UK POLICE ARREST ULEZ PROTESTERS
https://www.bitchute.com/video/woOvkXszDIkr/

Australia challenged on ‘moral failure’ of weapons trade with Israel
Regular protests have been taking place outside Australian firms making crucial components for the F-35 fighter jet.

Ali MC
Protesters sitting outside the HTA factory in the Melbourne suburbs,. There is a large placard reading 'Stop arming Israel"
Weekly protests have been taking place for months [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
Melbourne, Australia – Israel’s continued assault on Gaza has highlighted a hidden yet crucial component of the world’s weapons manufacturing industry – suburban Australia.

Tucked away in Melbourne’s industrial north, Heat Treatment Australia (HTA) is an Australian company that plays a vital role in the production of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters; the same model that Israel is using to bomb Gaza.

Weekly protests of about 200 people have been taking place for months outside the nondescript factory, where heat treatment is applied to strengthen components for the fighter jet a product of US military giant Lockheed Martin.

While protesters have sometimes brought production to a halt with their pickets, they remain concerned about what’s going on inside factories like HTA.

“We decided to hold the community picket to disrupt workers, and we were successful in stopping work for the day,” Nathalie Farah, protest organiser with local group Hume for Palestine, told Al Jazeera. “We consider this to be a win.”

“Australia is absolutely complicit in the genocide that is happening,” said 26-year-old Farah, who is of Syrian and Palestinian origin. “Which is contrary to what the government might have us believe.”

More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its war in Gaza six months ago after Hamas killed more than 1,000 people in a surprise attack on Israel. The war, being investigated as a genocide by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has left hundreds of thousands on the brink of starvation, according to the United Nations.

HTA – which did not respond to Al Jazeera for comment – is just one of an increasing number of companies in Australia engaged in the weapons manufacturing industry.

Community organiser Nathalie Farah. She's wearing a Palestinian scarf and a black T-shirt saying Australia.
Nathalie Farah has been organising regular protests outside HTA’s factory [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
According to Lockheed Martin, “Every F-35 built contains some Australian parts and components,” with more than 70 Australian companies having export contracts valued at a total 4.13 billion Australian dollars ($2.69bn).

Protesters have also picketed Rosebank Engineering, in Melbourne’s southeast, the world’s only producer of the F-35’s “uplock actuator system”, a crucial component of the aircraft’s bomb bay doors.

Sign up for Al Jazeera

Weekly Newsletter


protected by reCAPTCHA
Defence industry push

In recent years, the Australian government has sought to increase defence exports to boost the country’s flagging manufacturing industry.

In 2018, former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull announced Australia aimed to become one of the world’s top 10 defence exporters within a decade. It is currently 30th in global arms production, according to the Stockholm International Peace Institute.

It is an aspiration that appears set to continue under the government of Anthony Albanese after it concluded a more than one-billion-Australian-dollar deal with Germany to supply more than 100 Boxer Heavy Weapon Carrier vehicles in 2023 – Australia’s single biggest defence industry deal.

Since the Gaza war began, the industry and its business relationship with Israel have come increasingly under the spotlight.

Last month, Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles insisted that there were “no exports of weapons from Australia to Israel and there haven’t been for many, many years”.

However, between 2016 and 2023 the Australian government approved some 322 export permits for military and dual-use equipment to Israel.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s own data – available to the public online – shows that Australian exports of “arms and ammunition” to Israel totalled $15.5 million Australian dollars ($10.1m) over the same period of time.

Officials now appear to be slowing the export of military equipment to Israel.

In a recent interview with Australia’s national broadcaster ABC, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific Pat Conroy insisted the country was “not exporting military equipment to Israel” and clarified this meant “military weapons, things like bombs”.

However, defence exports from Australia fall into two categories, items specifically for military use – such as Boxer Heavy Weapons vehicles for Germany – and so-called ‘dual use’ products, such as radar or communications systems, that can have both civilian and military uses.

