Prof Juan Cole Informed Comment talks with Robert Scheer
European-spawned-Holocaust fueled the migration of European Jews to Palestine and the ouster of the inhabitants there who had nothing to do with the German-led barbarism against the Jewish people.
While much has been made of the differential coverage of Palestinian versus Israeli suffering over the past several months, by far the greater asymmetry is to be found when comparing coverage of the weeks of kinetic violence after October 7 versus the decades of structural violence before.
Source: How the news cycle misses the predominant violence in Israel-Palestine | +972 Magazine
Israel’s attitude is “What you fucking gonna do about it?”
Last Friday, the International Court of Justice directly ordered Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid. With its attack on UNRWA, Israel is blatantly violating that order, and the Biden administration has also put itself in the dock.
Source: Israel Is Brazenly Defying the Order to Prevent Genocide
President Biden is reportedly preparing to begin a new weeks-long bombing campaign in the middle east in retaliation for a drone attack which killed three US troops this past weekend. These strikes are expected to include Iranian targets, tempting the nightmare scenario of a full-blown war with Iran, despite the public acknowledgement that there’s no evidence Iran was behind the drone strike.
Source: Democrats are demented genocidal war sluts – Pearls and Irritations
The former president’s bid for absolute immunity is an attempt not only to get the case brought against him by special prosecutor Jack Smith tossed, but to delay the trial as long as possible during his 2024 presidential campaign.
Source: Trump’s Federal Trial On Jan. 6 Charges Delayed By Judge | HuffPost Latest News
THE PERSECUTION of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is one of the greatest crimes against freedom of speech and a significant blow to the pursuit of truth. But if you’re one of the few who don’t know much about the Assange story, The Trust Fall is rather essential viewing.
It’s not true that the Liberal Party don’t know how to show empathy. The trouble is that they’re giving too much of their empathy to landlords, self-funded retirees and those with incomes over $150,000, rather than the unemployed, the homeless and those struggling who’ll be glad of the Stage 3 changes. Nothing wrong with that, but I suspect it’s no way to win an election.
Source: Empathy And The Unfortunate Few Who Own Your Home… – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Australia’s peak science body, CSIRO, has refused to disclose its advice on Carbon Capture and Storage technology. Is it telling the ministers that it doesn’t work, or not? Rex Patrick does the FOIs
Source: Why is CSIRO hiding its advice on Carbon Capture and Storage? – Michael West
The only reason they wore their disguises was so they couldn’t be charged. Its what Israelis have always done. They used Australian passports in Dubai. Israel has normalized assassination in the eyes of the world. If Russians do it or North Koreans its front page news for weeks.
When Israeli forces invaded a Jenin hospital dressed in medical outfits and killed three Palestinians, they probably violated laws against perfidy and executing protected individuals.
Source: Here Are the Laws Plausibly Broken by Israel in Its Raid on a West Bank Hospital
As Israeli atrocities persist – storming hospitals, forcing evacuations, patronizing a right-wing confab bent on expulsion of Palestinians, defying a Hague verdict denouncing their genocidal designs and targeted assassination in a hospital – critics do what they can to right the wrongs. A group of advocates has issued a War Criminals deck of cards to help “etch into collective memory” those responsible, and a Palestinian restaurant held a massive free Shabbat dinner to “break bread and barriers.”
This week on Intercepted, Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain discuss the trajectory of the U.S. long war in the Middle East with Juan Cole, professor of history at the University of Michigan and a longtime writer and commenter on the region. Cole discusses the basis of the ongoing U.S.–Israel security relationship, the perspective of anti-Israel militant groups in the region, and the prospects of the expansion of the war despite the Biden administration’s stated desire to keep it contained.”
Source: Juan Cole on the Mother of all Middle East Crises at “Intercepted”
The suggestion that Russia or China interfere in America’s election creates a thunderous tsunami of complaints, Israel no problem it’s the way they do Democracy. Besides how is it possible with a $100 M investment you can get a return of $10B in one year and that’s just from your parent company whose been feeding you for 75 years
Since the war on Gaza began, the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC has reaped $90 million in fundraising. The organization is using that massive haul to lobby against a cease-fire.
