Tag: Gaza
Biden’s passive-aggressive approach to Gaza is working against him on two fronts. His unqualified support for Israel alienates many progressive voters in the US (including Jews), who recognize the atrocity at hand. Yet he is so patronizing towards Jews that his policies prompted a Jewish employee of the Interior Dept. to resign in protest. In a column in The Guardian, Lily Greenberg Call said, “The president has weaponized the idea of Jewish safety to justify the atrocity in Gaza. I could no longer stand by. I resigned on Wednesday, 15 May – the 76th anniversary of the Nakba – because I could no longer serve at the pleasure of a president who refuses to stop another catastrophe.” She added, “Each day, I see photos of those displaced in Gaza, and I am reminded of my own family’s memory of loved ones killed in the Shoah – which, in turn, reminds me of the Nakba: the tragedy that occurred in 1948 when . . . 700,000 Palestinians were displaced from their homeland for the formation of today’s modern Israel. Shoah and Nakba mean the same thing in Hebrew and Arabic: catastrophe.” Meanwhile, the current Israeli offensive has displaced over 1 million people. This podcast of Lily Greenberg Call encapsulates many of the objections to Biden’s management of the crisis. She said, “We’ve seen the president continue to express unconditional support for Israel in Gaza, and using my community, the Jewish community as the justification for that – saying, ‘what’s happening to Palestinians in Gaza is necessary to keep the Jewish community safe. . . . It’s also disastrous for the Jewish communities around the world.”
Source: How Trump and Netanyahu are Tag-Teaming Biden on Gaza
Palestinian journalist Fatima Abu Nadi who lost her father during the current genocide, said journalists in Gaza “carry their lives in their hands.” Every step they take may be their last in light of an attack that is becoming more ferocious due to persistent attempts by the Israeli military to prevent coverage.A
Source: Journalists under threat, unprotected in covering Gaza genocide | The Electronic Intifada
If this scenario had been written into a novel at the turn of 19th century it would have been too unthinkable to believe it could actually take place – assisting in the bombing of innocent civilians, then charging in to feed them, appearing like the saviour of your victims.
The US could ask if their responsibility in this war is what made the engineering of a pier necessary. Since the US and Israel are breaking so many international laws, flouting the ICC and ICJ rulings, perhaps they could break their usual rules of brute force, hegemony and violence and address just where they think their countries are headed if rules don’t apply to either State and violence is too often their answer.
Source: US spends $320m on Gaza’s pier while its people burn – Pearls and Irritations
Smith worked as a senior adviser on gender, maternal health, child health and nutrition at USAID until last week, when he was set to deliver a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians. One day before he was scheduled to present, the USAID leadership canceled his presentation. Smith says he was then given a choice between resignation and dismissal. “I would like them to stop gaslighting and speak truthfully about what is happening,” says Smith, who says USAID must do more than acknowledge famine is happening in Gaza. “We need to take the next step of saying it is illegal and who is doing the starvation intentionally.” Smith condemns the Biden administration for silencing U.S. experts while supporting Israel, which claims there is no famine in Gaza. “It’s shameful that that misinformation can go around the world to millions, while we at USAID can’t even whisper about it in a conference on gender and human rights and health outcomes.”
StoryMay 31, 2024 https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/31/alex_smith_usaid_resignation_gaza_war?jwsource=cl
Exclusive: USAID Contractor Resigns After Presentation on Maternal & Child Mortality in Gaza Canceled
At least 17,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip have become unaccompanied or separated from relatives since genocide began
. Read more about Parents separated from baby since December
StoryMay 30, 2024
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/5/30/israel_icc?jwsource=cl
A joint investigation by The Guardian and the Israeli +972 Magazine revealed that Israel surveilled, hacked, smeared and threatened top ICC officials, including chief prosecutor Karim Khan and his predecessor, Fatou Bensouda. The former head of the Mossad, Yossi Cohen, is said to have personally threatened Bensouda. The revelations come just a week after Khan announced he is seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and three top leaders of Hamas. “This is a crime,” Roth says of the Israeli campaign against the ICC. He says the revelations also undermine U.S. claims that Israel can hold itself accountable. “There is no good-faith Israeli investigation. There is a concerted, high-level effort to undermine justice to protect Netanyahu, Gallant and others from war crime charges.”
