In 1981 I was backpacking through South East Asia when I found myself on Freak Street in Kathmandu, Nepal also known as Jhhonchen tole.
I was staying in a $1/night back packers with a group of Kiwi friends.
In those days the electricity supply in Kathmandu was very erratic and came and went without warning, many times every day. If you wanted to have a hot shower you had to que for your turn at the communal bathroom, when the power was on. No electricity, no hot shower. If the power went off you had to decide to wait in the que until it came back on or go away and que again later.
I was in the que when a group of young Israeli’s from the Israeli Defense Force walked up to the door and took control of access into the bathroom.We were arrogantly told we’d have to wait until they were finished because they had just arrived on leave after being on patrol in the occupied territories in Palestine. and they had priority at the showers.
The people in the que began to complain and all of the soldiers became angry and argumentative. It was all about their (God given) rights and we had none.
After a few moments of heated discussion I triggered a thermo-nuclear response by foolishly spouting “Sometimes I think that the only thing Hitler taught you people was how to behave like fascists.” One of the soldiers turned purple, veins bulging in his neck and temples and charged at me. When I played rugby ( poorly) my position was half-back, one of the skills any half-back develops is the ability to avoid large opponents diving on you.The bigger they are, the harder they fall, on you!
I managed to avoid the assailant and ran for the exit hearing behind me a brawl breaking out and the screams of men and women from the que. Mea Culpa.
Down the stairs and out the door I scarpered and next minute I’m sprinting down Freak Street in rugby shorts a singlet and bare feet. No wallet, shoes, passport or money with members of the IDF in hot pursuit. I think it is fair to say I am lucky they weren’t armed.
I ran and ran and ran like Forrest Gump, with a posse from the IDF close behind. I had just returned from tramping in the Annapuna ranges where I had been treking at over 2000m in elevation. One of the things that happens when you have been at altitude is your blood becomes highly oxygenated and when you come down to lower levels you feel very fit and have hightened stamina. Added to the situation was the fact that I felt that I was running for my life. I suspect the altitude training may well have saved my life or at least a brutal beating.
Through markets, narrow streets and busy footpaths I sprinted with the IDF in hot pursuit. This went on for a few hours with me ducking and diving, slowing down to catch my breath and looking over my shoulder and in front of me expecting an ambush at any moment.
After a few hours of running, ducking and diving, I found that I had outrun the IDF. Now I had to decide what to do next. I knew I couldn’t just return to the hotel but we did have a local cafe where we as a group had eaten, so I cautiously made my way back there.
When I arrived at the cafe, low and behold there were my erstwhile friends, some with visible wounds.
After I had scarpered, the soldiers had beaten all the people who had remained. It was my first personal experience of collective punishment. My battered and bruised friends described the brawl as viscious with the soldiers applying all their training.
As you can imagine my friends were furious with me for starting a conflagration which left some of them battered and bruised and all of them on the street because it was made clear to them by the soldiers that they had to leave the hotel.
Fortunately for me, my friends had packed my bags,wallet and passport and had not abandoned me.
What this behaviour did to this 21 yr old was make him a life long supporter of Palestine and her people and challenged me to confront Zionism at ever opportunity. In both of the conflict zones I have lived in, draconian and reactionary totalatarian behaviour created more resistance, it never quelled it.
Collective Punishment;
The people of Palestine are always subjected to collective punishment. One person fires an ineffectual missile out of Gaza and the entire community are collectively punished, this is a war crime.
It is quite possible and even highly likely that many of those rocket attacks are false flags being hoisted by a fifth column in Gaza deliberately triggering a response from the apartheid state.
When I was in my mid twenties some 5 years later I arrived in Republican West Belfast in the occupied 6 counties of Ireland. Alongside amazing murals of our struggle I was proud to see beautiful murals supporting Palestine. Check out the work of my comrades at Gael Force Art for numerous examples.
I was always challenged when considering the issue of the armed struggle in Palestine, South and Central America, Africa generally and in my parents and ancestors country of Ireland.
The amazing woman below Patsy Marron convinced me that it wasn’t our choice because our community was under occupation and armed attack and we had a duty to defend our communities. The people of Palestine have exactly the same rights and duties.
