Category: Israel

Israel

The stark monuments of conflict in Israel and Palestine – Pearls and Irritations

Tell es-Safi excavations Image: Wikimedia Commons/By Ori~ - Own work, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8945813

Today despite the Palestinian Authority’s responsibility for archaeology and heritage in the West Bank, the Israel Antiquities Authority has taken up the management of many sites in the occupied territories. The Israeli non-profit organisation Emek Shaveh has lobbied long and consistently against the interventions of Israeli archaeology beyond its internationally recognised remit. Meanwhile leading US scholars have recently drawn attention to the substantial destruction of cultural heritage arising from Israel’s current attack on the people of Gaza.

Source: The stark monuments of conflict in Israel and Palestine – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Weaponising underwear: Genocide with a semi-pornographic twist | Israel War on Gaza | Al Jazeera

An Israeli soldier stands in an apartment during a ground operation in the Gaza Strip,

Let’s pretend for a moment that, in the course of waging war against the state of Israel, Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip had taken to posing for social media posts with lingerie belonging to Israeli women who had been forced to flee their homes and/or killed in the war.

Source: Weaponising underwear: Genocide with a semi-pornographic twist | Israel War on Gaza | Al Jazeera

Israel

Israeli Scholar Neve Gordon on Israeli Mass Surveillance in Gaza & the Use of AI to Kill Palestinians | Democracy Now!

Gordon talks about the “massive surveillance apparatus” Israel has imposed on Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, the use of artificial intelligence tools to bomb targets despite the high error rate in those systems, and the shock of the October 7 attack by Hamas that killed some 1,200 Israelis. “The state seemed not to be functioning, so most Israelis were in great pain, were in great fear,” he says. “My fear is that most Israelis are still trapped, still stuck in that October 7th moment and unwilling to lift their eyes to see basically the genocide unfolding in the Gaza Strip.”

Source: Israeli Scholar Neve Gordon on Israeli Mass Surveillance in Gaza & the Use of AI to Kill Palestinians | Democracy Now!

Israel

‘Genocidal Actions’ Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow | Common Dreams

Palestinian children holding banners and empty bowl

But as The Guardian reported Friday, the Ashdod port has not been opened yet, and instead of opening the Erez crossing last Sunday as promised, Israel has opened another crossing into northern Gaza but has not yet allowed U.N. agencies to use it.

“It’s very easy for Israel to say, ‘We’ve sent you 1,000 trucks so please deliver them inside Gaza,'” McGoldrick said, noting that Israel has held trucks up at checkpoints “for hours” and that many roads are not open to deliveries. 

Source: ‘Genocidal Actions’ Persist in Gaza as Israel Blocks Aid and US Weapons Flow | Common Dreams

Israel

Opinion | Israel Kills Gaza Aid Workers for a Reason: Ethnic Cleansing | Common Dreams

World Central Kitchen vehicle

Source: Opinion | Israel Kills Gaza Aid Workers for a Reason: Ethnic Cleansing | Common Dreams

Israel

Vijay Prashad: Violating Diplomatic Missions

Violence traverses the world like a new pandemic not only in Gaza, but spreading outward to this brewing conflict around Ecuador and the ugliness of the wars in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, and the continuing stalemate in Ukraine. 

Source: Vijay Prashad: Violating Diplomatic Missions

Israel

Zionism Killed the Jewish-Muslim World

In an interview with Jacobin, filmmaker and academic Ariella Aïsha Azoulay traces how Western powers’ exploitation of Zionism led not just to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine but to the demise of Jewish communities across the Middle East.

Source: Zionism Killed the Jewish-Muslim World

Israel

Opinion | As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

European Hospital in Gaza

On March 25 the two of us, an orthopedic surgeon and a trauma surgeon, traveled to the Gaza Strip to work at Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis. We were immediately overwhelmed by the overflown sewage and the distinct smell of gunpowder in the air. We made the short journey from the Rafah crossing to Khan Younis, where Gaza European Hospital stands as one of the last remaining semi-functional hospitals for the 2.5 million human beings—half of them children—in the Gaza Strip. As humanitarian surgeons we thought we had seen all manner of cruelty in the world, but neither one of us has ever experienced anything like what we found when we arrived in Gaza.

