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.
Iraqi Jews, Yusef was indifferent to Zionism. In the family, this political ideology was considered “an Ashkenazi thing”. Events beyond his purview (about which more later) projected his family and then him, largely out of the sense of responsibility, in the fledgling Zionist state. Even though he was to live over two decades in Israel, he and his Arab-Jew identity were irrevocably broken. He felt like a fish out of water, remained alien, unemployed and unaccustomed to the Ashkenazi-dominated society. But he never compromised his sense of humility, self-respect, and decency, never complained or asked for favours. The fate of this noble man illustrates that of many non-Ashkenazi Jews brought to Israel unaware of what awaited them in “the Promised Land”.
The uprooting of Iraq’s Jewish community is the leitmotif of the entire book. The Zionist colony, established by and for European Jews to solve Europe’s “Jewish problem”, needed Jews. The natural reservoir of “human material” (as Ben-Gurion used to repeat) was severely depleted due to the Nazi genocide. Zionist emissaries were sent to Muslim-majority countries to bring in living souls, even though these communities had played almost no role in the Zionist movement. The emissaries tried to convince, and, when this failed, cajoled and terrorized Jews. At the same time, arrangements were made, and bribes paid, to local officials who either facilitated emigration of Jews or looked the other way when they were smuggled out. The author, a witness, a victim, but also an eminent historian, painstakingly reconstructs the devastation of the Jewish community in Iraq, including Zionists’ acts of terror against Jews.
We continue our conversation with Israeli journalist and filmmaker Yuval Abraham about the award-winning new documentary No Other Land, which he co-directed with Palestinian activist Basel Adra, about land dispossession in Masafer Yatta in the occupied West Bank. While accepting the audience award for best documentary at the Berlinale, Abraham said Israel was practicing apartheid, a comment for which he later received death threats. “You have German politicians who are not Jewish who labeled me as an antisemite. For what? For calling for a ceasefire? For calling for equality between Israelis and Palestinians? For using the word ‘apartheid,’ which should be common sense to describe these parallel systems of inequality?” says Abraham, who calls for an end to the “apartheid reality” in Israel and Palestine. “If there is no full political equality and really full freedom to everybody who lives in this land, then there can be no future here. We are going to continue to fight to change this.”
abetting a genocide constitutes a violation of Google’s AI principles and terms of service,” Koren, now an organizer with No Tech for Apartheid, told The Intercept. “Even in the absence of public comment, Google’s actions have made it clear that the company’s public AI ethics principles hold no bearing or weight in Google Cloud’s business decisions, and that even complicity in genocide is not a barrier to the company’s ruthless pursuit of profit at any cost.”
Israel is a Chameleon it may change color but it remains the same beneath
Israel says it will adjust its Gaza war tactics after killing seven aid workers in air strikes its military has acknowledged were a major mistake, and that inquiry findings would be made public soon.
Source: Israel to ‘adjust’ Gaza tactics after aid worker deaths
- Recommendation #1: Use U.S. leverage to press for a full ceasefire
- Recommendation #2: Fully enforce U.S. law and arms policy to ensure accountability and adequate humanitarian aid delivery
- Recommendation #3: Focus diplomacy toward a just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on multilateral rather than bilateral normalization efforts
- Recommendation #4: Take meaningful anti-occupation, anti-annexation steps
- Recommendation #5: Substantially expand support for the Palestinian people and Palestinian leaders who seek peace with Israel
How Albanese doesn’t swallow his tongue as he vociferously demands “full accountability” from Israel for the killing of Zomi Frankcom yet remains silent on 32,000 other killings is anybody’s guess. He waved his metaphorical fist at Netanyahu and told of Australia’s “outrage” at Zomi’s death. But Albanese left out the bit about many Australians’ outrage at the indiscriminate killing of 32,000 innocent Palestinians; not just one of our own.