Source: AIPAC’s War Chest Is Growing as the War on Gaza Rages
This year’s election may be our last chance to push back against the oligarchy that the GOP has been constructing for the past forty-three years. President Biden and Democrats in Congress made a valiant try with the For The People Act that would have expanded voter rights, outlawed gerrymandering, and reversed Citizens United to strip dark money out of our electoral system, but were stabbed in the back by Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema.
We must ask ourselves, do we want a planet teeming with life or do we want lifeless industrial wastelands interspersed with monocultures grown for food & timber, in desperate states due to climate change and loss of insect pollinators, with global famines and other aspects of a ghastly future (82) just around the corner, and remnant wildlife populations of selected species incarcerated as breeding populations in zoos, being bred for release into habitat which no longer exists. The billionaires and their proxies in media and governments and environmental and climate NGOs clearly want the latter.
The Vulgar God botherer who spoke in tongues and denied everything. Was he paid forward for AUKUS?
His record as a bungling advertisement of malice also included his time as immigration minister, when he became Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s attack dog in the “turn back the boats” policy. Refugees and asylum seekers arriving by sea were demonised, lacerated and condemned, to be towed out, made to disappear in watery depths or – much the same thing – taken to Pacific Island concentration camps (Nauru, Manus Island) to be sadistically tortured, sexually molested and left to moulder. When the New York Times interviewed Morrison on becoming prime minister, the paper noticed something grotesque: “His office features a model migrant boat bearing the proud declaration ‘I Stopped These’.”
Pity, then, that the man himself has not been stopped, a vulgar reminder about where Australian politics went grossly wrong, and where its vulnerable, already trimmed sovereignty went.
Source: Scott Morrison: A blight on Australian politics – Pearls and Irritations
Abbott resembled a warrior of yesteryear, a repository of anachronisms, the latter exemplified by his daft decision to give the late Prince Philip a knighthood. If there was ever talk about the superiority of Western civilisation, he would be there to boast about it. Increasingly, even proudly tone deaf to the electorate, he lost his seat in the 2019 election to the independent Zali Steggall. In doing so, he unintentionally laid the seeds for disruptive change that would, in May 2022, see the greatest number of independents ever returned to Canberra.
The Sword of Damocles Mr Fish
IS REALITY
There is no effective health care system left in Gaza. Infants are dying. Children are having their limbs amputated without anesthesia. Thousands of cancer patients and those in need of dialysis lack treatment. The last cancer hospital in Gaza has ceased functioning. An estimated 50,000 pregnant women have no safe place to give birth. They undergo cesarean sections without anesthesia. Miscarriage rates are up 300 percent since the Israeli assault began. The wounded bleed to death. There is no sanitation or clean water. Hospitals have been bombed and shelled. Nasser Hospital, one of the last functioning hospitals in Gaza, is “near collapse.” Clinics, along with ambulances – 79 in Gaza and over 212 in the West Bank – have been destroyed. Some 400 doctors, nurses, medics and healthcare workers have been killed — more than the total of all healthcare workers killed in conflicts around the world combined since 2016. Over 100 more have been detained, interrogated, beaten and tortured, or disappeared by Israeli soldiers.
The dehumanization of Palestinians is lifted from the playbook of all settler colonial projects, including our own. This racism, where people of color are branded as “human animals,” is coded within the DNA of our institutions. It infects those chosen to lead these institutions. It lies at the core of our national identity. It is why the two ruling parties and the institutions that sustain them side with Israel. It feeds the perverted logic of funneling weapons and billions of dollars in support to sustain Israel’s occupation and genocide.
History will not judge us kindly. But it will revere those who, under siege, found the courage to say no.
Source: Chris Hedges: The Silence of the Damned – ScheerPost
Take all of your anxiety about what a second Trump presidency could do to the country and the world, take all your anger that what’s going on in the Middle East could lead to that outcome, and direct it at Joe Biden in the form of the most important message anyone on the planet can be delivering right now — the message he needs to hear, loud and clear, every time he opens his mouth in public:
Cease-fire now.
Source: Biden Is Backing Israel’s Genocide — and Risking Reelection
Israel gets money for nothing but still is losing the war and changing its historical reputation in the eyes of the world.
