Donald Trump leads the most overtly fascist political movement the world has seen since 1945 and a second term as president would sound the death knell for American democracy.
America’s Jewish population is 2.4%. Washington’s Population of Jews is 9%. What is it they do?
The Israel lobby wields as much or more influence over American politics than any lobbying group in Washington. As Ilan Pappé, the Israeli historian, professor and author, and host Chris Hedges detail in this latest episode of The Chris Hedges Report, the lobby’s rise to power consisted of diverging ideological factions uniting in pursuit of their shared interests in controlling the land of historic Palestine. The history and manifestation of this systemic corruption of the Zionist lobby, hyper-dependent on coercion and total control, is thoroughly described in Pappé’s new book, Lobbying for Zionism on Both Sides of the Atlantic.
Former British diplomat Craig Murray discusses the case of journalist Richie Medhurst and his arrest under the U.K. Terrorism Act.
WATCH: CN Live! — Journalism as ‘Terrorism’
August 21, 2024
“Teeth were broken, bones were broken,” said one soldier. “You notice how easy it is to lose your humanity,” said another.
An Israeli newspaper on Friday published interviews with Israel Defence Forces reservists and medical staff who witnessed the “day-to-day torture” of Palestinian prisoners at the notorious Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert, where dozens of detainees have died and others were allegedly raped.
The Israelis described seeing torture and abuse of Palestinians detained in Sde Teiman, who included everyone from Hamas fighters to innocent civilians, and ranged in age from children to octogenarians.
“We said, ‘It’s torture.’ But you don’t get into it; you change the subject immediately.”
‘Insane torture’: Israeli soldiers confirm horrific abuse of Palestinians at Sde Teiman
Previously, the Palestinians have agreed to multiple revised American ceasefire proposals. Each time, however, Benjamin Netanyahu added new conditions forcing the resumption of negotiations back from the starting point.
The Media Scam Israel, America and the Bridge Proposal
“Blame Hamas” any which way every time! 1) The first step is to look as if America and Israel are united on a ceasefire with no need for any detail on its execution. 3) Spread that as good news before the DNC. 4) Change nothing but leave the details of the offer silent and “Wedge Hamas”. 5)Trumpet Hamas’ refusal and spread that news LOUDLY. 6) Never mention Israel the tail is still wagging the dog
Upon concluding his stay in Israel, Blinken said that Netanyahu assured him of Israel’s acceptance of the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal, stressing that it is up to Hamas to accept it in order to move forward to discussing implementation details. But as the timeline of events above shows, Israel has consistently undermined ceasefire talks throughout the Gaza genocide, and Netanyahu’s conditions on Philadelphi and Netzarim are just the latest ploy.
These demands are a non-starter that Hamas will be forced to reject, which is exactly what Netanyahu wants: he nominally accepted the U.S. proposal, putting the ball in Hamas’s court, but later doubled down on demands that make it impossible for Hamas to accept. The result is it looks like Hamas is the reason for the breakdown in the talks, and the Biden-Harris administration is happy to play along. Meanwhile, Israel’s genocide in Gaza rages on.
The mass arrests occurred at a protest outside the Israeli consulate. Earlier arrests left protesters hospitalized and without access to lawyers.
More Than 70 DNC Protesters Arrested, Including Several Journalists
Israel divides America
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came under fire from her closest allies on the left — including a fellow Squad member — after a raucous reception at the DNC.
Ilhan Omar Takes Swipe at AOC for Praising Kamala Harris’s Gaza Ceasefire Push
It’s not just “Uncommitted” activists who are pressuring Kamala Harris on Gaza policy. Her own delegates are speaking out.
Democrats Attacked a Muslim Woman for Protesting Biden’s Speech. She’s a Harris Delegate.
In mid-July, Nature Climate Change published a global survey of over 9,000 scientists. Its findings should be like the sirens […]
There’s only One Issue in the 2024 Election: The Survival of a Habitable Earth
“Since the Israeli offensive began following 7 October 2023, people in Gaza have had only 4.74 litres of water per person per day for all uses including drinking, cooking, and washing, which is a dramatic 94% reduction in the amount of water available before. This is significantly below the internationally accepted minimum standard of 15 litres of water per person per day for basic survival in emergencies.”
Ibrahim Salem was detained by Israeli forces in Gaza and held for 8 months, including 52 days at the now infamous Sde Teiman torture facility. Salem recounts the torture he endured, including physical abuse, starvation, and electrocution.
Israel paraded Israeli girl held hostage and tortured too. They were required to do some housework and live like Gazans in fear of Israel bombs
As Israel’s genocidal war against Gaza continues unabated, the Israeli economy is facing a catastrophe. The physical destruction in Israel from the war has been minimal, but one thing has been destroyed: its future.
