“It’s not enough just to provide condemnation … without an active leadership role in solving the problem,” he said. “It’s 75 years now of suffering of Palestinian people. Nobody listens.”
Category: Israel
As the scope and scale of the Hamas surprise attack on Israel becomes clearer, one question emerges more than any other from the detritus of the battlefield: How did such a massive, complex undertaking escape the notice of Israel’s vaunted intelligence service?
The shadowy leader of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, said the assault, named “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm,” was in response to the 16-year blockade of Gaza, the Israeli occupation and a series of recent incidents that have brought Israeli-Palestinian tensions to a fever pitch.
Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank. Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there, and tensions have flared around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site.
Source: Hamas Says It Has Over 100 Captives From Attack On Israel | HuffPost Latest News
- Israel says it struck more than 500 targets in the blockaded Gaza Strip, while fierce battles with Hamas fighters continue in several areas in southern Israel.
- The Israeli army 100,000 reserve troops have amassed near Gaza, where Palestinian fighters say they are holding 130 people captive.
- The latest death toll stands at 436 Palestinians, according to health officials, and more than 700 Israelis, according to media reports.
- Hamas’s surprise attack came after Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in recent days and a record number of Palestinians were killed by Israel in recent months.
There will be only one winner in the war that has broken out between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
And it is neither Israel nor Hamas. In an operation coined “the Al-Aqsa Storm,” Hamas, whose formal name is the Islamic Resistance Movement, fired thousands of rockets into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters infiltrated Israel by land, sea and air. Hundreds of Israelis have been killed, more than 2,000 injured, and many taken hostage.
In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas and launched airstrikes in Gaza. In the first day of reprisals, close to 400 Palestinians were killed, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
In the weeks ahead, the Israeli military will surely retaliate and kill hundreds more Palestinian militants and civilians. As an analyst of Middle East politics and security, I believe that thousands on both sides will suffer. But when the smoke settles, only one country’s interests will have been served: Iran’s.
Source: The Israel-Hamas war: No matter who loses, Iran wins
As a start, and a prompt, I once again call upon our government to recognise Palestine. Have the courage to stand up to Israel, and its primary backer, the United States. Oh, and another thing, Mr. Prime Minister, and Ms. Foreign Minister – please don’t purport to speak for all Australians when you say “Israel has a right to defend itself”.
We’re seeing the western political/media class bleating the word “unprovoked” in unison again, this time in reference to the massive multi-pronged operation launched by Hamas against Israel on Saturday morning which reportedly killed hundreds of Israelis.
What’s the surprise after a 16year illegal blockade of GAZA one shouldn’t be surprised that 2.3 M imprisoned Palestinians erupt. Netanyahu showed a map of Israel where Palestinians simply didn’t exist. and the West cries “Unprovoked”
The tragic scenes unfolding in Palestine and Israel are a chilling reminder of the horrors that occupation creates — and the urgency of dismantling Israel’s blockades and apartheid system.
Source: The Violence in Palestine and Israel Is the Tragic Fruit of Brutal Oppression
A massive assault by Palestinian resistance fighters infiltrating Israeli military bases around the outer edges of the besieged Gaza Strip led to the killing of between 30 and 70 Israelis (different sources have reported different numbers), mainly soldiers. The subsequent bombing of the Gaza Strip by the Israeli airforce and military has led to 198 Palestinians being killed.
The Palestinian resistance movement’s attack comes in the midst of ongoing attacks on Palestinian civilians, their property and desecration of Muslim and Christian holy sites. During the first eight months of 2023, Israeli paramilitary settler attacks on indigenous Palestinians came at the rate of 3 per day, according to the United Nations.
Source: 198 Palestinians, at Least 40 Israelis Killed in and around Gaza Strip | – IMEMC News
It also comes at a time of mounting tensions between Israel and the Palestinians, with the peace process effectively dead for years. Over the past year, Israel’s far-right government has ramped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence has displaced hundreds of Palestinians there and tensions have flared around a flashpoint Jerusalem holy site. (Huff Post)
Isn’t this a case of Victim Blaming when put into the context? What has occurred in recent years in the world’s biggest open air prison along with what Israel promises will occur in the future has brought about resistance? Netanyahu literally stood at the UN with a map showing there was no Palestine. Putin declared there was no Ukraine only Russia and invaded. The world and condemned him. But not Netanyahu.
Nearly 300 Israelis and Palestinians have already been killed with the death toll expected to rise.
