Category: Israel

30 Israeli Groups Urge Global Community to Help Stop Surging West Bank Settler Violence

Bilal Muhammad Saleh

“Unfortunately, the Israeli government is supportive of these attacks and does nothing to stop this violence.”

Source: 30 Israeli Groups Urge Global Community to Help Stop Surging West Bank Settler Violence

For Netanyahu’s Government, Israeli Hostages Are Just a Propaganda Tool

Israel claims its brutal assault on Gaza is justified by the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas. But the Israeli government’s actions suggest that it cares little about the hostages’ well-being — and more about using them as anti-Palestinian propaganda.

Thousands of Palestinian day laborers from Gaza are stranded in Israel amid the explosion in violence. Israel has revoked their work permits, and their families fear they may be imprisoned — or worse.

Source: For Netanyahu’s Government, Israeli Hostages Are Just a Propaganda Tool

and

Thousands of Palestinian Workers Have Gone Missing in Israel

The Hannibal Directive: What Really Happened On October 7th – scheerpost.com

It starts to make sense why Netanyahu wants laws passed preventing Journalists and media from publishing non-government-approved reports that may “harm the State”

The case builds that Israel may have invoked its infamous ‘Hannibal directive’, which requires that the army kill Israelis rather than let them be taken hostage

The complex and evolving narrative surrounding the October 7 events has raised doubts about the justifications for Israel’s brutal military response in Gaza. As the situation continues to unfold, it becomes increasingly apparent that the true story of that day may not be as straightforward as initially portrayed.

Source: The Hannibal Directive: What Really Happened On October 7th – scheerpost.com

October 7 Testimonies Reveal Israel’s Military ‘Shelling’ Israeli Citizens With Tanks, Missiles – scheerpost.com

Who Killed the 1400 Israelis?

Several new testimonies by Israeli witnesses to the October 7 Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel adds to growing evidence that the Israeli military killed its own citizens as they fought to neutralize Palestinian gunmen.

Source: October 7 Testimonies Reveal Israel’s Military ‘Shelling’ Israeli Citizens With Tanks, Missiles – scheerpost.com

The Hannibal Directive: What Really Happened On October 7th.. More information is coming out

. This is a key piece of context missing from mainstream corporate media reporting on October 7th.

With 7,300+ Gazans Dead, Israeli PM Adviser Says ‘Tonight We Are Starting Payback’

Gazans mourn victims of Israeli airstrikes

Medical authorities in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.3 million people, said on Sunday 8005 people – including 3324 minors – had been killed.

Clearly undeterred by the mounting civilian death toll and global calls for a cease-fire three weeks into Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip, an adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Friday that “tonight we are starting payback.”

Source: With 7,300+ Gazans Dead, Israeli PM Adviser Says ‘Tonight We Are Starting Payback’

The Lights Are Off in Gaza

Israel turned off the lights, cut the phone lines, and shut off the internet to Gaza on Friday night, plunging the region into darkness and isolation before launching a ground invasion. Only those inside know what’s happening there.

Source: The Lights Are Off in Gaza

Obscuring Mass Murder

As Israeli siege warfare cuts Gazans off from both electricity and communications, we’re seeing the lights go out in Gaza in more ways than one, writes Caitlin Johnstone.

Source: Obscuring Mass Murder

Military Contractors Are Framing the Israeli War on Gaza as a Win for Investors

Eisenhower the General who became President warned the world against the Industrial Military Complex. America didn’t listen and neither has Australia. Did your shares go up?

This week, arms industry executives at both Raytheon and General Dynamics spoke candidly about how Israel’s war on Gaza will be good for business.

Source: Military Contractors Are Framing the Israeli War on Gaza as a Win for Investors

Biden’s Bungles over Gaza – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Biden can’t afford to antagonize Israel where else could he put his secret air base but in the 4th most armed state in the world.

