Band facing Zionist-driven cancellations because of ‘Death to the IDF’ anti-genocide chant are welcome in Colombia, says Gustavo Petro
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has invited UK grime-punk duo Bob Vylan to come and perform in Colombia. Petro was responding to the US Trump regime’s cancellation of the pair’s entry visas, and reports of venues cancelling invitations in the UK and France after ‘friends of genocide’ Israel lobby groups demanded retribution for Vylan’s chants of ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘Death to the IDF’ at Glastonbury last weekend in solidarity with the people of Gaza against Israel’s genocidal extermination campaign that has slaughtered 400,000 Palestinians so far, maimed many more and has seen Israel impose an illegal starvation blockade on the whole territory.
Left-winger Petro is a former freedom fighter and became president in 2022. Last summer, he banned exports of coal to Israel – Colombia was Israel’s biggest coal supplier – because of Israel’s crimes and contempt for international law. Like other South and Central American leaders, he has also stood up to Trump’s extortion through tariffs, hitting the US with a 50% tariff in response to Trump’s bullying.
Please remember to support Skwawkbox if you can, to help ensure it can keep running. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (Skwawkbox will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:
Make a one-time donation
Make a monthly donation
Make a yearly donation
Choose an amount
Or enter a custom amount
Your support is hugely appreciated.
Your support is hugely appreciated.
Your support is hugely appreciated.
DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearlyThanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so, but please include the donor information above – see here for more.
Waaaaaaaagh!! He’s even doing an antisemitic nazi-style salute.
Yeah Toffee, Gustavo Petro joined the Marxist M-19 guerrilla group as a 17 yo kid. He was arrested and tortured but quickly transitioned over to democratic socialism when M-19 disbanded in the late-’80s/1990.
He did a bit of a ‘Mamdani’, getting elected to Congress and (Mamdani-like) getting elected as Mayor of Bogotá.
Petro describes himself as a “progressive leftist” though – predictably enough – Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis calls him a “Marxist narco-terrorist”.
Point is, he’s doing a great job to reduce inequality, expand public services, and challenge the traditional political elite as evidence of a broader leftist agenda. All power to him! We need a UK Gustavo Petro – but until we get one (we won’t!), the likes of Green’s Zack Polanski will have to do.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220620-gustavo-petro-from-imprisoned-guerilla-to-colombia-s-first-leftist-leader
Just came across the following article whilst doing a related search about the Haaretz revelation re soldiers being ordered to kill civilians queuing to get food, posted a couple of days ago. Here’s the headline and a couple of clips from it:
US-Israeli backed Gaza aid group must be shut down, say 170 charities
More than 500 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid since the GHF started operating in late May, when Israel partially eased an 11-week total blockade, a joint statement says.
The organisations, including Oxfam and Save the Children, say Israeli forces and armed groups “routinely” open fire on Palestinians seeking aid….
Tuesday’s joint statement from some of the world’s biggest charities and NGOs says the GHF is violating all norms of humanitarian work, including by forcing two million people into overcrowded and militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.
Since the GHF started operating in Gaza, there have been almost daily reports of Israeli forces killing people seeking aid at these sites, from medics, eyewitnesses and the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
On Tuesday, the ministry reported that a total of 583 people had been killed while seeking aid since 26 May, including 408 near the GHF’s distribution centres.
The GHF’s system replaced 400 aid distribution points that were operating during the last temporary Israel-Hamas ceasefire with just four distribution sites located in Israeli militarised zones and run by US private security contractors – three in the far south-west of Gaza and one in central Gaza.
“Today, Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,” the NGOs warn in their joint statement.
“Orphaned children and caregivers are among the dead, with children harmed in over half of the attacks on civilians at these sites.”
It also says the following in the article:
The GHF said it had delivered more than 52 million meals in five weeks and that other organisations “stand by helplessly as their aid is looted”.
The GHF can of course say what the fuck it likes, and there’s probably no-one who can disprove what they claim, but even if the 52 million figure were true – which I very much doubt (apparently the four hubs are only open for an hour each day) – then that would amount to approximately 26 meals per person over the course of five weeks. But is it really possible for each of the four hubs to hand out 13 million meals in the space of five weeks if they are only open for an hour each day? That would mean that they’re handing out something like 370,000 meals each day in the space of an hour. Does that sound remotely plausible?
And then they claim that other organisations “stand by helplessly as their aid is looted”. What organisations?! No other organisations are being allowed into Gaza as far as I’m aware, so I can only conclude that this is a falsehood concocted and contrived to back up Israel’s falsehood that Hamas was stealing a lot of the food coming in to Gaza, which of course was the evidence-free reason and justification for setting up the GHF.
And their reasons for banning UNRWA in the first place was a pack of lies!
I just realised that I forgot to put a link to the article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn5kk1w00xyo
The Haaretz article I referred to is of course behind a paywall, but they obviously gave JVL permission to repost it, which I came across in the results earlier when I was doing a search to see if any of the MSM covered the revelation, so here it is, with the usual JVL introduction, posted on June 27th:
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/is-it-really-now-normal-to-kill-people-trying-to-get-food/
I must admit I was somewhat surprised to find that the Telegraph covered the story, but the main reason I’m posting it is because of the comments, and it’s blatantly obvious – as you will see – that the Israeli propagandists were out in force, discrediting Haaretz and, absurdly, claiming that it’s all Hamas propaganda lies etc, etc. Check out the first couple of dozen or so:
Israeli soldiers ordered to fire on Palestinians queuing for aid, say whistleblowers
Investigation launched into suspected war crimes in Gaza following testimony from troops
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/06/27/israeli-soldiers-ordered-fire-civilians-aid-war-crimes-idf/
If you don’t get it initially (and you are being asked to sign up), try refreshing the page, and that should do the trick.