“This Is a Crime”: Ken Roth on Israel’s Secret War Targeting the ICC to Derail War Crimes Charges
The backdrop to the plan of troglodytes in Congress to harass the ICC is that Netanyahu’s government in Israel has run a decade-long campaign of spying and intimidation against the judges of the International Criminal Court, according to an investigation of The Guardian and two Israeli magazines, +972 Mag and Local Call, published by journalists Harry Davies, Bethan McKernan, Yuval Abraham, and Meron Rapoport.
It is important to point out that the same cast of cyber-bullies has run an operation against American universities under the rubric of “Canary Mission,” in coordination with the inquisitorial Ministry of Strategic Affairs. headed by the American Ron Dermer. So reported James Bamford in The Nation. Canary Mission smears and doxes students and professors at American universities who stand for Palestinian rights in an attempt to interfere with their careers and for the purpose of intimidating them and others into silence.
Both operations are Israeli government-inspired but aided by local agents. Despite the US federal law, FARA, which requires agents of foreign governments to register, Israeli such agents have been exempted from such requirements for political reasons, including Canary Mission and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
Since October 2023, much has been said about what Jewish Australians think about Israel’s war in Gaza. If you’ve been reading the statistics quoted in media articles, you can be forgiven for thinking that the vast majority of Australian Jews support Israel’s war in Gaza and believe that the student protests on Australian University campuses constitute antisemitism and should be shut down. In reality, we have no idea what the majority of Australian Jews feel about either of these issues because there is no representative survey that has asked us.
Instead, the statistics that are stated in media articles, provided by both Jewish and non-Jewish contributors, are ostensibly drawn from a survey that was finalised prior to the attacks of October 7, 2023, the subsequent violence of the Israeli military in Gaza, and actions in support of Gaza on our University campuses. If you read these articles carefully, you will note that the oft cited statistics don’t even relate to the Israeli military actions and the fallout from them. Instead, they cite wide support for Zionism and Israel and conflate this with support for what has unfolded in Gaza over the past seven months.
Source: We don’t know what Australian Jews think about Gaza – Pearls and Irritations
Gideon Levy lives with an armour-plated target on his back
“For 57 years, Israel has been maintaining a regime of wrongdoing and evil, and now, at last, the world is waking up and starting to act against it. Will it also be able to wake up at least some Israelis from their heedless, twisted sense of justice?” writes senior Haaretz journalist Gideon Levy.
As brutal police repression sweeps campus encampments, schools have been cutting ties with pro-Palestine faculty members without tenure.
Source: College Professors Are Being Fired for Activism on Gaza War
“As the descendant of European Jews, I was raised in a particularly unforgiving moral environment when it came to the topic of bearing responsibility for ethnic cleansing,” wrote Maj. Harrison Mann.
The New York Timesreported that it is not known “whether other military officers have resigned in protest of U.S. foreign policy” since the Hamas-led attack on Israel in October and the IDF’s deadly retaliation, “but the resignation of an active-duty officer in protest of U.S. foreign policy is likely uncommon—especially one in which the officer makes public the reasons for doing so.”
Source: Citing Ethnic Cleansing, US Army Major Resigns Over Israel’s Assault on Gaza | Common Dreams
In recent days, this action has led to tangible results. Trinity College Dublin in Ireland agreed to divest from three Israeli companies linked to settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. After the university made the announcement, students began dismantling their protest camp.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivered herself of some ahistorical and distorted remarks about Palestine on Morning Joe, maintaining that the young people protesting the Gaza atrocities do not know history.
Ms. Clinton’s self-serving description of the 2000 Camp David process has been debunked by many historians. In fact, her husband Bill Clinton promised in the Oslo Accords in 1993 that Israel would withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank by 1997. He then allowed Benjamin Netanyahu to sabotage that process and allowed the Israelis to double the number of squatters they sent in to the Palestinian West Bank to steal property and terrorize people. When Netanyahu went out and Ehud Barak came in, Clinton sponsored negotiations, but Barak was maddeningly vague about what he would offer and never produced a text that Yasser Arafat could sign. It is not clear why Arafat needed to sign anything more; he already signed the Oslo treaty, which should have resulted in an Israeli withdrawal that never came. Soon thereafter Barak lost to Ariel Sharon, who was as determined to sabotage any land for peace deal as Netanyahu had been, and he wrecked the whole process.