As the world reels from the World Central Kitchen attack in which seven aid workers in Gaza were struck and killed by three separate Israeli missiles while delivering aid for starving Palestinians, we speak with prominent Israeli scholar Neve Gordon about Israel’s history of weaponizing food access in the Gaza Strip via the destruction of Palestinian agricultural land, labor restrictions and blockade, “controlling and managing the population through food insecurity.” Neve Gordon is a professor of human rights law and author of multiple books on Israel’s occupation of Palestine whose latest essay for The New York Review of Books is titled “The Road to Famine in Gaza.” Now as aid deliveries dry up amid fears of further attacks on humanitarian workers, Gordon emphasizes that “Israel has been controlling the food basket and using it as a weapon since the beginning of the occupation until today.”
Significantly, it is this lurking moral uneasiness with their nation’s hypocrisy, felt particularly by the youth, that is now eroding the American alliance with Israel.
The ethnic cleansing and genocide, so acceptable to Israeli Jews, is a behavior that a number of Americans see as indefensible — particularly from an “ally” claiming to hold values similar to their own.
Thus is change possible even in an environment over which we have but nominal control. And, in this case, for the U.S. to get past its own hypocrisy — the sick elements of its own culture — it must finally leave Israel behind.
Source: Sick Cultures: When Belief Systems Turn Pathological
Dr Strangelove is alive and well
Despite overwhelming evidence of Israel’s war crimes and acts that constitute genocide, the administration plies the right-wing Israeli government with more weapons. The latest arms package being prepared by the administration will reportedly be the largest since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. Valued at around $18 billion, it will include 50 F-15 fighter jets and precision-guided munitions kits as well as more 2000- and 500-pound bombs.
Source: US Complicity in Israel’s War Crimes Takes Another Step – CounterPunch.org
The Israeli Weapons Laboratory
The incredibly brave and resourceful Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham revealed Wednesday in a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism that the Israeli military has used two artificial intelligence programs, “Lavender” and “Where’s Daddy,” to target some 37,000 alleged members of the military wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The programs used GPS to discover when a Hamas member had gone home, since it was easiest to hit them there, ensuring that his wife and children would also be killed. If he lived in an apartment building, which most did, then all the civilians in neighboring apartments could also be killed– children, women, non-comb
Source: Israel’s Lavender Murderbot is Programmed to Kill up to a Third of all Palestinian Civilians in Gaza
The Israeli “soldiers” operating artificial intelligence targeting programs built very substantial collateral damage into their standard operating procedure.
That is certainly a genocide, however you wish to define the term.
And there is no way that Joe Biden and Antony Blinken haven’t known all this all along. It is on them.
Source: Opinion | Israel’s Genocidal New Video Game Way of War | Common Dreams
A panel on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday highlighted the role right-wing misinformation is playing in distorting perceptions about the state of the economy and the rate of inflation, which a majority of Americans incorrectly believe is headed in the wrong direction.
Source: Misinformation has Americans depressed about the economy | Media Matters for America
Ok, ok, I’ll take my tongue firmly out of my cheek and say quite clearly that I don’t believe that the head of state should just be at the whim of the PM of the day…
Of course, it should be someone who can achieve the consensus of both of the major forces driving decisions in Australia: Rupert and Gina.
P.S. Is it true that Dutton has been staying at Gina’s place in WA so that he can work out an acceptable plan for the election?
Source: Monarchists Demand Say In GG Appointment – » The Australian Independent Media Network
A mere 57 oil, gas, coal and cement producers are directly linked to 80% of the world’s global fossil CO2 emissions since the 2016 Paris climate agreement, a study has shown.
Saudi Aramco, Russia’s state-owned energy company Gazprom, and state-owned producer Coal India were at the top of the list. Carbon Majors has been keeping track of which companies are contributing the most to the climate crisis since 2013.
The Carbon Majors database finds that most state- and investor-owned companies have expanded their production operations since the Paris Agreement. 58 out of the 100 companies were linked to higher emissions in the seven years after the Paris Agreement than in the same period before. This increase is most pronounced in Asia, where 13 out of 15 (87%) assessed companies are connected to higher emissions in 2016–2022 than in 2009–2015, and in the Middle East, where this number is 7 out of 10 companies (70%). In Europe, 13 of 23 companies (57%), in South America, 3 of 5 (60%) companies, and in Australia, 3 out of 4 (75%) companies were linked to increased emissions, as were 3 of 6 (50%) African companies. North America is the only region where a minority of companies, 16 of 37 (43%), were linked to rising emissions.