Blinken’s Bullshit Bridge was never explained. It was conceived to simply continue to put the blame on Hamas otherwise known as Gaza. A vacuous Propaganda Proposal for Joe and Bibi at the continued cost of innocent lives. Last week they passed to give $20Bill more arms to Israel. Does that for a moment indicate there ever was a genuine effort for peace? In the meantime Israel is grabbing more land and looting the West Bank and demolishing homes in East Jerusalem
After Meeting With Blinken, Netanyahu Backs US Gaza Proposal That Includes His Demands
Some political projects in history fail because their underlying strategy contradicts the goals of the broader project. The American strategy for the past three decades, of hugging Israel so tightly that peace and security would flow, has clearly failed. If the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same failed thing, then US policy today toward Israel and its neighbors is, indeed, insane.
Time to end the “No Daylight” Approach to America’s Israel Policy
“Corporations supplying jet fuel and oil to Israel may be providing material support to the military,” one expert said, “and therefore risk complicity in war crimes, genocide, and other crimes under international law.”
‘Complicity in War Crimes’: Report Names Countries, Companies Supplying Fuel to Israel
Progressives and moderates came together to support Kamala Harris by largely ignoring the most pressing moral issue of our time.
Democratic Party Unites Under Banner of Silence on Gaza Genocide
and
“Uncommitted” Democratic delegates are trying to convince the DNC to allow Palestinian Americans onto the convention’s main stage.
Inside the Push to Get Palestinian Speakers on the DNC Main Stage
The speech that referred to Palestinian suffering was a journey into a universe of political guile from a president who had just approved sending $20 billion more weapons to Israel, writes Norman Solomon.
The Bridge to nowhere
“We’ll keep working, to bring hostages home, and end the war in Gaza, and bring peace and security to the Middle East,” Biden told the cheering delegates. “As you know, I wrote a peace treaty for Gaza. A few days ago I put forward a proposal that brought us closer to doing that than we’ve done since October 7th.”
Biden’s Cruel & Orwellian Remarks on Gaza at the DNC
August 20, 2024
On Sunday, Trump used his Truth Social account to share the AI-generated images, known as “deepfakes,” one of which showed Swift dressed up as Uncle Sam with the caption, “Taylor Wants You to Vote for Donald Trump.” Others showed people wearing shirts that read, “Swifties for Trump.”
Trump wrote, “I accept,” in his post sharing the images, suggesting he was accepting a formal endorsement.
Fresh Warnings of Election Deepfakes After Trump’s Taylor Swift Stunt
One can continue to argue that Israel must respect international law, and that Burma must respect human rights. But what use are mere words when the wWest continues to provide the murder weapon, with no moral or legal accountability?
Partners in Genocide: Israel is Slaughtering Palestinians with Western Arms
In Gaza today, it seems likely that famine will continue to spread and kill until there is a ceasefire. Given current political realities in Israel, a ceasefire is unlikely until the United States halts its recurring transfers of lethal weapons to the IDF.
Approximately 4,750,000 Israelis oppose criminal prosecution or 50% of the Israeli population. 16% of Israel’s Jews. The Haredim tend not to have anything to do with the State institutions and that would include polls and surveys. That would suggest far less than 50% of Israelis oppose criminal prosecution. Yet we constantly are being told 96% of Israelis support this “retaliatory war of vengeance” committed on a population of over 50% of women children and elderly who led simple family lives in an open-air Israeli concentration camp for over 18 years
TOI quoted Jonathan Katz, chief economist at Leader Capital Markets, as saying that supply bottlenecks contributed to the slowdown, as did a 26% fall in construction investment because of the lack of — get this — Palestinian laborers! Israel is at full employment, given the call-up of reservists into the army, and the labor shortage is also a big drag on the economy.
“We need actions, not words,” said Ibrahim Sidda, 55, whose home was also attacked during the pogrom. “The army says they’re against this violence — so do something. Here in Area C we are under Israel’s jurisdiction and security responsibility. Let them come and protect us. Stop the settlers. We didn’t come to them; they came here.”
Israeli condemnations ring hollow after settler pogrom in Jit
The far right of a special type is emerging in a period defined by hyper-imperialism to mask the actuality of hideous power and pretend that it cares about the isolated individuals that it instead harms. It knows human folly well and preys on it.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Monday that Israel has accepted a proposal to bridge differences holding up a cease-fire and hostage release in Gaza, and he called on Hamas to do the same, without saying whether concerns cited by the militant group had been addressed.
Netanyahu has never accepted a proposal that he knew he wasn’t going to break. A “bridging proposal” is about as clear as once declaring Israel was “just mowing the lawn” and not breaking any truce. America and Israel need not just a vague announcement but a specific course of action. Blinken seems more like a Netanyahu puppet than a “tour de force” mediator &/or negotiator.
What is a “bridging proposal”? How is it to be executed? If it’s anything like the “Pier Proposal” the Americans put forward to allow Netanyahu’s war to proceed while aid was being delivered. Well, we know how well that went down.
What about Israel’s Moral High Ground? “We let the aid trucks into Gaza” but kept the Gazans moving to prevent any distribution. Then blamed the NGO volunteers who they routinely killed. If Gazans even tried they too were shot at along with the starving people queued.