In the photo below Patsy who is over 90 yrs old, was at a demo in her native West Belfast recently. Rock that!
Anyone who follows this blog ( hit the subscribe button) will know that I believe that we are in the early stages of runaway global warming leading to the collapse of industrial civilisation and the extinction of most if not all complex life on this belleagured planet.
Never underestimate the damage all of this imperialist and colonial warmongering has inflicted on the biosphere.
If your an environmentalist and not an anti-imperialist you’ve missed one of the major drivers of the sixth great extinction.
If I could have one wish before collapse unfolds it would be to see a sign like the one below in Aotearoa New Zealand. We kicked the Israeli ambassador out of Aotearoa once before, let’s do it again.
I took this photo in Harare in 1991 hence the poor resolution but it’s the message that counts.
It’s way past time to end the never ending nakba.
Irish Solidarity with Palestine
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
Kudos to you Mr Hester
LikeLiked by 2 people
I read everything you write, I am so proud of you and the Irish blood you carry.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you and I thank my Irish Republican parents. I endeavour to make them proud.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well if you were my son, I’d be very proud of you. Apart from leading the soldiers a merry dance (which had me really really laughing), you care deeply about our planet and it’s imminent demise.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Normally I find excellent and fair reporting with Extinction Radio podcasts. Not so with the latest episode with guest Mike Sliwa and Ferrigan (the only host this time) who spent most of the first 30 minutes bashing Guy McPherson. Sliwa came across as a most shallow being. I exited the podcast. So unprofessional. I would ask Ferrigan where his podcasts, etc, would be if it wasn’t for all the work of McPherson. And, where was Jennifer Hynes, whom I have great respect for, to reign in these nincompoops?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ferrigan is a manic depressive thief and Sliwa is a traitorous, backstabbing carpetbagger.
Ferrigan used to message me on Facadebook asking me to go somewhere and ‘Like’ his comments, he is shallow and insincere. None of them would have a voice without Professor Guy McPherson.
LikeLike
Interesting! By the way, today I came up with this optimistic scenario (which ignores the probable methane outbreak):
2018: 1.5C above the 1880-1900 baseline (which seems to me the best baseline available)
2030: +1C (0.5C because of GHG emission increase and 0.5C because of Arctic albedo loss)
That’s +2.5C by 2030 over the oceans. By 2040 +4C over the land which means at least 6C hotter heat waves. Global crop failure
LikeLiked by 1 person
Anyone suggesting that 2C is even remotely achievable hasn’t done their homework.
LikeLike
“Absent an extraordinarily rapid metabolic shift away from carbon based fuels, we face a likely 4 °C to 9 °C temperature rise within the lifetimes of those born today.”
I didn’t say it. Dr Tim Garrett said it.
http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Will_growth_transition_to_collapse.html
So what will happen in the optimistic 4C scenario?
According to Tyndall climate professor Bows-Larkin (in the above video), the kinds of impacts anticipated under this four-degree centigrade scenario are going to be incompatible with global organized living. Enter the Mad Max world.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Perhaps the saddest most depressing aspect of this end time enterprise we find ourselves engaged in,is that “doomers” constantly demonstrate that they are just as faulted as the rest of the clueless morons. How could it be otherwise I guess, and I am simply grateful that I have been able to spend so much of my life in situations of solitude. But it still provokes a deep irritation in me that “we” remain so fucking judgemental.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi kevin when will your interview with paul Beckwith get uploaded
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on QCpal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Sometimes I think that the only thing Hitler taught you people was how to behave like fascists.”…. man, that ALONE makes you a Hero in my book!
LikeLiked by 1 person
This testimony from a former member of the IDF is incredible.
They allowed Hamas to attack their own people.
LikeLike
This is an incredible article from the Grayzone team with a key point being is the Apartheid Statelet considering relocating to/colonizing Argentina!
Sinking ship analogies come to mind, especially after Iran did enormous damage in Israhell.
They are going to give Argentine pensioners pension payments to Israeli immigrants!!!!!
Who owns who here? Neither Orwell nor Huxley had anything on these lunatics.