Australia’s Department of Defence did not respond to Al Jazeera’s requests about whether the halt to defence exports to Israel also included dual-use items.

What is certain is that companies such as HTA and Rosebank Engineering are continuing to manufacture components for the F-35, despite the risk of deployment in what South Africa told the International Court of Justice in December amounted to “genocidal acts“.

In the Netherlands – where parts for the jet are also manufactured – an appeal court last month ordered the Dutch government to block such exports to Israel citing the risk of breaching international law.

The Australian government has also come under scrutiny for its lax “end-use controls” on the weapons and components it exports.

As such, while the F-35 components are exported to US parent company Lockheed Martin, their ultimate use is largely outside Australia’s legal purview.

Lauren Sanders, senior research fellow on law and the future of war at the University of Queensland, told Al Jazeera that the “on-selling of components and military equipment through third party states is a challenge to global export controls.

“Once something is out of a state’s control, it becomes more difficult to trace, and to prevent it being passed on to another country,” she said.

Sanders said Australia’s “end use controls” were deficient in comparison with other exporters such as the United States.

“The US has hundreds of dedicated staff – with appropriate legal authority to investigate – to chase down potential end-use breaches,” she said.

“Australia does not have the same kind of end-use controls in place in its legislation, nor does it have the same enforcement resources that the US does.”

A protester carrying a Palestinian flag at a picket outside an Australian arms company. They have wrapped a Palesinian scarf around their face so only their eyes are visible, Other protesters are behind them. They have placards. Some are sitting on the ground.
The protesters say they will continue their action until manufacturing of F-35 components is stopped [Ali MC/Al Jazeera]
In fact, under legislation passed in November 2023, permits for defence goods are no longer required for exports to the United Kingdom and the US under the AUKUS security agreement.

In a statement, the government argued the exemption would “deliver 614 million [Australian dollars; $401m] in value to the Australian economy over 10 years, by reducing costs to local businesses and unlocking investment opportunities with our AUKUS partners”.

International law

This new legislation may provide more opportunities for Australian weapons manufacturers, such as NIOA, a privately owned munitions company that makes bullets at a factory in Benalla, a small rural town in Australia’s southeast.

The largest supplier of munitions to the Australian Defence Force, NIOA – which did not respond to Al Jazeera for comment – also has aspirations to break into the US weapons market.

At a recent business conference, CEO Robert Nioa said that “the goal is to establish greater production capabilities in both countries so that Australia can be an alternative source of supply of weapons in times of conflict for the Australian and US militaries”.

Greens Senator David Shoebridge told Al Jazeera that the government needed to “publicly and immediately refute the plan to become a top 10 global arms dealer and then to provide full transparency on all Australian arms exports including end users.

“While governments in the Netherlands and the UK are facing legal challenges because of their role in the global supply chain, the Australian Labor government just keeps handing over weapons parts as though no genocide was happening,” he said. “It’s an appalling moral failure, and it is almost certainly a gross breach of international law.”

The Australian government also recently announced a 917 million Australian dollar ($598m) deal with controversial Israeli company Elbit Systems.

A court in the Netherlands hearing a case brought in relation to military exports. The room is wood panelled and there is a portrait on the wall.
The Dutch government has faced legal action over the export of F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel [File: Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters]
Elbit has come under fire for its sale of defence equipment to the Myanmar military regime, continuing sales even after the military, which seized power in a 2021 coup, was accused of gross human rights violations – including attacks on civilians – by the United Nations and others.

Despite a recent joint announcement between the Australian and UK governments for an “immediate cessation of fighting” in Gaza, some say Australia needs to go further and cut defence ties with Israel altogether.

“The Australian government must listen to the growing public calls for peace and end Australia’s two-way arms trade with Israel,” Shoebridge said. “The Albanese government is rewarding and financing the Israeli arms industry just at the moment they are arming a genocide.”