One reason why Israel sees Europe as an inferior political actor compared to Washington, is because the Europeans have linked much of their foreign policy agenda to the US which, in turn, is motivated by Tel Aviv’s agenda and interests.
As of Nov. 2, the German government has approved the export of close to 303 million euros’ ($323 million) worth of defense equipment to Israel,” Reuters reported, comparing the large sum to the 32 million euros’ worth of defense exports that were approved by Berlin in all of 2022. This is just one example.
Source: Europe Exposed: Is the EU a Direct Partner in the Israeli Genocide in Gaza? – CounterPunch.org
Despite Biden’s promises of no boots on the ground, documents obtained by The Intercept suggest the military has prepared for the possibility.
Source: U.S. Military Personnel on Standby for Israel Ground Involvement in Gaza
Israel has been the beneficiary of American taxpayer military and economic support for 75 years . There has never been a better time for the mutinous tail to wag the dog. It’s the 2024 election year GOP, Trump, and Biden are all ready to support Israel but are a divided right who needs donations for the battle. Israel is aware their importance in the Middle East is diminishing as fast as the importance of fossil fuels is. Even the surrounding arab states are refocusing their future economic interests and like Israel, they are testing new directions.
Never has Israel been so politically divided 4 elections in 2 years. Nor has the extreme-right Zionist land grabbers had the opportunity they have now at American taxpayer expense. “Money for nothing and land for free” is not a Dire Strait tune but a Zionist one. Given the political divide in America and the changes in politics of the global rest. It’s now or never if fossil fuels are to displaced for renewables. The world is on the edge of change. An Israel in control of Greater Palestine has never seen as many opportunities to leave Real Judaism in its wake and give rebirth to a revision something entirely different. Gaza has the gas and Greater Palestine has the Ben Gurion trench
Equally a boon to Israel is the fact that leading western states have so quickly pinned their colours to the mast. The funding freeze cements their fates to Israel’s. It sends a message that they will stand with Israel against the World Court, whatever it decides. Their war on UNRWA is intended as an act of collective intimidation directed towards the court. It is a sign that the West refuses to accept that international law applies to it, or its client state. It is a reminder that western states refuse any restraint on their freedom of action – and that it is Israel and its sponsors who are the true rogue states.
Israel’s future, by contrast, hangs in the balance, as it could soon find itself banished by the community of nations as a stark violator of international law.
Israel urgently requires leaders who embrace international law over military force, humility over arrogance, and peacemaking over brutality. And Israel — no less than the United States — must come to understand the self-destructive futility of deploying military force to deny justice and political rights for the Palestinian people.
Israel’s “what the fuck are you going to do about it” attitude performs a Kristallnacht on Palestinian homes
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Wednesday that IDF soldiers have burned hundreds of Gaza homes and everything in them, on direct orders of their commanders. Some Israeli troops have posted videos on social media showing them taking part in home burnings and describing their actions as revenge for fellow soldiers’ deaths or the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.
Source: IDF Troops Occupy, Burn Gaza Homes in Likely War Crimes
David Littleproud is in batting for 1.5% of his electorate, and the LNP is fighting for less than 5% and yelling “class warfare”? The Greens say the changes to the cuts aren’t fair enough. Will it pass the test of “he says and she says” in the Senate?
That’s what it is! Nothing but class warfare! Again we see that politics is being played with empty rhetoric, slogans that imply something good is really something bad.
Source: Class warfare! – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Messages that aren’t getting heard. These are the facts not told.
The wave of suicide attacks by Hamas during the second intifada turned off Arab and non-Arab supporters of the Palestinians. In the new document Hamas enunciates a declared policy of avoiding targeting civilians as part of its religious and ethical doctrine. (I will delve deeper into this question in Part Two of this article.)
There was a similar path in Hizbullah’s history. Hizbullah is now very keen to avoid targeting civilians. Even in the recent months of war between Hizbullah and Israel, Hizbullah strictly targeted military sites in Israel when it would have been much easier to fire randomly.