Photographs of the scene showed police charging into the crowd to stop them from breaking through, and using water cannons to disperse protesters, many of whom carried Israeli flags. Israeli police described this stage of the march an “unbridled riot.”
The third day of a four-day anti-government demonstration quickly descended into chaos as protesters holding torches spread through neighborhoods in Jerusalem, heading for the prime minister’s residence.
Thousands of marchers flooded the streets of the wealthy Rehavia neighborhood, where the Netanyahus live, shouting slogans and demanding he resign. Some demonstrators reportedly tried to rip away barriers outside, according to local media.
Source: Protests turn into riot outside Netanyahu’s home in Jerusalem (VIDEO) — RT World News
The difference between the Israeli reports and the wide number of reports by others is so so different it becomes too difficult to believe
After a brutal two-week siege of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Israeli forces withdrew from the medical compound on Monday. Eyewitnesses report that Israeli troops carried out a horrific massacre of civilians in the hospital and the surrounding area.
Source: Israel’s Horrific Massacre at Gaza’s Largest Hospital
Israel reported that only 200 deaths had occurred among 450 prisoners. Yet again we find a significant difference in the numbers the Israelis reported and what people on the ground have attested to.
Significantly, Biden says he’s waiting for the Israeli investigation and report into the WCK disaster. He’s more the protective parent than any concern for the truth. No other report is called for
The statement is terrible but not unexpected, given that for 14 days the Shifa hospital has been the scene of siege, armed assault and around 400 executions, i.e. killings of unarmed people, in addition to the imprisonment of around 800 people, mostly deported to Israel. All of this happened inside the hospital. The forced evacuation of patients and refugees took place by directing them on the road to escape by force of gunfire. This has already been reported. What the minister of health communicates is that the remaining patients, around 100 and among the most serious and the very few remaining family members, together with 60 staff members have been moved to the human resources building, two floors without a lift, furnished with desks and chairs , since it was home to only offices, with corresponding small toilets, no medical instruments and no supply of medicines or instruments.
Below the text of the message:
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza reached a desperate situation on day 14 of the siege!
Source: A graveyard of patients and staff – Pearls and Irritations
In this case, any hope for seeking an external accounting for the event is likely to be kept in-house. Excuses of error and misidentification are already filling press releases and conferences. Doing so will enable the IDF to continue its program of quashing the Palestinian cause while pursuing an undisclosed war against those it considers, publicly or otherwise, to be its ameliorating collaborators. With an announcement by various humanitarian groups, including WCK, Anera and Project Hope, that their operations will be suspended following the killings, starvation, as a policy in Gaza, can receive its official blessing.
The mouth that contradicts itself John Kirby
Jose Andres, chef and founder of the group, toldReuters the IDF targeted the convoy “systematically, car by car.”
The attack was not a “bad luck situation where, ‘oops, we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,'” Andres told the outlet. “Even if we were not in coordination with the [Israeli army], no democratic country and no military can be targeting civilians and humanitarians.”
Konyndyk added that Kirby’s defense of Israel, which the spokesman said did not know it was aiming at aid workers, serves as an admission that Israel violated the internationally recognized laws of war, which requires that parties make a distinction between combatants and civilians.
“The IDF has an affirmative responsibility to know what it is dropping bombs on,” said Konyndyk. “Kirby confirms they ignored that.”
Source: White House Spokesman Condemned for ‘Absurd’ Claim Aid Bombing Wasn’t Illegal
Such a machine, it turns out, actually exists. A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals that the Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender,” unveiled here for the first time. According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”
Source: ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza
A new PAC formed to unseat pro-Palestinian New York socialists is led by the same corporate interests opposed to progressive policies more generally. The battle over US policy toward Israel is also about economic policy at home.
The reality is that this pro-Israel lobby is also a conduit for the kinds of oligarchic interests that have long corroded American democracy and blocked commonsense solutions to the woes of working Americans. Failing to defeat them is not just a blow for Palestinian justice but for working people at home, too.
