opinion

,

Zionist Logic by Malcolm X

,

By Malcom X
Published October 23, 2023 | 7:09 Am PST
This article was originally produced by Egyptian Gazette, September, 1964.

After visiting Jerusalem in 1959, Malcolm X visited Gaza, Palestine, in September 1964. While there, he met with government representatives, went to Palestinian refugee camps, prayed at a masjid, and addressed a press conference in the Parliament Building. His visit there and the people he met served as the basis for an article he wrote for the Egyptian Gazette the same month.

The Zionist armies that now occupy Palestine claim their ancient Jewish prophets predicted that in the "last days of this world" their own God would raise them up a "messiah" who would lead them to their promised land, and they would set up their own "divine" government in this newly-gained land, this "divine" government would enable them to "rule all other nations with a rod of iron."

If the Israeli Zionists believe their present occupation of Arab Palestine is the fulfillment of predictions made by their Jewish prophets, then they also religiously believe that Israel must fulfill its "divine" mission to rule all other nations with a rod of irons, which only means a different form of iron-like rule, more firmly entrenched even, than that of the former European Colonial Powers.

These Israeli Zionists religiously believe their Jewish God has chosen them to replace the outdated European colonialism with a new form of colonialism, so well disguised that it will enable them to deceive the African masses into submitting willingly to their "divine" authority and guidance, without the African masses being aware that they are still colonized.

Camouflage

The Israeli Zionists are convinced they have successfully camouflaged their new kind of colonialism. Their colonialism appears to be more "benevolent," more "philanthropic," a system with which they rule simply by getting their potential victims to accept their friendly offers of economic "aid," and other tempting gifts, that they dangle in front of the newly-independent African nations, whose economies are experiencing great difficulties. During the 19th century, when the masses here in Africa were largely illiterate it was easy for European imperialists to rule them with "force and fear," but in this present era of enlightenment the African masses are awakening, and it is impossible to hold them in check now with the antiquated methods of the 19th century.

The imperialists, therefore, have been compelled to devise new methods. Since they can no longer force or frighten the masses into submission, they must devise modern methods that will enable them to maneuver the African masses into willing submission.

The modern 20th century weapon of neo-imperialism is "dollarism." The Zionists have mastered the science of dollarism: the ability to come posing as a friend and benefactor, bearing gifts and all other forms of economic aid and offers of technical assistance. Thus, the power and influence of Zionist Israel in many of the newly "independent" African nations has fast-become even more unshakeable than that of the 18th century European colonialists...and this new kind of Zionist colonialism differs only in form and method, but never in motive or objective.

At the close of the 19th century when European imperialists wisely foresaw that the awakening masses of Africa would not submit to their old method of ruling through force and fears, these ever-scheming imperialists had to create a "new weapon," and to find a "new base" for that weapon.

Dollarism

The number one weapon of 20th century imperialism is Zionist dollarism, and one of the main bases for this weapon is Zionist Israel. The ever-scheming European imperialists wisely placed Israel where she could geographically divide the Arab world, infiltrate and sow the seed of dissension among African leaders and also divide the Africans against the Asians.

Zionist Israel's occupation of Arab Palestine has forced the Arab world to waste billions of precious dollars on armaments, making it impossible for these newly independent Arab nations to concentrate on strengthening the economies of their countries and elevate the living standard of their people.

And the continued low standard of living in the Arab world has been skillfully used by the Zionist propagandists to make it appear to the Africans that the Arab leaders are not intellectually or technically qualified to lift the living standard of their people...thus, indirectly inducing Africans to turn away from the Arabs and towards the Israelis for teachers and technical assistance.

"They cripple the bird's wing, and then condemn it for not flying as fast as they."

The imperialists always make themselves look good, but it is only because they are competing against economically crippled newly independent countries whose economies are actually crippled by the Zionist-capitalist conspiracy. They can't stand against fair competition, thus they dread Gamal Abdul Nasser's call for African-Arab Unity under Socialism.

