The participation of four Israeli arms companies in the Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition in Melbourne is a clear instance of the Australian Government aiding and abetting the commission of an ongoing war crime in Gaza.
Those who can’t connect barbaric abuses of Palestinians by Israelis — generation after generation — and the crimes of Oct. 7, have little understanding of human nature, writes Jonathan Cook.
The horrors of Israel’s prison system aren’t new. They have been going on for decades. What’s new is that Israel has intensified the abuse. It now relishes atrocities it previously hid away like a dark secret.
Israel is lost. It is deep in a black, genocidal hole. The question is, are you going to allow yourself to be sucked into the same void? Are you going to keep covering your eyes? Does the torture end just because you prefer not to see it?
Israel is ensuring a paranoid future never safe with a Jones Town ending.
Jonestown, (November 18, 1978), location of the mass murder-suicide of members of the California-based Peoples Templecult at the behest of their charismatic but paranoid leader, Jim Jones, in Jonestown agricultural commune, Guyana. The death toll exceeded 900, including some 300 who were age 17 and under, making the incident one of the largest mass deaths in American history.
Israel’s disposition toward war is perpetual, and its war on the Palestinians is a daily reality fueled by the complicity of its allies, an endless supply of weapons, and a staggering lack of accountability.
What history tells us, especially in the context of Israel’s war on the Palestinians, is that wars are often won by accumulation — through a relentless combination of psychological warfare, overwhelming firepower, and the deliberate creation of unbearable conditions designed to drive the Palestinian population to leave. This is the lens through which we should view the current struggle in the West Bank and the inevitable military operations that will continue to define the region for the foreseeable future. These actions are not isolated incidents but part of a slow, yet steadily escalating strategy, edging both the Palestinians and the world closer to the brink of the abyss.
Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, a human rights activist, was protesting an illegal West Bank settlement when she was reportedly shot in the head by Israeli soldiers.
For months, Israel has denied preventing the administration of human services. Netanyahu specifically admits that’s their aim is to prevent the administration of all Humanitarian Services in Gaza no matter what they are and not simply eliminate Hamas’s military capacity
Recently, Netanyahu admitted Israel’s aim was not to just defeat Hamas but to disable all civil services in Gaza. Zionism has always had a strict “no-aid” policy. During WW2 they tried preventing the Red Cross from delivering Aid to Jews trapped in Ghettos pre and during WW2. Zionists needed Jews in Palestine to make the numbers. Aid only supported the reluctant ones to stay in Europe. The German Jews and their wealth needed to be pushed out and a deal was struck with the Nazis. If and when they forced out, the Zionists simply confiscated their wealth to buy goods from Germany in a secret “trade agreement” made with the Nazis which prevented Hitler from going bankrupt.
Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Andrzej Szejna, has demanded a criminal inquiry. WCK has also called for an independent investigation, saying: “The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza
“The State of Israel says the murder was an accident. So we were surprised not to have had any contact or condolence from Israel’s ambassador to the UK in London or from any Israeli official,” the statement said.
Family of British aid worker killed in Gaza call for independent inquiry
Calls by Israeli leaders to turn the West Bank into “mini-Gaza” are “translating into military operations,” the United Nations human rights office warned on Monday.
“Israel’s genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole,” stated Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the West Bank and Gaza.
“There is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel’s unfettered control.”
Albanese warned that “apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement and territorial expansion.”
“The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinization of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group.”
However the hostages died—Hamas initially indicated they were killed by Israeli gunfire, the Israeli army says they were executed at close range just before an attempt was made to free them—the blame for their deaths has settled firmly on Benjamin Netanyahu and the ultra-right-wing clique that props up his government.
IDF claims ‘armed assailants’ tried to hijack vehicle leading convoy of medical supplies, but aid organiser says those killed were transport company staff
“This is not as much about Hamas as it is about the Israeli state’s long-term plan to eliminate, wipe Palestine off the map.”