Her placing of all the blame on the Palestinians is typical of inside-the-Beltway Goy Zionism, and is profoundly ahistorical. The young people can’t be fooled by these glib words. They see what they see.
Source: Palestine and History: Macklemore v. Hillary Clinton
Northern Gaza is experiencing a “full-blown famine”, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has said, and warned that it is “moving its way south”.
Australian universities are increasingly funded by weapons manufacturers, partly driven by the AUKUS folly. They are the same companies that support Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Michael Sainsbury reports.
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Michael West
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In public, Biden appears “tough” on Netanyahu, urging him not to “invade” Rafah and pressuring him to allow more “humanitarian aid” into Gaza.
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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.
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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.
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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.)
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
“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.
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.
( 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.
“This genocide is the desired goal of the West. No other explanation is remotely plausible.”
This is not the work of Netanyahu operating as a rogue. It is the result of the machinations of a professional political class across the Western world welded to zionism, with the supremacy of Israel as an article of fundamental belief.
Israel is as slippery as an eel. Their false claim made before Easter intentionally crippled the distribution of aid in Gaza and increased illness and starvation in the process. Why does the WEST give Israel the benefit of the doubt?
Australia has welcomed an independent report Israel failed to provide evidence members of a United Nations agency that provides humanitarian relief to Palestinians were linked to Hamas.
Source: Australia backs report on Palestine aid agency UNRWA
The destruction of Gaza proves the entire mainstream western worldview is bullshit, because if the mainstream western worldview was accurate, the destruction of Gaza would not be happening.
Source: If the mainstream worldview was accurate, Gaza wouldn’t be burning – Pearls and Irritations
Israel’s ‘war’ on Gaza, which has deep roots not only in the European colonial past but in religious mythology and a Zionist ideology that is rigid, chauvinistic and exclusive. All three factors underscore the belief that Jews alone have a right to historic Palestine.
But with military campaigns waged by the U.S. and its allies, media’s humanitarian concerns tend to fade. The uneven deployment of “brutal” seems like a clear case of Western media not just shielding a U.S. ally from justifiable criticism, but actively inciting public hatreds of Palestinians by portraying their violence as exceptionally inhumane despite paling in comparison to that of their colonial oppressor.
Source: Opinion | For Mainstream Media, the Extreme Gore in Gaza Isn’t ‘Brutal’ | Common Dreams
As Dr Lee Duffield reports in the second of two reports on Gaza, that has had continuing, devastating impacts on the civilian population in the crowded settlements of the enclave.
Source: Gaza: The hope for decency, democracy and compromise
Despite these frank admissions, which come far too late, the reek of rank hypocrisy in the Democratic Party concerning the impunity of Netanyahu and his fascist henchmen continues to lie like a thick layer of fog over our nation’s capital.
Israel expects & demands NO CONSEQUENCES
And as if that weren’t enough, I’ve also had to deal with the martyrdom of my brother, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on March 14, and the month-long detention of my father by Israeli forces. These events have deeply affected my heart, changed my personality, and severely impacted my mental state. I have become inclined toward silence, and struggle with the inability to carry out my journalistic tasks. No matter what we write, our pens feel powerless in the face of the magnitude of death, destruction, and fear that we’re living through.
Source: Against the magnitude of death, our pens feel powerless in Gaza
Protests at universities are now being met with a wave of censorship and suppression, targeting students most directly.
Source: Amid Gaza War, U.S. Campuses Become Free Speech “Testing Ground”
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.
“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.
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
- 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
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.
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
“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.
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.
Bertrand Russell would have pleaded, ‘Remember humanity and forget the rest.’
Source: A Plea for Gaza: ‘Remember humanity & forget the rest.’ – Pearls and Irritations
Tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv denouncing the Netanyahu government and demanding an immediate deal for the release of captives.