Messiah?

If the "religious" claim of the Zionists is true that they were to be led to the promised land by their messiah, and Israel's present occupation of Arab Palestine is the fulfillment of that prophesy: where is their messiah whom their prophets said would get the credit for leading them there? It was [United Nations mediator] Ralph Bunche who "negotiated" the Zionists into possession of Occupied Palestine! Is Ralph Bunche the messiah of Zionism? If Ralph Bunche is not their messiah, and their messiah has not yet come, then what are they doing in Palestine ahead of their messiah?

Did the Zionists have the legal or moral right to invade Arab Palestine, uproot its Arab citizens from their homes and seize all Arab property for themselves just based on the "religious" claim that their forefathers lived there thousands of years ago? Only a thousand years ago the Moors lived in Spain. Would this give the Moors of today the legal and moral right to invade the Iberian Peninsula, drive out its Spanish citizens, and then set up a new Moroccan nation...where Spain used to be, as the European Zionists have done to our Arab brothers and sisters in Palestine?

In short the Zionist argument to justify Israel's present occupation of Arab Palestine has no intelligent or legal basis in history...not even in their own religion.

Where is their Messiah?

Civil rights activist Malcolm X was a prominent leader in the Nation of Islam. Until his 1965 assassination, he vigorously supported Black nationalism.

Is Anti-Zionism, Anti Semitism?

Photography Courtesy Ahmed Abu Hameeda

By Gilbert Aguirre
Published 10/19/2023 | 7:22am PST
Photography Ahmed Abu Hameeda

NOTE to readers: This is a reprint of an article that The Pomonan printed a year and a half ago about what was happening not only on the University of California at Riverside campus, but on college campuses across the country. Now, here we are some twenty months later, and the question Is Anti-Zionism, Antisemitism? is just as pertinent - perhaps more so -  than it was back then. With the Israel-Hamas War raging in the Middle East, universities including Harvard, Stanford, Arizona State, Tufts, to name a few, are erupting over this issue. The Pomonan asks its readers to reconsider this issue in light of recent events. This opinion piece was written by former UCR student Gilbert Aguirre.


An email sent to UCR students from the UCR Life email list on May 27, 2021, caught this recipient’s attention with the subject heading: Anti Semitism: then and now. Instead of providing information on antisemitism, an abhorrent form of discrimination which has no place in civil society, the piece intended to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism and erase the existence and justified resistance of Palestinian people. 

This is my critique of the interview of UCR Jewish Studies professor Michael Alexander, and his interviewer Omar Shamout, for the disingenuous framing of critiques of the apartheid, settler-colonial state of Israel as antisemitic. Their discussion can be read here (1).

In the article’s opening lines, anti-Zionists, educated on what anti-Zionism and antisemitism is, are made aware that the framing of this article is entirely disingenuous— the working definition of antisemitism in the article comes from the Anti-Defamation League, which classifies antisemitism as being “based on age-old stereotypes and myths that target Jews as a people, their religious practices and beliefs, or the Jewish State of Israel” (2). 

I will repeat that antisemitism, like all forms of prejudice, is absolutely abhorrent and must be destroyed by any means necessary. However, in framing critiques of Israel as antisemitic, activists fighting for justice in Palestine are silenced, as the Anti-Defamation League’s definition of antisemitism functions to quell dissent of Israel. 

Shamout frames his interview of Alexander as a response to “data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League [which] shows an increase in violent attacks, vandalism and harassment of Jews in the U.S., around the world, and online, since fighting broke out between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers Hamas earlier this month.” Shamout, in analyzing this framing, identifies that actual antisemitic attacks are being lumped in with “vandalism and harassment” - meaning that vandalizing the phrase “Free Palestine'' on a wall or critiquing Israel on twitter would  qualify as antisemitic under this definition. 

Again, critiquing Israel is not antisemitic, and this framing portrays a fictitious world in which critiques of Israel have the same material impacts on Jewish people as violent hate crimes committed by white supremacists.