With such a gulf between rhetoric and reality, the world’s most powerful cue card reader also made sure he would partake in the finest traditions of the IDF public relations effort, disputing the casualty lists released by the Hamas-run health ministry. “I have no notion that Palestinians are telling the truth about how many people are killed. I’m sure innocents have been killed, and it’s the price of waging a war.” At a tag of over 7,000 dead and rising, that’s a considerable amount of expended innocence.

Source: Biden’s Bungles over Gaza – » The Australian Independent Media Network

As Gaza War Enters ‘Second Stage,’ Hundreds of Thousands March for Cease-Fire

Thousands march in London for Palestine.

estimated on social media that half a million people attended the London march, which went from Embankment past U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s official residence at Downing Street to Westminster. Aerial footage showed streets and bridges thick with crowds. Sunak has stopped short of calling for a cease-fire, and Great Britian has emphasized Israel’s right to defend itself after the surprise October 7 attack by Hamas that killed around 1,400.

“The superpowers at play are not doing enough at the moment. This is why we’re here: we’re calling for a cease-fire, calling for Palestinian rights, the right to exist, to live, human rights, all our rights,” London marcher Camille Revuelta toldReuters. “This is not about Hamas. This is about protecting Palestinian lives.”

Protests also took place in cities across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, including what +972 Magazine journalist Oren Ziv said was the first anti-war protest in Tel Aviv.

Source: As Gaza War Enters ‘Second Stage,’ Hundreds of Thousands March for Cease-Fire

U.S. Quietly Pushes Ahead Secret Military Base in Israel, Near Gaza

U.S. Air Force Airmen assigned to Ramstein Air Base, Germany, hand off cargo to the Israeli military, at Nevatim Base, Israel, Oct. 15, 2023.  The mission provided the Israel Defense Forces with additional resources, which includes vital munitions, and emphasized the United States’ unwavering and ironclad support for both the Israel Defense Forces and the Israeli people. (U.S. Air Force Photo by Senior Airmen Edgar Grimaldo)

Should we be surprised? Why the US isn’t sanctioning Israel

Two months before Hamas attacked Israel, the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to build U.S. troop facilities for a secret base it maintains deep within Israel’s Negev desert, just 20 miles from Gaza. Code-named “Site 512,” the longstanding U.S. base is a radar facility that monitors the skies for missile attacks on Israel.

Source: U.S. Quietly Pushes Ahead Secret Military Base in Israel, Near Gaza

The Day Guterres Became Relevant – » The Australian Independent Media Network

The Israeli strategy here is to excuse the inexcusable: the collective, mass laceration of a people. In this, they simply perpetuate the tragic crimes that have been visited, not only upon the Jews, but upon any ethnicity or group in history. The Whig statesman Edmund Burke spoke about not knowing “the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.” Unfortunately, in this conflict, that indictment was drawn up some time ago, and is being prosecuted with relentless ruthlessness.

Source: The Day Guterres Became Relevant – » The Australian Independent Media Network

Artforum’s Editor Just Got Axed After Printing a Letter Opposing Israel’s Assault on Gaza

Do You know who your sponsors are?

Last night Artforum fired its editor after he published a letter from artists calling for a cease-fire in Gaza. It’s just the latest instance of the magazine’s corporate owner, Penske Media, quashing editorial independence and siding with the rich.

Penske axed Velasco, who has worked at Artforum for eighteen years, after the editor published a letter signed by thousands of artists calling for a cease-fire in the face of Israel’s onslaught against the Gaza Strip. Apparently publishing artists’ concerns about violence against civilians — what one might describe as an airing of those concerns in some sort of “forum” — was not actually Velasco’s job.

Artforum’s publishers wrote a statement last night saying that Velasco violated the magazine’s standard editorial process, but reporting shows that the ouster followed campaigning by advertisers and art collectors who objected to the letter. As the Intercept writes, shortly after Artforum put up the letter, “Martin Eisenberg, a high-profile collector and inheritor of the now-bankrupt Bed Bath & Beyond fortune, began contacting famous art world figures on the list whose work he had championed to express his objections.” He was aided by influential gallery owners, whose response Artforum published, as well as by another letter, which fails to mention Palestinian deaths and garnered thousands of signatures, including from tear-gas salesman and art world figure Warren Kanders. At least one Artforum staff member resigned today in response to Velasco’s firing.

