A pro-Israel lobby group’s super political action committee trying to unseat progressive members of Congress who condemn the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip is this week pouring over a quarter-million dollars into advertising against Rep. Cori Bush.
Source: ‘It’s Officially Begun’: AIPAC’s Dark Money Super PAC Targets Cori Bush | Common Dreams
“How can a zone be safe in a war zone if it is only unilaterally decided by one part of the conflict?” asked Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA); “It can only promote the false feeling that it will be safe.” Furthermore, on several occasions, Israel has bombed al-Mawasi, the area it says is safe.
On Feb. 20, Israel attacked a shelter operated by Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, killing two family members of the organisation’s staff.
On May 13, an international U.N. staff member was killed after the Israeli army opened fire on a U.N. vehicle, one of the nearly 200 U.N. workers killed in Gaza in addition to the targeted assassination of aid workers.
[On May 26, an Israeli airstrike in Rafah killed at least 45 civilians, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now tries to claim was a “tragic mistake.” The attack, which burned mostly women and children alive, took place two days after the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to stop its Rafah attack.]
Source: Vijay Prashad: Three Evils
For nearly a decade, Israel has been surveilling senior International Criminal Court officials and Palestinian human rights workers as part of a secret operation to thwart the ICC’s probe into alleged war crimes, a joint investigation by +972 Magazine, Local Call, and the Guardian can reveal.
Source: Surveillance and interference: Israel’s covert war on the ICC exposed
Source: Netanyahu Under Fire After Calling Rafah Massacre a ‘Tragic Mistake’ | Common Dreams
Israel has not only completely disregarded the orders of the International Court of Justice to cease its assault on Rafah as we expected it to do, but has actually ramped up its ruthlessness as though trying to make a point. There were reportedly more than 60 Israeli airstrikes on the southernmost city in the Gaza strip in the 48 hours after the ICJ ruling, including a horrifying massacre on a displacement camp full of civilians in tents.
Source: Israel massacres children, which the Western Press says is fine – Pearls and Irritations
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s revered founding father and first prime minister, described the partition plan as “the most wonderful lever for the gradual conquest of all of Palestine.”
For many Palestinians, Israel’s war in Gaza and the Hamas attack last October that provoked it are not standalone events, but the culmination of 75 years of abuse and erasure by the Israeli government.
Source: What was the Nakba? And why does 1948 matter so much to Palestinians and Israelis? | Salon.com
The many Jewish students in the campus encampments, along with other Jews protesting the Gaza phase of the Palestinian Genocide, deserve the highest praise for many reasons. One reason is that by their deeds they are countering what might otherwise turn into a wave of antisemitism.
Source: Jewish Students Opposing Gaza Genocide, a Powerful Antidote to Antisemitism – CounterPunch.org
“We were free. It was the most beautiful life. We had everything — our heritage, our trade, and our sea.” My grandfather, who is now 85, still remembers life in Palestine before 1948. There were no restrictions on travel, no checkpoints, no sieges, and no curfews. He grew up in a small village in Jaffa, where life was bustling with activity during the day, and filled with social gatherings at night. His was a community rich in culture and connection.
Source: Can Palestinians imagine a future with Israelis after this war?
The Israeli air force bombed a refugee tent camp west of Rafah City around 8:45 pm local time on Sunday. The time is important, since +972 Mag reported that the Israeli total war on Gaza is being conducted by AI programs. One of them is called, sadistically, “Daddy’s Home.” The Israelis are tracking Hamas militants through the day but wait to strike at them when they come come at night, ensuring that their wives, children, relatives and friends are also killed. The AI program is set up to allow 15 to 20 noncombatant, civilian deaths for every member of the paramilitary Qassam Brigades killed in the attack. The eight missiles that struck the camp killed 2 Hamas operatives and left others 45 dead, mostly burned up in their flammable tents, the majority women and children.
Source: Burning the Indigenous Population up in their Tents is an old Colonial Technique of Genocide
How many times have you heard Australian political leaders and senior bureaucrats intone our country’s belief in, and strategic reliance on the international community conforming to the ‘rules-based international order’?
But how consistent is a country like Australia likely to be when faced with supporting orders and obligations flowing from last week’s actions of rules-based entities like the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) when it doesn’t suit us or our own domestic values environment? Let alone those espoused by our ally, the United States?
Source: Australia, Israel and the ICC. One rule for Ukraine, another for Palestine – Michael West
Doctors without Borders, known by its acronym MSF, said “dozens of wounded” as well as more than 15 of the dead had been brought to a facility that it supports.
“We are horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe,” the group wrote on the social media platform X, reiterating its call for an immediate ceasefire.
Earlier Sunday, dozens of aid trucks entered Gaza from southern Israel under a new agreement to bypass the Rafah crossing with Egypt after Israeli forces seized the Palestinian side of it earlier this month. Israel’s military said 126 aid trucks entered via the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing.
