was decidedly a Yeridah, a descent down the economic and social ladder. Not only did we lose our property and possessions; we also our lost our strong sense of identity as proud Iraqi Jews as we were relegated to the margins of Israeli society.” The experience was to break his father.

“The unstated aims of the official policy for schools were to undermine our Arab-Jewish identity… A systematic process was at work to delegitimise our heritage and erase our cultural roots” It was a clash of cultures. The Mizrahim were earmarked to be the proletariat – the fodder to support the country’s industrial and agricultural development. As one author put it, “We left Iraq as Jews and arrived in Israel as Iraqis.” They were clearly, to borrow from current jargon, “the wrong kind of Israeli”.

His journey was a political one too. His message and his warnings are unequivocally universalist. “The Holocaust stands out as an archetype of a crime against humanity. For me as a Jew and an Israeli therefore the Holocaust teaches us to resist the dehumanising of any people, including the Palestinian ‘victims of victims’, because dehumanising a people can easily result, as it did in Europe in the 1940s, in crimes against humanity.”

He had previously argued that it was only after the 1967 war that Israel became a colonial power, oppressing the Palestinians in the occupied territories. However, “a deeper analysis… led me to the conclusion that Israel had been created by a settler-colonial movement. The years 1948 and 1967 were merely milestones in the relentless systematic takeover of the whole of Palestine… Since Zionism was an avowedly settler-colonial movement from the outset, the building of civilian settlements on occupied land was only a new stage in the long march… The most crucial turning point was not the war of 1967 but the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.”

And more: “the two-state solution is dead or, to be more accurate, it was never born… The outcome I have come to favour is one democratic state… with equal rights for all its citizens regardless of ethnicity or religion.” He is absolutely right in my view.

His family’s story “serves as a corrective to the Zionist narrative which views Arabs and Jews as congenitally incapable of dwelling together in peace and doomed to permanent conflict and discord… My experience as a young boy and that of the whole Jewish community in Iraq, suggests there is nothing inevitable or pre-ordained about Arab-Jewish antagonism… Remembering the past can help us to envisage a better future… Arab-Jewish co-existence is not something that my family imagined in our minds; we experienced it, we touched it.”

Optimistic? Yes, perhaps over-optimistic. But towards the end of this masterpiece, Avi Schlaim justifies his message. “Recalling the era of cosmopolitanism and co-existence that some Jews, like my family, enjoyed in Arab countries before 1948 offers a glimmer of hope… It’s the best model we have for a better future.”


https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/avi-shlaim-three-worlds-memoirs-of-an-arab-jew/

Singapore Police investigate two events amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza
Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded.

Staff writer13 February 2024

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Police Force (SPF) is currently investigating two events held on 2 February that may have breached the Public Order Act amidst the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and genocide in Gaza.

In their statement on Tuesday (13 Feb), the SPF also emphasized the importance of maintaining respectful and responsible discussions concerning the conflict, highlighting the illegal nature of participating in public protests without the requisite permit.

The first event under investigation saw approximately 70 individuals congregating along Orchard Road, proceeding towards the Istana with umbrellas adorned with watermelon imagery—a recognized symbol of Palestinian resistance.

This march, potentially advocating for the political causes of other countries, has raised concerns over stirring tensions and leading to public disorder, particularly given the security sensitivity of the Istana area.

A second incident involved a private gathering which was captured and shared online where a subject was seen live streaming publicly and chanting, “From the river to the sea”, and others chanting “, Palestine will be free”, in response.

The participants in the private event called for stopping the purchase of Israeli arms, ending Singaporean partnerships with Israeli institutions, halting all diplomatic relations with Israel, ceasing participation in the US-led attacks in the Red Sea, and stopping police investigations into peaceful expressions of support for Palestine.

SPF states, “The phrase “From the river to the sea” is associated with calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. The use of such phrases can lead to racial tensions in our society, and may be an offence under Section 298A(a) of the Penal Code 1871. We must also not condone calls for violence.”

The participants in the private event, made calls for the Singapore government

Reflecting on these incidents, the SPF reiterated its stance from October 2023, alongside the National Parks Board, that applications for public events related to the Israel-Hamas conflict would be systematically rejected due to public safety and security concerns.

The SPF’s statement further stressed the importance of not allowing international events to disrupt Singapore’s internal harmony, pointing out the “real risk” assemblies related to the Gaza situation pose to public order and inter-community relations.

In line with this, the SPF has made it clear that no permits will be granted for gatherings that risk inciting disorder or advocate for foreign political causes.

Additionally, SPF noted that unauthorized posting of materials such as stickers on properties remains a punishable offence under the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act.

In a supportive stance, Josephine Teo, Minister for Communications and Information and Second Minister for the Ministry of Home Affairs, echoed the police’s sentiments in a Facebook post.

She reassured that the advisory is not aimed at stifling expression but rather at ensuring that public discourse does not infringe upon the law or threaten societal cohesion.

Minister Teo also highlighted Singapore’s proactive stance on the conflict, noting the country’s contribution to humanitarian efforts and its call for an immediate ceasefire through international platforms.

The death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded since the Israeli offensive on Gaza began on 7 October last year.

On 26 January, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to limit deaths and damage but stopped short of demanding a cease-fire in the Palestinian territory.

South Africa has accused Israel of genocide and requested the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands, to impose interim measures as the case proceeds. These requested measures include ordering Israel to halt its offensive, allowing Gaza residents access to aid, and taking “reasonable measures” to prevent genocide.

Israel has denied committing genocide and asked the court to dismiss the case, which the panel of 17 judges refused to do.

Casualties in Gaza are expected to increase as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls for a ground invasion of Rafah, where 1.4 million civilians are crammed into the city, trapped between Isreal’s offensive in the north and Egypt’s border where it has been said that it would not allow passage.

Gutzy has checked with the organisers of the events and understands that they have yet to be contacted by the police and that the President has yet respond to the letters that were sent on 2 February.


Singapore Police Force in a statement said it is probing two events on 2 Feb for Public Order Act breaches, urging lawful, respectful dialogue on Israel-Hamas conflict as death toll in the Gaza Strip has surpassed 28,000, with more than 67,600 Palestinians wounded.




https://gutzy.asia/2024/02/13/singapore-police-investigate-two-events-amid-israels-genocide-in-gaza/

https://donshafi911.blogspot.com/2024/02/singapore-police-investigate-two-events.html

The Kratom (Ketum) industry in southern Thailand
The Malaysian connection

Murray Hunter
No description available.
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Over the last 12 months, stalls have been opening up across southern Thailand to sell ketum leaves, syrups, and mixed drinks. In Thailand ketum is called kratom.