Source: Artforum’s Editor Just Got Axed After Printing a Letter Opposing Israel’s Assault on Gaza

What good comes from Israel silencing criticism? – Pearls and Irritations

Flags of Israel and Palestine behind the barbed wire.

Born in 1938, two days after Kristallnacht, I grew up during a period of rabid American antisemitism. In response, two relatives helped found the Anti-Defamation League. Learning of the atrocities Hamas committed in southern Israel, I was aghast like everyone. But I was not surprised. Israel has been hoisted on its own propaganda, regardless of the consequences. It has almost succeeded in silencing its critics, even – maybe especially – its Jewish ones, of whom there are many.

For years I’ve been critical of Israeli governments. But with their rigid, defensive dogmatism within Israel’s borders and its blindly accepting supporters in the Diaspora, Israel has been hoisted on its own propaganda, regardless of the consequences. It has almost succeeded in silencing its critics, even – maybe especially – its Jewish ones, of whom there are many. Who would know of Jewish Voice for Peace, Not in my Name, Jews against the Occupation, Independent Australian Jewish Voices, to name some. And who or what has been served by this silencing? Certainly not Israel, or Jews in the Diaspora. Certainly not the Palestinian people. And as for any hope of peace, how long must we wait for that?

Source: What good comes from Israel silencing criticism? – Pearls and Irritations

Gaza totally cut off — as Israeli army expands ground operations

The Israel Defence Force has intensified its bombings in Gaza.

According to Israel hospitals are at fault as Hamas is hiding behind them. Which means Israel is going to destroy them. That sounds like an excuse for killing those who haven’t evacuated the South as ordered. The cart has been placed before the horse. If the North isn’t empty it still remains crowded with innocents who were unable to evacuate not necessarily Hamas. Israel has been slow to invade until it has totally silenced Gaza because the most effective weapon against them has been truth. The truth of Israel’s barbarism will go down in history.

An opinion poll on Friday suggested almost half of Israelis now want to hold off on a ground invasion out of fears for at least 224 hostages reported to be held there.

The health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said 7326 Palestinians had been killed in the retaliatory air strikes, including around 3000 children.

Source: Gaza totally cut off — as Israeli army expands ground operations

‘Massacres Will Be Done in Total Darkness’: Huge Israeli Assault Amid Blackout in Gaza

Gaza City

An invading night goggled army is coming to kill in an area totally cloaked by darkness. Sight, sound, and reporting is all in Israeli hands. They have the numbers,100,000. They have the weapons, They have the technology, and They have the body armor to take down flesh and bone. They will have their story prepared. Any evidence from the other side neutralised

Source: ‘Massacres Will Be Done in Total Darkness’: Huge Israeli Assault Amid Blackout in Gaza

Acting Prime Minister Marles does not believe Palestinian hospitals should be allowed fuel – Pearls and Irritations

Damage in Gaza Strip during the October 2023

ALP Shame

The Australian government must withhold all political support from the Israeli government while the killing of Palestinian civilians and destruction of their infrastructure continue. And yet, what hope? On 25 October when acting Prime Minister Richard Marles was asked on radio whether fuel should be allowed into Gaza to allow hospitals to function; he could not bring himself even to utter a simple “yes”.

Source: Acting Prime Minister Marles does not believe Palestinian hospitals should be allowed fuel – Pearls and Irritations

Opinion | ‘Human Animals’: The Sordid Language Behind Israel’s Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (L) stand side by side.

Guess America has an excuse to bomb the shit out of Maine in order to catch that “terrorist” gunmen who killed 18 and injured 13 others. Israel has led the way and redefined the term “justice” to simply be 1000 eyes for an eye and 1000 teeth for a tooth biblical revenge trumps any commandments.