Source: Opinion | As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

Israel

Gazans return to decimated Khan Younis

Palestinians return to inspect their homes in Khan Younis after the Israeli army withdrew from the area, southern Gaza Strip, April 8, 2024. (Atia Mohammed/Flash90)

The voice of Israel can be heard in the background calling for “voluntary migration” The American Pit Bull was allowed out to play hard.

“Unfortunately, the occupation has distorted this beautiful city. I do not know how it will rise again and return to its vitality. The destruction is enormous and cannot be described in words. But I will wait for the water lines to be extended in the area, and I will put up a tent and sleep in it with my children.”

Source: Gazans return to decimated Khan Younis

Israel, Israel Crimes

Israel and US deliberately gutting international law in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada

A man with a bandaged head sits on a mattress in a debris-filled street

Israel’s forces withdrew from the vicinity of Gaza’s largest and most important hospital after perpetrating what may be one of the worst massacres in Palestinian history; an Israeli attack destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, killing 12, including two Iranian generals; and Israeli personnel killed seven aid workers, including nationals of some of Israel’s closest allies, in central Gaza while they were undertaking an aid mission coordinated with the military.

“Israel is crossing every possible red line, still with full impunity,” Albanese said the following day.

“Sanctions now. Indictments now,” she added.

In the absence of such accountability measures for past and ongoing rights violations, and enabled by decades of impunity, Israel’s total war on Palestinians in Gaza is also a war on the principles of international law, the impact of which will surely be profound.

Redress for Israel’s crimes in Gaza, aided and abetted by the US, Germany, UK and others, would have to address the violations of Palestinians’ individual and collective rights and the original sin of Zionist colonization of their land.

“The ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all,” Albanese says, referring to the genocidal expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland during the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948.

“This is an imperative owed to the victims of this highly preventable tragedy, and to future generations in that land.”

Source: Israel and US deliberately gutting international law in Gaza | The Electronic Intifada

Israel

Countries like Australia are Floating the idea of Recognizing Palestine to push Peace

 

Foreign Minister Penny Wong has taken Australian policy a modest step towards embracing recognition of a Palestine state ahead of a two-state solution, as a pathway to a lasting Middle East peace.

“At the same time, [Opposition Leader Peter] Dutton reflexively dismisses concern for Palestinians as ‘Hamas sympathising’. On this, and in his approach to the world, Mr Dutton needs to decide if he wants to be a leader in difficult times – or if he wants to continue being a wrecking ball, making those times even more difficult.”

Source: Countries like Australia are Floating the idea of Recognizing Palestine to push Peace

Israel, Israel Crimes

USAID Chief Admits Famine Is Underway in Gaza as US Keeps Arming Israel | Common Dreams

USAID Administrator Samantha Power

“In northern Gaza, the rate of malnutrition prior to October 7th was almost zero, and it is now one in three—one in three kids,” said Samantha Power

Source: USAID Chief Admits Famine Is Underway in Gaza as US Keeps Arming Israel | Common Dreams

Israel

Risking Jail in Egypt to Advocate for Gazans

Hundreds of Egyptians are pressuring their government to let them form an international civilian convoy to escort lifesaving humanitarian aid into Gaza after six months of deprivation has pushed many to the brink of starvation if not famine.

Source: Risking Jail in Egypt to Advocate for Gazans

Israel, Israel Crimes

Against the magnitude of death, our pens feel powerless in Gaza

Palestinians wait to receive the bodies of their relatives who were killed in an Israeli airstrike at Al-Najjar Hospital, in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, October 24, 2023. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

And as if that weren’t enough, I’ve also had to deal with the martyrdom of my brother, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 14, and the month-long detention of my father by Israeli forces. These events have deeply affected my heart, changed my personality, and severely impacted my mental state. I have become inclined toward silence, and struggle with the inability to carry out my journalistic tasks. No matter what we write, our pens feel powerless in the face of the magnitude of death, destruction, and fear that we’re living through.