Kratom is now sold on every street corner, and in between, across all southern Thai towns. These stalls are very cheap to open, usually in front of homes, or shops to sell to passers-by.

In 2021 Thailand updated the Narcotics Act (No.8) 201, which removed kratom from the list of prohibited substances, where all offences for cultivating, processing, and selling were eliminated. This was published in the Government Gazette, making it law in August 2022.

Kratom, or its scientific name Mitragyna speciosa (Korth.) is a large forest tree found in northern Malaysia and southern Thailand. The tree is adaptable to cultivation, and takes around two to three years to produce marketable leaves. The leaves have been used by locals in both southern Thailand and northern Malaysia for pain relief for hundreds of years. The leaves either chewed of boiled into a tea or syrup also provides some euphoric effects. Other claim kratom makes them energetic. Ethnobotanic data records that kratom was used as a substitute for opium, supressing withdrawal symptoms. Observation and research data indicates the use of kratom is additive.

Kratom is sort after in southern Thailand by farmers and rubber tappers, food delivery motorcyclists, lori and bus drivers, small market traders, and manual workers. Kratom syrup is usually mixed with coffee, or Coca Cola.

No description available.
Kratom retailing is now a choice start-up retailing business, due to the low set up costs, ability to sell from home, or set up a stall along the side of the road. The setting up of kratom stalls now out paces coffee stalls and kueh stalls selling breakfast items.

Its very difficult to estimate the number of kratom stalls that now exist. More are being set up every-day. Within the Hat Yai area and access roads alone, there are probably in excess of 500 stalls. This would run into many thousands across southern Thailand. This is amazing, considering just over six months ago there was no one selling kratom leaves of syrups openly.

There is probably an oversupply of stalls as kratom stalls are still being opened up. The ones that succeed are those which are open at night and placed in high traffic locations, with easy parking.

Kratom, unlike marijuana is thriving ion southern Thailand. Marijuana gained much more publicity than kratom. People rushed out to buy marijuana plants, restaurants utilizing marijuana opened for business, as did coffee shops. However, this popularity only lasted a few months, and has been taken over by kratom as the drug of choice in the south.

No description available.
Marijuana not making waves in southern Thailand

The Malaysian connection

As from last year, kratom leaves could be imported into Thailand legally, without any license requirements from the Narcotics Control Board (NCB). Most of the kratom leaves sold and used to make syrups in Thailand come from Malaysia, cultivated in Kelantan, northern Perak, Kedah, and Perlis. Even a very well known politician in Perlis cultivates nearly 100 acres of kratom. This practice continues unabated, evenwhen Ketum is considered a narcotic in Malaysia. The alkaloid mitragynine contained in ketum leaves is categorized as a psychotropic substance under the Poisons Act 1952. Police have long being cutting down ketum trees found growing in FELDA reserves in Perlis. However, under the current laws, exporting ketum is illegal but planting ketum is perfectly fine. This makes it almost impossible for the police to stop the flow of ketum to our neighbouring countries.

Ketum Raid
However, due to the growing demand from Thailand, Malaysian farmers keep cultivating ketum and exporting their leaves to Thailand. Ketum is a bonanza crop for Malaysian farmers. One ketum tree can produce 10kg of leaves with revenue of RM200 every two weeks. Hence, the smuggling of ketum leaves is on an upward trend. Some estimate the value of exporting ketum leaves to be as high as RM 180m million per annum.

Malaysian kratom leaves are considered the best quality in southern Thailand, where the alkaloid content is higher than local varieties.

The kratom market will keep growing in Thailand, as central, northern, and eastern Thailand are yet to catch on to this opportunity.

So far there are few signs the government will walk back on the decriminalization of kratom, as they are trying to do with marijuana. Kratom syrup is now a commodity item, particularly among those undertaking manual jobs. The attraction to this product is its addictiveness. The attraction to starting up a kratom retail stall is the extremely low capital requirements.

In Malaysia, there has been growing support for the idea of legalising the cultivation of ketum for medical purposes. In April 2022, former Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin said that the Cabinet had given the “green light” on this matter. On 18 May 2022, Kedah’s State Economic Planning Division has officially completed its proposal to seek federal approval to legalise the export of ketum. However, the government changed in November 2022 and there has been silence on the matter.

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https://murrayhunter.substack.com/p/the-kratom-ketum-industry-in-southern

Alexander Dugin: My Vision For The New World Order, And Gaza War – Alexander Dugin
Kolozeg27/10/2023
Posted on : 09/11/2023
Alexander Dugin: My Vision For The New World Order, And Gaza War – Alexander Dugin
New civilisations are on the rise, including Chinese, Islamic, Indian, African, and Latin American. Russia sees them as potential allies and partners in a genuine and equitable multipolar order, says Aleksandr Dugin.

The current global order appears to be in a state of transition. What we are witnessing is a shift away from a unipolar world, which emerged following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, towards a multipolar world.

The foundations of this multipolar world are becoming increasingly evident, with key players including Russia, China, the Islamic world, India, and potentially Africa and Latin America. These entities represent distinct civilisations, many of which are united within the BRICS group.

Notably, after the 2023 Johannesburg summit, this group expanded to include significant countries from the Islamic world, such as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt, as well as Ethiopia, bolstering the African perspective, and Argentina, further solidifying the presence of South American nations.



Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud attends a meeting during the 2023 BRICS Summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in Johannesburg Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023.

This expansion underscores the growing influence of the multipolar world order while signalling a weakening of Western hegemony.

The US and the West’s determination to preserve unilateral dominance

The United States and Western powers are resolutely clinging to the concept of unilateralism. At the forefront of global leadership, the United States, in particular, is determined to maintain its dominance across military, political, economic, cultural, and ideological realms. This ongoing pursuit of unipolarity stands as the central contradiction of our era, marked by the intensifying struggle between unipolarity and multipolarity.

Within this context, it is imperative to examine the key conflicts and developments in global politics, notably the efforts to undermine Russia as it reasserts its sovereignty and presence as an independent pole. This dynamic helps elucidate the persistent conflict in Ukraine.

The Western world’s support for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is driven, in large part, by the desire to prevent Russia from reemerging as an autonomous global actor—an aspiration championed by President Vladimir Putin throughout his tenure.

Putin has bolstered the political sovereignty of the Russian Federation and progressively emphasised Russia’s status as an independent civilisation that not only opposes Western hegemony but also rejects its value system.