The post-October 7 vocabulary used by Israelis, but also many Americans, created the atmosphere necessary for the savage Israeli response which followed.

Source: Opinion | ‘Human Animals’: The Sordid Language Behind Israel’s Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams

“These are not the Droids you’re Looking For:” Biden and Blinken try to Make the Israeli genocide against Gaza’s Palestinians Disappear

While Israel has the right to strike back at the Hamas organization in the wake of the latter’s hideous October 7 attack on Israel, it doesn’t have the right to do so in a way that recklessly endangers civilian lives. Beyond that issue, Israel is recognized by the United Nations at the occupying power of Gaza, and therefore has responsibilities under the 4th Geneva Convention of 1949 to preserve the lives and well-being of the occupied population. Finally, according to the Rome Statute that underpins the International Criminal Court, targeting a group such as “the Palestinians of Gaza” for death is a form of genocide, regardless of the number killed.

Source: “These are not the Droids you’re Looking For:” Biden and Blinken try to Make the Israeli genocide against Gaza’s Palestinians Disappear

Hamas, Israel and “terrorism”: If we have to use the label, at least let’s use it honestly | Salon.com

Palestinian emergency services and local citizens search for victims in buildings destroyed during Israeli air raids in Khan Yunis, Gaza, Oct. 24, 2023. (Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images)  “Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you” Germany is arresting those protesting against the Israeli carnage, and Companies are sacking staff who do the same. While they act as apologists for Israel. There is something very sick in that logic.

Apologists for Israel point out that Hamas intentionally targets civilians and the Israeli military does not. That is a distinction without a difference for the people killed, maimed and terrorized by the Israeli military — commanded by leaders who know perfectly well that the likely civilian death toll will be high. The cover story about not “targeting” civilians is a comfortable rationalization for the slaughter of civilians that self-righteously denies the obvious reality.

Source: Hamas, Israel and “terrorism”: If we have to use the label, at least let’s use it honestly | Salon.com

An unholy alliance is defending Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians – Pearls and Irritations

Combination Israel flag and Palestine flag for both countries have politic conflict and military war concept.

 

The Hamas raid into Israel on October 7th, and pounding of the Gazan population that has followed, has seen an unholy alliance reunite: not, or not merely, between Washington and its client states resisting UN calls for a ceasefire, but also in the media, between the Murdoch and Jewish press.

Source: An unholy alliance is defending Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians – Pearls and Irritations

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Political Future May Be Over

Rather than bolster Benjamin Netanyahu in a “rally around the flag” effect, the October 7 attack on Israel has destroyed his standing with voters. Netanyahu’s political career, which has fundamentally reshaped Israeli society, may be effectively finished.

Source: Benjamin Netanyahu’s Political Future May Be Over

The Reemergence of the Palestinian Statehood Issue (Ian Masters Interviews Juan Cole)

Guardian cartoonist fired over accusation of anti-Semitism

How is it the cartoonist gets the sack rather than the EDITORS?

Iconic British cartoonist Steve Bell has recently been sacked by The Guardian for a cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.

Bell has been unknowingly found guilty of an anti-Semitic trope. Bell’s illustrious 42-year career at The Guardian has been truncated by ignorant editors because of a literary misinterpretation. The Guardian’s own illustrious 200-year history sinks further into the mire.

Source: Guardian cartoonist fired over accusation of anti-Semitism

How the Right Reinvented Antisemitism

It is a strange feature of the conservative and right-wing response to antisemitism both in the United Kingdom and the United States, that the form it largely takes is not that of identifying actual cases of antisemitism and acting on them, but of criminalizing solidarity with Palestine.

Source: How the Right Reinvented Antisemitism

The razing of the Warsaw Ghetto: Are our leaders incapable of learning from history? – Pearls and Irritations

Israeli and Palestinian flags on a brick wall with blood splatters.