Source: The Anti-Palestinian Lobby Is Also a Corporate Lobby
In an era of misinformation and media bias, news from media sources about the war in the Middle East needs to be carefully scrutinised. Rosemary Sorensen reports.
Source: Israel news being reported by unqualified journalists
Still kicking around in the rumpus room of their collective imagination, the ALP is content to sit like an eclipse over the uninspiring centre-right blob of small ideas hanging around like a miasma since Howard. Like their major party predecessors, neglecting the same urgent problems, Labor no longer serves in a people-facing capacity, callously ignorant to the public interest, arrogantly self-entitled to the power they covet on the two-party see-saw. And that simply won’t cut it anymore. The electoral reality, with minor parties and independents growing from the grassroots, tells a different story. The events of the 2022 election won’t be an isolated case. Australians now have options to help take their democracy back from the ground up.
Source: A ‘small target’ government in a big moment – The Shot
on The Chris Hedges Report: Hamas: How Israel Created Its Own Nemesis
By shutting the door to any peaceful resolution and leaving no other option for Palestinians, Israel created its own nemesis in Hamas.
It’s one way to test just how beholden Australian politicians are to the US and the Israeli Lobby domestically here
With no indication that Israel will heed the Security Council’s demands or, indeed, that it will implement the ICJ’s provisional measures, holding the state accountable may fall to individual countries with the temerity to challenge Washington’s example. Shortly after the Security Council vote, Colombian President Gustavo Petro said he would cut ties with Israel if it refused to comply with the resolution. His admonition that others follow suit is already gaining traction, and many countries, including the staunchest U.S. allies, are finding other ways to break with the Washington consensus on Israel.
Source: Even without a UN veto, Gaza remains hostage to American power
Iran has vowed to take revenge on Israel for an air strike that killed two of its top generals and five other military advisers at the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, underlining the risk of further escalation after the unprecedented attack.
Source: Iran vows revenge on Israel after Syria embassy attack
Israel has seized the opportunity to intensify the occupation, with mass arrests of Palestinians, hundreds killed, a host of new illegal settler outposts and roads.
Source: While war rages in Gaza, the West Bank has undergone a metamorphosis – Pearls and Irritations
Weaponising a real fear in the West of being called or being seen as “antisemitic”, while simultaneously exploiting long-entrenched anti-Arab prejudice, the Israeli government has successfully exempted itself from legitimate interrogation, reproach and effective sanctions for its unchecked expansionist ambitions and inhumane, racist actions against Palestinians.
Source: Weaponising antisemitism impedes justice and peace – Pearls and Irritations
Pressure is growing on the British government to stop arming Israel after a leaked audio recording revealed that it is ignoring the advice of its own lawyers that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law and that Britain is in danger of also violating international law by continuing to ship Israel arms.
The catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza is unremitting and in fact rapidly deteriorating. Given that the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip is now on the brink of famine, South Africa has requested the Court to indicate further provisional measures and/or to modify the measures indicated on 26 January 2024. Starvation, and the resulting loss of life in overwhelming numbers, clearly poses a threat to the right of existence of the Palestinians as a group, a right protected by the Genocide Convention, writes Judge Hilary Charlesworth.
“We call on the Australian Government to urge the Israeli Government to cease attacks on aid convoys and to allow for the safe land passage of humanitarian assistance. Further, Australia should protest in the strongest possible terms the starvation of civilians. Starving civilians is a breach of the laws of war, international law and common decency.
The Israeli army carried out a massive, shockingly horrific military operation in Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza City over the course of the past two weeks, indiscriminately targeting and attacking Palestinians regardless of their civilian status, professional standing, gender, age, or health condition.
Israel Behind closed doors ” Mazal Tov Goal Achieved”
The nonprofits, including World Central Kitchen, said they now need to determine whether their workers can safely provide aid in the region.
Even the 2.5% of the global oil and gas industry’s capital spending currently investing in renewable energy is resented by shareholders. BP was threatened by a hedge fund for depressing its share price by this “irrational” spending.