Protests have continued both at the HTA factory in Melbourne and their premises in Brisbane, with organisers pledging to continue until the company stops manufacturing components for the F-35.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/3/28/australia-challenged-on-moral-failure-of-weapons-trade-with-israel

Call for immediate cease-fire in Gaza reverberates in Australian parliament
Call for immediate cease-fire in Gaza reverberates in Australian parliament
ISTANBUL

A call for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip was echoed in the Australian parliament on Monday, when a group of people spoke up in support of Palestinians, with the government benches staying silent during the proceedings.

A group of pro-Palestinian people used the gallery section of parliament to demand a cease-fire in Gaza, which has been bombed extensively by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, killing and injuring over 100,000 Palestinians.

According to SBS News, security personnel removed the group, which demanded a "cease-fire now," from the gallery as Australian Attorney General Mark Dreyfus rose to answer a question from a lawmaker.

“Shame, shame,” the protesters yelled.

"You support genocide… Albanese, your hands are red. 15,000 children dead,” the protestors shouted.

Anthony Albanese is the leader of the Australian Labor Party and prime minister.

Video footage of the gallery cannot be made public unless authorized by the Australian parliament speaker.

Greens Senator Max Chandler-Mather came out in support of the protesting group.

“Solidarity with the protestors for Palestine in Question Time (in parliament) today peacefully fighting for a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza," Chandler-Mather wrote on X. "History will remember you well."

Na'ama Carlin, a sociologist, who posted a video of government officials and lawmakers sitting in the parliament on X, wrote: “Smirking & eye rolling while people who have not been heard in any other platform are MADE to protest at the house of reps (representatives) against this bloody war. Over 30k (30,000) Palestinians massacred by Israel. And you’re EYE ROLLING???”

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on Gaza since a cross-border incursion by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed nearly 1,200 people.

More than 31,600 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in the enclave, and nearly 73,700 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid a crippling blockade of most food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/call-for-immediate-cease-fire-in-gaza-reverberates-in-australian-parliament/3167450

Protesters broke down a door to Mexico’s presidential palace on Wednesday during a demonstration demanding justice for 43 students whose disappearance nearly a decade ago shocked the country.
https://www.aol.com/protesters-knock-down-door-mexicos-154640427.html

WEF Orders U.S. Electors To Not Certify Trump’s 2024 Election Win
Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Fact checked
WEF orders electors to decertify election if Trump wins
The World Economic Forum has instructed electors in the U.S. to not certify the upcoming presidential election if Trump wins.



According to the WEF-funded publication The Atlantic, Democrats must prepare to refuse to certifiy the 2024 election in November.



BYPASS THE CENSORS

Sign up to get unfiltered news delivered straight to your inbox.

You can unsubscribe any time. By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

The WEF mouthpiece put out an article Friday titled, “How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t“, outlining a strategy for Democrats to defy the election results if they don’t get their way.

Infowars.com reports: The editorial lamented the Supreme Court’s recent hearing on the 14th Amendment over Colorado’s unprecedented ruling to remove Trump from the 2024 ballot, and claimed Democrats may have to find another way to stop Trump outside the democratic process.


From The Atlantic:

Without clear guidance from the Court, House Democrats suggest that they might not certify a Trump win on January 6.

Sensing that Trump would likely stay on the ballot, the attorney, Jason Murray, said that if the Supreme Court didn’t resolve the question of Trump’s eligibility, “it could come back with a vengeance”—after the election, when Congress meets once again to count and certify the votes of the Electoral College.

Murray and other legal scholars say that, absent clear guidance from the Supreme Court, a Trump win could lead to a constitutional crisis in Congress. Democrats would have to choose between confirming a winner many of them believe is ineligible and defying the will of voters who elected him. Their choice could be decisive: As their victory in a House special election in New York last week demonstrated, Democrats have a serious chance of winning a majority in Congress in November, even if Trump recaptures the presidency on the same day. If that happens, they could have the votes to prevent him from taking office.