Russia has unambiguously affirmed its commitment to traditional values while firmly rebuffing Western liberalism, including its promotion of the gay rights agenda and other Western ideological standards, which Russia perceives as aberrations and deviations.

In response, the West actively supported the 2014 coup in Kyiv, provided extensive military aid to Ukraine, fostered the dissemination of neo-Nazi ideology within the country, and provoked Russia into initiating an extraordinary military operation.

Without Putin’s intervention, Kyiv would likely have taken similar actions independently, leading to the opening of the first front in the fierce struggle between multipolarity and unipolarity in Ukraine.

Simultaneously, Russia, under Putin’s leadership, recognises that it cannot be one of just two poles in this world, as was the case during the Soviet Union era.

New civilisations are on the rise, including Chinese, Islamic, Indian, African, and Latin American. Russia sees them as potential allies and partners in a genuine and equitable multipolar order—a perspective not yet widely acknowledged by the rest of the world.



Burkina Faso’s Capt. Ibrahim Traore, left, and Russian President Vladimir Putin shake hands before an official ceremony to welcome the leaders of delegations to the Russia Africa Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, July 27, 2023

However, there is a gradual and strengthening awareness of the concept of multipolarity, exemplified by the situation regarding Taiwan, which has been spared from becoming the next flashpoint in the confrontation between unipolarity and multipolarity, particularly in the Pacific region.

New civilisations are on the rise, including Chinese, Islamic, Indian, African, and Latin American. Russia sees them as potential allies and partners in a genuine and equitable multipolar order—a perspective not yet widely acknowledged by the rest of the world.

Israel’s war on Gaza points to broader confrontation

The events in Israel and the Gaza Strip are closely linked to this issue. Two tragic incidents occurred in rapid succession. Firstly, there was a Hamas attack on Israel, resulting in a significant number of civilian casualties and the abduction of hostages.

Subsequently, Israel launched retaliatory strikes on the Gaza Strip, characterised by a high degree of brutality and a substantial number of civilian casualties, especially among women and children. These actions unequivocally constitute violations of human rights and crimes against humanity, and they lack any justifiable rationale.

But at the same time, Israel’s application of the principles of “lex talionis” (a principle that developed at the beginning of Babylonian law and stipulated that a punishment inflicted should correspond in degree and kind to the offence of the wrongdoer, as an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth) resulted in what is described as a widespread genocide and brutal living conditions for Gaza residents.

Both Hamas’s attack and Israel’s response are characterised as actions outside the framework of accepted humanitarian methods to resolve political conflicts.

Subsequently, the geopolitical landscape comes into play, and while the magnitude of Israel’s actions is significantly larger, the evaluation of the situation in the Gaza Strip is not solely contingent on that; rather, it hinges on underlying geopolitical trends.

The events in Israel, including the Hamas attack and Israel’s response, have led to a broader confrontation between the West and the Islamic world. This confrontation stems from what is seen as unconditional and unilateral support for Israel despite the explicit nature of the crimes committed against the civilian population in Gaza.

The Islamic world is portrayed as a distinct pole facing Israel’s actions in Gaza and the broader Palestinian territories while considering the injustices faced by Palestinians who were displaced from their land to live in poor and isolated areas.



People gather around a huge Palestinian flag during a protest against Israel in Istanbul on October 20, 2023.

The unity of the Islamic world has become undeniable, with the Palestinian issue serving as a unifying force that brings together Sunnis, Shiites, Turks, and Iranians, as well as factions involved in internal conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

This matter holds direct relevance for countries such as Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Bangladesh.

Furthermore, Muslims residing in the United States of America, Europe, Russia, and Africa cannot remain indifferent. Notably, despite their political disparities, Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and the Jordan River region are joined in a collective effort to safeguard their dignity.

The unity of the Islamic world has become undeniable, with the Palestinian issue serving as a unifying force that brings together Sunnis, Shiites, Turks, and Iranians, as well as factions involved in internal conflicts in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and Libya.

The Palestinian cause and the United States

In recent decades, the United States has been successful in preventing Muslims from uniting around the Palestinian issue and encouraging them to normalise relations with Israel.

But such attempts are no longer successful. All these efforts have proven futile in recent weeks as the unequivocal support for Israel continues. Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza, witnessed by the entire global community, is compelling the Islamic world to set aside internal differences and contemplate direct confrontation with the West.

Israel, much like Ukraine, serves as nothing more than an instrument of the overbearing and ruthless Western hegemony. It does not shy away from criminal deeds or racist rhetoric and actions.

However, the root of the problem lies not in Israel itself but rather in its role as a geopolitical tool within the framework of a unipolar world. This aligns precisely with what President Vladimir Putin recently articulated when he referred to the web of hostility and conflicts being woven by “spiders,” a metaphor for globalists employing colonialist tactics based on the “divide and rule” principle.

To effectively counter those desperately striving to preserve the unipolar world and Western dominance, it is crucial to comprehend the essence of their strategy. Armed with this understanding, we can consciously construct an alternative model to confront this agenda, move forward confidently and unite towards establishing a multipolar world.

The ongoing conflict in the Gaza Strip and Palestine as a whole poses a direct challenge not only to specific groups or even Arabs in general but to the entire Islamic world and Islamic civilisation. It’s increasingly evident that the West has engaged in a confrontation with Islam itself, a reality now acknowledged by many.

Collective need to defend Muslim nations from mistreatement

From nations such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan to regions spanning Tunisia to Bahrain, from Salafists to Sunnis and Sufis, and encompassing various political factions within Palestine, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, as well as the division between Shiites and Sunnis, there is a collective need to defend the dignity of Islamic civilisation. It asserts itself as a sovereign, independent civilisation that rejects any mistreatment.

Erdogan’s mention of jihad as a response to the conflict serves as a reminder of the historical Crusades, yet this analogy doesn’t fully capture the essence of the present situation. Modern Western globalisation has diverged significantly from Christian civilisation, having severed many connections with Christian culture in favour of materialism, atheism, and individualism.

Christianity has little to do with the material sciences or the socio-economic system primarily driven by profit, and it certainly doesn’t endorse the legalisation of deviations or the embrace of pathology as the norm, nor the inclination towards a post-human existence—a concept enthusiastically promoted by Israeli post-humanist philosopher Yuval Harari.

The West, in its contemporary form, represents an anti-Christian phenomenon, lacking any connection to the values of Christianity or the embrace of the Christian cross. It’s essential to recognise that when the Islamic world clashes with the West, it is not engaging in a conflict with the civilisation of Christ but rather with an anti-Christian civilisation, which can be termed the civilisation of the Antichrist.

