There are no “Jewish victims”, only protesting “right from wrong” and what a nation values. 14,000 dead children aren’t understandable 1139 dead Israelis are wrong, but understandable.
Source: I’ve Covered Violent Crackdowns on Protests for 15 Years. This Police Overreaction Was Unhinged.
On the morning of Jan. 13, a five-man crew from Paltel — a Palestinian telecommunications company that provides telephone, cellular, and internet services across the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip — set out to repair a switchboard generator that had run out of fuel in the city of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza. The repair operation was coordinated in advance and in real time with the Israeli military, which also sent the team a detailed map of the area specifying the routes they were authorized to take. The Palestinian men completed the repair job and, by early afternoon, had set off on their return journey to the city of Rafah.
But then, without warning, an Israeli tank fired a shell directly at one of the team’s clearly-marked vehicles, killing two technicians.
Source: A Gaza team went to repair a telecoms machine. An Israeli tank fired at them
Google downplays its military work with Israel, but “Project Nimbus” documents tie the American tech giants to Israel’s deadly military capabilities.
Source: Project Nimbus Contract Ties Google, Amazon to Israel Arms Firms
In public, Biden appears “tough” on Netanyahu, urging him not to “invade” Rafah and pressuring him to allow more “humanitarian aid” into Gaza.
But already the White House is preparing the ground to subvert its own messaging. It insists that Israel has offered an “extraordinarily generous” deal to Hamas – one that, Washington suggests, amounts to a ceasefire. It doesn’t. According to reports, the best Israel has offered is an undefined “period of sustained calm”. Even that promise can’t be trusted.
If Hamas accepts the “deal” and agrees to return some of the hostages, the bombing eases for a short while but the famine intensifies, justified by Israel’s determination for “total victory” against Hamas – something that is impossible to achieve. This will simply delay, for a matter of days or weeks, Israel’s move to step 5 below.
If, as seems more likely, Hamas rejects the “deal”, it will be painted as the intransigent party and blamed for seeking to continue the “war”. (Note: This was never a war. Only the West pretends either that you can be at war with a territory you’ve been occupying for decades, or that Hamas “started the war” with its October 7 attack when Israel has been blockading the enclave, creating despair and incremental malnutrition there, for 17 years.)
https://shows.acast.com/f5b64019-68c3-57d4-b70b-043e63e5cbf6/66317d30cff31b0012c83e94
Asked if Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, cable news viewers said no by a 34-32 margin. All other news consumers said Israel is committing genocide, including print (36-33), YouTube (41-31), and social media users, who agree with the statement by a 44 to 19 percent margin. People aged 18 to 29, meanwhile, have similar views (48-21 percent), while those over 65 say by a 47 to 21 percent plurality that Israel isn’t committing genocide.
Source: Cable News Viewers Have a Skewed Attitude Toward Gaza War, Survey Finds
Israel: Hey Joe, just letting you know Hamas has retaliated to our decades long Occupation and repression and have broken through the prison gates and attacked Israelis. Go figure.
US.: Here’s your chance. It’s going to be a tough media manipulation, but we’ll do our best. Good luck.
Israel: We’re going to bomb the shit out of Gaza from top to bottom.
U.S.: Okay we’ll reward you from start to finish with ammunition, money, vocal support and all the aid you need.
Israel: We’re going to target civilians and say Hamas is hiding behind them.
Source: We’ll reward you for genocide – Pearls and Irritations
warnings from Jewish-led groups that the measure speciously conflates legitimate criticism of the Israeli government with bigotry against Jewish people.
The university should, as part of its humane intellectual mission, divest from the military-industrial complex in totality. But it will help to see the books and investment returns, the unveiling, as it were, of the endowments of some of the richest universities on the planet. Follow the money; the picture is bound to be an ugly one.
Source: How Israel Violates International Law in Gaza: Expert Report – ScheerPost
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Palestinians have dug up more than 400 bodies from mass graves at two Gaza hospitals. Some have shown signs of torture and possible executions. The International Court of Justice had already issued a preliminary order against Israel after finding that its actions in Gaza might amount to genocide. So how will the world respond to this?