In interviews, senior House Democrats would not commit to certifying a Trump win, saying they would do so only if the Supreme Court affirms his eligibility. But during oral arguments, liberal and conservative justices alike seemed inclined to dodge the question of his eligibility altogether and throw the decision to Congress.

The Atlantic piece was roundly criticized on social media over the left’s hypocrisy of prosecuting hundreds of Jan. 6 protesters contesting the results of the 2020 election while now scheming to halt the certification of the 2024 election.






This is just the latest example of Democrats projecting their intention to defy the will of the voters if Trump wins the 2024 election.

Last month, NBC News reported that “a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers” are preparing to “foil any efforts” for Trump to use the military to carry out his political agenda if he becomes Commander-in-Chief once again.

JOIN THE FIGHT: BECOME A CITIZEN JOURNALIST TODAY!

Democrats should expect to go to prison in D.C. for 22 years for trying to overturn the election since they’ve set the precedent by jailing nonviolent J6 protesters for speaking out against the rigged 2020 election.

https://thepeoplesvoice.tv/wef-orders-u-s-electors-to-not-certify-trumps-2024-election-win/

Angry French farmers storm into Paris agriculture fair.
Protesters clash with police before planned visit by French president Emmanuel Macron.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/24/angry-french-farmers-storm-into-paris-agriculture-fair

The crimes of Winston Churchill
Crimes of Britain
Churchill was a genocidal maniac. He is fawned over in Britain and held up as a hero of the nation — voted ‘Greatest Briton’ of all time. Below is the real history of Churchill. The history of a white supremacist whose hatred for Indians led to four million starving to death. The man who loathed Irish people so much he conceived different ways to terrorise them. A racist thug who waged war on black people across Africa and in Britain. This is the trial of Winston Churchill, the enemy of all humanity.


Afghanistan:

Churchill found his love for war during the time he spent in Afghanistan. While there he said “all who resist will be killed without quarter” because the Pashtuns need “recognise the superiority of race”. He believed the Pashtuns needed to be dealt with, he would reminisce in his writings about how he partook in the burning villages and peoples homes.

“We proceeded systematically, village by village, and we destroyed the houses, filled up the wells, blew down the towers, cut down the great shady trees, burned the crops and broke the reservoirs in punitive devastation.” — Churchill on how the British carried on in Afghanistan, and he was only too happy to be part of it.

Churchill would also write of how “every tribesman caught was speared or cut down at once”. Proud of the terror he helped inflict on the people of Afghanistan Churchill was well on the road to becoming a genocidal maniac.

Cuba:


Churchill wrote that he was concerned Cuba would turn in to “another black republic” in 1896. By “another” he was referring to Haiti which was the first nation in modern times to abolish slavery. Haiti has been punished for doing so ever since.

Egypt:


“Tell them that if we have any more of their cheek we will set the Jews on them and drive them into the gutter, from which they should never have emerged” — Winston Churchill on how to deal with Egypt in 1951.

Greece:


The British Army under the guidance of Churchill perpetrated a massacre on the streets of Athens in the month of December 1944. 28 protesters were shot dead, a further 128 injured. Who were they? Were they supporters of Nazism? No, they were in fact anti-Nazis.

The British demanded that all guerrilla groups should disarm on the 2nd December 1944. The following day 200,000 people took to the streets, and this is when the British Army on Churchill’s orders turned their guns on the people. Churchill regarded ELAS (Greek People’s Liberation Army) and EAM (National Liberation Front) as “miserable banditti” (these were the very people who ran the Nazis out). His actions in the month of December were purely out of his hatred and paranoia for communism.

The British backed the right-wing government in Greece returned from exile after the very same partisans of the resistance that Churchill ordered the murder of had driven out the Nazi occupiers. Soviet forces were well received in Greece. This deeply worried Churchill. He planned to restore the monarchy in Greece to combat any possible communist influence. The events in December were part of that strategy.