Russia, as a significant global player, is actively engaged in a war with the West on the soil of Ukraine.



Russian recruits take a train at a railway station in Prudboi, in Russia’s Volgograd region, Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. President Vladimir Putin announced a partial mobilization, the first since World War II, amid the war in Ukraine.

Unfortunately, due to the influence of Western propaganda, many Islamic countries have not fully grasped the underlying reasons, objectives, and nature of this conflict, often perceiving it as a mere regional dispute. However, as globalisation directly impacts Muslims worldwide, Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine takes on a vastly different significance.

Ultimately, it signifies a clash between a multipolar world and a unipolar one, i.e., this war serves the interests not only of Russia as a global pole but indirectly, or even directly, of all such poles. China is well-equipped to comprehend this, and within the Islamic world, Iran is among those that can grasp this perspective.

Notably, geopolitical awareness has been rapidly on the rise in other Islamic societies, including in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, and Indonesia. This has led to initiatives like the reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran and Turkey’s pursuit of a sovereign policy.

Israel’s mass slaughter of civilians in Gaza, witnessed by the entire global community, is compelling the Islamic world to set aside internal differences and contemplate direct confrontation with the West.

Russian motives and spectre of WWIII

As the Islamic world increasingly recognises itself as a prominent pole and a unified civilisation, the motives behind Russian actions become more apparent and understandable.

President Vladimir Putin has already gained international renown and enjoys significant popularity worldwide, particularly in non-Western countries. This popularity lends precise meaning and clear justification to his strategic decisions.

In essence, Russia is vigorously combating unipolarity, which translates to a broader struggle against globalisation and the Western hegemonic influence. Today, we witness the West, often seen as operating through its proxy, Israel, targeting the Islamic world and subjecting Palestinians to genocide.



A Palestinian carries the body of a child killed in an Israeli raid on the Jabalia Palestinian refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, on November 1.

This means that the moment of Islam is coming amid this war between Muslims and Western hegemony that could erupt at any moment. Drawing from my knowledge of the Israelis, there is no doubt that they will not stop until they eliminate the Palestinians.

“The war now appears to be truly comprehensive on a board scale.” In this case, first and foremost, the Islamic world has objective allies, such as Russia as well as China, which has the Taiwan problem to solve soon. Additional fronts will probably gradually emerge over time.

The question that arises here is whether this could lead to the outbreak of a third world war. It appears highly likely, and in a sense, it is already underway.

For the war to escalate globally, a critical mass of unresolved contradictions necessitating military resolution is imperative. This condition has been met. The Western powers exhibit no inclination to surrender their dominion voluntarily, and the new poles, emerging independent civilisations, and extensive regions no longer wish to accept this dominance and tolerate it.

Moreover, the failure of the United States and the broader collective West to be the leaders of humanity without abandoning policies that incite and fuel new conflicts and wars has been proven.

The inevitable war must be won.

Today, we witness the West, often seen as operating through its proxy, Israel, targeting the Islamic world and subjecting Palestinian Arabs to genocide. This means that the moment of Islam is coming, amid this war between Muslims and Western hegemony that could erupt at any moment.

Trump v Biden

Ultimately, what role does former US President Donald Trump play in the escalating confrontations between Islam and the West? President Joe Biden staunchly advocates for globalisation, opposes Russia, and fervently supports unipolarity.

This precisely explains his unwavering backing of the new Nazi regime in Kyiv and his complete exoneration of Israel from its actions, including direct genocide.

Trump’s position, however, is different. He embodies a classic nationalist perspective, prioritising the interests of the United States as a nation over hasty plans for global dominance.

Concerning relations with Russia, Trump displays indifference, focusing more on matters of trade and economic competition with China. Nonetheless, he is concurrently subject to and wholly influenced by the potent Zionist lobby within the United States.



Trump and Biden

Therefore, the imminent war between the West and Islam should not be met with complacency, not only from the Western perspective but also from Republicans at large.

In this context, if Trump were to reassume the presidency, it could potentially diminish support for Ukraine, a crucial concern for Russia. However, he might adopt an even more stringent approach towards Muslims and Palestinians, conceivably surpassing the severity of Biden’s policies.

Realism is imperative, and we must prepare for a challenging, serious, and protracted conflict on the horizon.

It is important to realise that this is not a religious conflict but rather a materialistic, atheistic imposter’s war against all traditional religions. This means that the moment for the ultimate battle might be upon us.

Biden staunchly advocates for globalisation, opposes Russia, and fervently supports unipolarity. Trump’s position, however, is different. He embodies a classic nationalist perspective, prioritising the interests of the United States as a nation over hasty plans for global dominance.

Spectre of nuclear war and death of unipolar system

Is the imminent conflict moving toward a nuclear war? This prospect cannot be dismissed, especially considering the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons.

It is improbable that nations possessing strategic nuclear capabilities, such as Russia and NATO countries, would resort to their use, given the catastrophic implications for humanity.

However, considering the possession of nuclear weapons by Israel, Pakistan, and possibly Iran, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they could be utilised in localised contexts.

What will the configuration of the world order during this impending confrontation be like?

There is no ready answer to such a question. However, one thing can be definitively ruled out, and that is the establishment of a robust, stable, and unipolar global system — a concept fervently championed by proponents of globalisation.

Regardless of the specific circumstances, a unipolar world is an impossibility. The world will either be multipolar or non-existent. The stronger the West’s resolve to uphold its dominance, the fiercer the ensuing battle is likely to be, potentially escalating into a third world war.

Multipolarity will not transpire spontaneously. Now, there is a crucial process of reassembly underway within the Islamic world. If Muslims can unify against a shared formidable adversary, the rise of an Islamic power pole becomes viable.

In my view, the reinstatement of Baghdad and its pivotal role in Iraq could present an ideal resolution. Iraq serves as the convergence point for various major strands of Islamic civilisation, including Arabs, Sunnis, Shiites, Sufis, Salafis, Indo-Europeans, Kurds, and Turks. Baghdad, in particular, has historically been a hub where sciences, religious education, philosophy, and spiritual movements thrived.

Nevertheless, this proposition remains speculative. Nonetheless, it is evident that the Islamic world will require a unifying foundation or common ground.

Baghdad could potentially serve as this platform or as the balance point. However, for this vision to materialise, Iraq must first be liberated from the presence of American forces.