Source: Against the magnitude of death, our pens feel powerless in Gaza

Israel, Israel Crimes

These Stunning Images Show Palestinian Life Before the Nakba

Palestinian delegation departing from Lydda to participate in the First Conference of Arab Women in Cairo, October 12, 1938. (The G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection)

Zionist propaganda refers to pre-1948 Palestine as a “land without a people.” A new photographic collection pushes back against this erasure of Palestinian history — and shows the vitality of its society before the Nakba.

Girls pushing their belongings in strollers and wheelbarrows and fleeing Jaffa, 1948. (UNRWA Archives)

Source: These Stunning Images Show Palestinian Life Before the Nakba

Israel

It is time to de-demonise Hamas – Pearls and Irritations

israel and hamas flags painted over cracked concrete wall.And lava flows behind.israel vs hamas war. Image: iStock/ sameer chogale

Can we think our way past the mental slavery imposed on us by the Western elites’ massive global PR machine that has invested billions in getting you to connote “Hamas” with “evil” – and the inverse: that Israel is somehow a plucky battler fighting for democracy in a rough neighbourhood?

Sheikh Ahmad Yassin the first leader of Hamas said some time before his assassination in 2004: “The intifada will go on and the suffering of the Palestinian people will continue. But so will our absolute determination to pursue the struggle”.

It is time to de-demonise Hamas.

Source: It is time to de-demonise Hamas – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Amid Gaza War, U.S. Campuses Become Free Speech “Testing Ground”

in_student-protests_20240410

Protests at universities are now being met with a wave of censorship and suppression, targeting students most directly.

Source: Amid Gaza War, U.S. Campuses Become Free Speech “Testing Ground”

Israel

Death by Algorithm: Israel’s AI War in Gaza – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Remorseless killing at the initiation of artificial intelligence has been the subject of nail-biting concern for various members of computer-digital cosmos. Be wary of such machines in war and their displacing potential regarding human will and agency. For all that, the advent of AI-driven, automated systems in war has already become a cold-blooded reality, deployed conventionally, and with utmost lethality by human operators.

The UN Secretary General, António Guterres, stated how “deeply troubled” he was by reports that Israel’s bombing campaign had used “artificial intelligence as a tool in the identification of targets, particularly in densely populated residential areas, resulting in a high level of civilian casualties.” It might be far better to see these matters as cases of willing, and reckless misidentification, with a conscious acceptance on the part of IDF military personnel that enormous civilian casualties are simply a matter of course. To that end, we are no longer talking about a form of advanced, scientific war waged proportionately and with precision, but a technologically advanced form of mass murder.

 

Source: Death by Algorithm: Israel’s AI War in Gaza – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Israel, Israel Crimes

The desperate scrabble for food in northern Gaza | The Electronic Intifada

A group of people walk as parachuted packages are visible in the air behind them

As Israel’s military continues to impose famine on Gaza, and without any semblance of law and order, since local police are targets for Israeli soldiers, an estimated 500,000 people who stayed in the north are facing imminent death from starvation.

The few orderly aid distributions that do come through are inevitably organized by the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in coordination with law enforcement – as much as they can – and local clans.

One such moment of relief came in mid-March.

Source: The desperate scrabble for food in northern Gaza | The Electronic Intifada

Israel

Children 44% of Palestinians Killed by Israel Since Oct 7

Medic carries an injured Palestinian child into Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City following an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 11, That hospital is no longer there

Israel has killed 14,350 Palestinian children between Oct. 7 and April 4.  This means children account for 44 percent of all Palestinians killed in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said ahead of Palestinian Child’s Day.

Source: Children 44% of Palestinians Killed by Israel Since Oct 7

Israel

Israel’s Ultimate Goal Is to Make Gaza Unfit for Human Habitation: Middle East Analyst Mouin Rabbani | Democracy Now!