Source: After Surprise Attack by Hamas, Netanyahu Says Israel Is “At War” – Mother Jones
By Anjuman Rahman AnjumanAleena ( Middle East Monitor ) – The universal human right to water, ensuring “sufficient safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses” is a principle upheld by international conventions. However, in the Occupied West Bank, this right is systematically violated through Israel’s targeted assaults on civilian water infrastructure. Just last week, Israeli occupation forces raided the peaceful village of Susiya, nestled south of Hebron in the Occupied West Bank, ruthlessly dismantling its main water network. Fuad Al-Amour, the Coordinator of the Protection and Resilience Committee in Masafer Yatta, expressed dismay over the
Source: Israel’s Strategic Weaponization of Water Against Palestine is a War Crime
Haggai Matar is an award-winning Israeli journalist and political activist, and is the executive director of +972 Magazine.
Contrary to what many Israelis are saying, and while the army was clearly caught completely off guard by this invasion, this is not a “unilateral” or “unprovoked” attack. The dread Israelis are feeling right now, myself included, is a sliver of what Palestinians have been feeling on a daily basis under the decades-long military regime in the West Bank, and under the siege and repeated assaults on Gaza. The responses we are hearing from many Israelis today — of people calling to “flatten Gaza,” that “these are savages, not people you can negotiate with,” “they are murdering whole families,” “there’s no room to talk with these people” — are exactly what I have heard occupied Palestinians say about Israelis countless times.
Yet I remember that everything that I am feeling now, which every Israeli must be sharing, has been the life experience of millions of Palestinians for far too long. The only solution, as it has always been, is to bring an end of apartheid, occupation, and siege, and promote a future based on justice and equality for all of us. It is not in spite of the horror that we have to change course — it is exactly because of it.
Source: Gaza’s shock attack has terrified Israelis. It should also unveil the context
Israel no longer operates in the best interests of America
Fifty years after the Yom Kippur War, its legacy still defines US policy in the Middle East. The aftermath of the conflict saw Washington massively expand aid to Israel — while buying off Arab governments in order to isolate the beleaguered Palestinians.
Source: Fifty Years After the Yom Kippur War, the US Should End Its Blank-Check Aid to Israel
Today, Israel is linked to Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia. The group was formed after the Russian occupation of Crimea in 2014 and was eventually absorbed into Ukraine’s armed forces. The group is accused of war crimes by the United Nations, and its paramilitary arm, the National Corps, is associated with attacks against local Roma and the LGBTQ community. Despite claims to the contrary, the Azov Battalion still uses the Wollfsangel symbol as part of its uniform, a logo widely used in Nazi Germany and which remains popular with neo-Nazis today. According to multiple reports, the Azov Battalion has used weapons manufactured by major Israeli arms firms like Rafael and Israel Weapon Industries.
In an attempt to whitewash the brigade’s image, an Azov Battalion officer, Illia Samoilenko, visited Israel on a publicity tour organized by local activist group Israel Friends of Ukraine in December. During his trip, Samoilenko met with Naama Lazimi, a Labor Party politician in Israel’s parliament.
Beyond Europe, Israel has supported authoritarian regimes in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. These relations often involve arms deals, such as the sale of arms and provision of military training to Chile during dictator Augusto Pinochet’s rule from 1973 to 1991. Israel has also sold arms to military regimes in Bolivia and Guatemala in the 1970s and 80s. During this time, Guatemala committed genocide of around 200,000 majority indigenous people. Israeli arms were also used in the Rwandan Genocide and continue to be used in Myanmar’s ongoing genocide against the Rohingya people.
The New Israel allows Jewish freedom to spit on Christians.
Israeli journalist Nir Hasson at Haaretz put a spotlight on the disturbing practice of some Ultra-Orthodox Israelis of eastern European heritage of spitting on Christians in Jerusalem. The incident concerned what appeared to be Filipino pilgrims carrying a cross, but the people who suffer most from such forms of aggression are the 15,000 Palestinian Christians living in Palestinian East Jerusalem.
Every day that the Australian government delays recognition provides legitimacy for Israel’s plans to press ahead with the expulsion of Palestinians. Recognise Palestine now!
Over the weekend, Israel marked Yom Kippur when it is supposed to atone for its collective sins. Yet Israel never thinks to ask for forgiveness from its biggest victims: the Palestinians.
