Israel’s political and military leaders have produced so many outright lies regarding Gaza and Hamas that it might seem there is no point in wasting one’s breath on them. Consider the following statements and the contrary evidence for those not yet convinced:
Source: Dangerous Deceptions and Outright Lies: Language in the War on Gaza
But Netanyahu’s war remains unwinnable simply because liberation wars, often conducted through guerrilla warfare tactics, are far more complicated than traditional combat. Nearly six months after the Israeli attack on Gaza, it has become clear that Palestinian resistance groups are durable and well-prepared for a much longer fight.
Netanyahu, supported by far-right ministers and an equally hardline defense minister, Yoav Gallant, insists that more firepower is the answer. Though the unprecedented amount of explosives, used by Israel in Gaza, killed and wounded over 100,000 Palestinians, an Israeli victory, however it is defined, remains elusive.
Most Israelis are calling for new elections this year. If they are to receive their wish today, the pro-Netanyahu coalition would only be able to muster 46 seats, compared to its rivals with 64.
And, if the Israeli coalition government — currently controlling 72 seats out of 120 Knesset seats — is to collapse, the rightwing dominance over Israeli politics will shatter, likely for a long time.
Source: Israel’s Other Defeat
This new normal, which for now seems impossible to break through, did not appear out of nowhere. Rather, it is actively being produced, every single day, by those who have an interest in maintaining it — a broad coalition of individuals and groups each with distinct motivations.
1 ) If they can notch a few victories in the war, perhaps, they hope, they will not go down in history as the worst leaders Israel ever had. So they talk about a war that will last for years.
2) Netanyahu’s Coalition
3) Biden
Source: Netanyahu isn’t the only one interested in prolonging the war
The order of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 28 March 2024 to stop genocide in Gaza is not a go-to-jail card for Israel. So Israel just ignored it. In so doing, it followed the example of the US which had ignored an ICJ decision against the US and in favour of Nicaragua in 1986 and, again, in 2004, in favour of Mexico.
Both Israel and the US show by conduct they believe they are above international law and the “rules-based order”. The difference here is that Israel is continuing to commit what the UN Human Rights rapporteur has called “the crime of all crimes.”
Last but not least, Israel and the US are increasingly being seen for what they are, viz two pariah states disregarding International law and the international system. Long term and serious negative consequences may flow from this. For example, Israel’s biblical-based claim to exist may be seen as an invalid excuse for genocide and the forceful and illegal taking of land lawfully inhabited and owned by others. For US hegemony, Israel’s genocide in Gaza will be another nail added to its coffin.
That’s their “Pitch”. How is it that they failed so badly in Gaza these past 20 years? If we assume they didn’t then this war was no surprise to Israel in fact it was planned and intended. If it wasn’t then their surveillance industries are a scam
Israel has developed one of the most advanced surveillance industries in the world. With government support, companies like the NSO Group have been offering their services to authoritarian regimes to help them clamp down on political dissent.
Source: Israel’s Spy-Tech Industry Is a Global Threat to Democracy
“Voluntary Immigration” an Israeli term developed for after total destruction of Gaza
Rebuilding cities facing cascading crises the nature of which Gaza is confronted with is a daunting prospect. And while the task may seem insurmountable at the present, with cooperation, coordination and courage it is not unachievable.
But it is a challenge that becomes that much more difficult with each day that the war in Gaza goes on.
Cologne University has canceled philosopher Nancy Fraser’s planned visiting professorship after learning she signed a pro-Palestine letter. In her first interview after the cancellation, Fraser says she won’t let Germany stop her from standing up for Palestine.
Source: Nancy Fraser: Germany Canceled Me for Supporting Palestine
Australia’s Defence Department has refused a Freedom of Information request about the details of an arms deal with Israel on the grounds that such information “could harm Australia’s international standing and reputation,” which suggests the details must be pretty damning. Equally as scandalous, this refusal was reportedly made in consultation with the Israeli government.