The resumption of indirect negotiations, reported by Egypt’s Al Qahera News TV on Saturday, comes as more protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu erupted in Israel’s capital.
Many Israelis feel that Netanyahu is the main obstacle to signing a deal with Hamas and bringing the captives held in Gaza back home, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said.
“These people have been calling for a deal to bring back the captives for more than 175 days. They say that the policies of Israel’s government have simply failed,” Salhut said, reporting from a protest in Tel Aviv where thousands, including families of the captives, had gathered.
Demonstrations also took place near Netanyahu’s residence and in other cities across Israel.
Israel offers excuses rather than food, aid or any concern other than Occupy and Transfer
Israel denied shooting people but when witnesses proved otherwise they claimed they only shot Hamas suspects. On what basis was someone considered a suspect? We have seen Israel shoot hostages and civilians waving white flags. We have seen them bulldoze the evidence. We have then heard their excuse that people were killed in subsequent stampedes. But, how is a stampede started by shooting people!
That’s always been the Israeli way of argument. First denial if that doesn’t work blame the Gazans never Israel. No wonder the world is pissed off. The next step then is the rise of antisemitism and the holocaust. Jews are always the victims.
If antisemitism did exist to the degree Israel claims they wouldn’t be MPs or any elected positions however they are
People in Gaza are suffering severe food shortages, with the UN saying children in northern Gaza are starving to death and famine is looming.
On 29 February more than 100 people were killed when a convoy arrived at al-Rashid Street in Gaza City. Palestinians accused Israel of shooting dead people at the convoy. Israel initially said most were killed being trampled or run over by the convoy. It later said troops had fired at people who it deemed “suspects” who they deemed a threat.
Despite a U.N.-backed report sounding the alarm on imminent famine in northern Gaza, Israeli authorities announced Sunday they will no longer approve the passage of any UNRWA food convoys into northern Gaza. “Our ability to adequately continue saving lives is really being obstructed,” says UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alrifai. “What’s going to happen to UNRWA if we can no longer truly operate?” The decision came as President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion appropriations bill that strips funding to UNRWA for the next year. The U.S. first suspended aid to UNRWA in late January, when the Israeli government claimed 12 of the agency’s 30,000 employees were involved in Hamas’s attacks on October 7. The unsubstantiated allegation prompted top donors to cut funding to UNRWA, though many of them have resumed funding as the agency welcomes new donor countries and an unprecedented number of civil society donations. Seeing the U.S., the agency’s largest donor, “withhold funding … is a huge blow to us,” says Alrifai. “Stripping UNRWA of funding not only shrinks its ability to respond to the looming famine in Gaza, but also puts at risk the schools, the access of kids to proper education, the vaccines, the mother and child care — everything across the region.”
https://democracynow.cachefly.net/democracynow/360/dn2024-0328.mp4?start=2891.0
As the UN Security Council finally overcomes the US’ calculated protection of Israel’s aggression in order to pass a ceasefire resolution in Gaza; the failure of the UN, the US and western media to give us the full and true story of the Palestinian tragedy has become clear. We cannot rely on compromised bodies such as the International Criminal Court and the media to hold those responsible to account. We need a People’s Tribunal that is capable of investigating possible war crimes and genocide in Gaza.
Source: We need a People’s Tribunal on Palestine and Gaza – Pearls and Irritations
Israel: Above the law?
A look into how and why international laws and principles are being applied and ignored in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
The events of October 7 sent shockwaves across the world and brought to the forefront once again a conflict that has been ongoing for 75 years. The Israeli government’s response to Hamas’s attack was prompt – it embarked on a war of magnitude in Gaza, claiming it needed to take out Hamas and rescue the captives. At first, the consensus of Western powers seemed solid: Israel has the right to fight back against Hamas. But more than five months later, Israel’s military was facing criticism worldwide, including allegations that it is committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing and even genocide.
This film will explore whether Israel is breaking international law and, if so, why are Western powers, in particular the United States, silent.
Source: Israel: Above the law? | Israel War on Gaza | Al Jazeera
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