In contrast, Israel in all its wars, manages to kill many (or mostly) civilians. In fact, Israel — in this recent war of genocide – does not deny that most of its victims in Gaza have been civilians but maintains many of those slaughtered were Hamas combatants.
(U.S. intelligence estimates that Israel has exaggerated the percentage of combatants killed). In the July war of 2006, the overwhelming majority of those killed by Hizbullah were soldiers and officers, while most of those who were killed on the Lebanese side were civilians.
The war in Gaza has intensified AIPAC’s endeavours. Since October 7, AIPAC has led efforts to advocate for $14bn in additional military support for Israel, a funding package that remains stalled in Congress.
It has also been a leading voice in criticising lawmakers who voiced concerns over Israel’s military campaign.
That criticism comes at a pivotal time for many elected officials. In the 2024 general elections, the presidency is up for grabs, as is every seat in the House of Representatives and 34 in the Senate.
These are the systemic resources the IDF have that Hamas doesn’t. BDS is the protest movement that can help rebalance that.
Renowned reggae artist, Ziggy Marley, the headline artist at WOMADelaide 2024 (World Music Adelaide), is an outspoken supporter of Israel even during its current genocidal operation in Gaza. In 2018, fans worldwide were shocked by his attendance at a star studded benefit for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF). This event raised $60 million for a military that had already received more than $120 billion dollars from the US government since the end of World War II. WOMAD’s values are in stark contrast to the actions of their headline performer.
They are being killed arrested and targeted in any IDF’s radius of operation.
Doctors, Teachers, Journalists, Academics are being disciplined, hauled before disciplinary bodies and even sacked for criticising the slaughter in Gaza and, most heinous sin of all, for mentioning genocide. Arrayed against those professionals is a lobby promoting the notion that criticism of Israeli government policies is anti-Semitic, hence the need to censor commentary about the massacres in Gaza.
Source: Toxic effects of censorship on Gaza – Pearls and Irritations
The US and Israel crowned Hamas as a “terrorist” organization. In 2006 it wasn’t Hamas the military brigade that democratically won the right to govern Gaza. It was an election verified by Jimmy Carter to be fair and legitimate. Hands tied unable to do anything because that election was at the suggestion of America and agreed to by Israel they did a TRUMP. They called foul and labeled all of Hamas and Gazans terrorists. Since then Israel has been breaking the peace or forcing the agreed-on peace to be broken.
The Russians haven’t killed the number of civilians in the Ukraine as Israel has Gaza in the shortest period. There is no moral justification for the criminal and genocidal actions the world is witnessing. Israel is making a mockery of America and its allies in supporting them.
Reeling from the ICJ’s genocide ruling, Israel attacked the credibility of UNRWA, the UN agency that provides food and health care to Palestinian refugees. Now Joe Biden and other Western leaders are cutting funding for the vital humanitarian aid agency.
This is just one example of the horror the Israeli state is inflicting on Palestinians as part of its right-wing war of revenge. This is a horror magnified thousands of times. The smell of needless destruction, death, and untold misery in this case is only matched by the cowardly collapse of conscience, especially among the U.S. and other nations who refuse to call for a cease-fire and are supplying Israel with military weapons. Surely, a den inhabited by barbarians and cowardice. The war on Gaza and the Palestinian people makes clear what the death of humanity looks like through the lens of militarization, extermination, colonialism, and war.
Source: Genocide and the Politics of False Equivalencies – CounterPunch.org
After the deliberations at the ICJ, Israel will have a hard time claiming that the ideas expressed at the conference don’t represent official policy. In the pamphlet that was distributed to the audience, the message was even clearer than in the speeches. On the question of how Israel should treat the Palestinian population in Gaza, the lawyer Aviad Visoli — a prominent Temple movement activist — wrote: “Nakba 2, meaning the mass expulsion of the Arabs of Gaza, is also justified by the laws of war.”
Source: Turning Zeitoun into Shivat Zion: Israeli summit envisions Gaza resettlement
We urge donor states to reaffirm support for the vital work that UNRWA and its partners do to help Palestinians survive one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of our times. Countries must reverse these funding suspensions, uphold their duties towards the Palestinian people and scale up humanitarian assistance for civilians in dire need in Gaza and the region.