Distraction, Deflection, We can’t do two things at once. Forget Gaza.
For the feds, ISIS-K as the new domestic terrorism threat avoids dealing with the politics of the Gaza war.
Source: Terror Hunters Trade Hamas for ISIS-K, Perhaps With Some Relief
Despite this apparent disconnect, we read Fanon today for his startlingly prescient analysis of contemporary ills: the enduring trauma of racism, the persistent plague of white supremacy and xenophobia, the scourge of authoritarianism, and the savagery of colonial domination. Poetic, enraged, and insubordinate, Frantz Fanon gave voice to the anguish of the colonized voiceless and his words continue to resonate with a new global “wretched of the earth.”
The Palestinian people—not just Hamas—have been Israel’s intended targets all along
Source: Opinion | ‘Self-Defense’ Is No Justification for Genocide in Gaza | Common Dreams
Biden’s plan for a political settlement in the territory is for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank to be revitalised and take over management of Gaza after Hamas’s defeat. How that might be achieved given the Palestinian Authority has little credibility with Palestinians and even less with Israelis is not at all clear.
Even more worryingly, Hamas’s demise still seems a long way off.
Source: Facing enormous pressure at home and abroad, how much longer can Israel continue its war in Gaza?
“It is past time journalists take action for journalists in Gaza,” the Palestinians asserted. “We call on all journalists of conscience to stand with us and uplift our call to boycott the White House Correspondents’ dinner.
Source: Palestinian Journalists Urge Boycott of White House Correspondents’ Dinner
“It is difficult for us to choose a child and give them priority over another child so that they can live”: Doctors forced to make heartbreaking decisions over babies’ lives in Gaza amid soaring demand and equipment shortage.
Source: Gazan doctors forced to choose which children to save – » The Australian Independent Media Network
At 6 a.m. on March 22, pro-Palestinian activists Said and Yasemin, who were asleep in their respective Berlin homes, were awakened by armed and masked police officers who broke down their doors at the same time. Berlin police then looked through their belongings and confiscated their electronic devices, including their phones. The simultaneous raid was to deter one from communicating with or warning the other.
In a series of posts on social media, Said said that this raid was the police’s third visit and he maintains that he is being targeted for his activism and that he did nothing wrong. “I am not okay,” he wrote, “Why is the German government trying everything possible to criminalize me? I have done nothing wrong. I make the German government and the media responsible for everything that might happen to me!”
Source: Germany is Becoming a Police State When It Comes to Palestine Activism – ScheerPost
I pray that the war will end so that we can think about what comes next, and have the energy to contend with the new suffering that awaits us in getting used to life in a devastated, ruined Gaza.
- Eight out of 10 schools in Gaza are damaged or destroyed, UNICEF says.
- 625,000 students have no access to education, the UN says.
- 1,000 children in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says.
- More than 50,000 children are estimated to be acutely malnourished in Gaza, the UN says.
- 30 percent of children under two years in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished, the World Food Programme says.
- 31 children have died from starvation and hunger, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) says.
- More than 200 Palestinian children are being held in Israeli prisons, the Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer says.
Source: Six months on, Gaza is a “betrayal of humanity” | – IMEMC News
“As these numbers show, we still have a lot of work to do to make meaningful progress in reducing the amount of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere,” said one NOAA scientist.
Source: Atmospheric Greenhouse Gas Concentrations Hit New Record Levels
It will take more than sunlight to reform our bounty-hunting, boys’ club that rules the roost in a corporate media captured by billionaires who care less about profit than ways their share of our attention can give themselves access to power. But it’s a good start. Ironically, our nation’s flawed defamation laws which so severely curtail speaking truth to power that our fourth estate is a tamed estate if not a fifth column – may have triggered an exposure of such rampant corruption, on such a wide scale, that the genie is now out of the bottle.
The senseless and cruel deportation of Australians, many of whom have spent decades with their families here, will be a shameful stain on Albanese’s legacy, Gerry Georgatos writes.