US soldiers play American football before leaving Camp Adder on the outskirts of the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah on December 17, 2011, marking the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

It appears that each power pole must affirm its right to existence through conflict. Russia, upon securing victory in Ukraine, will become a fully sovereign pole. Similarly, once the Taiwan issue is resolved, China will establish itself as a significant pole.

The Islamic world, meanwhile, insists on a fair resolution to the Palestinian problem.

The developments will not halt there; eventually, the roles of India, Africa, and Latin America, which are currently increasingly facing the new forces of colonisation, will also become significant.

Consequently, all the poles in the multipolar world will have to navigate their unique challenges and trials.

Eventually, the roles of India, Africa, and Latin America, which are currently increasingly facing the new forces of colonisation, will also become significant. Consequently, all the poles in the multipolar world will have to navigate their unique challenges and trials.

Multipolarism is probable

Afterwards, we may witness a partial return to the global order that prevailed before Christopher Columbus, where various empires coexisted alongside Western Europe.

These empires included the Chinese, Indian, Russian, Ottoman, and Persian, along with robust independent states in South Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even Oceania. Each of these entities had its distinct political and social systems, which Europeans later equated with barbarism and savagery.

Consequently, multipolarism is entirely plausible, which was the case for humanity before the emergence of Western global imperial politics in the modern era.

This does not imply an immediate establishment of global peace; however, such a multipolar world system would inherently be more just and balanced.

All conflicts would be approached based on a fair and collective stance, in which humanity would be protected from racial injustices akin to those witnessed in Nazi Germany, contemporary Israel, or the aggressive dominance of the global West.

Source: https://en.majalla.com

*Translated and coordinated by Ramia Yahia

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Welcome to Hadar: A Village Under Siege by al-Qaeda and Israeli Forces Alike
Eva BartlettJune 27, 2018
The village of Hadar, in Southern Syria, is buttressed on one side by Israeli watchtowers and walls – and endures deadly attacks from jihadist Syrian rebels from the other three.



June 22, 2018, Mint Press News


HADAR, SYRIA — Situated in the northern part of Quneitra governorate, with the towering Jabal al-Sheikh (Mt. Hermon) overlooking it and the region, Hadar is in both a beautiful area of Syria and a dangerous one.

The roughly 10,000 defiant villagers of Hadar are isolated and under constant threat of attack. Until December 2017, Hadar was surrounded on three sides by terrorists and was attacked many times.

The southwestern Syrian village of Hadar is next to the 1974 ceasefire line

Positioned in a valley, with the al-Qaeda alliance until December 2017 occupying Beit Jinn and other villages to the east, Hadar also borders the ceasefire line of the occupied Syrian Golan, an area teeming with still more al-Qaeda terrorists. From their positions inside the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) zone of the occupied Syrian Golan, terrorists in Jubata al-Khashab (roughly 6 kilometers directly south of Hadar), Turunjah (roughly 5 kilometers south of Hadar), and Ufaniyah (further south than Jubata al-Khashab), have fired mortars, missiles, and other explosives on Hadar, something acknowledged even by the UN Secretary-General.

Distance between Hadar and Jubata al Khashab which is occupied by al Qaeda terrorists

In his December 6, 2017 report, the Secretary-General noted that terrorist groups fighting in the UNDOF area of operation include “the listed terrorist group Jabhat Fath al-Sham (formerly the Nusra Front) and Jaysh Khalid Ibn al-Walid, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).”

The same report noted the attacks from the three villages towards Hadar were preceded by a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device,” which killed nine people. In Hadar, I would learn that the car bomb didn’t just target “a pro-Syrian forces checkpoint in Hadar,” as per the UN report, but was headed towards the heart of the village when shot at by Hadar defenders. The vehicle exploded less than 100 meters from a school, at 9 a.m., according to Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel. Had the village not been on alert, and families staying at home, the number killed would have surely been higher and included many children.

Road of Nov 2017 suicide car bomb Israeli observation post above
The road leading to the site of the deadly, Nov 2017 suicide car bomb. An Israeli observation post is visible atop in the mountain in the background. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
Most recently, on June 16, Syrian state media, SANA, reported that terrorists in Jubata al Khashab, “set fire once again to a large area of agricultural lands in the vicinity of Hadar village,” burning acres of fruit orchards south of the village. SANA further reported that firefighters were unable to reach the area to quell the fire, devastating the farmland and depriving landowners of their prime source of income.

The support of Hadar villagers for their army and president is unsurprising, given these are the two bodies that have protected them and supported them against attacks from al-Qaeda and Israel, next door to Hadar.

According to a report by Syrian journalist Alaa Ebrahim, the last attack on Hadar was on November 3, 2017, “… a ground offensive in three different directions, in an attempt to take the last few kilometers the government still controls along the border with Israel.” The Syrian army, Ebrahim noted, controls only five kilometers of the border with Israel and is limited in the number of military units it can move to the area, under the disengagement agreement reached following the 1973 war with Israel.

Mr. Taweel explained that people of his town view Jabal al-Sheikh as a symbol of blessings. On top of that same mountain, Israeli observation posts oversee all activity. Hadar residents and Syrian soldiers believe that Israel has been coordinating with terrorist groups in their attacks on the village. Given that UNDOF forces themselves have documented Israeli soldiers interacting with terrorists in the occupied Syrian Golan, and given that Israel has attacked Syria on numerous occasions, the belief that the Israelis are aiding al-Qaeda terrorists in attacks on Hadar is more than reasonable.

The corporate media silence on Hadar, in spite of what the villagers have endured and continue to face, would be surprising if it wasn’t already clear that corporate media isn’t interested in highlighting these kinds of Syrians. Just as they dismiss narratives of Syrians who do not support any of the terrorist factions, so have they corporate media dismissed narratives of Syrians who are proud supporters of the Syrian army and the democratically-elected president and Syrians whose experiences defy outside claims of a “civil war,” “revolution,” or “sectarian conflict.”

“Our farmers can’t reach their land”

On May 4, in a hired taxi and with a translator, I headed for Hadar to meet with Mahmoud Taweel, an English teacher, who would also introduce me to other Hadar residents, to hear from them on the attacks they’ve endured and the threats they’ve fought off, along with the Syrian army — largely to the silence of corporate media.

Along the way, our taxi was joined by a car of four Syrian soldiers, who accompanied us both to show us the safest route to Hadar and also to protect us should terrorists in surrounding areas attack.

We drove along a road flanking a heavily fortified UN base for a brief period, then followed another road cutting through open fields, Jabal al-Sheikh in the distance, finally descending along a narrow road winding its way through endless fruit-tree orchards before entering Hadar.