There’s been a change in the narrative.
As the New Hampshire results rolled in last Tuesday night, veteran political journalist John Harwood tweeted, “We’re in early stages of massive analytic shift from ‘Biden’s in big trouble’ to ‘Trump’s in big trouble.’”
Source: Oh Yes, Candidate Trump Is In Big Trouble | Crooks and Liars
The East India Company was a System built and put in place in the 1600s and supposedly dissolved in 1874. It was an English and later British joint stock company. It established the foundations of a system that changed and became far more sophisticated and complex on a global and multinational level It has remained and changed the world so much so a handful of companies control the global economy allowing for Billionaires and Trillionaires and have overrun and determined global and domestic politics of nations. Murdoch was a media colonizer.
This could mean that Lachlan is taking over at exactly the right time. So long as the success and influence of the Murdoch empire was tied to fear of his father, there remained a question: Lachlan could inherit the assets, but what about the terrifying myth? This turns out not to matter as much as it once did. Rupert has already stepped back, and one day he will be gone—but the machine he began building so many years ago will continue to do its work.
Charities too shouldn’t be political. The Coalition passed legislation forbidding charities from getting political. Pity Josh Frydenberg didn’t understand that it also referred to people from the Guide Dog Association endorsing him. He thought it only applied to ones critical of the government.
Churches also shouldn’t get involved with politics unless they’re endorsing the Coalition. Any of this bleeding-heart lefty nonsense isn’t a position that a church should involve itself in.
So the list of people who shouldn’t be political includes ABC presenters, the Public Service, big corporations, unions, teachers, local councils, charities, students, universities…
Oh, and Marxists.
Yep, the only people who should involve themselves in politics are the people who agree with what the Murdoch papers are telling us…
Source: Schrodinger’s Cat, Trump And Tax Cuts – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Has this decision been foisted on them by the Australian Israeli Lobby, the LNP, Murdoch, or IPA? It’s certainly not a decision ALP voters would expect of their government. If Palestinian refugees came by boat would they find themselves in forced detention in open-air offshore concentration camps again? We know what Peter Dutton’s position is on that score Yes. While telling Australia it’s a holiday resort compared to where they are now. Israel will be the people smugglers and supply the boats with the foreign aid they already get from us no doubt.
There can be little more morally degenerate than the enabling of and cooperation with what the ICJ has warned is Israel’s “plausible genocide” in Gaza. Wong and Albanese have lost all moral authority and should prepare themselves for their every public utterance to be greeted with contempt, derision and scorn.
The Australian Government has paused contributing to the distribution of aid to Gaza, a decision likely influenced by our toxic allegiance to the USA. Dr Jennifer Wilson reports.
Source: Australia’s withholding of aid to Gaza a human rights disgrace
Has British Law has been thrown out the window by what Mark Regev simply ALLEGES? 12 Independent UNRWA workers out of 13,000 weren’t “Independent” ERGO the biggest UN Aid Agency is a systemic agent of HAMAS? Stop the aid!! Mark Regev is a proven systemic essential of Israel’s current offensive he is a central suit in Israel’s attack on Gaza. The 12 UNRWA workers of 13,000 weren’t! What bullshit logic is being applied here?
12 black sheep don’t define a herd of 13,000. One sandwich doesn’t make a picnic. We didn’t judge Israel or suspend arms supply when allegations of genocide were made or that the IDF was ordered to shoot their own citizens. We continued supply when it was alleged Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem were being murdered and kidnapped. In fact, we allowed Israel to conduct their own investigation sometime in the future. That is an Israeli Promise!
Within 24 hours of an allegation made by Mark Regev, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to the BBC last Friday, that 12 employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) participated in the October 7 operation, foreign ministers of the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and a few other countries, jumped to announce they are pausing their funding to UNRWA, thus collectively punishing millions of Palestinian refugees throughout the region.
Australia has Xmas Island, Manus, Nauru, and even an arrangement with Cambodia, the UK has Rwanda, and the US Guantanamo. All perfectly ready for use by Israel, free of course, as a donation it would seem as a solution to their “Palestinian Problem”. They are looking for volunteer nations in which to relocate Gaza….free of course. Currently, Egypt’s Sinai is their preference.