Lacking any moral framework, this shareholder model demands government regulation to behave responsibly.
It is likely that a Trump victory at the end of this year will leave one of the world’s largest economies expanding its fossil fuel sector, cutting back every limit on carbon energy and stripping incentives promoting clean energy. Any regulation mitigating the immorality of shareholder capitalism will be stripped away. It is possible that China or India might step into a gap left on the global stage by America, but the damage to international cooperation will be extensive.
The world’s fate might rest on this election.
Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza has created a disastrous famine in the enclave. But it’s not the first time Israel has tried to starve Palestinians in Gaza — Israeli government documents suggest it was explicit policy from 2007 to 2010.
Should the government decide what news is appropriate, and what is not, for its people? “The sirens should be going off”. Binoy Kampmark on the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill.
Source: Censors Enthroned: the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill – Michael West
“In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate,” said one Israeli reservist.
Source: Israeli Newspaper Details IDF’s Creation of ‘Kill Zones’ in Gaza
Meanwhile, Israel blames these International aid workers for not getting out of the way of their “precision targeting”. Also, blames them for their inability to deliver the flood of “their recent generosity” of trucks allowed in. They keep posting statistics to show they are the real maligned victims of an unwarranted tsunami of antisemitism. Zionists have proved are fundamentally anti-humanity, anti-refugeeism, anti-aid. Any Aid providers are simply Hamas.
It seems pretty clear that the WCK believes that the Israelis deliberately struck their food convoy. Such attacks on aid workers and attempts at food delivery are routine on the part of the Israeli Air Force, and have come to be known as “flour massacres.”
Source: Chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen Accuses Israel of “Targeted Attack” on 7 of its Aid Workers
The scenes of Gaza’s genocide will shape generations to come, and Joe Biden has ensured that current and future generations will blame the U.S. for this war as much as they will blame Israel. The U.S. government openly admits helping the Israeli government in executing its genocidal war.
Israel has received three tankers of JP8 Jet Fuel since the war started as part of U.S. military aid for Israel. One shipment left the United States before the war started, while two have been sent since.
- Israel receives relatively small but regular shipments of crude from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iraq and Egypt via the Sumed pipeline. All these countries have condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza.
- Other countries with more friendly relations with Israel supply the majority of crude oil delivered since the war began. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan send oil through pipelines owned or operated by major international oil companies, including BP, Chevron, Exxon and Shell. Gabon is also a major source of crude oil for Israel.
- Russia continues to supply a steady stream of vacuum gas oil (VGO) for one of the refineries in Haifa to upgrade into gasoline and diesel.
- Two shipments of Brazilian crude oil totalling 260,000 tons have been delivered to Israel since December 2023. This was supplied from offshore fields co-owned by Shell and TotalEnergies together with Brazil’s Petrobras.
No surprise that USA has been a significant supplier, nor that companies such as BP, Chevron, Exxon, Shell and Total have been very happy to turn a profit from the suffering of Palestinians.
But Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iraq and Egypt?
There doesn’t seem to be much solidarity with Palestinians in evidence there.
For more details, see the fact sheet and press release from Oil Change International.
Such a plan must also have assumed that the unwillingness of successive past US Presidencies to exercise effective restraining leverage on Netanyahu would continue – an assumption now being put to a crucial test. Allowing the passage of a Security Council ceasefire resolution is a modest beginning. Netanyahu’s of course has an enduring capacity to ignore such ultimatums and even global revulsion over mounting starvation in Gaza, The US has an equally enduring capacity to cave into Netanyahu notwithstanding the magnitude of the slaughter and starvation brought about by the IDF. Reported by the Washington Post are recent new massive new arms shipments by the US to Israel – said to have included 1,800 900kg bombs – following a visit to Washington by Israel’s defence minister at the end of March. In doing so the US has surely dealt itself out of any direct role in rapidly bring the war to a truce. And such patent weakness suggests the US will show no greater spine in leveraging a two state solution.
Source: Firing up the Palestinian pressure cooker – Pearls and Irritations
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