In hired taxi en route to Hadar with Jabal al Sheikh in background20180504_112417

In the town square, I chatted with a woman and man in a small shop until Mr. Taweel arrived. After a five minute walk, we reached his stone house, surrounded by fruit and other trees and adorned with yellow rose bushes.

Watch | Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel on life under threat from terrorism



I asked Mahmoud Taweel to speak about life in Hadar over the past years. He said, of the terrorists south of Hadar and those formerly east of the town:

They have been terrorizing us, by shelling, mortars. The most important thing is that they are depriving us of reaching our fertile farms. Ninety percent of our civilians depend on farming for their living. But our farmers can’t reach their land.”

I was struck by the similarity of the situation of Palestinian farmers and these Hadar villagers. In the case of Palestinians, it is Israeli illegal colonists and soldiers who violently prevent them from accessing their lands, whether in West Bank areas of occupied Palestine or in the tiny and all too familiar Gaza Strip.

Having worked for years with farmers in Gaza and also in the West Bank, with the violent Israeli tactics of shooting live ammunition to harass farmers off their land. This harassment has killed dozens of farmers and maimed many more. The situation in Hadar isn’t much different, except al-Qaeda and other terrorists do the attacking, bombing and burning of farmland and killing of villagers.

Many maimed, many martyrs

Hadar has a population of around 10,000, according to Mahmoud Taweel. I asked him about those injured and killed by terrorist attacks. He replied:

Too many people were killed. At least 130 martyrs, and around 400 injuries and casualties. Some of them are hopeless cases: they can’t walk, speak, talk, and they need a very intensive health care on a daily basis.”

So I asked him whether there is a hospital in the town to provide the needed health care to the injured:

No hospital in Hadar, just a small mobile clinic with insufficient equipment. Ambulances took injured to Damascus, always under the threat of sniping from terrorists on either side.”

Additionally, Hadar has suffered periods of no electricity. “Three months with no power at all,” Mr. Taweel said. “And the moment that the government restores power, the terrorists shell and destroy it…to make us live in darkness.”

Mr. Taweel said Hadar village has two high schools, two primary, two intermediate, and one kindergarten. We drove to one of the schools, the one near to the site of the November 3, 2017, suicide car bombing just at the northern edge of Hadar. Mr. Taweel pointed to a deep rut in the road, now filled in with gravel, saying that was where the suicide bomber had detonated the explosives. Some meters away, the ruins of a small shop.

Zooming in on the Israeli observatories overlooking Hadar, I asked whether they believed Israel had a role in the attacks that day.

One of two Israeli observation posts overlooking the village and region
One of the two Israeli observation posts overlooking Hadar, Syria. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
“For sure,” Mr. Taweel replied, “The final battle on November 3 was schemed, planned, and supported by Israel.”

In his November 5, 2017 report, Alaa Ebrahim interviewed a Syrian army official who said: “Militants and Israel prepared this assault for three months and were thwarted in two hours.”

By mid-December, Syrian army units recaptured areas to Hadar’s northeast that had been occupied by al-Nusra. By the end of December, following military operations by the Syrian army and local defenders, terrorists were evacuated from Beit Jinn (to Hadar’s east), part of a deal to restore peace to that area. By January 2018, families who had been displaced from Beit Jinn and surrounding areas were returning. The restoration of security to Beit Jinn and surrounding areas also, importantly, meant one less front from which terrorists could attack Hadar. Terrorists remain in areas south of the village, and continue their attacks.

Facing occupied land

Israeli road cutting through Syrian land at occupied Syrian Golan Heights
An Israeli road, heavily fortified, cuts through Syrian land on both sides in the occupied Golan Heights. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
Descending the winding road a few kilometers to the west of Hadar, the hills of Majdal Shams, in the occupied Syrian Golan, appeared. Between the hill I stood on and Majdal Shams, an Israeli road fortified by a fence sliced the two Syrian lands, securing the land Israel has stolen and illegally occupies.

The Syrian mission to the UN post on the occupied Syrian Golan reads:

…[T]he Golan was home to over 140,000 Syrians, most of whom were driven out of their homeland and into Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) status. Till this day, almost 40 years later, the Syrian inhabitants of the Golan are still unable to return to their homes, towns and cities. Today these Syrians exceed 500,000 people. Some Syrians remained in the Occupied Syrian Golan and continue to live in small villages amounting to approximately 20,000 Syrians.

Most of the Syrian cities, towns and villages in the Golan were destroyed by Israeli occupation forces, who in turn have built over 40 illegal settlements despite all international condemnation. Israel continues not only to occupy the Syrian Golan but to also destroy its ancient ruins and geopolitical atmosphere for the sole purpose of cleansing the Golan of its Syrian people and their history.”

DSCN2890
White Building is on “Shouting Hill”, when Syrians on Hadar side communicated with Syrians in occupied Golan’s Majdal Shams. -Eva Bartlett
The hill I stood on, far lower than surrounding hills, was known as the Shouting Valley, because shouting by megaphones was for many years the sole means of communication between Syrians from Hadar and those in Israeli-occupied Majdal Shams.

A February 2014 article in al-Akhbar by Firas Choufi noted:

After the 1973 War, residents of liberated Hadar and occupied Majdal Shams were separated into ‘two banks,’ and since then, they would meet, converse, and share news and concerns by shouting in megaphones, giving the area its name.

…The villages of Majdal Shams, Baqaatha, Masaada, Ain Qanya, and al-Ghajar are in truth the only villages in the Golan still inhabited by their native residents. In the 1967 War, the Israeli occupation ethnically cleansed two cities and more than 300 villages and farms in the Golan, using systematic massacres, bombardment, demolition of homes, and arrests, completely leveling existing villages.

Today, around 23,000 Syrians live in the Golan Heights, and reject Israeli citizenship. They inhabit an area that is no bigger that 7 percent of the total area of the Golan Heights, which represents the primary source of water for occupied Lake Tiberias (Sea of Galilee).

Meanwhile, 10,000 Jewish Israeli settlers live in 45 settlements built atop the ruins of Syrian villages, the largest of which is the settlement of Katzrin, which was built on the ruins of the Syrian town of Qisrin. Recently, the Israeli government officially declared the settlement an Israeli city.”

In the valley to my right, between Jabal al-Sheikh and the hill I stood on, lay farmland belonging to residents living in occupied Majdal Shams. Mahmoud Taweel explained that since the owners can’t cross from occupied Majdal Shams, relatives tend the land for them. He also noted that the lush land roughly two hundred meters from the fence is not workable; it is prohibited. Yet, on the side occupied by Israel, houses and worked farmland extend right up to the fence.