Source: When will Israel seek forgiveness for its crimes against Palestinians? – Pearls and Irritations
Ultra-Orthodox parties demanded authorization of gender segregation in public. They want women to sit at the back of the buses that go through religious areas, want to segregate state educational institutions by gender, and want separate seating for women and men at government-funded entertainment events.
One critic called it “an outrageous endorsement of the Israeli government’s systematic discrimination against Palestinian Americans and a reward to the most extremist, racist government in Israel’s history.” Jessica Corbett Sep 27, 2023 6
Source: ‘Affirming Apartheid’: Biden Admin to Allow Israel Into Visa Waiver Program
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu seems to love waving around cartoonish props at the annual United Nations General Assembly meeting. This year his theme was the likelihood of an Israel-Saudi rapprochement, which is being pushed by the Biden administration despite the abysmal Saudi human rights violations and despite Netanyahu’s ongoing destruction of the last vestiges of Israeli democracy.
Source: Israel’s Netanyahu at UN Wipes Palestinians off the Map, Menaces Iran with “Credible Nuclear Threat”
Israel has imposed a partial siege on the Palestinian Gaza Strip since 2007, when a coup attempt against the elected Hamas government failed. UNCTAD estimates that the Israeli occupation costs the Palestinians of Gaza about $16.7 billion per decade, so by 2027 that would be $33.4 billion. The difference between a decent life and crawling on trash hills to find the wherewithal to live. Elements of the siege constitute war crimes. As for the exodus of Palestinian youth, that has been hailed as a goal of Israeli policy by right wing members of the Israeli parliament. Unfortunately, since Palestinians are kept stateless by Israel, they are not wanted in most countries, and those who leave often find a watery grave in the Mediterranean or end up undocumented and with blighted lives abroad.
Source: Israeli Export Ban Piled Economic Misery on Palestinians of Gaza, as Youths increase Emigration
In a statement, the Jordan-run Islamic Waqf Department said Israeli forces had emptied the Al-Aqsa complex from Palestinian worshippers before allowing settlers in.
According to the statement, Palestinians under 50 years old were prevented from entering the site.
A number of Palestinians were arrested by Israeli forces from inside the complex, local sources said.
There was no comment from the Israeli authorities on the report.
Source: Israeli Squatter-Settlers storm 3rd Holiest Site in Islam to mark Jewish New Year
The humiliation of Palestinian women by Israeli soldiers in the occupied city of Al-Khalil (Hebron) on July 10 was not the first such episode. Sadly, it will not be the last.
Source: Humiliating Palestinians is An Actual Israeli Policy | The Smirking Chimp
A new brand of far-right religious nationalism in Israel is seeking to refine the country’s ethnocentric basis, increasing its policing of the boundaries of Israeli Jewish identity in an attempt to shore up support for Israel’s anti-Arab policies. A parallel movement is unfolding in Israel’s chief benefactor, the United States, as the U.S. Zionist movement seeks to marginalize the increasing number of American Jews who are critical of Israeli apartheid in favor of Christian Zionists for whom the existence of a Jewish state in the Levant is part of their millenarian agenda.
Israel kills Palestinian children as a matter of policy. This claim can easily be demonstrated and is supported by the latest findings of a Human Rights Watch report.
The question is: why?
Last week, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People called for Israel’s “immediate and unconditional” pull out from East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Its annual report cited Israel’s breaches of key tenets of international law as proof that Israel’s forever occupation is illegal. These include annexation of portions of the occupied territories, mistreatment of Palestinian inhabitants, and imposing apartheid. This study, one of scores, “concludes that Israel is in gross violation of these laws and that the administration of the occupation has become illegal”, stated Michael Lynk, the UN’s former special rapporteur on Palestine.
Source: Israel and its Occupation exact a High Price from Palestinians
When a Rabbi declares Palestinian children should be killed like rats what do you expect but death, lifetime injury, and inability to get medical treatment? It’s the Grim Reaper’s full package offered to children by an adult state that treats them as their future enemies.
Israel kills Palestinian children as a matter of policy. This claim can easily be demonstrated and is supported by the latest findings of a Human Rights Watch report.
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tia Goldenberg at AP got the scoop. She landed an interview with the former head of Israeli intelligence, the Mossad, in which he unloaded on the Israeli system of Apartheid. She quotes him as saying, “There is an apartheid state here. In a territory where two people are judged under two legal systems, that is an apartheid state.” Tamir Pardo, roughly 69, served as the head of Mossad from 2011 to 2016. He is no leftist or bleeding heart liberal, but an exemplar of the tough, pragmatic and somewhat ruthless Israeli tradition of security officials.