If we are looking for historical parallels to the current destruction in Palestine, then the razing of the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis is unfortunately one that comes readily to mind. While we would all agree that this was appalling, inhuman and unfathomable, is blowing women and children to pieces in Gaza any less so?

Source: The razing of the Warsaw Ghetto: Are our leaders incapable of learning from history? – Pearls and Irritations

How much killing is enough killing? – Pearls and Irritations

Smoke and flames billow after Israeli forces struck a high-rise tower in Gaza City, October 7, 2023.

So we may as well begin chewing on that question right now so we can get settle on a number as soon as possible. How much is enough? It’s a question that demands an answer. And the answer we come to collectively will say a lot about our species, and about where it is headed.

Source: How much killing is enough killing? – Pearls and Irritations

Israeli Think Tank Says Hamas Attack Provides “Rare Opportunity”

14 October 2023, Israel, Sderot: Israeli military combat vehicles and tanks are seen near the Israeli-Gaza border as fighting between Israeli troops and the militants of the Palestinian group Hamas continues. Photo: Ilia Yefimovich/dpa (Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/picture alliance via Getty Images)

To where will they be sent? Do the Egyptians know? That Israel would turn a part of Egypt into Palestine the way Palestine was turned into Israel but the Palestinians paid rather than were paid.

The think tank advocates a bizarre scheme in which Israel would ethnically cleanse the entirety of Gaza and pay Egypt to house its former inhabitants in currently empty apartments near Cairo. (The paper was first reported and translated from Hebrew by Mondoweiss.)

National Security & Zionist Strategy, an Israeli think tank, published a paper last week stating that thanks to the vicious Hamas attacks of October 7, “There is currently a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip.”

Source: Israeli Think Tank Says Hamas Attack Provides “Rare Opportunity”

Understanding the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 5 charts

Historical context for the Israel and Hamas conflict is complex but these five charts can help.

Source: Understanding the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 5 charts

In War Crime, Israel is Still Blocking Water, Electricity to Gaza’s Palestinian Civilians

The fact that Palestinian fighters committed unspeakable war crimes against Israeli civilians does not justify Israeli authorities committing war crimes against Palestinian civilians.

Source: In War Crime, Israel is Still Blocking Water, Electricity to Gaza’s Palestinian Civilians

UN begs for more aid to enter Gaza as hospitals run out of fuel | The Electronic Intifada

A bloodied young boy with black soot on one side of his face has a splint on his leg as he sits on a hospital bed and an adult wearing protective clothing holds his arm

Israel claims it’s “Only after Hamas”. They don’t even measure their success or failure on the number of “Hamas killed”. If this war was numbers it would be judged a total failure. A failure because the world is witness to the numbers of innocents killed 2300 children, 5,800, and over 15,000 injured and more about to needlessly die in need of aid. Israel’s gesture to allow a few trucks in for 2.3M people is seen as little more than a callous PR exercise. If the world volunteered to take all the Palestinians and forego their homelands would Israel stop their genocidal carnage? With or without them Hamas would still exist as would the majority of the world’s Jews not wanting to live there.

Gantz, Cohen and Netanyahu yelling to rid the UN of Secretary Guterres shows they know they are losing this war in the eyes of the rest of the world. Might isn’t always Right. It no longer  matters how wrong Hamas was Israel’s reaction has been worse. It isn’t a role model for doing things right.

If someone in a next-door family stabbed my brother because he felt hard done by. My family wouldn’t have the “right” to destroy his. Mine are obliged to step back and give some thought not just react by throwing a grenade killing a whole family and saying, ” Oops they just got in the way  I was only after your son” 35 UN Peace Keepers were killed by Israel not by Hamas….Oops, they just didn’t in the way!

In a world where oil is increasingly unneeded and requires a united focus on Climate Change will the US and West continue to  speak up for Israel or correct for the planet’s survival rather than their immediate geopolitical interests? A revolutionary shift in attention is needed a united shift of goalposts to Human Rights rather than allowing billionaires and Trillion dollar multinational corporations to determine divisive shareholder interests for profit.