Additionally, others have contested the data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League. In an analytical article published by Jewish Currents, a magazine committed to leftist Jewish discourse, Mari Cohen questions and analyzes the data and methods that contribute to the ADL’s report. Cohen is concerned by the weaponizing of anti-Zionism as antisemitism, and her analysis is critical to the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism contributes to misinformation and skewed data— which she states that the ADL’s report exemplifies (3).

My critique also includes the constant erasure of Palestinian people and Palestine as a sovereign state. In the quotation provided above, Shamout makes his first attempt, through the phrase “fighting broke out between Israel and Gaza’s militant rulers Hamas—“ not Israel and Palestine, not the Israeli Defense Force and Palestinian’s resistance movement, not Israel’s occupying force and the Palestinian resistance; Shamout erases Palestine entirely, as if it were a dirty word.

Shamout proceeds in the next paragraph to use the problematic framing that critique of Israel equates to antisemitism when he asserts, “while hatred toward Jews is sadly nothing new, these incidents are framed against the backdrop of recent Middle East violence, a surge in pro-Palestinian sentiment,” which implies that Palestinian existence is itself a problem.

So I ask, what exactly does the term “pro-Palestinian sentiment” imply? What makes “pro-Palestinian sentiment,” in other words defense of Palestinian’s right to exist and resist violence from the state of Israel, support hatred towards Jewish people? Would the international movements and demonstrations against police violence after the murder of George Floyd be considered “pro-Black sentiment”? Why is Palestinian existence framed as a problem?

Shamout seems to suggest that anti-Zionism is separate from antisemitism when he asks Alexander, “Many of the recent antisemitic incidents have used the term ‘Zionism.’ Can you explain what Zionism meant historically, what it means today, and how the term has been used by racists to target Jews?” To which Alexander gives a bloated, incoherent response that doesn’t state the clear intentions of Zionism, which is a colonial project whose modern conception was proposed and propagated by Theodor Herzl (4).

Zionism, a political position, is framed by Alexander as, “simply Jewish nationalism: the desire for the Jewish people to have and hold their own state,” ignoring that this political position hinges upon the colonization of Palestine, and the genocide of its native occupants. Alexander seems to support the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians when he states, “Let’s not forget, the logic of self-determination implies the cleansing of everybody else in order to achieve a majority. Cleanse or be cleansed. The logic is stark, but to date it remains the main means by which nation states are formed.”

So I ask, how is it that  UCR News published this violent, genocidal speech that it circulated to its student body? How can a professor be unashamed of giving a defense of what he himself refers to as “the cleansing of everybody else in order to achieve a majority”?

Shamout, expecting an answer to the question, “So it’s fair to say that not all critics of Zionism should be cast as antisemitic?” instead receives another bloated, asinine response where Alexander further defends genocide. Alexander proposes a both-sides defense of genocide in his next monologue, by skirting the question, as he states, “Zionism is as legitimate and as problematic as any other nationalism.”(5)

To this, I argue that nationalism against an oppressive force is legitimate. Nationalism against colonizing forces is what has historically motivated the Cuban Revolution, the Irish Republican Army’s resistance against British colonial rule, and Palestinians’ fight against the Israeli government - to name a few. In the case of Palestine, Israel has  actively pushed Palestinians out of their homes, murdered Palestinian children, and bombed its densely populated territories (6). This kind of nationalism is quite different from the kind of nationalism that seeks to oppress another group while expanding the nation’s borders in disregard to human rights and international law.

Alexander continues, “it is problematic in the sense that having formed an ethnic majority, Israel turns around and polices its remaining minorities.” As a reminder, the minorities Alexander refuses to name are Palestinians. Additionally, the Palestinians Alexander refuses to name have only become minorities as a result of Israeli occupation, a modern project that ironically results in some Palestinians being older than the illegitimate state of Israel.

