Addressing The Rebel’s Distorted and Lying Report on The Toronto (2018) Al Quds Day Protest

 

On Al Quds Day in Toronto, Canadians from many faiths and backgrounds came out in solidarity with Palestinians who have been and continue to be brutally oppressed by Israel. Notably, in recent months elite Israeli army snipers have gunned down unarmed Palestinian protesters, including medics, photographers, children.

Corporate media describes these as ‘clashes’ and thrusts blame on Palestinians, who are protesting for their basic human rights.

See my: Israeli violence against Palestinians will never end as a result of UN & US hypocrisy

The pro-Zionist channel, The Rebel, issued a distorted report on the peaceful Toronto protest, a protest which included numerous informative speeches–speeches not included in The Rebel’s report.

This video is my correction to some of the most egregious statements and lies of The Rebel’s report.

Eva Bartlett Interview – Gaza, Syria and North Korea: The Truth Behind The Lies

An interview on The Last American Vagabond, November 18.  Please do check out his other videos and support his work! Follow him here:

https://www.patreon.com/TheLastAmericanVagabond/posts

In his introductory remarks, he writes:

“In a time of universal deceit, telling the Truth is truly a  revolutionary act, and that has never been more apparent than in today’s  hyper-partisan climate, where facts no longer hold sway, and one’s  opinion is now only as strong as the crowd that surrounds it. It has  been conditioned over many years into the masses that the way they feel,  is now more important than the facts at hand. Now some may say that is a  good thing, that information is so manipulated today, that all we have  is the way we feel, our gut instincts. But once we realize that our  feelings have long been programmed and manufactured by way of news media  and entertainment, the very feelings we are now being told to trust, we  begin to see the long-term agenda at play — the manufactured consent  of the masses. So it has never been more important to question  everything, to trust in facts, to trust in what we can prove, as we in  the independent media must do better, we must be better, or we will wake  up down the line, and realize that we have become the very thing we  once despised. And no one embodies the journalistic integrity that is  all but absent in MSM today, more so than Eva Bartlett.

Eva is, in my opinion, one of the last surviving investigative journalists, she has made a name for herself as an independent writer and rights activist by traveling to places such as Gaza, Syria, and North Korea, and revealing to the world the stark contrast between want we are told is happening there, and what is actually taking place.”

Gaza Looks For Work, Not Aid

Selling yoghurt in Gaza in an attempt to make some sort of living.

GAZA CITY, Sep 30 2012 (IPS)-By Eva Bartlett

“The overwhelming majority of people we work with tell us, ‘We don’t want the aid, we want to have an opportunity to work and earn money’. Especially people who had a decent job but lost it in the last many years: before asking for any aid, they ask for a job.”

In his work as Gaza-based communications officer with Oxfam GB, Karl Schembri interacts on a regular basis with some of Gaza’s most impoverished Palestinians, poverty he says is avoidable.

“Gaza cannot be called a humanitarian situation, it’s all man-made. It’s a situation of de-development, where the infrastructure and know-how was there and development was occurring,” he says, referring to the years before 2006 when, after Hamas was democratically elected, Israel imposed its suffocating closure of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza Farmers and Fishers Find Canadian Support

Mohammed Al-Bakri from Gaza’s Union of Agricultural Work Committees points out the “no-go” zones for Palestinian fishers and farmers.

Gaza City, IPS– By Eva Bartlett (blog version longer than original published)

“From the coast to eight miles out, the sea is like a desert: it’s sandy and there are no fish.” Mohammed Al-Bakri traces a thick line on the wall map before him, following the lines of Gaza’s eastern and northern borders, continuing south from three miles off the coast.

General manager of Gaza’s Union of Agricultural Work Committees, Bakri is well-versed in the woes of the Strip’s fishers and farmers. He explains the insufficient fishing waters Palestinians are limited to, and the consequences of being on the sea at all.

“The Israeli navy attacks the fishermen, arrests them and takes their boats,

Palestine’s Paralympians: Without Medals, With Pride

*Mohammed Fanouna is welcomed back proudly at the Rafah crossing after the Paralympics.

RAFAH, Gaza, Sep 14 2012 (IPS) – By Eva Bartlett

The car’s engine revs, wheels spinning in vain, as it sinks deeper into the sandy lane near Rafah, southern Gaza. Members of the Palestinian Paralympic Committee (PPC) are en route to welcome Palestine’s two Paralympic contenders, Mohammed Fanouna and Khamis Zaqut, home from the 2012 London Paralympic Games.

Zaqut and Fanouna, both repeat medal winners in prior Paralympic, Arab, and Asian Games, came fourth and ninth respectively in their events in London 2012.

tweets from Gaza Under Attack

*over-crowded living, Gaza City, Gaza Strip, Palestine

The above photo isn’t even in one of Gaza’s numerous refugee camps, invariably aptly described as “squalid, over-crowded, under-serviced (or not at all) hell-holes”–not reflecting their inhabitants but rather the impossible standard of living in the camps.

It is a district of Gaza City, families piled upon on another in cement buildings.  The house I live in isn’t much different: blistering in summer and numbing in winter, no-frills all around, lucky to have water (albeit water stored in the massive water tanks ubiquitous throughout occupied Palestine), surrounded by other like-constructed concrete ovens.

When drones hover over homes, TVs go fuzzy and even cell communication is affected, not to mention the more obvious disruption of one’s psyche.  They’re flying overhead quite a bit these days, along with the standard IOF warplane fly-overs.

The Zionists have been bombing Gaza the last few days, Israeli warplanes not only buzzing and terrorizing us but unleashing their death kisses as well. This early morning’s bombings *only* resulted in various injuries, including at least two children.  Only, no deaths last night, just lots of nasty, flesh-tearing shrapnel.  A few days earlier, after killing 6 Palestinian members of resistance, Israeli soldiers fired on a funeral for some of the martyred, Ma’an reports.

M, one of Emad’s sisters, sees me looking at Twitter and asks about it. I explain, when Israel bombs, many Palestinians with internet and electricity report it right away.  Gives me a sense of whether the fleet of warplanes I was watching from the roof just before coming downstairs to newly-returned electricity have attacked somewhere new or not.  Even from the roof, when the Israeli planes attack Rafah or Beit Hanoun in the north, we don’t hear always hear: depends whether the chugging of generators drowns out sound or not. When it’s central Gaza we do hear, and often feel, it.

Gaza Economy Tailored to Fail

What was once Rizk Al-Madhoun’s clothing factory.

JABALIYA, Gaza, Sep 8 2012 (IPS) -By Eva Bartlett **(blog version longer than original published)

“Gaza’s economy is expected to grow modestly and people will likely still be worse off in 2015 compared to the mid-1990s,” reads a press release announcing the United Nations’ August 2012 report, ‘Gaza in 2020 – A Liveable Place?’

In the no-frills office of his stalled Jabaliya clothing factory, Rizik Al-Madhoun, 41, explains how his clothing factory began shutting down six years ago.