President Biden called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza a “mistake” and urged Israel to call for a temporary ceasefire to allow in more aid in a televised interview on Tuesday. While Israel has pledged to open new aid crossings, the U.N. said on Tuesday that there has been “no significant change in the volume of humanitarian supplies entering Gaza,” and the Biden administration has not actually changed its policies or withheld any arms transfers to Israel. “Words are cheap, and statements are a dime a dozen,” says Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani, who explains Israel can safely ignore statements if policy remains unchanged. “What really matters is not what these people say, but what they do.” Rabbani also speaks about the United Nations considering Palestinian statehood, ongoing negotiations over a Gaza ceasefire, and Israel attacking the Iranian Consulate in Syria.

Source: Israel’s Ultimate Goal Is to Make Gaza Unfit for Human Habitation: Middle East Analyst Mouin Rabbani | Democracy Now!

Israel, Israel Crimes

Over 1,500 North American Academics Condemn Scholasticide in Gaza

The Open Letter makes seven calls to action:

  1. An immediate and permanent ceasefire and immediate and unconditional release of all hostages;
  2. Israel’s compliance with the provisional measures ordered by the International Court of Justice; 
  3. An end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip and its occupation, so that the educational sector can be rebuilt; 
  4. Full access of United Nations agencies to the Occupied Palestinian Territories to carry out independent monitoring, investigation, and humanitarian coordination; 
  5. All States that have suspended funding to UNRWA – the UN agency which runs many of the Strip’s now closed elementary and secondary schools – to immediately resume funding; 
  6. North American universities, governments, NGOs and individual academics to support the reconstruction of educational institutions in Gaza, through financial and in-kind contributions; and 
  7. State and individual accountability under domestic and international law mechanisms.

 

Source: Over 1,500 North American Academics Condemn Scholasticide in Gaza

Israel

Origins of Israel’s Anti-Arab Racism

The founders of modern Zionism were both Jews and Europeans, and (as such) had acquired the West’s cultural sense of superiority in relation to non-Europeans.

This sense of superiority would play an important role when a deal (the Balfour Declaration) was struck in 1917 between the World Zionist Organization and the British Government. The deal stipulated that, in exchange for Zionist support for the British war effort (World War I was in progress), the British would (assuming victory) help create a “Jewish national home” in Palestine. It was no oversight that neither side in this bargain gave much thought to the Palestinian native population.

Source: Origins of Israel’s Anti-Arab Racism

Israel

Opinion | Israel’s AI Targeting System Reflects the Inhumanity It Was Programmed With | Common Dreams

view of the heavily bombed Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.

The rise of AI belies the fantasy that we can escape moral culpability by assigning life-or-death decisions to a machine

Source: Opinion | Israel’s AI Targeting System Reflects the Inhumanity It Was Programmed With | Common Dreams

Israel

Dangerous Deceptions and Outright Lies: Language in the War on Gaza

Israel’s political and military leaders have produced so many outright lies regarding Gaza and Hamas that it might seem there is no point in wasting one’s breath on them. Consider the following statements and the contrary evidence for those not yet convinced:

Source: Dangerous Deceptions and Outright Lies: Language in the War on Gaza

Israel

Israel’s Other Defeat

But Netanyahu’s war remains unwinnable simply because liberation wars, often conducted through guerrilla warfare tactics, are far more complicated than traditional combat. Nearly six months after the Israeli attack on Gaza, it has become clear that Palestinian resistance groups are durable and well-prepared for a much longer fight. 

Netanyahu, supported by far-right ministers and an equally hardline defense minister, Yoav Gallant, insists that more firepower is the answer. Though the unprecedented amount of explosives, used by Israel in Gaza, killed and wounded over 100,000 Palestinians, an Israeli victory, however it is defined, remains elusive.

Most Israelis are calling for new elections this year. If they are to receive their wish today, the pro-Netanyahu coalition would only be able to muster 46 seats, compared to its rivals with 64. 

And, if the Israeli coalition government — currently controlling 72 seats out of 120 Knesset seats — is to collapse, the rightwing dominance over Israeli politics will shatter, likely for a long time.