But it was not immediately clear if humanitarian groups could access the aid — including medical supplies — because of fighting. The crossing has been largely inaccessible because of Israel’s offensive in Rafah. United Nations agencies say it is usually too dangerous to retrieve the aid. The World Health Organization last week said an expanded Israeli incursion in Rafah would have “disastrous” impact.”
Source: Israeli Airstrike Kills Dozens Of Palestinians In Rafah | HuffPost Latest News
He added, “A group of soldiers took me to one of the rooms and began interrogating me. When I told them I knew nothing, one of them threatened me in Arabic and said (I’ll smash you if you don’t talk). Then he physically assaulted me for several minutes before handcuffing my hands behind my back with a plastic tie. They then took me outside and asked me to walk in front of the soldiers.”
Human rights barrister
As everyone who uses the word should know, antisemitism means hatred of Jewish people in general, and it is the vilest and most destructive form of race hatred. It is not constituted by condemning the policy or the war tactics of the Israeli government. Dutton’s attempt to conflate the two, and his call on the Australian government to withhold support from an independent international justice process, is shameful.
And history would note the irony that a law forged at Nuremberg to prevent repetition of the sufferings of millions of Jewish people was, 77 years later, dodged and despised by none other than the leader of Israel.
It is no fault of the military personnel. Biden was warned that high seas made his aid pier impractical, and with the arrogance of Washington, he ignored the warnings. He was trying to do a favor for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom an arrest warrant has been requested by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor. Netanyahu’s government will fall if the Israeli equivalent of Neo-Nazis in the cabinet withdraw, and they say they will withdraw unless Netanyahu starves all the people of Gaza to death. Of course, 2.2 million emaciated dead bodies would be rather an embarrassment, as well, putting Netanyahu in striking distance of Cambodian genocidaire Pol Pot’s record. So Biden is trying to get the aid in by sea and to have the US take the blame for there still being any Palestinians.
Her death was added to the dark statistic of more than 140 journalists and medical workers murdered in Gaza by Israel’s genocidal onslaught, per the count maintained by the Gaza Media Office. This year – like last – more journalists have been killed from Palestine than from any other nation.
Source: Remembering Palestinian journalist Amna Homaid | Israel-Palestine conflict | Al Jazeera
Yet, just a year ago, when the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another Russian official for alleged international crimes in the Ukraine war, US officials were full of praise for the court. Biden welcomed the action, calling it “justified”.
Source: Hypocrisy: Washington supports the Int’l Criminal Court only when it suits US Interests
Our mainstream media is acting like state propaganda for an authoritarian regime when it comes to Israel and Gaza. Here are six of the worst examples.
Source: On Gaza, the Media Constantly Parrots the US Government Line
Unfortunately voting “No” in the recent referendum suggests we still do.
We must make it clear to the current Israeli administration that our nation can no longer accept its actions and certainly do not “share its values “
As the International Court of Justice was preparing to release its most recent directive to Israel, Prime Minister Albanese made an encouraging statement declaring that Australia was a sovereign state and would chart its own course, so let us hope that means being guided by international law and the humanity of Australians.
OOPS! WE’LL INVESTIGATE, CRY THE DOGS OF WAR ONCE AGAIN, & THE CAMP FOLLOWERS, BOW OBEDIENTLY TO REPORT WHAT THEY’RE TOLD TO
For Australia, the urgent challenge is when will we act independently and not be associated with war crimes and genocide.
Source: Australian moral failure on Gaza – Pearls and Irritations
Gideon Levy lives with an armour-plated target on his back
“For 57 years, Israel has been maintaining a regime of wrongdoing and evil, and now, at last, the world is waking up and starting to act against it. Will it also be able to wake up at least some Israelis from their heedless, twisted sense of justice?” writes senior Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy.
According to Mekelberg, a lot has to do with the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a key factor being the fact that it is the most far-right in history. “Plus there is the continuous building of settlements and settler violence, which sends the message to the international community that… the government has no interest in peace.”
Source: How Israel’s Shift to the Ultra-Far Right is Leading European Nations to Recognize Palestine
Once you get into the text, however, the review is withering, arguing that the lawbreakers have become the law makers:
“Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister and the official in Netanyahu’s government with oversight over the West Bank, was arrested in 2005 by the Shin Bet domestic security service for plotting road blockages to halt the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. He was released with no charges. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, had been convicted multiple times for supporting terrorist organisations and, in front of television cameras in 1995, vaguely threatened the life of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was murdered weeks later by an Israeli student.”
Subsequently, the writers note that:
“Prime Minister Rabin was murdered after rabbis passed what amounted to a death sentence on him for his support of the Oslo peace process.”