In 1945, Churchill sent Charles Wickham to Athens where he was put in charge of training the Greek security police. Wickham learned his tricks of the trade in British occupied Ireland between 1922–1945 where he was a commander of the colonial RUC which was responsible for countless terror.

In April 1945 Churchill said “the [Nazi] collaborators in Greece in many cases did the best they could to shelter the Greek population from German oppression” and went on to say “the Communists are the main foe”.

Guyana:


Churchill ordered the overthrowing of the democratically elected leader of ‘British Guiana’. He dispatched troops and warships and suspended their constitution all to put a stop to the governments nationalisation plan.

India:


“I’d rather see them have a good civil war”. — Churchill wishing partition on India

Very few in Britain know about the genocide in Bengal let alone how Churchill engineered it. Churchill’s hatred for Indians led to four million starving to death during the Bengal ‘famine’ of 1943. “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion” he would say.

Bengal had a better than normal harvest during the British enforced famine. The British Army took millions of tons of rice from starving people to ship to the Middle East — where it wasn’t even needed. When the starving people of Bengal asked for food, Churchill said the ‘famine’ was their own fault “for breeding like rabbits”. The Viceroy of India said “Churchill’s attitude towards India and the famine is negligent, hostile and contemptuous”. Even the right wing imperialist Leo Amery who was the British Secretary of State in India said he “didn’t see much difference between his [Churchill] outlook and Hitler’s”. Churchill refused all of the offers to send aid to Bengal, Canada offered 10,000 tons of rice, the U.S 100,000. Churchill was still swilling champaign while he caused four million men, women and children to starve to death in Bengal.

Throughout WW2 India was forced to ‘lend’ Britain money. Churchill moaned about “Indian money lenders” the whole time.

The truth is Churchill never waged war against fascism. He went to war with Germany to defend the British Empire. He moaned “are we to incur hundreds of millions of debt for defending India only to be kicked out by the Indians afterwards”.

In 1945 Churchill said “the Hindus were race protected by their mere pullulation from the doom that is due”. The Bengal famine wasn’t enough for Churchill’s blood lust, he wished his favourite war criminal Arthur Harris could have bombed them.

When India was partitioned in 1947 millions of people died and millions more were displaced. Churchill said that the creation of Pakistan, which has been an imperialist outpost for the British and Americans since its inception, was Britain’s “bit of India”.

Iran:


“A prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams” — Churchill on Iran’s oil

When Britain seized Iran’s oil industry Churchill proclaimed it was “a prize from fairyland beyond our wildest dreams”. He meddled in Iranian affairs for decades doing his utmost to exclude Iranians from their natural resources. Encouraging the looting of the nation when most lived in severe poverty.

In June 1914 Churchill proposed a bill in the House of Commons that would see the British government become become the major shareholder of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The company would go on to refrain from paying Iran its share of the dividends before paying tax to the British exchequer. Essentially the British were illegally taxing the Iranian government.

When the nationalist government of Mohammad Mosaddegh threatened British ‘interests’ in Iran, Churchill was there, ready to protect them at any cost. Even if that meant desecrating democracy. He helped organise a coup against Mosaddegh in August 1953. He told the CIA operations officer that helped carry out the plan “if i had been but a few years younger, I would have loved nothing better than to have served under your command in this great venture”.

Churchill arranged for the BBC to send coded messages to let the Shah of Iran know that they were overthrowing the democratically elected government. Instead of the BBC ending their Persian language news broadcast with “it is now midnight in London” they under Churchill’s orders said “it is now exactly midnight”.

Churchill went on to privately describe the coup as “the finest operation since the end of the war [WW2]”. Being a proud product of imperialism he had no issue ousting Mosaddegh so Britain could get back to sapping the riches of Iran.