Source: Israel’s Other Defeat

Israel

Netanyahu isn’t the only one interested in prolonging the war

An Israeli soldier walks past a wall of photographs of Israelis still held hostage in Gaza, at "Hostage Square" in Tel Aviv, March 10, 2024. (Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

This new normal, which for now seems impossible to break through, did not appear out of nowhere. Rather, it is actively being produced, every single day, by those who have an interest in maintaining it — a broad coalition of individuals and groups each with distinct motivations. 

 1 ) If they can notch a few victories in the war, perhaps, they hope, they will not go down in history as the worst leaders Israel ever had. So they talk about a war that will last for years.

2) Netanyahu’s Coalition

3) Biden

Source: Netanyahu isn’t the only one interested in prolonging the war

Israel, Israel Crimes

Stopping Israel’s genocide – Pearls and Irritations

Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) - Reading of the Order of the Court on the request for the indication of provisional measures submitted by South Africa

The order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 28 March 2024 to stop genocide in Gaza is not a go-to-jail card for Israel. So Israel just ignored it. In so doing, it followed the example of the US which had ignored an ICJ decision against the US and in favour of Nicaragua in 1986 and, again, in 2004, in favour of Mexico.

Both Israel and the US show by conduct they believe they are above international law and the “rules-based order”. The difference here is that Israel is continuing to commit what the UN Human Rights rapporteur has called “the crime of all crimes.”

Last but not least, Israel and the US are increasingly being seen for what they are, viz two pariah states disregarding International law and the international system. Long term and serious negative consequences may flow from this. For example, Israel’s biblical-based claim to exist may be seen as an invalid excuse for genocide and the forceful and illegal taking of land lawfully inhabited and owned by others. For US hegemony, Israel’s genocide in Gaza will be another nail added to its coffin.

Source: Stopping Israel’s genocide – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Israel’s Spy-Tech Industry Is a Global Threat to Democracy

That’s their “Pitch”. How is it that they failed so badly in Gaza these past 20 years?  If we assume they didn’t then this war was no surprise to Israel in fact it was planned and intended. If it wasn’t then their surveillance industries are a scam

Israel has developed one of the most advanced surveillance industries in the world. With government support, companies like the NSO Group have been offering their services to authoritarian regimes to help them clamp down on political dissent.

Source: Israel’s Spy-Tech Industry Is a Global Threat to Democracy

Israel

A “Herculean” Task: Can Gaza ever be Rebuilt?

“Voluntary Immigration” an Israeli term developed for after total destruction of Gaza

Rebuilding cities facing cascading crises the nature of which Gaza is confronted with is a daunting prospect. And while the task may seem insurmountable at the present, with cooperation, coordination and courage it is not unachievable.

But it is a challenge that becomes that much more difficult with each day that the war in Gaza goes on.The Conversation

Source: A “Herculean” Task: Can Gaza ever be Rebuilt?

Israel

Nancy Fraser: Germany Canceled Me for Supporting Palestine

Cologne University has canceled philosopher Nancy Fraser’s planned visiting professorship after learning she signed a pro-Palestine letter. In her first interview after the cancellation, Fraser says she won’t let Germany stop her from standing up for Palestine.

Source: Nancy Fraser: Germany Canceled Me for Supporting Palestine

Israel

Terror Hunters Trade Hamas for ISIS-K, Perhaps With Some Relief

gettyimages-2071898004-e1712616164119-1

Distraction, Deflection, We can’t do two things at once. Forget Gaza.

For the feds, ISIS-K as the new domestic terrorism threat avoids dealing with the politics of the Gaza war.

Source: Terror Hunters Trade Hamas for ISIS-K, Perhaps With Some Relief

Israel

The Wretched of Palestine: Frantz Fanon Diagnosed the Pathology of Colonialism and Urged Revolutionary Humanism

 

Despite this apparent disconnect, we read Fanon today for his startlingly prescient analysis of contemporary ills: the enduring trauma of racism, the persistent plague of white supremacy and xenophobia, the scourge of authoritarianism, and the savagery of colonial domination. Poetic, enraged, and insubordinate, Frantz Fanon gave voice to the anguish of the colonized voiceless and his words continue to resonate with a new global “wretched of the earth.”