Source: The New York Times explains how gangsters now Govern Israel – Pearls and Irritations
When Netanyahu says he’s not in the business of destroying civil society he is. That’s Israeli speak in 2024 and will be remembered and written in the historical record
This war has created a new environment of massive destruction of civil society such as schools, hospitals and institutions. In other words, it has destroyed everything for the Palestinians to live in dignity and peace.
Source: The destruction of an entire civil society on the Gaza Strip
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor chief of communications Muhammad Shehada noted that “Israeli media is gloating that Israel’s response to the ICJ order to halt its Rafah offensive is a series of unusual ‘belt of fire’ attacks in the heart of Rafah,” explaining that the term means “indiscriminately bombing an area with a huge amount of simultaneous airstrikes.”
There were also reports of Israeli strikes in other parts of the Palestinian territory including Gaza City and the Jabalia refugee camp.
Source: Israel’s Response to ICJ Order to Halt Rafah Assault? More Bombing | Common Dreams
For the past 7months, Israel and Russia have indulged themselves in terrorist linguistics. Israel in particular has used the the power of the press to close down not just media but individuals with any influence particularly Politicians with potential agency
Victim-blaming, denial and reversal are among the tactics used by terrorists to justify their violent actions and influence audience perceptions of harm and agency, according to a new Charles Darwin University (CDU) study examining the language of some of the world’s most notorious individuals.
Money buys those that say Yes
. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who caucuses with Democrats—indicating Wednesday that he would boycott any address by the prime minister and calling the invitation “a terrible idea.”
Sanders told CNN‘s Kaitlan Collins: “Look, you have a prime minister who has created the worst humanitarian disaster in modern history. Israel, of course, had the right to defend itself against the Hamas terrorist attack, but what Netanyahu has done is go to war against—all-out war—against the entire Palestinian people, women and children.”
“Five percent of the population is now dead or wounded. Sixty percent of them are women and children. Some 200,000 housing units have been completely destroyed,” he continued. “Every university in Gaza has been bombed. There is now imminent starvation taking place.”
“So why you would invite somebody who has done such horrific things to the Palestinian people?” Sanders added. “I think it’s a very bad idea.”
Source: More House Democrats Say ‘No’ to Netanyahu Speech to Congress | Common Dreams
Source: ‘The international legal order needs repair — and Gaza is a part of this’
Colonialism failed indigenous Australians who have had a continuous genetic and lived connection to the land for 75 years. Their land rights were usurped and unrecognized from 1778- 1992. Australians recently had the opportunity to recognize and reverse the injustice done in the referendum on the Voice but voted “No”.
Zionists have been Colonizing and voting “No” at the point of a gun continuously for less than 100 years and have been doing it in the 21st Century with the support of America in denial of the majority of nations and peoples of the world
Whether it is through more subtle means, as Biden prefers, or the all-out and blatant assault on the rule of law preferred by Republicans, the end result will be the same. This is a moment of truth for the ICC and for international law in general. The world has already failed Gaza, as it has failed Palestine for a century. If there can at least be some justice after the fact, there might at least be something to build a better world on.
Source: Biden and Congress Are Destroying International Law for Israel – ScheerPost
The United Nations’ top court has issued a dramatic ruling demanding Israel “immediately halt” its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, with the humanitarian situation now “disastrous”.
Let me introduce myself. I am a child of Holocaust survivors. My mother survived Auschwitz and my father fought the Nazi war machine as a partisan during the Second World War. Ninety-eight percent of my extended family perished during the Holocaust.
Do not fall into this trap of meaninglessness and an unfulfilled life. You, the vice-chancellors of Australian Universities, have a chance right now to prove your life meaningful not only to yourselves, but also to the people of Australia by making sure that this war of annihilation against the Palestinian people ends and that the means for the continuation of this war end immediately.
The Biden administration has reportedly approved of an Israeli assault on Rafah, the last slightly safe city in the Gaza Strip, and is openly preparing to work with Congress to punish the International Criminal Court for seeking arrest warrants of Israeli officials for war crimes. Biden is a monster who belongs in a cell at The Hague.
The Israeli government seized media equipment from the Associated Press after the news outlet refused to quit broadcasting a live shot of northern Gaza.
Source: Israeli Government Seizes AP’s Media Equipment in Latest Act of Censorship – ScheerPost
Why have overwhelmingly peaceful demonstrations against a foreign power’s actions been met with such a heavy-handed response? A MintPress News investigation finds that those same elite institutions have deep financial and ideological ties to the state of Israel, are funded by pro-Israel billionaires who have demanded they take action to crush the student movement, are partially funded by the Israeli government, and exist in a climate where Washington has made it clear that the protests should not be tolerated.