Israel’s Zionist offer of a ceasefire “Pls climb into our mass grave”
Netanyahu on Tuesday said Israel will destroy Hamas’ battalions there “with or without a deal” to achieve “total victory” in the nearly seven-month war.
Only social media users said they’d be more likely to support a candidate who supported Palestinians (33-19 percent). Just 15 percent of cable news viewers said the same, even though 31 percent of cable viewers agreed that Israel was committing genocide against Palestinians.
Source: Cable News Viewers Have a Skewed Attitude Toward Gaza War, Survey Finds
The Israeli authorities, in their campaign of remorseless killing, doctoring and adjusting the numbers of the Palestinian populace for whatever future awaits, have been found wanting on accusations that Hamas terrorists packed, stacked and filled UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East).
US/ Israeli Circus
The IDF conducted an investigation and discharged two junior officers from the unit, but no legal action was taken. This is just one episode in a list of human rights violations allegedly perpetrated by members of Netzah Yehuda on Palestinian civilians that have come under investigation by the US government.
Source: Netzah Yehuda: the ‘Violent and Aggressive’ IDF unit the US is Thinking of Sanctioning
CNN reports ominously this week that “Biden is actually 11 percentage points behind Trump among young voters 18-34 in a head-to-head match in a CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released over the weekend.”
Officials with four US bureaus have told Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, that Israel’s assurances that it is using American weapons in compliance with international law are not “credible or reliable,” according to an internal State Department memo reviewed by Reuters.
Source: US implicated as Israeli impunity nears its end | The Electronic Intifada
State schools and overburdened teachers here are decried as “woke” by right-wing activists, echoing their American models.
If children aren’t told that jarrah and marri forests in Western Australia are dying, mountain ash forests in Victoria are dying, snow gum forests in the high country are dying, the Great Barrier Reef is dying, maybe we can pretend there is no climate crisis underway.
Private school children, one presumes, have enough investment in the status quo to deserve such disproportionate sums.
John F Kennedy warned in 1962, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Vested interests plan for there to be no protest at all, no matter how many lives its absence will cost.
Source: Neoliberalism dreads an educated electorate – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The Democrats and the Republicans are outdoing each other to prove who can get us to World War III fastest. Joe Biden and the Congressional Democrats are making a convincing bid to be the leading warmongers. The Congressional Democrats just voted unanimously in a vote of 210 – 0 to extend the Ukraine War with another $61 Billion to kill more Russians and Ukrainians, and by a lopsided majority of 173-37 for another $14 Billion to extend Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza. Donald Trump weighed in before the vote that Ukraine’s survival and strength is “important to us”, and that Europe should pay more. Republican Speaker Mike Johnson did his part for warmongering by calling Russia, China, and Iran the updated axis of evil. The slur was just in time for Secretary of State Blinken to fly to China to threaten more US sanctions if China trades with Russia in ways the US disapproves.
Source: War parties, the peace candidate, and the US election – Pearls and Irritations
Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is part of its war of annihilation against the Palestinian people carried out with increasing fervor across historic Palestine, including the West Bank, under the most right-wing government in Israeli history.
Source: Israel Is Waging a War on All Palestinians, Not Just Gazans
Jean-Pierre responded: “So, we’ve been really clear about the ICC investigation. We do not support it. We don’t believe that they have the jurisdiction. And I’m just gonna leave it there for now.”
Source: ‘We Do Not Support’ ICC Probe of Israeli War Crimes in Gaza, Says White House | Common Dreams
Haaretz reported that the Israeli government is working under the assumption that arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and IDF Chief-of-Staff Herzi Halevi could be issued as soon as this week. The report said that the US is already engaged in an effort to block the warrants.
The US backed the ICC issuing an arrest warrant for Putin
Source: US Working To Prevent ICC Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu – ScheerPost
The regimes in Israel and Palestine both claim to be victims in the violence that engulfs them. Interpreting the situation through “victimhood” assists in understanding the human forces that arise from age-old conflicts and that continue to cause so much horrific suffering.
Small wonder at the psychological crisis this history has created for American Jewry. The “never again” faction loudly worries that Palestinian liberation is incompatible with Israeli survival and sees growing American antisemitism behind every picket sign. But support for Netanyahu and his government contradicts everything valuable in Jewish tradition and divides Jews from their historic allies in this country and worldwide. People who have spent decades supporting the civil rights movement and efforts for peace and justice throughout the world are now alienated from their traditional values and beliefs.