Farmland which owners in occupied Majdal Shams can not accessAccording to Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel farmers are prohibited from farming near the fence

I was again reminded of Gaza, where farmers can’t access fertile land within up to a kilometer along the fence with Israeli-occupied Palestine. This land, the former breadbasket of Gaza, has been forcibly rendered dry and wasted. Israel has systematically destroyed wells and cisterns to ensure that those brave farmers who try to work their land regardless of Israel’s unilaterally and illegally imposed restrictions will find it nearly impossible to grow wheat and vegetables. On the Israeli-occupied side of that Gaza fence, the land is lushly green, irrigated with modern equipment. The same Israeli double-standards apply around the occupied Syrian Golan.

UN condemns then collaborates

The United Nations’ Security Council and General Assembly have long-condemned Israel’s many violations of international law with respect to its occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights, including Israel’s “failure to comply with Security Council resolution 497 (1981)…” That resolution included demanding that Israel rescind its “decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.”

The UN General Assembly declared:

Israel’s decision of 14 December, 1981 to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights constitutes an act of aggression under the provisions of Article 39 of the Charter of the United Nations and General Assembly resolution 3314 … Israel’s decision to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the occupied Syrian Golan Heights is null and void and has no legal validity and/or effect whatsoever.”

The UN rightly views Israel’s occupation and annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights as a “continuing threat to international peace and security.”

That Israel essentially has gotten a carte blanche from most Western nations to illegally annex further Palestinian land, occupy Syrian and Lebanese land, and continue murdering Palestinians and attacking Syria is not terribly surprising given the Israeli-UN collaboration in the occupied Syrian Golan, a collaboration notably including al-Qaeda terrorists.

image_650_365
A photo from the Israel, Syrian border along the Golan Heights shows IDF soldiers conversing with al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra fighters.
On December 22, 2014 Al Akhbar reported:

Observers from the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) confirmed in a report cooperation and coordination between the Israeli army and militant groups in Syria.

The UNDOF report said that observers witnessed several meetings between rebel leaders and Israeli army forces between December 2013 and March 2014, in addition to witnessing the transportation of hundreds of injured militants to Israeli hospitals following confrontations between the militants and the Syrian army near the occupied Golan border.”

Regarding the November 3, 2017 terrorist attacks on Hadar and surrounding Syrian areas, a UNSC report noted:

Armed groups launched an attack involving heavy machine gun, small arms and indirect fire from the tri-village area of Jubbata al-Khashab, Turunjah and Ufaniyah in the area of separation against pro-Government forces in the vicinity of Hadar, which is largely inhabited by members of the Druze community.

…Preceding the attack, open sources reported that a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeted a pro-Syrian forces checkpoint in Hadar, killing nine people.”

But the role of the UN regarding Israel’s interaction with, and support of, terrorists doesn’t end with merely reporting on these facts. The UN also whitewashes the Israeli-al-Qaeda coordination and puts the blame on Syria for defending itself.

As I wrote previously:

In a November 2014 report, the Secretary-General mentioned the presence of al-Nusra and other terrorists in the ceasefire area ‘unloading weapons from a truck,’ as well as a ‘vehicle with a mounted anti-aircraft gun’ and Israeli ‘interactions’ with ‘armed gangs.’ Nonetheless, he went on to condemn strongly the Syrian army’s presence, offering no alternative solution to how to fight against those who fire on Syrian army and civilians from within the UNDOF-deserted area.”

The Syrian Mandela



al-Maket-arrested-under-gag-1-001
Sedqi al-Maqt was arrested by Israel’s Shin Bet for exposing collaboration between Syrian rebels and Israel.
In April 2017, Syria’s Ambassador to the UN Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari, speaking on Israel’s occupation of Syrian territory, also said:

We have to call on Israel to free Sedqi al-Maqt—who we call the Syrian Mandela—and others who are in Israeli prisons for taking pictures, taking photos that prove that Israel is cooperating with the al-Nusra Front in the occupied Syrian Golan.”

Maqt is a Syrian in his early 50s from the occupied Syrian Golan who was imprisoned 27 years in Israeli prisons for his resistance to the Israeli occupation of Syrian land. He was released in 2012. Later, Maqt began filming the “joint cooperation between,” as he stated, Israeli soldiers and al-Qaeda terrorists near the Quneitra crossing. He was re-arrested by Israeli secret police in February 2015.



Maqt also reported seeing Israeli forces supplying terrorists with weapons and munitions, and conveyed his feeling that the crossing had been turned into an operations room and safe shelter for terrorists attacking Syria, with the support and knowledge of the Israelis and the UN.

In one of his reports, Maqt noted that, “the terrorists would move with complete freedom,” from the areas they occupied in the Syrian Golan to areas where UN and Israeli forces were present. He noted that when the Syrian army shelled them, al-Qaeda and other terrorists took cover in areas where the Israeli and UN forces were present.

Prior to his 2015 arrest, Maqt also reported on the Israeli field hospitals that are treating terrorists, and reported that residents of the occupied Syrian Golan daily see Israeli ambulances transporting terrorists, and Israeli forces interacting with terrorists:

There’s no way you could bring these terrorists to this field hospital if there wasn’t a joint operations room and daily communication and coordination..between Israeli forces and terrorist commanders.”



Ironically, when Sedqi al-Maqt was arrested, Israel charged him with “terrorism offences.”

When I visited the last couple hundred meters of Syrian land before occupied Majdal Shams, the sight of the vacated UN post, just to my left and before the illegally annexed Majdal Shams, was a visible reminder that Israel — with over 70 UN resolutions condemning it for its genocidal, land-thieving, war-criminal behavior against Palestinians, also including attacks on Syria and Lebanon — continues to evade facing any proper justice, making a farce of the UN and international law.

Hadar villagers speak through tears of terrorism they’ve faced

Just before the main square in Hadar, I met Atef Nakkour, sitting in his small shop. He welcomed me and spoke of Hadar’s defiance:

You are very welcome in Hadar, this resistant village that has provided the invaluable to defend its dignity and freedom, and the dignity of the motherland. We are clinging to our land regardless of who agrees or disagrees.”

Atef Nakkour defiantly proud of Syrian army and leadership
Hadar resident Atef Nakkour, proud supporter of Syrian army and leadership. -Eva Bartlett
He too mentioned at least 130 martyrs from the village, and spoke of Hadar’s gratitude to the Syrian army:

We wholeheartedly endorse our army and our leadership.”

