US and European support for Israel's genocide means that our struggle is both fiercer and more determined in the face of unprecedented crimes. The future of the world – can we redeem ourselves as the human race? – stands in the balance. The urgency to stop this has never been greater. This support for the evil of Israel is bipartisan throughout the 'collective West', even though 60% of Americans, (Italy-65%, Belgium-62%, Sweden-50%, France-51%, Germany-49%)ⁱ want to stop sending arms to Israel, a tota arms embargo. But then most Americans want socialism and free health care, which neither party will support. The disconnect between government and people is total, facilitated by corporate, mostly Democrat, largely Jewish-controlled media. Do we give up? No!

 

Divest!

 

The student encampments formed spontaneously, starting in April, after massive demonstrations proved futile. The reaction to the encampments was strong support by the people who visited and brought food and water, anger and violence by university administrations, police and governments who, along with angry Zionists, did their best to intimidate and disrupt these noble protests. So far, San Francisco State University clearly committed to divestment of the university's endowment from Israeli arms-related production.

 

Brown University in Rhode Island is an especially dramatic, tragic, case. A student Hisham Awartani was shot and paralysed from the chest down in November last year. Artwani was walking near his grandmother's home last November with Kinnan Abdel Hamid, a student at Haverford College, and Tahseen Ahmed of Trinity College. The students, all aged 20, are graduates of the Ramallah Friends School in the occupied West Bank. The three of them were speaking Arabic and wearing keffiyehs, a scarf synonymous with Palestinian solidarity, on their way to dinner when they were shot by a gunman in Burlington. This galvanized the students at Brown and despite intense Zionist lobbying, the university agreed to hold a referendum on divestment, which will be held on October 17-18 at the next meeting of the Corporation of Brown University – its board and leadership. Hisham, adapting to his new life as a wheelchair-bound cripple, was part of the delegation who presented their proposal on divestment to the board.ⁱⁱ

 

Sadly, universities do not function democratically. The student will have no say, and the board is no doubt full of Zionists. One very angry Edelman resigned in a flourish from the board ot trustees, calling the vote many things, especially illegitimate. The panic in his vituperations is clear: this vote questions 'whether Israel has a right to exist, and even whether Jews have a right to exist.' Pro-Israel voices on campus are now stepping up pressure on the Corporation of Brown University to avoid the vote entirely. Edelman can feel it in the air: Israel's free lunch, furnished by AIPAC, is coming to a close.

 

Brown’s experience differs from several major academic institutions across the US that have refused to entertain the prospect of divestment from Israel-linked companies, including the University of California system and the University of Michigan. They argue their endowments cannot be subject to political pressure. 'We all recognise that even after this vote, regardless of if it’s a yes or no, the divestment movement and the movement for free Palestine will not end on this campus. Divestment a tactic, and we know that it’s just one step in a long process, said Brown activist Deendar said.

 

Here in Toronto there were sit-in/ encampments at the three universities, one violently shut down (York University), the other two tolerated and ended peacefully. None of them achieved a commitment to end investments in Israel and academic exchanges, but that battle has just begun. We have San Francisco State, and a vote at the Ivy League Brown in October. Getting access to the economic secrets of the Zionists is hard. Zionism has a lock-hold (or at least monitors and lashes out when necessary) on all universities. So far.

 

This new phase in the struggle to liberate Palestine is already being implemented by the broader pro-Palestinian movement, which builds on the energy of the students, especially BDS (boycott divest sanction). Ending academic exchanges and boycotting and divesting were key to overthrowing apartheid South Africa. They will be key to ending Israeli apartheid too.

 

BDS

 

It is a grueling task to ferret out the Israeli products on our shelves and lobby to stop importing them; to access and read boring corporate reports to find where funds go to Israel and lobby to divest; to identify Israeli criminals and ban them from western universities. To do this requires an international organization. BDS was born out of the South African struggle, founded following the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in South Africa (Durban I).ⁱⁱⁱ

 

We have been celebrating each BDS victory for 23 years now. Watching as the Knesset passes laws, even creates a special committee to harass and undermine our efforts. Since Israel began its genocide in 2023, these victories are coming faster. Some colorful such as Ben and Jerry's (ice cream), many high tech (Veolia, Astrum, HP), Israeli police training in the West, academic exchanges, pop stars (Roger Waters, U2, Elvis Costello).