Iraq:


“I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against the uncivilized tribes… it would spread a lively terror.” — Churchill on the use of gas in the Middle East and India

Churchill was appointed ‘Secretary of State for the Colonies’ in 1921. He formed the ‘Middle East Department’ which was responsible for Iraq. Determined to have his beloved empire on the cheap he decided air power could replace ground troops. A strategy of bombing any resistance to British rule was now employed.

Several times in the 1920s various groups in the region now known as Iraq rose up against the British. The air force was then put into action, indiscriminately bombing civilian areas so to subdue the population.

Churchill was also an advocate for the use of mustard and poison gases. Whilst ‘Secretary for War and Air’ he advised that “the provision of some kind of asphyxiating bombs” should be used “for use in preliminary operations against turbulent tribes” in order to take control of Iraq.

When Iraqi tribes stood up for themselves, under the direction of Churchill the British unleashed terror on mud, stone and reed villages.

Churchill’s bombing of civilians in ‘Mesopotamia’ (Kurdistan and Iraq) was summed up by war criminal ‘Bomber Harris’:

“The Arab and Kurd now know what real bombing means within 45 minutes a full-sized village can be practically wiped out, and a third of its inhabitants killed or injured, by four or five machines which offer them no real target, no opportunity for glory as warriors, no effective means of escape”. — Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris.

Ireland:


“We have always found the Irish a bit odd. They refuse to be English” — Churchill

In 1904 Churchill said “I remain of the opinion that a separate parliament for Ireland would be dangerous and impractical”. Churchill’s ancestry is linked to loyalism to Britain. He is a direct descendent of the ‘Marquis of Londonderry’ who helped put down the 1798 United Irishmen rising. He would live up to his families reputation when it came to suppressing revolutionary forces in Ireland.

The Black and Tans were the brainchild of Churchill, he sent the thugs to Ireland to terrorise at will. Attacking civilians and civilian property they done Churchill proud. Rampaging across the country carrying out reprisals. He went on to describe them as “gallant and honourable officers”.

It was also Churchill who conceived the idea of forming the Auxiliaries who carried out the Croke Park massacre. They fired into the crowd at a Gaelic football match, killing 14. Of course this didn’t fulfill Churchill’s bloodlust to repress a people who he described as “odd” for their refusal “to be English”.

He went on to advocate the use of air power in Ireland against Sinn Fein members in 1920. He suggested to his war advisers that aeroplanes should be dispatched with orders to use “machine-gun fire or bombs” to “scatter and stampede them”.

Churchill was an early advocate for the partitioning of Ireland. During the treaty negotiations he insisted on retaining navy bases in Ireland. In 1938 those bases were handed back to Ireland. However in 1939 Churchill proposed capturing Berehaven base by force.

In 1941 Churchill supported a plan to introduce conscription in the North of Ireland.

Churchill went on to remark”the bloody Irish, what have they ever done for our wars”, reducing Ireland’s merit to what it might provide by way of resources (people) for their imperialist land grabs.

Kenya:


Britain declared a state of emergency in Kenya in 1952 to protect its system of institutionalised racism that they established throughout their colonies so to exploit the indigenous population. Churchill being your archetypical British supremacist believed that Kenya’s fertile highlands should be only for white colonial settlers. He approved the forcible removal of the local population, which he termed “blackamoors”.

At least 150,000 men, women and children were forced into concentration camps. Children’s schools were shut by the British who branded them “training grounds for rebellion”. Rape, castration, cigarettes, electric shocks and fire all used by the British to torture the Kenyan people on Churchill’s watch.

In 1954 during a British cabinet meeting Churchill and his men discussed the forced labour of Kenyan POWs and how to circumvent the constraints of two treaties they were breaching:

“This course [detention without trial and forced labour] had been recommended despite the fact that it was thought to involve a technical breach of the Forced Labour Convention of 1930 and the Convention on Human Rights adopted by the Council of Europe”

The Cowan Plan advocated the use of force and sometimes death against Kenyan POWs who refused to work. Churchill schemed to allow this to continue.