Further Alexander states, “Nearly all majorities do this. This past year, we all saw once again how the American policing of minorities is no exception. The problem of minorities is systemic and is not particular to Israel or to the U.S. Yet that does not excuse Israel from the need to acknowledge and cease the violence of its nation building.”

Implicitly, excusing is exactly what Alexander is doing. To both-sides and what-about state violence via settler-colonialism and white supremacist policing in both Israel and the United States is a disingenuous deflection that attempts to justify the violence of Israel. Alexander is saying— Yeah, it sucks, but that’s just how it goes. By putting on an apolitical mask, in this case and in any other case, it is very clear that the person engaging in the both-sides / what-about argument is on the side of the oppressor.

In the last two sentences of his pro-genocide diatribe, Alexander attempts  to answer Shamout's question on whether or not all critiques of Zionism equate to antisemitism even though, thus far, he has shown a clear aversion to answering any question directly. He states, “I would say this is the great moral imperative and conundrum of the Jewish people in our time. Still, it is a conundrum that rightly should be admitted and shared by hundreds of nations and national movements.” Again, Alexander’s answer is an asinine non-answer that serves to conflate all Jewish people with the ideology of Zionism. It is all in service of Alexander’s personal political agenda.

At the interview’s conclusion, Shamout asks Alexander, “what do you think are the best ways to combat antisemitism in our communities, both physical and online?” to which Alexander does not speak to antisemitism, but once again to the prospects and effects of propagating Zionism without consequence. His opening statement to this sentence is, again, incoherent, so I’ve done the work of decoding it. He states, “I would need to expand the purview of the mandate to include the elimination of Islamophobia and the denial of Palestinian rights to a free and self-determined state.” This thirty-one word sentence means almost nothing, but serves to frame the Israeli occupation of Palestine as a religious issue.

Contrary to what Alexander is propagating, there are Palestinians of Muslim faith, Christian faith, Jewish faith, and atheists (7)— keep in mind the question Shamout asked concerned how to combat antisemitism, but Alexander’s monologue concerns Zionism.

In the following sentence, Alexander reveals his true intentions as he states, “it would also have to include complete civil rights for Palestinians and other minorities who are Israeli citizens.” By granting Palestinians citizenship status, he is finally revealing his agenda as a one state solution Zionist. Under the proposed civil rights, Palestinians won’t have their land, and they would be citizens of the illegitimate state of Israel that imposed itself onto the Palestinian people.

Ultimately, this interview published by UCR News is unacceptable in its disingenuous framing of a human rights issue that affects the lives of real people, and has affected the lives of Palestinian students at UCR. In framing critiques of Zionism as antisemitic, and speaking almost exclusively to Zionism in an interview which is supposedly about antisemitism, Alexander constructs an argument that, within the argument’s fabrication, cannot be critiqued without being antisemitic.

Furthermore, the answers Alexander gives are so bloated and incoherent, I don’t understand how he is a professor at UCR, as I’ve had more coherent and substantive conversations with my five-year-old brother, who would stand firmly against genocide if knowledgable enough to understand it— rather than providing  a both-sides / what-about defense so that his in-group can commit atrocities without critique.

To be explicit, my use of “in-group” is not an allusion to an antisemitic conspiracy, but a direct contention of the conflation of critiques of Zionism as antisemitic— a clear and obvious disingenuous framing that uses identity as a shield and weaponizes actual hate towards Jewish people, which has material consequences and thus should not be minimized to serve a political agenda.

,

Fight For Your Right to Programming

,

Photography Courtesy Julian Lucas ©2013

By Anthony Solorzano
Photography Julian Lucas
Published August 1, 2023 12:15 Pm

This might be too much information for you to handle right from the start, but when you have to go, YOU HAVE TO GO. A few years ago, I found myself in a situation where my business couldn’t wait until I got home. An emergency pitstop at Ganesha Park in Pomona was imminent. 