Source: The Wretched of Palestine: Frantz Fanon Diagnosed the Pathology of Colonialism and Urged Revolutionary Humanism

Israel, Israel Crimes

Opinion | ‘Self-Defense’ Is No Justification for Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

Gaza women mourn slain civilians

The Palestinian people—not just Hamas—have been Israel’s intended targets all along

Source: Opinion | ‘Self-Defense’ Is No Justification for Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

Israel

Facing enormous pressure at home and abroad, how much longer can Israel continue its war in Gaza?

 

Biden’s plan for a political settlement in the territory is for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to be revitalised and take over management of Gaza after Hamas’s defeat. How that might be achieved given the Palestinian Authority has little credibility with Palestinians and even less with Israelis is not at all clear.

Even more worryingly, Hamas’s demise still seems a long way off.

Source: Facing enormous pressure at home and abroad, how much longer can Israel continue its war in Gaza?

Israel

Gazan doctors forced to choose which children to save – » The Australian Independent Media Network

“It is difficult for us to choose a child and give them priority over another child so that they can live”: Doctors forced to make heartbreaking decisions over babies’ lives in Gaza amid soaring demand and equipment shortage.

Source: Gazan doctors forced to choose which children to save – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Israel

Germany is Becoming a Police State When It Comes to Palestine Activism – ScheerPost

At 6 a.m. on March 22, pro-Palestinian activists Said and Yasemin, who were asleep in their respective Berlin homes, were awakened by armed and masked police officers who broke down their doors at the same time. Berlin police then looked through their belongings and confiscated their electronic devices, including their phones. The simultaneous raid was to deter one from communicating with or warning the other.

In a series of posts on social media, Said said that this raid was the police’s third visit and he maintains that he is being targeted for his activism and that he did nothing wrong. “I am not okay,” he wrote, “Why is the German government trying everything possible to criminalize me? I have done nothing wrong. I make the German government and the media responsible for everything that might happen to me!” 

Source: Germany is Becoming a Police State When It Comes to Palestine Activism – ScheerPost

Israel

Six months of this cruel nightmare

Palestinians at the site of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, March 18, 2024. (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90)

I pray that the war will end so that we can think about what comes next, and have the energy to contend with the new suffering that awaits us in getting used to life in a devastated, ruined Gaza.

Source: Six months of this cruel nightmare

Israel

Six months on, Gaza is a “betrayal of humanity” | – IMEMC News

 

  • Eight out of 10 schools in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, UNICEF says.
  • 625,000 students have no access to education, the UN says.
  • 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says.
  • More than 50,000 children are estimated to be acutely malnourished in Gaza, the UN says.
  • 30 percent of children under two years in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished, the World Food Programme says.
  • 31 children have died from starvation and hunger, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says.
  • More than 200 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer says.

Source: Six months on, Gaza is a “betrayal of humanity” | – IMEMC News

Israel

Propaganda Blitzkrieg: Israel followed Australia’s textbook on how to respond to war crimes allegations – Michael West

zomi franckcom

“The IDF three-day information operation had the same precision, tempo and effectiveness as the initial kinetic attack” of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and her 6 World Central Kitchen colleagues, writes Stuart McCarthy, and it channels the ADF propaganda model in Afghanistan.

The Albanese government is now adrift in the whirlwind of Australia’s abject failure to hold its top generals to account for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Source: Propaganda Blitzkrieg: Israel followed Australia’s textbook on how to respond to war crimes allegations – Michael West

Israel, Israel Crimes

José Andrés Frustrated It Took Foreign Aid Workers’ Deaths To Spark Outrage Over Gaza | HuffPost Latest News

jose

“I want to thank, obviously, the IDF for doing such a quick investigation,” Andrés said. “But at the same time, I will say something so complicated, the investigation should be much more deeper. And I would say that the perpetrator cannot be investigating himself.”