Nearly 5,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, according to the health ministry, including 2,360 children. Hundreds of people remain under the rubble of destroyed buildings.

Source: UN begs for more aid to enter Gaza as hospitals run out of fuel | The Electronic Intifada

Middle East: No end in sight to cruel war many years in the making

The recent escalation of conflict in the Middle East is a reminder that after decades of aggression, peace in the region is difficult to achieve.

Source: Middle East: No end in sight to cruel war many years in the making

The West Bank Is Awash in Anti-Palestinian Violence

The war in Gaza has emboldened settlers in the West Bank. In five accounts from the occupied territory, Palestinians speak of terrifying, ever-present settler violence — beatings, killings, house raids — backed up by the Israeli military.

Source: The West Bank Is Awash in Anti-Palestinian Violence

Israel must stop weaponising the Holocaust | Raz Segal | The Guardian

Smoke and debris rises after an Israeli strike on Gaza earlier this month.

Scholars of genocide are criticizing the dangerous use of the Holocaust to justify Israeli mass violence against Palestinians

Source: Israel must stop weaponising the Holocaust | Raz Segal | The Guardian

History rewritten Crisis in Zionism

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Publisher’s Weekly wrote:

“Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called ‘ethnic cleansing.’ Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappé offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel’s founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East.”

Chris Hedges: Let Them Eat Cement – scheerpost.com

Chris Hedges: Let Them Eat Cement Israel is not only decimating Gaza with airstrikes but employing the oldest and cruelest weapon of war — starvation. Israel’s message, on the eve of a ground invasion, is clear. Leave Gaza or Die.

Source: Chris Hedges: Let Them Eat Cement – scheerpost.com

Palestine Forgotten

Where did Israelis learn this process and why did they believe it would be so fruitful? Was it from their living historical experience in the ghetto or the success of the jackboots policing them 30s and 40s?

How had this condition of normalcy and forgetting been achieved? In Gaza, it had been achieved through a blockade that kept the entrapped Palestinians in a permanent state of poverty, unemployment, hunger, and dependency, an architecture of enforced scarcity and suffering meant to crush the spirit and will of those seeking to resist the relentless bulldozer of Israeli expansion into Palestinian lands.

In the West Bank, a similar though somewhat more porous blockade, combined with intense restrictions on movement and daily harassment and violence at the hands of Israeli military personnel and settlers, has aimed to achieve comparable results. Normalcy for the people of Israel, in other words, had been achieved through policies and practices meant to decimate the material infrastructures of will, hope, resistance, and agency among the more than five million Palestinians.

Source: Palestine Forgotten

A PR stunt amid a massacre in Gaza | Gaza | Al Jazeera

ISRAEL-PALESTINIANS/EGYPT

The cruelest joke is Israel’s use of the term “humanitarian aid”. It’s proven to be an Oxymoron. The State of Israel was born from the pain of a War driven by the false belief that “Might was Right”. However, today Israel is rubber-stamping what we denied. History repeats and we are witness to yet another Colonial Settler tragedy. “Might” has never proved to be morally or ethically right. Never as much as the belief in Universal Human Rights and the equality of mankind which Israel denies. Individuals sin and make mistakes nations however set the yardstick on the way we should live together.

The 20 trucks of humanitarian aid that entered Gaza are just a distraction from Israel’s continuing murderous war on the Palestinians.

Source: A PR stunt amid a massacre in Gaza | Gaza | Al Jazeera

Backing Israel’s rage-fuelled revenge presents moral dilemma

Black Lives it appears don’t matter in America or Australia so why on earth should we expect that Palestinian Lives do? How many Palestinian billionaires do you know of? How many have we heard of or have access to the West’s media? The West supports Israel because they defend the 10 commandments or set moral and ethical examples on how the world should behave? Or simply help us keep the oil flowing?