“Even the elders of the family who have seen it all — lived through ’67, lived through the intifadas, Oslo — they’re like, ‘This is the worst it’s ever been,’” Asi said.
“People who pride themselves on being resilient and not being afraid as part of their Palestinian identity, they are genuinely afraid,” she continued. “To leave one’s house, especially if you have a son, is to have a real material fear of death. … If something happens, there’s not going to be an investigation, there’s not going to be a tribunal: It’s going to just be another statistic.”
Importantly, it has made me reflect on the conflict continuing today, but also to go back to where it really started… back about 120 years ago with the arrival of the modern Zionist movement in 1896 declaring Eretz Israel as a national homeland for Jews, the Balfour Declaration of 1917 to establish a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, encouraging the establishment of Jewish settlements in Palestine and the beginning of Kibbutz as community focussed farming and the settlement after WWII as sanctioned by the UN.
The attitude to Palestinians throughout this time, and into the UN support for the establishment of Israel has been that of colonial occupiers treating indigenous peoples as barbaric, uncivilised, less than human, even terrorists, and able to be shoved aside for the new claimants to the land, as has occurred time and again in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and even here in Australia.
But the Israeli government claims that a handful of settlers are bad apples in an otherwise “law-abiding settlement” barrel, is an attempt to distract from who the settlers actually serve, and to whitewash the settlement project as a whole.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government is advancing plans to construct Jewish-only settlements on land belonging to the Palestinian village of Battir, designated in 2014 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
UNESCO’s designation aimed to protect Battir’s unique, ancient agricultural landscape and culture from Israel’s plans to build its separation wall through it.
“The Battir cultural landscape encompasses ancient terraces, archaeological sites, rock-cut tombs, agricultural towers, and most importantly an intact water system, represented by a collection pool [and] channels,” UNESCO states. “The integrity of this traditional water system is guaranteed by the families of Battir, who depend on it.”
Ibrahim Salem was detained by Israeli forces in Gaza and held for 8 months, including 52 days at the now infamous Sde Teiman torture facility. Salem recounts the torture he…
“Teeth were broken, bones were broken,” said one soldier. “You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity,” said another.
An Israeli newspaper on Friday published interviews with Israel Defence Forces reservists and medical staff who witnessed the “day-to-day torture” of Palestinian prisoners at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert, where dozens of detainees have died and others were allegedly raped.
The Israelis described seeing torture and abuse of Palestinians detained in Sde Teiman, who included everyone from Hamas fighters to innocent civilians, and ranged in age from children to octogenarians.
“We said, ‘It’s torture.’ But you don’t get into it; you change the subject immediately.”
Ibrahim Salem was detained by Israeli forces in Gaza and held for 8 months, including 52 days at the now infamous Sde Teiman torture facility. Salem recounts the torture he endured, including physical abuse, starvation, and electrocution.
Israel paraded Israeli girl held hostage and tortured too. They were required to do some housework and live like Gazans in fear of Israel bombs
“Corporations supplying jet fuel and oil to Israel may be providing material support to the military,” one expert said, “and therefore risk complicity in war crimes, genocide, and other crimes under international law.”
While the focus is on Gaza and the destruction of anything that resembles a place to live in that overcrowded space, the gaze on what is occurring on the West Bank is averted… look over there at Gaza, remember October 7, release the hostages, nothing to see here, as villages are attacked, people harassed on a daily basis, security check, arrests for no apparent reason, a constant level of fear and intimidation.
Basic human rights are being denied on an ethnic basis, undesirables are being driven out but have no where to go while the world’s eyes are focussed on Gaza
It seems that the play Fiddler on the Roof is being re-scripted. But no option to convert to Judaism, no offer of resettlement, not even in Australia, a land of immigrants, just go anywhere but here… except where?
For the past two weeks, a sickening scandal around Israeli torture of Palestinians has roiled the country’s politics. Many Americans likely have no idea about it, because mainstream media is all but ignoring it.
StorySep 06, 2024
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