colonialism Archives - accuracy.org

Israeli “Colonial” Expansion

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RAMZY BAROUD, ramzybaroud at gmail.com, @RamzyBaroud
Baroud is editor of The Palestine Chronicle, which reports on a new congressional letter “spearheaded by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and signed by Reps. Betty McCollum of Minnesota, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, along with Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont” warning: “Should the Israeli government move forward with the planned annexation with this administration’s acquiescence, we will work to ensure non-recognition as well as pursue conditions on the $3.8 billion in U.S. military funding to Israel, including human rights conditions.”

Other recent pieces include: “Palestine Chronicle Explains: What You Need to Know about Israel’s Annexation Plan.”

Baroud also wrote the piece “Palestine is Not Occupied, It is Colonized,” which states: “In some sense, the ‘Israeli occupation’ is no longer an occupation as per international standards and definitions. It is merely a phase of the Zionist colonization of historic Palestine, a process that began over a 100 years ago, and carries on to this day.”

He just wrote the piece “Why Israeli weapons should scare everyone,” which states: “Israeli officials are brimming over with pride. The country’s military exports are recovering very well, despite ‘intense international challenges and competition,'” as Israel has “managed to rake in $7.2 billion in so-called defence contracts last year alone.” The Chronicle also recently published the pieces “George Floyd and the Uprising: How Israel Contributes to the Militarization of American Police” and “Speaking against Settlement Expansion is just a Chore for the EU.”

Baroud also just wrote the piece “Tearing down the idols of colonialism: Why Tunisia, Africa must demand French apology.”

The Chronicle also reports on different forms of activism, including in the recent article “Pro-BDS Store Wins Major Legal Victory against Pro-Israel Advocates in the U.S.,” which states: “Advocates for the state of Israel have suffered a historic defeat in a decade-long legal battle to sue Olympia Food Co-op over its decision to boycott Israeli goods.

“The U.S. grocery store, which campaigns for ethical food consumption, was fully vindicated by a Washington appeals court on February 20 in a legal case that is likely to have positive ramifications for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign for Palestinian rights.”

Challenging Monuments to “Colonialism and Slavery”

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Several statues of Christopher Columbus have recently been brought down. In Albuquerque, Steven Ray Baca shot someone at a protest at a monument to a conquistador. Baca has reportedly been charged with aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

ROXANNE DUNBAR ORTIZ, rdunbaro pacbell.net@rdunbaro
Author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United StatesRoxanne Dunbar Ortiz said today: “As the movement for black lives protests against police violence … has spread to every part of the United States and around the world, some have turned to the glaring public symbols of the history that empowers such violence — colonialism and slavery. Statues celebrating Confederate officers and slavers have come down, as well as those of Columbus, who is best known for pioneering European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere and genocide of the Indigenous Arawaks in the Caribbean; he also brought the transatlantic African slave trade, as well as returning to Spain with enslaved natives who were sold on the European slave market.”

Dunbar also wrote the book Roots of Resistance: A History of Land Tenure in New MexicoShe continued: “In New Mexico, which was first colonized by the Spanish in 1598, the descendants of those first settlers have in the past several decades erected statues of the genocidal conquistador, Don Juan de Oñate, as well as annually celebrating what they call the entrada, the arrival of the gifts of Christianity and European culture to people they considered savages. Actually, the Indigenous Peoples in New Mexico, called Pueblos, live in small city states with multi-storied communal homes made of adobe or cut granite and practiced irrigation agriculture all along the North Rio Grande River. The Spanish reduced the 98 city-states to 21 within ten years of ‘arrival.’ Today, most of the New Mexico state, county, and cities/towns, as well as the police are controlled by the Hispanos, as the descendants of the Spanish invaders call themselves. On Monday, June 15, one of these Hispanos shot into a group protesting the Oñate statue in Albuquerque, seriously injuring two protestors.”