Does anyone wonder where Einstein and Freud would stand in this debate?
Source: Being Jewish In a Time of Mass Hysteria – ScheerPost
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen news coverage as shallow as the Israeli media’s coverage of the pro-Palestine demonstrations on college campuses across the United States in recent days.
In a segment that aired on April 24, for example, Channel 12’s Yuna Leibzon showed footage of the protests outside Columbia University’s campus: viewers saw a handful of people chanting that Tel Aviv should be burned to the ground, and a lone masked protester holding a sign bearing an antisemitic statement. The implication was clear: these individuals are representative of all the protesters, and the entire pro-Palestine movement is illegitimate.
Neria Kraus, Channel 13’s correspondent in New York, also reported from Columbia’s campus. In her coverage, she used three terms interchangeably: “pro-Palestinian demonstrations,” “anti-Israel demonstrations,” and “antisemitic demonstrations.” The message, again, was clear: to be pro-Palestinian or anti-Israel is to be antisemitic.
smearing the student demonstrations on U.S. campuses as one big frenzy of antisemitism is unserious journalism.
Serious journalism would provide the context, which the Israeli media has failed to do since October 7 — and, it must be said, a long time before that.
Source: Israeli media’s inevitable hysteria over U.S. campus protests
On 4/26, four students were “temporarily suspended” by Cornell University for exercising their constitutional right to protest. In response, these students issued the following statement:
Thus, our demands remain the same, and we raise our voices in unison to say: Divest Now.”
Kent State University
KENT STATE UNIVERSITY
Source: To Peacefully Petition – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Can we ask that the HECS hex can somehow be removed, that those dedicated students who work so hard to gain an education and careers which not only promise them a quality of life and worthwhile careers, and incomes that bring them to higher income tax brackets so their contributions late in life more than repay the costs they have incurred?
That’s right, the Stage 3 tax cuts have worked to minimise that benefit… worse before the Albo ‘lie’ as he adjusted the rate thresholds to make the system a smidgeon more equitable.
Source: The HECS Hex – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Israel’s religious Zionists are playing a long game, which is not linked to a particular election, individual or government coalition. They are redefining the state, along with its ideology. And they are winning.
Ben-Gvir and his threats to topple Netanyahu’s coalition government have been the main driving force behind the genocide in Gaza.
If Meir Kahane were still alive, he would have been proud of his followers. The ideology of the once marginalized and loathed extremist rabbi is now the backbone of Israeli politics.
Source: How Extremists Became the New Face of Israel – ScheerPost
From the perspective of lusty warmongers, UNRWA remains an obstacle, a nuisance, a nightmare of reminder to those wishing to be done with the Palestinian issue once and for all. May it continue to thrive, and, more ever, may its funders finally wise up to the fact that in the viciousness of conflict, civilians should never have to pay the price for military actions undertaken by others. Unfortunately, three months after, and a human-confected famine ravaging Gaza even as the killings continue, various donor countries such as the United States, Germany and the UK are still minding their wallets.
Source: Israel’s Anti-UNRWA Campaign Falls Flat – » The Australian Independent Media Network
“This is something that forces us to call for an independent investigation of all the suspicions and all the circumstances because it indeed creates the impression that there might have been violations of international human rights committed,” the EU’s spokesman, Peter Stano, declared.
‘Might have been’? There was evidence even without the discovery of mass graves, but the international community prefers to rest on speculation in the face of evidence. With one phrase, proof has been turned into an assumption. Can the international community, at least, stop sensationalising the horror of mass graves and focus on the entire genocidal process which wants to eliminate all traces of Palestinians? No independent investigation will cancel the fact that genocide unfolded with the international community’s blessing and, as a result, so did the mass graves.
As Palestinians reckon with the genocide being inflicted on them and their prospects for national liberation, it does them a disservice to flatten their political diversity and complex ongoing debates.
Motivated by vengeance and retribution, Israel is a narcissistic society wallowing in its own injury and using that injury as an excuse for its monumental crimes against the Palestinian people. Palestinians find Israel cruel, callous, and horrifying, and their first thought is “protect me from Israel.” Is this the Israeli society that Palestinians should be expected to live with in dignity and with equal rights?
