….subtitled, goodbye Tom J, who recently joined “the banned” at Daily Kos.
Strikes of political blogs are generally only symbolic protests and this one is no different. A week ago, a Daily Kos diarist was banned from the site by an administrator, for no apparent reason, which ticked off Arab and Palestinian bloggers, and their sympathizers. So one of them called for a strike, and others joined in.
The banning was of Tom J. Tom J was a regular diarist at Daily Kos who provided factual diaries about daily events taking place in Israel and Palestine against its indigenous inhabitants, the Palestinians. Diaries about the effects of Israel’s occupation, the enforced colonization it has been conducting for over 40 years, stories about killings, house demolitions, wrecking of farmlands and orchards, and deprivation of water resources, all for the purpose of expanding Jewish settlements, the towns and cities Israel has built over the years on stolen Palestinian lands.
Tom J provided a daily account of the horrors taking place through news stories, pictures, and videos, the kind of reporting that is usually censored from mainstream US media. Without implying conspiracy, Tom J is also the proprietor of the site, STOP AIPAC.
By simply revealing the reality, Tom J continually disturbed the large gang of right wing Zionists who blog at Daily Kos, viewed his diaries as Israel-bashing, and him as part of the “Israel is always wrong” crowd. However, under the brutal conditions of the Palestinian occupation/colonialism, there has never been an “Israel is right” diary posted on Daily Kos that justified Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians. Diaries about left wing peace activism inside Israel or Palestine or in the US, especially among Jewish peace groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, recently condemned as anti-Israel by the ADL, have always been considered Israel-bashing, strange as it may seem.
HERE is the proposal to strike Daily Kos by a Palestinian member, simone daud, previously known as the Palestinian Professor (annotated):
COMMENT
I’m now calling a strike of Arab participants on dailykos, until Meteor Blades (administrator) explains the banning of Tom J and why this ongoing disruptive behaviour and anti-Arab viciousness is allowed to persist in these threads.
The strike will last a week to the morning of 30th October.
Non-Arab participants are welcome to join the strike (some like Assaf, a Jewish Israeli and peace activist, did).
by simone daud
RESPONSE
We are definitely being personally abused in every essay.
I’m not feeling very welcome here.
The people that show up on every essay speaking to, and showing video of the crisis in Palestine get verbally abused and have their essays derailed by a vocal few who are trying to eliminate any Free Speech on the subject.
It is horrific when humanitarians and Peace Activists get shouted down by name calling and vile comments.
Tom J was a brilliant writer and a man concerned with our relatives there.
I had my ratings taken away months ago for uprating something by sheer accident, after removing it an apologizing for the scroll over. They were never returned.
I feel it is because I am an openly Arab man of Palestinian descent who speaks against the atrocities in Palestine.
But I am loathe to be silenced by those who throw “anti-semite” around to defend a Government that has run as far right amok as the Bush administration and beyond.
Let me sleep on this Simone.
by Peacenick
Other responses to the call to strike can be read at the link.
Tom J will undoubtedly become just another one of the more than 35 bloggers banned from Daily Kos in the past few years for advocating for the Palestinian cause for freedom and self-determination. In the same period, only two right wing Zionist bloggers, an obvious troll and a self-described jazz singer, have been banned. Daily Kos, it seems, has made a choice, not to advocate for democratic principles supported by say a Jimmy Carter, but to follow Steny Hoyer-like Democrats, the AIPAC fawns in Congress, by suppressing information about the truth about what is going on in Israel-Palestine. Diaries such as this one, Israel/Palestine News, by Friendlystranger, showing the reality on the ground may continue to be posted, but for doing so, he and others can expect to be banned.
So be it. As these bloggers fall, more and more will rise up to take their place.