The hypocrisy of calling for ‘adherence to international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians’ while simultaneously supporting Israel’s slaughter of them should be noted with the contempt it deserves. So should the fact that none of them are calling for a cease-fire and negotiations.

Source: Backing Israel’s rage-fuelled revenge presents moral dilemma

Israel Ramps Up Assault on West Bank With Airstrike on Mosque, Deadly Raids

Relatives of Palestinians who lost their lives in an Israeli attack on Jenin refugee camp mourn

“Settlers all over the West Bank see this war as a golden opportunity to torment Palestinians from small communities who are literally defenseless,” said one human rights campaigner.

Source: Israel Ramps Up Assault on West Bank With Airstrike on Mosque, Deadly Raids

Israel’s Role in Hamas’ Creation and its Retaliatory Genocide in Gaza – CounterPunch.org

Israel Reap what it sowed. No Peace, Hatred,

All these developments have disheartened and disillusioned the Palestinians, who have lost their faith in the international community. From their perspective, decades of peaceful resistance have only resulted in further hardships and an uninterrupted expansion of Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. Israel’s 75-year-long illegal occupation of Palestine and the associated atrocities, along with the 17-year siege imposed on Gaza, have failed to evoke a significant response from the international community. Nevertheless, the recent attacks by Hamas on Israel have drawn the world’s attention to the gravity of the issue. In this context, one can find an explanation for the increasing popularity of Hamas among Palestinian people.

Source: Israel’s Role in Hamas’ Creation and its Retaliatory Genocide in Gaza – CounterPunch.org

Even if Israel can completely eliminate Hamas, does it have a long-term plan for Gaza?

Israel was created out of death pain and suffering only to rise and deliver death pain and suffering. So much for the 10 commandments Moses received

Mowing the grass’

For too long, Israel has believed the Gaza imbroglio could be contained. However, the population has grown so large, this is no longer the case.

With a growth rate of just over 2% per year, its population is expected to be three million by 2030.

Gaza is also incredibly young, with a median age of 19.6, compared with the global average of 30.5. Almost half the adult population is unemployed, and Palestinians in Gaza are four times more likely to be living in poverty than those in the West Bank. This is a recipe for social upheaval and radicalisation.

As two Israeli journalists, Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir, noted in a perceptive analysis of Israel’s 2014 Gaza war, the Israeli military describes its assaults on Gaza as “mowing the grass” – acting to punish Hamas severely for its aggressive behaviour and degrading its military capabilities.

The aim was to achieve realistic and, therefore, limited political and military goals. It was part of a long-term strategy of attrition, which would have a temporary deterrent effect in order to create periods of quiet along the border.

Source: Even if Israel can completely eliminate Hamas, does it have a long-term plan for Gaza?

Collective punishment, selective truth, and slow genocide – Pearls and Irritations

Israeli and Palestinian flags on a brick wall with blood splatters.

Facts about the Israel/Palestine conflict have always been hard to come by. Some Israeli leaders are now telling more lies than many of their citizens, and former friends of Israel, can swallow. Yet Western governments still do.

Israeli leaders have practice in being selective with the truth. Some friends of Israel who gave them the benefit of the doubt, don’t now.

There’s a great gulf between what American and Israeli leaders and their allies say has happened, and what people in the Arab world understand to be the facts. The same gulf is perpetuated in much of the Western media, where the record of US lies beginning with, say, Pearl Harbour, and continuing through Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq, is well known but rarely mentioned.

Israel may be the latest of the US lies, but it will spill just as much innocent blood.

Source: Collective punishment, selective truth, and slow genocide – Pearls and Irritations

Twenty-Three Journalists Have Been Killed Covering the Israel-Gaza War – Mother Jones

Roshdi Sarraj, a reporter who co-founded a Palestinian media company, was killed Sunday in the Gaza Strip. He was at least the 23rd journalist to die since October 7, among more than 4,000 people killed in the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Source: Twenty-Three Journalists Have Been Killed Covering the Israel-Gaza War – Mother Jones

Israel’s Forensic Pathology Center Presents Evidence From Hamas Attacks: Report | HuffPost Latest News

Forensic scientists at Israel's National Center for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv work to identify bodies of those killed in attacks by Hamas.