Source: José Andrés Frustrated It Took Foreign Aid Workers’ Deaths To Spark Outrage Over Gaza | HuffPost Latest News

Israel

Opinion | Israel’s Aid Capitulation Exposes the Lie Behind Biden’s Gaza Policy | Common Dreams

Humanitarian aid trucks line up at Rafah crossing

The Biden administration has insisted there’s very little it can do to alter policy in the region and acted as though Israel’s policy decisions are unconnected to the United States, the country that gives them more than $4 billion a year in military aid.

Source: Opinion | Israel’s Aid Capitulation Exposes the Lie Behind Biden’s Gaza Policy | Common Dreams

Israel

Witness to horror upon horror, I scream underwater – Pearls and Irritations

A general view as Palestinians inspect the damage at and near Al-Shifa Hospital after the Israeli army withdrew from it following a two-week military operation, in Gaza City, 01 April 2024. An Israeli army spokesperson reported that Israeli forces completed operations at Al-Shifa hospital with about 500 affiliated suspects arrested and 200 eliminated. More than 32,700 Palestinians and over 1,450 Israelis have been killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), since Hamas militants launched an attack against Israel from the Gaza Strip on 07 October 2023, and the Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank which followed it. Image: AAP/EPA/MOHAMED HAJJAR

I feel like I’m screaming underwater. Why aren’t the other 193 countries in the world screaming above the water line as they witness this horror right in front of their eyes? Why aren’t more leaders made of strong moral fibre which should naturally be horrified by the actions of the U.S. and Israel?

Source: Witness to horror upon horror, I scream underwater – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Australia’s shameful military ties to Israel under scrutiny after killing of aid worker

The murder of an Australian humanitarian worker in Gaza has again highlighted the deplorable hypocrisy of our Defence Department’s ties to Israel, Dr Binoy Kampmark writes.

Any such equivalent investigation into the IDF personnel responsible for the killing of Frankcom and her colleagues is unlikely. When the IDF talks of comprehensive reviews, we know exactly how comprehensively slanted they will be.

Source: Australia’s shameful military ties to Israel under scrutiny after killing of aid worker

Israel

Australia’s disgraceful diversion of responsibility over Gaza war crimes – Pearls and Irritations

Rafah, Gaza. 21st Feb, 2024. Smoke billows in the sky following Israeli bombardment on Alfaroq Mosque in Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday, February 22, 2024. Image: Alamy / Ismael Mohamad/UPI Credit: UPI/Alamy Live News

That no sanctions have even been proposed by Australia is dumbfounding given the litany of clearly unjustified acts of war inflicted upon the Palestinians. Since October 7 Netanyahu’s ‘inevitable consequences of war’ has meant:

  • 203 aid workers killed of whom 95% were Palestinian (this figure is higher than the total number of aid worker fatalities that typically occur annually worldwide)
  • More United Nations aid workers have been killed in Gaza than in any other single conflict in the organisation’s 78-year history
  • 102 UNWRA aid workers killed and 27 others wounded
  • UNRWA’s facilities have been hit over 290 times in the hostilities,
  • 374 medical personnel have been killed
  • 120 ambulances have been completely destroyed.
  • 12 of 35 hospitals are only partially functioning
  • 51 of 72 primary medical care facilities are closed.
  • Hospitals and other vital medical infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank have been attacked nearly 600 times
  • 613 people have died within health facilities (of which seven were in the West Bank) and more than 770 have been injured, (WHO)
  • In the West Bank, 286 attacks caused seven deaths and 52 injuries. Some 24 health facilities were affected along with 212 ambulances
  • At least 95 journalists have been killed according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in what has been the deadliest period for journalists since the NGO began tracking casualties in 1992.

The above translates to an Israeli army for which the rules of engagement are being ignored at will – an army totally out of control.

Source: Australia’s disgraceful diversion of responsibility over Gaza war crimes – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

The Gaza Massacre Is Undermining the Culture of Democracy

Israel’s supporters have repeatedly invoked the memory of Nazi genocide to legitimize mass murder of civilians in Gaza. Historian Enzo Traverso warns that the cynical misuse of Holocaust remembrance poses a grave danger to our global democratic culture.