So what we are seeing is more Hasbara. Propaganda for both Israel and America’s sake rather than reality. Reality was the a hostage exchange in November 2023. It made Netanyahu and Israel look so bad they have never offered another “bridge to peace” since. This one you can be assured is built on sand. Why on earth would Hamas accept it?
Hamas — designated by the Australian government as a terrorist group — has said it is losing faith in the US as a mediator, accusing American negotiators of siding with Israel as it makes new demands that the militant group rejects.
What we are witnessing is the greatest “Conflict of Interest” with America acting as the principal negotiator while supplying arms to Israel for the duration of this war.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says Israel accepts bridging proposal for Gaza ceasefire
The speed at which the UN and ICJ is operating favors Israel not the Unity of Nations,
I imagine that many of us grew up assuming that Australia was a good international citizen, setting an exemplary example for other countries. I have no doubt that a great number of us are now ashamed of our country’s response to the ICJ opinion, and wonder where we went wrong, and how we became beholden to the rogue state, Israel, and indeed, compromised our sovereignty to it and its Zionist supporters.
The cult of forced happiness acts as a conscious program to defang and dilute opposition, maligning critics who refuse to join the fascists of the grin, the authoritarians of the forcedsmiled. It stiffens the sinews of groupthink and discourages naysayers who wish to challenge organisational behaviour or correct errors. Whistleblowers worried about reporting corporate malfeasance or criminality in government organisations find themselves hounded and scolded for not being loyal in patriotic silence. They should have tasted wellness and its therapeutic properties. To be unhappy, it follows, is to be critical and dangerously free.
The genocide in Gaza and the global mobilisation against it have put the Palestinian struggle at an important juncture. It is essential for Palestinians and their allies to seize this moment and push for a solution that dismantles colonial structures and establishes a single, democratic state where all citizens, regardless of ethnicity or religion, are equal.
Solidarity with Palestine must be about decolonisation, not just a ceasefire
In trying to Palestine’s prospects of independence and peace with Israel, one is reminded of Tolstoy’s observation that ‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way’. This is to say that, successful claims to independence share common features, but the circumstances of Palestine’s aspiration for independence are distinctively its own.
Comparing Palestine’s prospects for independence and peace
By Damien Kin
a crucial question: How has Israeli society transformed to the point where public protest against the wars and violations of Palestinian human rights has largely disappeared?
Colonizing Childhood and Zionist Pedagogy: Interview With Prof….a French child does not wake up every morning to say I am French! I am French! I am French! But the Jewish children have to dramatise their identity, their allegiance, their loyalty. Any Jewish Israeli that refuses to justify his/her presence there is asked to leave for she/he has no rightful place in Israel! There is no escape without really acknowledging the past and then comes the painful decision: what does one do with the past?
Again I want to stress that Israel’s prevailing culture of racism, fundamentalism, support for war crimes and apartheid against Palestinians is partly a product of an educational system that indoctrinates Jewish-Israeli students with militant colonial values and extreme racism that turn them into monsters once in uniform. Many in Israeli society are bewildered by the sadistic, gratuitous cruelty of Israeli soldiers towards Palestinians. Israelis have internalised the message that Palestinians are people whose life is dispensable with impunity and whose presence has to be diminished. One should not wonder then why, at the height of the Israeli massacre in Gaza 2008-2009, a Tel Aviv University poll (reported in the Jerusalem Post, Jan. ’09) of Jewish-Israeli opinion showed a shocking 94% support for the assault despite full knowledge of the enormous suffering this Israeli aggression had inflicted upon the 1.5 million Palestinians incarcerated in the Gaza “prison camp” and of the massive destruction of their civilian infrastructure. More BDS (Boycott Divestment & Sanctions) is needed to end Israeli occupation, colonialism and apartheid.
StoryAug 15, 2024
“Palestinians in Gaza cannot wait until after the U.S. election while bombs are dropping and burning their loved ones alive,” said one campaigner.
On Eve of DNC, ‘Not Another Bomb’ Rallies Demand US Arms Embargo on Israel
While the focus is on Gaza and the destruction of anything that resembles a place to live in that overcrowded space, the gaze on what is occurring on the West Bank is averted… look over there at Gaza, remember October 7, release the hostages, nothing to see here, as villages are attacked, people harassed on a daily basis, security check, arrests for no apparent reason, a constant level of fear and intimidation.
Basic human rights are being denied on an ethnic basis, undesirables are being driven out but have no where to go while the world’s eyes are focussed on Gaza
It seems that the play Fiddler on the Roof is being re-scripted. But no option to convert to Judaism, no offer of resettlement, not even in Australia, a land of immigrants, just go anywhere but here… except where?
Empowered by the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling allowing unlimited independent financial contributions to support political campaigns, outside spending during the current election cycle has hit a record $1 billion, according to a report published Thursday by the watchdog group OpenSecrets.
‘Turning Into the Super PAC Election’: Outside Spending Tops $1 Billion for 2024
For the past two weeks, a sickening scandal around Israeli torture of Palestinians has roiled the country’s politics. Many Americans likely have no idea about it, because mainstream media is all but ignoring it.
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.