Hadar’s former mukthar (mayor), Jawdat al-Taweel, “Abu Abdu,” is a towering, charismatic man. He is still a popular figure in Hadar, and now runs a clothes shop in town.

He gave me a tour of the destruction from terrorist attacks. We stopped first at an internally-gutted, one-level shop that used to sell dairy and other food products. The shop, run by a family of women, was shelled and its equipment and goods destroyed in September 2017. The women now have no income.

Watch | Jawdat al-Taweel, Hadar’s former mayor, shows damage to homes after terrorist’ shelling



We continued, Abu Abdu pointing out scars of the shellings, in walls and roofs on either side. From around a corner, Atef Nakkour shouted for Abu Abdu to show me his own damaged home. We climbed onto a rooftop and walked to its edge. The former mayor pointed out more damage, the remnants of shelling, and called down to Nakkour, “Where were you standing when it happened?”

Nakkour, standing on the street below us, replied that he’d been standing in the same spot, that a shell landed on a car parked nearby, shrapnel exploding towards the second level, damaging his home. Largely repaired, pockets in the roof overhang evidence the shelling.

Walking down from the square and to a small home surrounded by a stone wall, bushes and flowers, an elderly man and his wife spoke of their murdered son and relative. Mr. Hassoun spoke slowly, and as he described losing his son, Minhal Ahmed Hassoun, both he and his wife next to him began to cry. Through tears, he began:

Yes we lost young men, but we invaded no one, and we had no intention to kill anyone. They came to us on our land, and wanted to kill us and to humiliate us, but our youth and our heroic men preferred martyrdom to humiliation.”

Mahmoud Taweel added that the village men had fought alongside the Syrian army, fighting the terrorists who attack Hadar.

Mr. Hassoun continued:

They [terrorists] came in large numbers, and Israel backed them with artillery, but our men refused to withdraw a meter from their trenches. When the hero Minhal was martyred, his brother was next to him. He closed Minhal’s eyes, and said to him: ‘Your blood is invaluable, and they will pay for what they did.’”

Minhal had been studying law at Damascus University, Mr. Hassoun said:

I told him, ‘My son, finish your studies and get your degree, these battles are long.’ He answered me, ‘My father, the degree dies the moment its holder dies, but martyrdom for the motherland never dies, it lasts for generations.’

He took his wife to Jaramana, to the hospital so that she could give birth. They told him that there were still three or four days until it was her time, but he left his wife with his siblings, and said to her: ‘I want to go, the elders [his parents] are there and I won’t leave them alone.’

He came back in the evening, left for the battle next morning, and was martyred at 8 a.m.”

The newborn baby was named after his martyred father, Minhal.

Watch | Abu Minhal speaks of his son, who was killed defending Hadar



Minhal’s mother, who had been quietly wiping away her tears, listed their losses:

My grandson was the first martyr, his name was Anas. Then after him my son was martyred, his name was Minhal. After him my nephew was martyred, his name was Ismaeel. After that two more nephews of mine were martyred: one was called Hamed and the other one Hasan.”

She finished with a stoic comment reflecting the resilience not only of Hadar but of Syrians in general:

Losing a feather wouldn’t make a bird nude. No matter how many we lose, it’s better than those dogs come here.”

Before leaving, Mr. Hassoun brought out his old rifle and said:

We are following our ancestors’ steps and will never give up our motherland as long as we are alive.”

The terrorist attacks on Hadar and its farmland continue to the shrugs of Western corporate media precisely because reporting on such devastation by what the same media sells us as “rebels” would once again shatter the myth of “moderates,” the myth of a “revolution,” and of a “civil war.”

In addition to Hadar’s strategic position, the people of Hadar are being attacked because they stand with their army and president. But after years of such attacks, and after over 130 martyrs, it is clear Hadar villagers have no intention of changing their stance, much like defiant Syrians throughout Syria.

Now unemployed Hadar resident outside her former food and dairy shop destroyed in terrorist shelling in September 2017
Now unemployed Hadar resident outside her former food and dairy shop destroyed in terrorist shelling in September 2017 -Eva Bartlett
Hadar resident outside of his shrapnel damaged home
A Hadar resident stands outside of his shrapnel damaged home. Eva Bartlett | MintPress News
Looking south from Hadar2
The author. To the left of this frame, some kilometres south, al-Qaeda occupied Jubata al-Khashab and attacks Hadar.
The author with Mahmoud Taweel taxi driver and Syria army protection just near occupied Majdal Shams
At occupied Majdal Shams, with Hadar resident Mahmoud Taweel, my hired taxi driver, and two Syrian soldiers who accompanied me to ensure my safety from al-Qaeda terrorists off the road to Hadar.
Related articles:

–Absurdities of Syrian war propaganda

–Scoundrels & gangsters at UN: Silencing the Syrian narrative

–Interview: Syrian Ambassador to the UN, Dr. Bashar al-Ja’afari on Sovereignty, Terrorism, and the Failure of the UN

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A student accused of throwing eggs at King Charles III during a visit to York has pleaded not guilty to a public order offence. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-64342934

Hello everyone, Kinda missed a lot of post. No offence if you see many notification. Just clicking on random accounts and catching up on post from everyone i have missed
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Places You Should Visit
Navagio Beach, or Shipwreck Beach, is an exposed cove, sometimes referred to as "Smugglers Cove", on the coast of Zakynthos, in the lonian islands of Greece. Navagio Beach was originally known as Agios Georgios.
On 2 October 1980, the coaster MV Panagiotis, ran aground in the waters around Zakynthos Island on Navagio Beach during stormy weather and bad visibility. Some rumours claim the ship was smuggling contraband however official sources did not confirm this, and the captain was not convicted for such offences. After the captain alerted the authorities, 29 locals were convicted of looting the cargo and valuable equipment from the wrecked ship.The ship was abandoned and still rests buried in the limestone gravel of the beach that now bears the nickname Shipwreck.Recently released court documents and photos relating to the incident back up the smuggler story. Panagiotis was allegedly making its way from Turkey with a freight of contraband cigarettes headed for Italy. Encountering stormy weather, the ship ran aground in the cove, where the crew abandoned her to evade the pursuing Navy.
The beach was briefly closed in 2018, and swimming and boat anchoring were forbidden, after a cliff collapse above the beach dropped a large amount of rock.The beach reopened and anchoring is permitted, but with restrictions out of concerns over future landslides.
Also in 2018, the beach was named as the world's best beach in a poll by over 1,000 travel journalists and professionals