 

Generally the target is illegal settlements, but now countries are freezing or severing diplomatic relations and all trade with Israel (Jordan, Bahrain, Turkey, Bolivia, Colombia, Honduras, Chile, Belize, Brazil, South Africa and Chad). As this movement gathers steam, the victories are coming daily. Intel is halting its planned $15b chip plant. Revenue Canada just removed the Jewish National Fund from its tax-deductible charity status, a campaign which has been ongoing for decades without success.^iv

 

Toronto update

 

Yesterday I attended a rally on University of Toronto campus at midday. A muggy, 'Indian summer' September day. A few hundred angry teens chanters 'Palestine Will Be Free', with five lonely middle-aged Zionists with slick posters off to the side, protected by police. No poor-student DIY* necessary, though the crude pro-Palestinian posters have much more life, humanity. One Zionist poster in particular caught my eye. 'Hamas slaughtered BABIES on Oct 7'. The police were in between but I went around and politely confronted him, suggesting he find something more credible. He insisted it was proven. The others gathered around eager to convince me. I smiled and as I returned to the demo, called out 'Find something more credible.'

 

U of T President Gertler is a card-carrying Zionist, his public profile reveals his mother, born in Czechoslovakia, survived the Holocaust. His politics are oil&gas (In 2016, he made the decision not to divest the University of Toronto from fossil fuels) and Zionist (In 2021, he scuttled the appointment of human rights lawyer Valentina Azarova, whose legal research and papers included the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). Gertler, faced with the encampment in May 2024, refused to meet with the students, refused to the demands to divest and cancel academic exchanges with Israeli universities. Now his gloves are off and there will no doubt be arrested moving forward. It is Zionism vs the World. The war to liberate Palestine takes many different forms.

 

I also picked up the student newspaper The Varsity, and was glad to see that UofT Occupy for Palestine (O4P) was pounding on the door of the Governing Council meeting. 500 students, staff, faculty and alumni signed a letter demanding the university disclose their financial holdings, divest from companies supplying Israel with weapons and cut ties with Israeli academic institutions.

 

I recall a similar Governing Council meeting in 1969 where anti-Vietnam war demonstrators smashed through the heavy oak door with an axe. 'The good old days.' The struggle today recalls those days and the 1980s anti-apartheid struggle. Each was special, heroic, with its own challenges, though all were and are inspired by the struggle against imperialsim and colonialism.

 

The centerfold of the newspaper was The making of an activist: Exploring the motivations behind the pursuit of a greater cause, with two girls (very scantily dressed) holding the hand of a black youth. The content is about Canadian natives, how their land was innocently 'gifted' to the whites, not realizing that the colonizers didn't know what a gift was, that they were intent only on stealing the land and eliminating them, the natives. The plight of Palestinians is identical, cautiously welcoming Jewish immigrants to Palestine at first, not realizing their intent was identical: stealing the land and eliminating the natives.

 

In the past, Israel tried to con native Canadians (it still does) with stories of Jews returning to their homeland, 'striving for acceptance, equal rights, rights to their own land'. A few were duped into a free trip to Israel to see for themselves, but the mainstream native movement made short shrift of the traitors, and that scheme to con westerners has been largely abandoned. Students now embrace native studies, wish to return Canada to native stewardship, honoring them as our First Nations. Palestinians take heart at this, seeing it as a blueprint for them. The future belongs to the youth.