Caroline Elkins book gives a glimpse into the extent that the crimes in Kenya were known in both official and unofficial circles in Britain and how Churchill brushed off the terror the colonial British forces inflicted on the native population. He even ‘punished’ Edwina Mountbatten for mentioning it, “Edwina Mountbatten was conversing about the emergency with India’s prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the then colonial secretary, Oliver Lyttleton. When Lyttleton commented on the “terrible savagery” of Mau Mau… Churchill retaliated, refusing to allow Lord Mountbatten to take his wife with him on an official visit to Turkey”.

Palestine:


“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger.”

In 2012 Churchill was honoured with a statue in Jerusalem for his assistance to Zionism.

He regarded the Arab population Palestine to be a “lower manifestation”. And that the “dog in a manger has the final right to the manger”, by this he meant the Arabs of Palestine.

In 1920 Churchill declared “if, as may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event will have occurred in the history of the world which would from every point of view be beneficial”.

A year later in Jerusalem he told Palestinian leaders that “it is manifestly right that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in this land of Palestine, with which for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated?”.

At the Palestine Royal Commission (Peel) of 1937, Churchill stated that he believed in intention of the Balfour Declaration was to make Palestine an “overwhelmingly Jewish state”.

He went on to also express to the Peel Commission that he does “not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place”.

Four years later he wrote of his desire for a ‘Jewish state’to be established after the second war world. The establishment of the colonial settler state however was done by the British Labour Party under Attlee, who were always there to back their Tory counterparts when it came to British foreign policy.

Russia:


Churchill’s hatred and paranoia about communism saw him suggest that an atomic bomb should be dropped on the Kremlin. He believed this would “handle the balance of power”.

Saudi Arabia:


“My admiration for him [Ibn Saud] was deep, because of his unfailing loyalty to us.” — Churchill

Prior to 1922 the British were paying Ibn Saud a subsidy of £60,000 a year. Churchill, then Colonial Secretary, raised it to £100,000.

Churchill knew full well of the dangers of wahhabism. He gave a speech to the House of Commons in 1921 where he stated that Ibn Saud’s followers “hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahhabi villages for simply appearing in the streets… [they are] austere, intolerant, well-armed and bloodthirsty”. He was however content to use the House of Saud’s twisted ideology for the benefit of British imperialism.

Churchill went on to write that his “admiration for him [Ibn Saud] was deep, because of his unfailing loyalty to us”. He showered Ibn Saud with money and presents — gifting Ibn Saud a special Rolls-Royce in the mid 1940s.

South Africa:


Thousands were sent to British run concentration camps during the Boer wars. Churchill summed up his time in South Africa by saying “it was great fun galloping about”.

Churchill wrote that his only “irritation” during the Boer war was “that Kaffirs should be allowed to fire on white men”.

It was Churchill who planted the seed to strip voting rights from black people in South Africa. In June 1906, Churchill argued that Afrikaners should be allowed a self-rule which would mean black people would be excluded from voting.

He went on to state to Parliament that “we must be bound by the interpretation which the other party places on it and it is undoubted that the Boers would regard it as a breach of that treaty if the franchise were in the first instance extended to any persons who are not white”.

In conclusion:

There have been a number of attempts to rehabailtate the image of the British Empire in Britain in recent years. Particularly via the medium of cinema. The film Darkest Hour didn’t show you anything about Churchill’s crimes. On the contrary it presented him as a hero. Gary Oldham won an Oscar for his portrayal of one of the most evil, imperialists ever.

British Nationalist groups in Britain hold Churchill up as their posterboy. And so they should. He was a racist to the core. In response to migration from the Caribbean to Britain he said England should “be kept white”. Throughout worl war two his cabinet obsessed over British people viewing American Black GI’s favourably. They were concerned that they would fraternised with white English women. A true believer in white supremacy, Churchill blamed the Native American and Aboriginal Australian people for their genocides. He said he did “not admit that a great wrong has been done to the red Indians and the black people of Australia.”