Source: Albanese Government is complicit in the cruel deportation of Australians
“The IDF three-day information operation had the same precision, tempo and effectiveness as the initial kinetic attack” of Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom and her 6 World Central Kitchen colleagues, writes Stuart McCarthy, and it channels the ADF propaganda model in Afghanistan.
The Albanese government is now adrift in the whirlwind of Australia’s abject failure to hold its top generals to account for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
“I want to thank, obviously, the IDF for doing such a quick investigation,” Andrés said. “But at the same time, I will say something so complicated, the investigation should be much more deeper. And I would say that the perpetrator cannot be investigating himself.”
reporting from Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
About 322 humanitarian trucks have been allowed to get into the Gaza Strip from both the Karem Abu Salem (known as Kerem Shalom to Israelis) crossing and the Rafah crossing here in Rafah.
These humanitarian convoys are loaded with water, sugar, flour and all kinds of basic necessities that Palestinians very desperately need.
But none of these humanitarian convoys has been given access to reach the northern part of the Gaza Strip, despite the Israeli military decision to reopen again the Erez crossing (Beit Hanoon) and to guarantee further flow of humanitarian supplies to people in the north.
Generally in times before the war, between 400 and up to 500 humanitarian trucks were reaching the Gaza Strip on a daily basis. This means these new deliveries are still incomparable to the massive needs of populations here, specifically those who are trapped in the northern parts of Gaza and facing high rates of malnutrition.
The Biden administration has insisted there’s very little it can do to alter policy in the region and acted as though Israel’s policy decisions are unconnected to the United States, the country that gives them more than $4 billion a year in military aid.
Source: Opinion | Israel’s Aid Capitulation Exposes the Lie Behind Biden’s Gaza Policy | Common Dreams
I feel like I’m screaming underwater. Why aren’t the other 193 countries in the world screaming above the water line as they witness this horror right in front of their eyes? Why aren’t more leaders made of strong moral fibre which should naturally be horrified by the actions of the U.S. and Israel?
Source: Witness to horror upon horror, I scream underwater – Pearls and Irritations
The murder of an Australian humanitarian worker in Gaza has again highlighted the deplorable hypocrisy of our Defence Department’s ties to Israel, Dr Binoy Kampmark writes.
Any such equivalent investigation into the IDF personnel responsible for the killing of Frankcom and her colleagues is unlikely. When the IDF talks of comprehensive reviews, we know exactly how comprehensively slanted they will be.
Source: Australia’s shameful military ties to Israel under scrutiny after killing of aid worker
That no sanctions have even been proposed by Australia is dumbfounding given the litany of clearly unjustified acts of war inflicted upon the Palestinians. Since October 7 Netanyahu’s ‘inevitable consequences of war’ has meant:
- 203 aid workers killed of whom 95% were Palestinian (this figure is higher than the total number of aid worker fatalities that typically occur annually worldwide)
- More United Nations aid workers have been killed in Gaza than in any other single conflict in the organisation’s 78-year history
- 102 UNWRA aid workers killed and 27 others wounded
- UNRWA’s facilities have been hit over 290 times in the hostilities,
- 374 medical personnel have been killed
- 120 ambulances have been completely destroyed.
- 12 of 35 hospitals are only partially functioning
- 51 of 72 primary medical care facilities are closed.
- Hospitals and other vital medical infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank have been attacked nearly 600 times
- 613 people have died within health facilities (of which seven were in the West Bank) and more than 770 have been injured, (WHO)
- In the West Bank, 286 attacks caused seven deaths and 52 injuries. Some 24 health facilities were affected along with 212 ambulances
- At least 95 journalists have been killed according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, in what has been the deadliest period for journalists since the NGO began tracking casualties in 1992.
The above translates to an Israeli army for which the rules of engagement are being ignored at will – an army totally out of control.