“The colonial meeting in Jerusalem poses a blatant challenge to the International Court of Justice decision, accompanied by public incitement to forcibly displace Palestinians,” the Palestinian Foreign Ministry said. Olivia Rosane Jan 29, 2024 15
Source: Israel Ministers Call for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza at Settler Conference
https://aje.io/av8a82?update=2660615
Families of the captives also slammed this conference [calling for building illegal settlements in Gaza], saying the ministers who were dancing there, were “dancing on the blood” of 136 Israelis who are still being held inside of Gaza.
Protests [for the release of captives] are taking place on a near-nightly basis with the families trying to block roads, and holding signs that say, “Give up anything”, to get the captives back.
They have been reiterating this for around 115 days, saying that Israel’s government is simply not hearing their plight. They do not feel heard or seen.
They feel that the government is not keeping in line with what they have previously told them and they say that any deal that is on the table, any concession that needs to be given up [to get the captives back] – the time to do so is now.
The problem faced by Gazans is that history shows any deal struck with Israel will either be broken or put so much pressure on Hamas they will be forced to break the peace. Israel’s broken promises have been documented so many times and Israel and it’s still doing what it has time and again simply lie?
Israeli Ministry has already indicated it’s not going to bother about any ICJ demands or UN requests gimme gimme gimme has been Israel’s theme song for 78 years and it’s not going to stop. As soon as oil becomes unnecessary so will Israel the army base and the $5B in blackmail it receives annually
The only feasible option to free the hostages is to strike another deal with Hamas. But it will be very hard for Netanyahu to accept the terms that Hamas is demanding, particularly ending the war. Netanyahu and his defense minister argue that the more military pressure Hamas is under, the more likely it is to accept a deal on terms that are acceptable to Israel. But the other members of the war cabinet, and growing numbers of Israelis, now believe Israel should make a deal to release the hostages whatever the price, even if that means ending the war without defeating Hamas.
“He is under a dozen investigations for crimes ranging from espionage to seditious conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and is going to prison.
He committed treason, sedition, and incited a deadly insurrection.
He lost in 2016 by 3 million votes. Lost the GOP the House in 2018, lost them the Presidency (by 9 million votes) and the senate in 2020 and lost them the senate (again) and prevented their red wave in 2022.
He’s a 76 year old malignantly narcissistic morbidly obese drug addicted dementia-ridden abomination who doesn’t believe in exercise.
Accomplishments of his administration, nepotism Barbie. Just crimes, disgraces, embarrassments, impeachable offenses, abuses of power, abrogations of oath, and violations of the U.S. constitution.”
Source: American psycho – » The Australian Independent Media Network
A government-subsidised workforce of Israel lobbyists is targeting regulators and employers across the fields of media, medicine and business to sack employees who criticise the government of Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinian people. Joel Jenkins reports.
The powerful reach of the Zionist lobby in Australia has been on display the past few weeks, with news that lobbyists pressured ABC executives leading to the sacking of ABC journalist Antoinette Lattouf for sharing information from Human Rights Watch on her social media.
Long but a history that shows the historic division of Jews
Defenders of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza have attempted to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism. But since its beginning, different forms of Zionist ideology have competed with varied anti-Zionisms for Jewish allegiance.
Early Zionists repeatedly invoked seemingly antisemitic descriptions of so-called diasporic Jews as weak, sickly, excessively bookish, effeminized — a people whose spirit was crushed not only by non-Jewish political rulers, but also by the dead weight of rabbinical law. They contrasted this weak diasporic figure with a model of a strong new people, drawing inspiration from everything from the Ukrainian Cossack to Palestinian Bedouin.
If you say that a Jew in Tel Aviv is like a Jew in the Warsaw Ghetto, then Zionism has accomplished nothing.
The liberal Zionist perspective is certainly on the ropes. What does it mean for a person committed to liberalism to support an illiberal nation-state project?
I know it’s hard for people to get their head around, but there are many pro-Israel antisemites. Their pro-Israelism is part of their Christian dispensational ideology.
Source: Zionism’s History Is Also a History of Jewish Anti-Zionism
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