Who is The Media Line? The Media Line is an American News Agency covering the Middle East run by Felice Friedson whose Agency is permitted to operate in Israel a country that strongly vets any foreign journalists against “objectivity”. Israel currently threatens arrests and even kills journalists who they feel don’t report the Israeli government line. So what value should this report be given at this time on any  1-10 scale?

Apparently, the killing of 4,600+ Gazans 2,000 children, and wounding of 14,500 has been done with a sense of kindness and responsibility indicated by the total never-ending bombing,  blockade of medical aid, potable water, and food. Israel even bombed Raffa the point of entry if aid was to be let in from Egypt.

Israel has also said all of this sociopathic carnage has been done by Hamas. The West Bank well that’s just a normal day in the life of Palestinians. 51 dead is nothing in the newly ever-expanding, illegally occupied territories. Let’s not discuss or what a forensic description of Gazans might uncover when the body parts are recovered.

Experts and volunteers appeared “visibly disturbed” as they shared accounts of beheaded bodies and photos of charred remains with the press.

Source: Israel’s Forensic Pathology Center Presents Evidence From Hamas Attacks: Report | HuffPost Latest News

Debunked: ‘Gaza is not Occupied’

Therefore the very Idea that Gaza is Occupied and there was a need for Palestinian Liberation is Anti Semitic Peddling. Israel “Freed Gaza”

If Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza, why can it turn off the lights with a flip of a switch? Stop it exporting its produce? And control what can enter the Strip? The truth is obvious. And the media must stop letting Israel peddle this deadly lie.

Anyone interested in the truth should ask – if Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza, why does it maintain the power to starve and withhold basic necessities? Israel wants the world to believe the myth that it “gave Gaza freedom.”

Throughout Israel’s latest aggression on Gaza, Israeli ministers have continued to spread the lie that the besieged enclave is not occupied. The purpose of this misinformation is to further dehumanise Palestinians and justify the deadly violence against 2.2 million people, half of them children.

Source: Debunked: ‘Gaza is not Occupied’

Hamas was unpopular in Gaza before it attacked Israel – Surveys showed Gazans cared more about fighting Poverty than armed Resistance

Israel prisoner of war camp Gaza holds 2.2 million people mostly women children and the elderly

As Khaldoun Barghouti, a Ramallah-based Palestinian researcher, notes, the ongoing bombardment by Israel has softened Gazan frustration with Hamas – at least in the short term. Such attacks “turned blame to Hamas (over the attacks in Israel) into more anger toward Israel.”

Source: Hamas was unpopular in Gaza before it attacked Israel – Surveys showed Gazans cared more about fighting Poverty than armed Resistance

No, Israel Is Not Making the Desert Bloom

For decades, Israel has boasted of “making the desert bloom,” as if Palestinians never even existed. As Israel today pushes Gazans toward mass dehydration, we should remember its longstanding efforts to colonize land through its control of the water supply.

Source: No, Israel Is Not Making the Desert Bloom

Amira Hass Speaks on Gaza Slaughter – scheerpost.com

Amira Hass, descendant of Holocaust survivors, author and journalist with Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz speaks to Democracy Now on the current situation; she discusses the context, the dangers facing everyone in the area, the increasing likelihood of expulsion. In the first, broadcast on 19th October, she has come from the demonstration at the US Capital Building in Washington and is close to tears. In the second, longer interview broadcast on 20th, she is more analytical. Highly critical of Israel, she also asks whether Hamas has realistic goals and political aim. But her ire is focused mainly on the disproprotionate response to the ghastly Hamas attack and to the atrocities Israel has carried out in Gaza and the West Bank over many decades.

Source: Amira Hass Speaks on Gaza Slaughter – scheerpost.com