Source: Australia’s disgraceful diversion of responsibility over Gaza war crimes – Pearls and Irritations
We are talking about what is supposed to be a fundamental protection for victims of rape and sexual assault who choose to make a complaint to police, being used by the perpetrator, or someone who has privileged access to the police brief, to intimidate, harass, and humiliate complainants. It is astounding that this abuse of the legal system has not received anything like the attention it deserves. It is one more obstacle in a field filled with obstacles that can and do deter women from seeking justice after enduring rape and sexual assault.
Source: The Harman Undertaking – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Israel’s supporters have repeatedly invoked the memory of Nazi genocide to legitimize mass murder of civilians in Gaza. Historian Enzo Traverso warns that the cynical misuse of Holocaust remembrance poses a grave danger to our global democratic culture.
“No one ever mentions the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves against an aggression that has lasted for decades.”
Source: The Gaza Massacre Is Undermining the Culture of Democracy
It cannot happen overnight, but commitment must be made to bring into existence a new nation of Palestinians and Israelis living together, with equal human rights, equal voting rights, equal access to health and education, even the right to drive on the same roads. It will not be easy, but it can and must be done, urgently, for all our sakes.
The Bibi government is like to fall soon, a consequence of political over-reach for an untenable situation, and his own brand of hubris-chutzpah. After a series of inconsequential elections and back room bargaining, which yielded no majority; he managed to cobble a fractured government, composed of ministers with competing and conflicting agendas and interests. It was destined to fail from the beginning, and now they face a dilemma certain to bring it down. It’s a matter of time. Benny Gantz of the National Unity Party has declared that if new elections aren’t held by September, his party will leave the government.
Source: Israel on the Brink as Ultra-Orthodox Exemption from Military Service is Set to End
Inconvenient Truth, Part One a): The International Mafia
Inconvenient Truth, Part One b): Israel’s ‘Secret Weapons’
Inconvenient Truth, Part Two: The Hypocrisy of The West
Analysis: Voltaire and Who Rules You
Anyone who thinks the idea that Israel is in control of international affairs is some sort of conspiracy should consider the quote attributed to Voltaire:
If you wish to know who rules you, find out who you are not allowed to criticise
In light of this, the status of Israel as hegemon (leader) in international affairs is no conspiracy. Any and all criticism of Israel has to be premised with statements about ‘Israel having the right to exist and to defend itself’ and ‘I condemn Hamas’. When medicine is given to an animal, it is commonly concealed in food to make it as palatable as possible. The comparison to criticism of Israel needing to premised with the aforementioned statements is apt. And they will still call you an anti-semite.
Conclusion
I realise I have gone for the jugular here, but I do not apologise. Israel is subject to a different standard (read no standards) precisely because it is Israel. If Iran or one of the other so-called ‘rogue nations’ bombed the living hell out of a region to this extent (whatever the provocation) the American and other nations’ response would not be strong words. The response would be a bombardment so vicious that Dresden would say ‘calm down’.
The time has come to remove Israel’s special status and hold them accountable under international law and the laws of war. This will never happen, of course, since setting a precedent of prosecuting war criminals who are ‘the good guys’ (read friends of America) is not in the interest of the international community. As Noam Chomsky said, if the Nuremberg Laws were actually enforced, every post-war US President would hang as a war criminal. Awkward.
This post is likely to cost me a friend or two, but that is ok. Friends like that I can do without. I abhor violence and indiscriminate killing of civilians and children. If condemning that makes me an anti-semite, then HH.
I’d suggest the Hannibal Directive coupled with the Bethlehem Directive are enough to show Israel hasn’t any consideration for innocent lives. Nobody even Israeli citizens aren’t regarded as innocent if caught between the IDF and any declared enemy. The Bethlehem Directive allows mass murder on nothing but a thought bubble. According to the IDF killing the WCK workers was entirely justified what wasn’t was the Hasbara need for an explanation making it look like a mistake.