 

Iran and the students

 

Palestine really does act as the litmus test for humanity today. Those who side with Israel are siding with genocide, extreme injustice. There is only one way forward. Ayatollah Khomeni, with his millions of devoted student followers, knew this, and his first decision at the head of the Islamic revolution in 1979 was to sever relations with Israel and give its representative office (even the Shah balked at the idea of officially recognizing Israel) to the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

 

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in1991, Iran proved to be the only solid state-supporter of Palestine. Their plight, and the liberation of al-Quds, indeed, all of Palestine, became Iran's main foreign policy goal. Iran has, for almost a half a century, been at the forefront, putting Shia Islam at the center of the struggle, where Arab regimes all failed humanity's litmus test. Whether Iran has finally shamed the Arabs into taking on US-Israel is still up in the air. Waking the Sunni world from its colonial, secular malaise is like moving the proverbial mountain.

 

Ayatollah Khameini continued this tradition. In the past few years, he has reached out to the youth in the West, commending them for protesting the imperialism at the heart of their societies. I love his letters to western students. He still has that youthful revolutionary zeal. You can tell he would love to be 60 years younger and to join them.

 

Has any other leader praised the students protesting? In his second address to the youth of the world in 2015 'Today terrorism is our common worry', he writes, we must 'discover new means for building the future and be barriers on the misguided path that has brought the West to its current impasse.'

 

The Ayatollah hailed the student encampments in another letter this year.

*You have now formed a branch of the Resistance Front and have begun an honorable struggle in the face of your government's ruthless pressure—a government which openly supports the usurper and brutal Zionist regime.

*The oppressive leaders of global hegemony mercilessly distort even the most basic human concepts. They portray the ruthless, terrorist Israeli regime as acting in self-defense – yet they portray the Palestinian Resistance which defends its freedom, security and the right to self-determination, as terrorists!

*The support and solidarity of your professors is a significant and consequential development. This can offer some measure of comfort in the face of your government's police brutality and the pressures it is exerting on you. I too am among those who empathize with you young people, and value your perseverance.

 

Where is this support from self-proclaimed anti-imperialist Russia and China? The ayatollah was the only leader to reach out to them. I fear for the reliability of secular Russia and China. They are interested primarily in their own battles with US-Europe for world control, not seeing the real enemy of the world as US-Israel. Europe is a lackey of both the US and Israel, and will fall into line once these monsters are constrained.

 

In fact, if we can corral the Israeli 'tail' of the US 'dog', all the world's problems would find immediately relief. BRICS is all well and good, but would its leaders lose much sleep if Israel succeeds in its genocide? Russia continues to allow Israel to bomb Syria without stop, yesterday bombing and killing dozens of Syrian civilians, Syrian hands tied to allow this outrage, despite Russia's air defense system sitting unused in Damascus.

 

Even the Saudi leaders are tired of Palestine, eager to have access to Israeli toys, secretly routing for Israel against Shia Iran. Only Iran is principled and is able to see clearly that this is a religious obligatory jihad, the sacred duty of all Muslims.

 

God's time

 

Students in my youth, the era of Vietnam, were all secular leftists, communists. Now, with student identity politics, natives = Palestinians. We are all Palestinians. This is an exciting, more mature, understanding. It is still anti-imperialism, socialism, but affirms native spirituality as central to the way forward, not communist revolution. This is in harmony with Ayatollah Khameini's message.

 

The world is waking up from a century, indeed a millennium, of Islamophobia. This has been 'the summer of love', a la 1960s, but the love affair this time is at a higher level, a love affair with Islam. The weakness of secularism is manifest. The lonely Zionists with their deceitful propaganda vs the heartfelt passion of DYI^v.

From the river to the sea, Palestine is almost free morphed into From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever.

Secularism is not the way forward. Been there, done that. We slide right back into consumerism without a strong moral foundation. This is the tragic lesson of the Soviet collapse.

 

Whoever 'did' 9/11, since then, Islam has been at the center of world events, the creation of a New World Order. Not the US-Israeli world order planned by the globalists, imperialists. Islam unites all, including secular defunct communists and liberals. Imperialists, especially Zionists, need not apply.

 

What can Iran and allies do?