Source: Follow the Money: How Israel-Linked Billionaires Silenced US Campus Protests – ScheerPost
Is this an IDF battalion or AIPAC’s mercenary division
The battalion is also notorious for its alleged abuses of Palestinians and human rights violations in the West Bank, including an incident that led to the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American man in 2022. These allegations landed the group, formally known as the Nahal Haredi, on a short list of IDF units that Secretary of State Antony Blinken intended to sanction last month. That move would have cut off the battalion’s supply of U.S. weapons and other military aid — until the Biden administration backed away from those plans under pressure from Israeli officials.
But the battalion has another reliable source of international support: a charitable nonprofit in the U.S.
Source: The AIPAC Donor Who Funnels Millions to a Controversial IDF Unit
Such arguments echo an old trope. The two administrations of George W. Bush spilled much ink in justifying the torture, enforced disappearance and renditions of terror suspects to third countries during its declared Global War on Terror. Lawyers in both the White House and Justice Department gave their professional blessing, adopting an expansive definition of executive power in defiance of international laws and protections. Such sacred documents as the Geneva Conventions could be defied when facing Islamist terrorism.
Lurking beneath such justifications is the snobbery of exceptionalism, the conceit of power. Civilised liberal democracies, when battling the forces of a named barbarism, are to be treated as special cases in the world of international humanitarian law. The ICC prosecutor begs to differ.
Again Netanyahu goes against the majority of ISRAEL
The concept has long been supported by the US and its allies, as well as most Arab states and the United Nations. In 2017, Hamas amended its charter to accept the existence of Israel based on borders established after the six-day war in 1967. It reportedly indicated recently a willingness to disarm if a Palestinian state were established. But the present Israeli government led by the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu remains implacably opposed to a two-state solution.
But there is a far more important point than all the minutiae above: The whole exercise of asking whether these numbers are accurate is just distraction and obfuscation. According to the main monitor of major food insecurity in the world, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, an estimated 1 million Gazans—half the population—are now in catastrophic food insecurity and famine conditions. This means approximately 6,000 deaths per month from starvation, half of them in children under the age of five. And none of these people are included in these statistics. Alex de Waal warned in March: “Gaza is already the most intense starvation catastrophe of recent decades… Famine is unfolding in Gaza today. We should not have to wait until we count the graves of children to speak its name.”
Cease-fire now.
Twelve Palestinians, including a doctor, a schoolteacher and at least four children, have been killed by Israel during the incursion. Israeli fire has wounded at least 25 Palestinians, with some sustaining severe injuries.
Source: Doctor, teacher and children killed by Israel in Jenin | The Electronic Intifada
Israel’s foreign minister issued a blunt threat of “severe consequences” for the countries of Norway, Ireland, and Spain—and presumably other nations that may follow—after the trio announced their decision Wednesday to formally recognize a Palestinian state.
“Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu is still turning a blind eye and bombing hospitals, schools, andhomes,” Sánchez declared. “He is still using hunger, cold and terror to punish more than a million innocent boys and girls—and things have gone so far that prosecutors at the International Criminal Court have this week sought his arrest for war crimes.”
Source: Israel Threatens ‘Severe Consequences’ for Nations Who Recognize Palestine | Common Dreams
Many Israelis seem willing to sacrifice their own civilians on the altar of Zionism – and sometimes even themselves too.
As The Electronic Intifada has reported in detail since the Palestinian military assault that started on 7 October, Israel that day reactivated its suicidal (and homicidal) “Hannibal Directive.”
https://electronicintifada.net/content/israels-national-murder-suicide-pact/46006
Netanyahu also has claimed that Israeli forces have already wiped out 19 of 24 Hamas battalions in Gaza. However, US officials told Politico that only about one-third of Hamas fighters have been killed since the war began in October, and around 65% of the militant group’s tunnels remain intact. Hamas also has recruited thousands of new members amid the fighting with Israel
Source: Israel scales back Rafah offensive – media — RT World News
The only way forward, he said, “is to replace Bibi and the extremist government with a centrist, pragmatic government. Short of replacing Bibi and his current coalition, it is difficult to see how Israel’s strategic defeat in Gaza can be transformed into a meaningful victory.”
Source: The pattern of Bibi’s desperate proposals – Pearls and Irritations
She wrote, ““More than four months ago, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asked me to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza. I agreed and joined a panel of international legal experts to undertake this task. Together we have engaged in an extensive process of evidence review and legal analysis including at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.”
Source: Amal Clooney backs ICC call for Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu
To the Palestinians she defended in military courts, she was known simply as Tamar. Often dressed in black, she was instantly recognizable by her short-cropped white hair, glasses, and her ever-ready smile that would often give way to a chuckle. Tamar Pelleg-Sryck was a lawyer, a fierce human rights defender, a principled opponent of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and a wonderful human being whose drive, intellect, and youthfulness never strayed, even in old age. On March 11, Tamar passed away at the age of 97.
Source: In memory of an Israeli lawyer who never lost her moral purpose
StoryMay 22, 2024
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