“A human shield is only a shield if your enemy values human life and seeks to minimize civilian deaths,” Grim adds. “Israel deliberately maximizes the number of civilians it can kill by waiting until a target is with his entire family. Palestinians are not shields to Israel, they are all targets.”
“because of these +972 revelations the lie has now been thoroughly, irrefutably debunked.”
If Biden’s people privately object to some Israeli off-the-wall slaughter of courageous journalists, United Nations staff, aid workers, patients in hospitals, and the starvation of babies, Netanyahu can softly say to Biden and Blinken, “Joe, Tony, why don’t you take up your complaints with OUR Congress.”
Source: Opinion | The Mutually Reinforcing American and Israeli Empires | Common Dreams
HuffPost obtained rare interviews with Hamas leaders Mousa Abu Marzouk and Basem Naim, pressing them six months since Oct. 7 on the group’s attacks on civilians and its vision for the future of Israel-Palestine.
Source: In Rare Interviews, Hamas Leaders Discuss Oct. 7 Attack And Gaza Crisis | HuffPost Latest News
The Gaza “satire” underscores the political empowerment of Israel’s right wing, and particularly the settler movement, after the October 7 attack by Hamas. Political radicals have been blocking aid convoys into Gaza and erecting symbolic outposts along the Gaza border. Meanwhile, high-ranking figures in the Israeli government have openly articulated their ambitions for Israeli control and a renewed Israeli civilian presence in Gaza.
Source: Axel Springer Israel Site Promotes Firm That Used Genocidal Rhetoric
Why is there even a need for the right to discriminate? Have these educated people not learned anything from history? To entrench discrimination at the level of teacher is to entrench the orthodoxy which allows contempt for this who are different. Surely the differences which are in the communities we live in need to be reflected in everyday life, and that includes in the school environment. Otherwise we reinforce intolerance, we hide behind a veil of piety that allows for discrimination and judgement on people who do not conform to the rigidity of the orthodoxy of the school or its religious controlling body.
Source: I need the right to discriminate! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Watering golf courses is more important than providing piped water to the thousand of children under the age of five who die every day due to water deprivation. Those are the values of the capitalist system.
By November 2023, it was already clear that the Israeli government had begun to deny Palestinians in Gaza access to water.
“Every hour that passes with Israel preventing the provision of safe drinking water in the Gaza strip, in brazen breach of international law, puts Gazans at risk of dying of thirst and diseases related to the lack of safe drinking water’, said Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation.
“Israel,” he noted, “must stop using water as a weapon of war.”
Source: How Israel Weaponizes Water
A doctor at an Israeli field hospital inside a notorious detention center where hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are temporarily held is sounding the alarm about torture and horrific conditions at what some human rights defenders — including Israelis — are calling “Israel’s Guantánamo Bay” and even a “concentration camp.”
One aspect of the recent revelations about the IDF’s Lavender AI system that’s not getting enough consideration is the fact that it is completely devastating to the narrative that Israel has been killing so many civilians because Hamas uses “human shields”.
“Israel’s argument that they kill so many civilians because Hamas uses ‘human shields’ is torn apart by the revelation that the IDF prefers to attack its ‘targets’ when they are at home with their families,” tweeted Grim. “It is not Hamas using human shields, it is Israel deliberately hunting families.”
Source: The ‘human shields’ lie has been conclusively, irrefutably debunked – Pearls and Irritations
Pampered hernia patient Netanyahu is ultimately responsible for the destruction of more of the planet’s hospitals than anyone since the bombing of Hamburg during the Second World War.
Source: Shattered wards, ill-timed hernias, and the moral bankruptcy of a nation – Pearls and Irritations
As Israel continues to starve Palestinians to death in the Gaza Strip, an international coalition on Friday was preparing to set sail with humanitarian aid and human rights observers “to challenge the ongoing illegal Israeli blockade.”
Source: Gaza-Bound Flotilla Aims to End Inhumane Israeli Blockade
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