 

As the West declines morally, Russia has discovered that some, Americans especially, are turning to Russia as a healthier society, not burdened by feminism and the increasingly powerful LGBTQ lobby, both of which undermine masculinity and promote alternative sexuality, devoid of the perils of the nuclear cis^vi family. By denying basic human nature, it undermines the social fabric. Interest in actual sex has dropped, with most people using porn on a regular basis as a substitute for the complexities of real relationships. Russia even loosened immigration procedures to welcome westerners to abandon their privileged lives in the West in the interests of raising children in a healthy environment.

 

The grandson of General de Gaulle, Pierre de Gaulle, announced that he hopes to move to Russia.^vii He was particularly incensed by the rewriting of WWII history to exclude the Soviet Union and promote the US as the victor of WWII. Pierre is concerned for preservation of historic memory, and improving Russo-French humanitarian ties.

 

Russia is not so concerned about Palestine or Islam, reviving instead its traditional Orthodox Christianity, which was repressed under communism, the latter's great failing. We wish Russia well, but for Muslims, the social problems can only be addressed adequately by Islam. For us, Palestine becomes the focal point. When students were persecuted at the encampments, Iran announced that students suffering political persecution would be welcomed at an Iranian university. This is similar to what Russia is proposing but more radically fundamental. And it is not necessary to emigrate to find peace. You can build that in your Muslim community anywhere.

 

Both Russia and Iran challenge the western narrative. These 'policies' are not so much a serious agenda, as a symbolic one, painting a positive, more truthful image of US enemies, who are really just countries pursuing a way of life that is healthy and moral, which means based on our traditional religious faiths, not disbelief, as now promoted by western culture. Iran's proposal is not just symbolic, as education is the way forward. Come and study and take your knowledge back to help revive your moribund societies.

 

It is vital that Iran continue its efforts to educate the world of the dangers of Zionism. The antizionism New Horizon conferences held in Iran were an exciting development and raised much awareness. Their effect continues to resonate, having brought dozens of scholars and activists together to fight the scourge of Zionism.

 

The western media paints a negative picture of Iran as harsh on women's rights, focusing on the necessity of wearing a hijab and modest clothing in public. Sadly, the safer lives for women under Islam, which comes with public modesty, is not appreciated. It is important for westerners who understand this to support Iran.

 

As WWIII coalesces, those who truly stand for justice will become clearer. We as Muslims need to be open to those questioning the official western narrative. Ayatollah Khameini's outreach to western students is an important step on this road of mutual understanding. It is important for western Muslims to also speak up, and to practice Islam in a nonsectarian way. Islam too needs to adapt to the crises the world is experiencing now.

 

Why Canada should beware of Israel

 

We need to educate ourselves about the negative effect of Israel for our own security. By accepting Israel's false narrative about Israel as a 'safe haven' for Jews, a Jewish state, we turn nations who see through this delusion against us. The West denounces Iran for its firm stance against Zionism and the rejection of a ethno-national state as destabilizing for the world order, a repeat of German Nazism. But this is finally changing as Israel's crimes pile higher and higher.

 

In the context of WWIII -- US-Israel and the collective West against the BRICS world -- this puts us on the wrong side of history. We support racism and murder (by US-Israel) as necessary to our freedom and well being, instead of seeing it as the poison that is slowly killing us and the planet. Our bigotry feeds anger and is a breeding ground for terrorism, where legitimate demands are ignored. Then our Zionist media blames Islam, where the real culprit is Israel's open, endless rape and pillage of Palestinians, not to mention assassination of political leaders such as Qasem Soleimani and Ismail Haniyeh.

 

As this becomes clearer, it makes dawa and support for Iran and Islam easier. Our culture in Canada is being rewritten, rediscovered, as a nation of First Nations, with a devastating colonial period of destruction and consumerism culminating in a secular moral desert. The road forward requires a renewed spirituality, a drastic change in our lifestyles to meet nature's needs and our own spiritual needs. Islam is at the forefront of this.

for Strategic Discourse on the Gaza War Iranian quarterly of scientific research on strategic decisions concerning struggle with Israel

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