After 76 years there is a particular shamefulness in proposing to defer statehood when an Australian Jew is permitted automatic citizenship, while survivors of the Nakba and their descendants languish in squalid refugee camps denied self-determination and the right of return enshrined in international law.
Source: Justice delayed is justice denied: The case for a Palestinian state – Pearls and Irritations
Belgium’s Minister of Development, Caroline Gennez, said in an interview that “Entire villages are being wiped off the map by the Israelis” in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank.
The Israeli ambassador to Brussels lambasted the remarks as “libel.”
To her credit, Ms. Gennez has stood her ground. And she should, since she is right.
Source: Belgian Minister says what Biden won’t: Israel is wiping Entire Palestinian Villages off the Map
Two former heads of the Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence agency have called on US President Joe Biden not to “legitimise” the Israeli government’s extremism, xenophobia and “coup” by inviting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House during his visit to the US next month.
A Rabbi advocated that the children of Palestinians need to be killed and the statistics show he was listened to.
Last year, 2022, was the deadliest year for Palestinian children in the West Bank in 15 years, and 2023 is on track to meet or exceed 2022 levels. Israeli forces had killed at least 34 Palestinian children in the West Bank as of August 22. Human Rights Watch investigated four fatal shootings of Palestinian children by Israeli forces between November 2022 and March 2023. Kill
Source: Palestinian West Bank: Spike in Israeli Killings of Palestinian Children
The British historian Simon Schama recently told The Observer that Israel’s 1948 declaration of independence “promised equal rights to all religious and ethnic groups.” He also stated that Israel faces “disintegration of the political and social compact” over the current government’s decision to alter the judicial system and expand Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories.
The saga began when Israel’s extremist Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has a long rap sheet of convictions for racist incitement, said the quiet part out loud. In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12 News on Wednesday, Ben-Gvir was asked a question about the deteriorating security situation in the Palestinian West Bank by journalist Mohammad Magadli, an Israeli of Palestinian heritage. Haaretz reports that Ben-Gvir replied, “my right, the right of my wife and my children to move around Judea and Samaria is more important than freedom of movement for the Arabs.
The alleged branding of the Star of David on the face of a Palestinian man by Israeli police has left many around the world aghast at the barbaric cruelty and violence of such an act. It has been reported in numerous media outlets yet is, so far, glaringly left out of others. This kind of humiliation and violence seems to come from another era in a time when racial violence and the attacking of the underdog whilst authorities turned a blind eye was de rigueur. But it’s 2023.
Israeli ordnance dropped on Gaza is an exceptionally perilous and noxious threat to the environment. Musleh, who participated in a study examining the destructive impact of Israel’s 2014 war on Gaza’s environment, noted that the bombings have contaminated crops and destroyed soil quality in agricultural areas.
“Rainfall causes the toxic components to seep into the groundwater,” Musleh said, noting that deep-buried bombs “pose a significant threat to the people and the environment.”
Back in Beit Hanoun, on Abu Jarad’s farm, the May 2023 bombing destroyed 50 olive trees and numerous seedlings, contaminating the soil with toxic components and harming the productivity of the farm.
“Trees can’t grow where the rockets bombed,” farmer Abu Jarad said. “When I run the tap water [which is from a well], I clearly see the gray and black polluted water.”
Source: Deep-buried bombs imperil Gaza | The Electronic Intifada
On July 15, Palestinian journalist Basel Adra found himself apprehended by the military after documenting an Israeli settler’s assault in the occupied West Bank. Adra was subjected to handcuffing, blindfolding, and forced to endure hours under the scorching sun. While the Union of Journalists in Israel decried this incident as a grave infringement on press freedom, his ordeal mirrors the distressing reality encountered by countless Palestinian reporters.
How Hitleresque is this? They didn’t kill him and should be praised for their kindness. The branding a PROOF of their HUMANITY.
The macabre incident took place in the middle of last week, when 16 Israeli policemen went to the home of a young Palestinian man in the Shuafat refugee camp on the outskirts of Jerusalem to arrest him. They maintain that he refused to go quietly, and they were constrained to use force against him. His attorney said when he was arraigned on Thursday that every bit of his body was black and blue from the beating the 16 policemen gave him, and that at one point they held him down and branded his cheek with the Star of David, which has been made a symbol for Israel. The police tried to explain this brand away as being from a policeman’s boot.