“No one ever mentions the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves against an aggression that has lasted for decades.”

Source: The Gaza Massacre Is Undermining the Culture of Democracy

Israel

The one state solution – Pearls and Irritations

Palestine-Israel. Concept

It cannot happen overnight, but commitment must be made to bring into existence a new nation of Palestinians and Israelis living together, with equal human rights, equal voting rights, equal access to health and education, even the right to drive on the same roads. It will not be easy, but it can and must be done, urgently, for all our sakes.

Source: The one state solution – Pearls and Irritations

Israel

Israel on the Brink as Ultra-Orthodox Exemption from Military Service is Set to End

The Bibi government is like to fall soon, a consequence of political over-reach for an untenable situation, and his own brand of hubris-chutzpah. After a series of inconsequential elections and back room bargaining, which yielded no majority; he managed to cobble a fractured government, composed of ministers with competing and conflicting agendas and interests. It was destined to fail from the beginning, and now they face a dilemma certain to bring it down. It’s a matter of time. Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party has declared that if new elections aren’t held by September, his party will leave the government.

Source: Israel on the Brink as Ultra-Orthodox Exemption from Military Service is Set to End

Israel

The Gaza Genocide and The West: Some Inconvenient Truths – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Inconvenient Truth, Part One a): The International Mafia

Inconvenient Truth, Part One b): Israel’s ‘Secret Weapons’

Inconvenient Truth, Part Two: The Hypocrisy of The West

Analysis: Voltaire and Who Rules You

Anyone who thinks the idea that Israel is in control of international affairs is some sort of conspiracy should consider the quote attributed to Voltaire:

If you wish to know who rules you, find out who you are not allowed to criticise

In light of this, the status of Israel as hegemon (leader) in international affairs is no conspiracy. Any and all criticism of Israel has to be premised with statements about ‘Israel having the right to exist and to defend itself’ and ‘I condemn Hamas’. When medicine is given to an animal, it is commonly concealed in food to make it as palatable as possible. The comparison to criticism of Israel needing to premised with the aforementioned statements is apt. And they will still call you an anti-semite.

Conclusion

I realise I have gone for the jugular here, but I do not apologise. Israel is subject to a different standard (read no standards) precisely because it is Israel. If Iran or one of the other so-called ‘rogue nations’ bombed the living hell out of a region to this extent (whatever the provocation) the American and other nations’ response would not be strong words. The response would be a bombardment so vicious that Dresden would say ‘calm down’.

The time has come to remove Israel’s special status and hold them accountable under international law and the laws of war. This will never happen, of course, since setting a precedent of prosecuting war criminals who are ‘the good guys’ (read friends of America) is not in the interest of the international community. As Noam Chomsky said, if the Nuremberg Laws were actually enforced, every post-war US President would hang as a war criminal. Awkward.

This post is likely to cost me a friend or two, but that is ok. Friends like that I can do without. I abhor violence and indiscriminate killing of civilians and children. If condemning that makes me an anti-semite, then HH.

Source: The Gaza Genocide and The West: Some Inconvenient Truths – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Israel

Caitlin Johnstone: Israel’s ‘Human Shields’ Lie

I’d suggest the Hannibal Directive coupled with the Bethlehem Directive are enough to show Israel hasn’t any consideration for innocent lives. Nobody even Israeli citizens aren’t regarded as innocent if caught between the IDF and any declared enemy. The Bethlehem Directive allows mass murder on nothing but a thought bubble. According to the IDF killing the WCK workers was entirely justified what wasn’t was the Hasbara need for an explanation making it look like a mistake.

“A human shield is only a shield if your enemy values human life and seeks to minimize civilian deaths,” Grim adds. “Israel deliberately maximizes the number of civilians it can kill by waiting until a target is with his entire family. Palestinians are not shields to Israel, they are all targets.”

“because of these +972 revelations the lie has now been thoroughly, irrefutably debunked.”

Source: Caitlin Johnstone: Israel’s ‘Human Shields’ Lie