Do we really want the psychopaths who are ‘mowing the lawn’ in Gaza and the West Bank and bombing the hell out of four of their neighbouring states, walking amongst us and our kids?
Why are Israeli war criminals hiding out in Patagonia?
LikeLike
Lyndon Thoreau
…“‘I am Israel”. I came to a land without a people for a people without a land. Those people who happened to be here, had no right to be here, & my people showed them they had to leave or die, razing 400 Palestinian villages to the ground, erasing their history.
“‘I am Israel”. Some of my people committed massacres & later became Prime Ministers to represent me. In 1948, Menachem Begin was in charge of the unit that slaughtered the inhabitants of Deir Yassin, including 100 women & children. In 1953, Ariel Sharon led the slaughter of the inhabitants of Qibya, & in 1982 arranged for our allies to butcher around 2,000 in the refugee camps of Sabra & Shatila.
“‘I am Israel”. Carved in 1948 out of 78% of the land of Palestine, dispossessing its inhabitants & replacing them with Jews from Europe & other parts of the world. While the natives whose families lived on this land for thousands of years are not allowed to return, Jews from all over the world are welcome to instant citizenship.
“‘I am Israel”. In 1967, I swallowed the remaining lands of Palestine – East Jerusalem, the West Bank & Gaza – & placed their inhabitants under an oppressive military rule, controlling & humiliating every aspect of their daily lives. Eventually, they should get the message that they are not welcome to stay, & join the millions of Palestinian refugees in the shanty camps of Lebanon & Jordan.
“‘I am Israel”. I have the power to control American policy. My American Israel Public Affairs Committee can make or break any American politician of its choosing, & as you see, they all compete to please me. All the forces of the world are powerless against me, including the UN as I have the American veto to block any condemnation of my war crimes. As Sharon so eloquently phrased it, ‘We control America’.
“‘I am Israel”. I influence American mainstream media too, & you will always find the news tailored to my favor. I have invested millions of dollars into PR representation, & CNN, New York Times, & others have been doing an excellent job of promoting my propaganda. Look at other international news sources & you will see the difference.
“I am Israel”. You Palestinians want to negotiate ‘peace!?’ But you are not as smart as me; I will negotiate, but will only let you have your municipalities while I control your borders, your water, your airspace & anything else of importance. While we ‘negotiate,’ I will swallow your hilltops & fill them with settlements, populated by the most extremist of my extremists, armed to the teeth. These settlements will be connected with roads you cannot use, & you will be imprisoned in your little Bantustans between them, surrounded by checkpoints in every direction.
“‘I am Israel. I have the fourth strongest army in the world, possessing nuclear weapons. How dare your children confront my oppression with stones, don’t you know my soldiers won’t hesitate to blow their heads off? In 17 months, I have killed 900 of you and injured 17,000, (+60,000 killed and 500k injured since October 2023) mostly innocent civilians, and have the mandate to continue since the international community remains silent. Ignore, as I do, the hundreds of Israeli reserve officers who are now refusing to carry out my control over your lands and people; their voices of conscience will not protect you.
“‘I am Israel. You want freedom? I have bullets, tanks, missiles, Apaches and F-16s to obliterate you. I have placed your towns under siege, confiscated your lands, uprooted your trees, demolished your homes, and you still demand freedom? Don’t you get the message? You will never have peace or freedom, because I am Israel.’”
Written by Norman Gary Finkelstein. Jewish-American PhD Political Science from Princeton University
Please also read ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’, by Israeli history professor and activist Ilan Pappé .
The world has been lied to for 77 years. The Palestinian people are being destroyed before our eyes, and many of those who have been shouting loudly, ‘Never again’, look away.
Keep in mind, years ago, Hamas appears as a political party in the middle of all this craziness and atrocities. Just a decade ago, in the midst of the atrocious violence of a barbaric military superpower against a defenseless nation condemned to extinction, the natural mutation of any organization in the search for survival appeared, finally facing rudimentarily an ethnic cleansing undertaken by a degenerate and voracious zionist dogma, which declares subhuman anyone who dares to confront it, especially wiping out children, women and all those innocent people whom global powers have decided to hand over becoming accomplices…
LikeLike