After quickly parking, I dashed out the car and ran towards the restroom. On my way in, I exchanged head nods with a teenage boy loitering outside the restroom. Once inside the restroom, I encountered a conundrum: Is my emergency worthy of a public restroom with no stall, only half a wall covering the restroom and a few squares of toilet paper? 

As I contemplated my situation, the teenager approached me. He introduced himself by extending his hand for a handshake and called himself Henry. After acknowledging his presence, Henry asked if there was anything he could do for me in a very objectifying manner. His eyes swept me from head to toe as he licked his own lips.

It's an uncomfortable situation that reminds me of how much the city of Pomona has failed its youth.

During my teenage years, I had the opportunity to play soccer and be involved in activities that kept me from the streets and occupied. I played soccer until I started working at the age of 16. 

When playing in the Sunday leagues, the popularity of soccer in the city was evident in numerous public parks. Regardless of which park you found yourself at on a Sunday, you would come across teams of various age groups, ranging from 5 years old to 30-something year olds, celebrating a goal.

Throughout my adult years, and especially since the pandemic, I have noticed a significant decline in the number of Sunday soccer leagues in the city, along with other types of teen programming. Currently, the city offers soccer and basketball programming for kids between the age of 4 to 7-years-old. The only options for teenagers are limited to tennis and music classes available for individuals aged 8 through 17 years.

Meanwhile, four private baseball leagues also operate within parks in the city.

According to the Gente De Pomona Equity Report, from 2021 to 2023, the city experienced an increase of $20,412,383 in their general fund expenditures. The majority of this funding is allocated to the Pomona Police Department, which has seen $15 million dollars increase since 2021.

Instead of prioritizing investments in youth and creating programs specifically for teenagers, the city places a higher emphasis on policing. According to the same report by Gente de Pomona, during the period of January 2019 through December 2021, it was found that 44% of the individuals arrested for gang-related crimes were youth and transitional age youth.

“Money for parks and [recreation]. That has been an issue for a long time,” explains Garey High School student Isabella Luna Tovar. “More than half the money [the city gets], it's going to the police, because crime rates are so high and everything, and that's understandable. But, they are so high because kids have nothing to do.”

Isabella became aware of the lack of teen programming in the city when she started playing soccer. After her high school season ended, she embarked on a search for leagues within the city by seeking recommendations from friends. Unfortunately, instead of discovering a league operated by the city,  Isabella had to rely on unorganized private leagues where she often feels  deceived due to the lack of effective communication.

“It took me a while to pay, because it's a random person,” explains Isabella. “I paid 50 dollars a couple of weeks ago and I still haven't gotten a uniform.”

When the city does offer an opportunity for teenagers to participate in their desired sport, it often makes it challenging for them to access it without adult supervision. The city’s requirement to rent out a goal post at a park can be costly and necessitates the use of a credit card. In a community where most of the parents work overtime, having an adult to accompany them is not always feasible.

“The city attempts to counter our work, they are trying to give themselves credit for just ridiculous things,” states the co-founder of Gente Jesus Sanchez. “Under the scope of youth funding, you'll see Santa Cop. You’ll see a school resource officer. These are all our funds that go to our youth.” 

“It's misleading. They’re trying to claim something they’re not. There's no strategic plan to work with young people in this city that's effective. There's no [collaboration] that the city is behind that's leading us into the future and that's a problem.”

The citizens of Pomona are joining forces to take matters into their own hands by supporting an initiative called “ Pomona Kids First.” The initiative aims to allocate 10% of the city’s budget towards creating programming specifically for children throughout the city.

If the initiative is successfully passed, it will become the second largest department in the city of Pomona, trailing behind the Pomona Police department and Public Works. 

Anthony Solorzano II was born and raised in Pomona, California. He writes about the Dodgers and the LA Galaxy to overcome the anxiety the teams cause him.

Julian Lucas, is a photographer, a purveyor of books, and writer in training, but mostly a photographer, but don’t ever ask him to take photos of events. Julian is also the owner and founder of Mirrored Society Book Shop.