PS My apologies for so many posts (which would have only been three if I hadn’t forgotten to put a link to the BBC article in my first post!).
No need to apologise for providing so much information, Allan.
I would just like to add one comment.
If anyone wants to see just how low right wing attitudes are in this country at the moment, then just look at the readers’ comments under Telegraph articles these days. The terms “prejudiced”, “uninformed”, “selfish”, “ignorant”, “boorish”, ” out of touch with reality” and “just plain cuckoo” would not either singly or together do them justice.
If that is how they think, then no wonder the country is in the state it is.
The MOATS on the moral panic of Genocide enablers and apologists:
Inevitably, a Bob Vylan cover version has already surfaced…
https://x.com/aldnmarki/status/1939706258002448439?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1939706258002448439%7Ctwgr%5Ee93d81153c18e8ab1d8f280726606afdc37c16c5%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fscheerpost.com%2F2025%2F07%2F01%2Fjonathan-cook-attacking-a-chant-aiding-a-genocide%2F
When the 40 beheaded babies story hit the headlines I knew straight away that it was a falsehood, and for the obvious reason that for Hamas to do such a thing would alienate many of their hundreds of millions of supporters around the world (and THAT was no doubt one of the objectives in concocting it). But at the time I didn’t stop to think about the way it came to light, and only did so in October last year when I reflected on it for the first time and, in doing so, realised how implausible it all was. Anyway, that led to me putting the following together (which I’d completely forgotten about), and posting it on Craig Murray’s website, and I just happened to come across it again when I was sorting through articles and posts I’d saved/filed across around a dozen or more user accounts (on my present laptop), and saving some of them to the Public Folder, so that they would be easy to find if need be. Anyway, here it is:
Yes, we all know that the 40 beheaded babies story (and similar such stories) was atrocity propaganda and that only one baby – ten-month old Mila Cohen – was killed, albeit not unintentionally, but when you stop and think about the ‘process’, the manner, whereby the story became international headline news, it doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. I mean, for starters, are we really supposed to believe – if 40 beheaded babies really HAD been found at Kibbutz Kfar Aza – that it would only come to light because three days after the attack reporters from a number of news organisations just happened to be invited to one particular kibbutz, and that just one of the reporters happened to be told by one of the soldiers there that Hamas had killed 40 babies at the kibbutz and beheaded many of them (or words to that effect)?
I mean are we supposed to believe that this was only discovered – ie that 40 babies had been beheaded there – inbetween inviting the reporters/media to come to the kibbutz and when they actually went there (I can’t imagine that it could have all happened on the same day, and the invitation would almost definitely have been made the day before). Seems highly HIGHLY unlikely! If 40 dead babies – whether beheaded or not – had been discovered at the Kibbutz when the IDF took control, then such news would have gone straight up to the top in no time – and I mean Netanyahu and Gallant et al – and there is no way on this planet that such news would have come out the way we are supposed to believe it did [via one soldier happening to mention it to just one reporter, and in the real world senior IDF officers would have been informed immediately the babies were discovered, and they in turn would have informed Netanyahu and the defense minister and whoever immediately, and either a press conference arranged/called stright away, or a public statement made on the main Israeli TV channel by Netanyahu himself, or one of his ministers, or a senior IDF officer].
And I have little doubt that the MSM around the world realised this straight away – ie that the way it happened was totally implausible and, as such, realised that it was a falsehood and atrocity propaganda.
Fuck it! I made one or two slight changes to the original, one of which was changing ‘not deliberately’ to ‘unintentionally’, and reading through my post just now I see that I forgot to delete the ‘not’, and so it reads ‘… that only one baby – ten-month old Mila Cohen – was killed, albeit not unintentionally…’, and it should of course have read ‘albeit unintentionally’.
PS Would be really good if one was able to edit ones comment, like on youtube, for example, or on Craig Murray’s website, where you get five mins to make any corrections. Just a thought.
Also came across the following earlier when I was doing a search re soldiers being ordered to kill civilians in and around food distribution hubs, posted yesterday evening:
US contractors say their colleagues are firing live ammo as Palestinians seek food in Gaza
American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food, according to accounts and videos obtained by The Associated Press
American contractors guarding aid distribution sites in Gaza are using live ammunition and stun grenades as hungry Palestinians scramble for food, according to accounts and videos obtained by The Associated Press.
Two U.S. contractors, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were revealing their employers’ internal operations, said they were coming forward because they were disturbed by what they considered dangerous and irresponsible practices. They said the security staff hired were often unqualified, unvetted, heavily armed and seemed to have an open license to do whatever they wished.
They said their colleagues regularly lobbed stun grenades and pepper spray in the direction of the Palestinians. One contractor said bullets were fired in all directions — in the air, into the ground and at times toward the Palestinians, recalling at least one instance where he thought someone had been hit.
“There are innocent people being hurt. Badly. Needlessly,” the contractor said….
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/palestinians-israel-united-nations-hamas-gangs-b2781518.html
In the forty-six years since Thatcher – and subsequently Reagan – came to power, the Collective Worst have ‘progressed’ from privatising utilities to privatising Genocide.
Unless this out of control parasitic and sociopathic death cult that is the West, its adherent, sycophantic apologists and promoters is/are either totally eliminated/exterminated or effectively quarantined life on this planet, never mind civilisation, has no viable future.
Half a millennium of this exceptionalist barbarity is five hundred years too much.