Whatever the future holds, Palestinians need to be able to work through their devastating predicament collectively, democratically, and without fear. To insist on that is to boost their right of self-determination.
In calling for a boycott, our students are following in the footsteps of the generations before them who protested and called for a boycott to hasten the end to South Africa’s apartheid regime in the early 1990s.
The conflict over Israel’s obliteration of Gaza and the Palestinian people, and the American funding and munitions behind it, should have been what we professors call a “teachable moment” that could have taught lessons about war and conflict, justice and genocide.
Instead, our University’s silencing of some of its students has now led to the cancellation of the general commencement, impacting all students. This, too, is a teachable moment, although one taught by self-inflicted injury rather than intentional pedagogy. The lesson is that silencing those we disagree with can end up silencing everyone.
On the other hand, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has thumbed his nose at the court since it indicted him last year. His movements, however, have been affected, since when he travels abroad he risks arrest. He had to cancel a trip to South Africa last summer because Pretoria is an ICC signatory and may have been constrained to arrest him.
Source: Are Netanyahu & Co. about to face Arrest Warrants from the Int’l Criminal Court for Gaza War Crimes?
Source: US Reportedly Working to Stop ICC From Issuing Arrest Warrant for Netanyahu | Common Dreams
The outcome of the vote further isolates the United States precisely as much as the Israeli genocide in Gaza has also exposed and isolated Washington.
On 27 February, we wrote to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) expressing concern that Australia had failed to fulfil its obligation under the Genocide Convention (1948) to prevent any action that further risks the survival of the Palestinian people. That failure continues.
Source: Australia is a silent partner in atrocity in Gaza and the West Bank – Pearls and Irritations
So two things are being asserted:
1. Famine in Gaza is now unavoidable and will kill many civilian noncombatants even if more food aid starts getting in now.
2. The responsibility for this starvation of children, women and noncombatant males lies squarely with Israel, which is obstructing food aid deliveries.
That is all you need to know. These experts have never seen a situation so bad.
Source: USAID: Israel has already Imposed Unavoidable, Exponential Famine on Gaza outpacing Somalia’s
( Human Rights Watch ) – (Jerusalem) – The Israeli military either took part in or did not protect Palestinians from violent settler attacks in the West Bank that have displaced people from 20 communities and have entirely uprooted at least 7 communities since October 7, 2023, Human Rights Watch said today.
“We are in danger here, there are bombs, it is stressful and scary,” he said, burying his face in his arms as he cried.
“Many of the protesters here are saying Netanyahu is deliberately prolonging this war in Gaza because it saves him from the ultimate reckoning of the ballot box.”
Source: Hamas releases video of two Israeli captives held in Gaza | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera
I don’t know if the war will stop while we’re still alive, but what matters is that many people are resisting what is more important than weapons. Every day, a father walks under bombardment to feed us. A mother stands against bulldozers and tanks, hoping to protect her daughter, knowing that even if she dies, what matters is that her daughter will live. A grandson carries his grandmother and never considers leaving her behind for even a moment. A sister pulls her brother out from under the rubble, away from death, and tries to save him.
Mom, this is my country, this is my people. Every generation of Palestinians will pass these lessons onto the next.
Source: “The Bulldozer Kept Coming”: A Girl Stares Down Death in Gaza – ScheerPost
We generally assume words carry the same meaning in the mind of speaker and listener. This enables meaningful communication and common understanding. Sometimes however words are given a specific meaning which completely changes their original intent. The words become weapons. This has happened with the word antisemitism and the word terrorist.
Source: When words cease being words: and become weapons – Pearls and Irritations
Our lot is of course four of the current 50 odd naysayers, namely the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. It is now over two weeks since Prime Minister Albanese made his announcement that Australia was considering recognition of the State of Palestine. Were Australia to do so, that might just be the trigger needed for others to step up. How much “considering” does Anthony and his team need to do?
Source: “Considering” recognition of the State of Palestine – Pearls and Irritations
Source: Opinion | Israel Seems to Be the Only Country Looking for a Wider Middle East War | Common Dreams
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