In the intensive care room in the Bethlehem Arab Society for Rehabilitation (BASR) lies four-year-old Jibreel Sawarka. The Palestinian toddler is in an extremely critical condition after being hit in a car ramming attack by an Israeli settler in the Palestinian village of Kisan, east of Bethlehem in the Occupied West Bank. Jibreel was playing near his house with his brother when the settler struck him with his car and then fled.
Source: Israeli Squatters in Palestinian West Bank are Deploying Terrorism against Indigenous Population
Settlers are awaiting the appearance of a ‘blemish free’ red cow, which, according to Judaism, is central to the prediction about the “end of times”, and therefore paves the way for the acceleration of the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque to make way for the so-called Temple.
Source: In Israel, Religious Zionism’s End-of-Days hope for “Red Cow” emboldens Extremism
For 75 years, Israel has been waging an ideological war to manufacture a legitimacy it does not have. Fissures, however, are now visible in Israel’s carefully crafted and managed narrative.
What is taking place in Occupied Palestine is clearly not a “conflict,” a word which implies a fight between two people with equal political and military resources and equal claims. And while the media perfunctorily describes Israel as a “democratic state,” they avoid using the more accurate “apartheid state” description.
In light of the open racism of Israel’s extremist government, and the unrestrained violence of Jewish “settler-colonists,” the country is finding it increasingly difficult to whitewash its entrenched apartheid system in occupied Palestine.
Source: Uncovering Israeli Propaganda: Wars to Wage with Words to Bamboozle – CounterPunch.org
While the world’s attention is drawn away from the Middle East Israel’s Extremists take advantage
Bezalel Smotrich’s settlement plan is to annex the West Bank, increase settlements and bring an end to the Palestinian Authority. He works silently, away from the cameras and the Knesset podium. He is a professional politician who knows how to swim against the tide.
The combination of the blood line related requirements to be considered Jewish by the Orthodox Rabbinical Court and the restriction of marriage requiring religious ceremonies shows an intent to maintain race purity. At its core, this is no different than the desire for pure blooded Aryans in Nazi Germany or pure blooded whites in the Jim Crow Southern United States.
Those who support these discriminatory laws and embrace Israeli apartheid are blinded by willful ignorance, racism or cynicism. Their goal is to dehumanize Palestinians, champion an intolerant Jewish chauvinism and entice the naïve and the gullible into justifying the unjustifiable. Kennedy, bereft of a moral compass and a belief system rooted in verifiable fact, has not only failed the Palestinians, he has failed us.
Source: Chris Hedges: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – The Israel Lobby’s Useful Idiot – scheerpost.com
In New York State, nonprofits complicit in Israel’s illegal settlements rake in tens of millions of dollars in tax-exempt donations per year. Socialist lawmakers are fighting to change that — and loosen the Israel lobby’s stranglehold on US politics.
Source: New York Socialists Are Showing How to Stand Up to the Israel Lobby
There is an enormous moral disjunct between being Jewish and Israel
A great illustration of how much of the media totally overlooks the huge grassroots campaign for Yes is the fact that the Jewish community’s far-reaching campaign has been unsighted in mainstream media coverage of the referendum.
The Stand Up campaign sums up much about the community wide activity missed by the media saying: “The Jewish Community has a long and proud history of working together with first Australians on their journey towards justice and reconciliation. And this year, we have an opportunity to recognise first Australians in our constitution and give them a say on the issues that matter to their communities.
Source: Will the media miss another massive grassroots campaign? – Pearls and Irritations
Last month, the Israeli Knesset passed a measure severely limiting the Supreme Court’s powers. The central motivation: ensuring the courts won’t be able to interfere with plans to vastly increase the number of Israeli squatter settlements on Palestinian land.
Source: Benjamin Netanyahu’s Judicial Reform Is About Supercharging the Occupation of Palestine
“There are entire Palestinian communities being wiped off the map, a shameful legacy of unrelenting violence, intimidation and harassment perpetuated by Israeli settlers and, in some cases, encouraged by Israeli authorities,” said Ana Povrzenic, NRC’s Country Director for Palestine.
Source: Israel’s Illegal Squatter Violence is erasing entire Palestinian Communities
Benjamin Netanyahu has pushed through the first of his controversial judicial reforms. His domestic critics have spent months calling for a last stand for Israeli democracy — but refuse to take up the demands of Palestinians subject to decades of apartheid.
Source: Israel’s “Reasonable” Opposition Has a Hollow Idea of Democracy
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