Winner of the Noble Prize in Literature, Churchill actually plagiarised his most well known speech from an Irish Republican called Robert Emmet who was hanged and then beheaded by the British in 1803. Winston’s famous “we shall fight them on beaches” line was lifted from Emmet’s speech from the dock.

When it came to his own fellow Brits he was less than complimentary and displayed a deep hatred for the working classes. He suggested “100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilised”. And that for “tramps and wastrels there ought to be proper labour colonies where they could be sent”.

It needs to be put once and for all that Churchill was despicable, racist, war criminal. Some will argue his “sins” are expiated for his actions during the second world war. It is nothing but nonsense to suggest Churchill went out to fight fascism. He lauded Mussolini as a “roman genius”, donated to Nazi war criminal Erich Von Manstien’s criminal defence and sought to desperatly cling on to the British Empire from which Hitler himself took inspiration for his Reich. What we have to remember is Churchill was not a uniquely villianous British Prime Minister. He was not out of ordinary but in fact a true representation of Britain.





https://medium.com/@write_12958/the-crimes-of-winston-churchill-c5e3ecb229b3

#France
#MacronNousPrendPourDesCons
#AgriculteursEnColere
#agriculteurs #protesters

Israeli snipers, tanks, drones positioned to fire on any signs of life in Khan Younis – Day 109
[email protected] January 24, 2024 famine, houthi, israeli settlement, israeli soldiers killed, khan younis, starvation, Supreme Court, uscpr, West Bank
Israeli snipers, tanks, drones positioned to fire on any signs of life in Khan Younis – Day 109
Attacks in the latest 24-hour reporting period killed at least 195 Palestinians and wounded 354 with thousands more victims believed to be under the rubble and unreachable. (photo)
Khan Younis in south the site of intense fighting, peril; info on US teen Tawfiq Ajaq killed by Israel; starvation; Israelis in US to buy weapons; 24 Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza; West Bank death; Israeli settlements in Gaza?; Houthi update; US Supreme Court dismisses case against Palestine advocacy organization

By IAK staff, from reports

Middle East Eye reports on the dire situation in Khan Younis: With Israeli snipers and tanks positioned to fire on any signs of life, Palestinians across Khan Younis are under siege with nowhere to go…

Ambulances have been unable to reach the wounded across Khan Younis, after the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent (PCRS) was surrounded by Israel’s military. Israeli drones shot at anyone moving near al-Amal hospital, the PCRS said on Tuesday…

For several days, Palestinians in Khan Younis have raised alarm bells about Israeli tanks closing in on Nasser Hospital – the largest functional medical facility in Gaza. They fear it will suffer the same fate as al-Shifa hospital in the north, which effectively shut down after a sustained Israeli siege in mid-November last year.

A doctor at Nasser Hospital described the chaotic scenes in the vicinity of the complex.

“We have got news today from the Israeli army to evacuate block number 107. This block actually contains schools, hospitals and houses…People actually were trying to evacuate this block but they couldn’t. All above and around me, explosions and gunshot can be heard, and are being fired over our heads.”

Dina, 36, was told to evacuate block 107 with 23 members of her family. “They lie to us. They just change the place where they intend to kill us…We are experiencing hunger, pain, and cold, and the world is just watching. Where should we go?” she said.

The New Arab adds: The Israeli army has fired directly at a hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, where civilians are caught amid heavy fighting…Israeli tanks were “firing heavily on the upper floors of the specialized surgery building and the emergency building of Nasser hospital, dozens expected wounded”, a ministry statement said.

From OCHA: In Khan Younis, Israeli forces hit a warehouse, killing 2 and cutting off access to humanitarian supplies and critical water and sanitation equipment; heavy bombardment near a distribution center where families go to receive aid; latest evacuation orders: an area that hosts 500,000 people, mostly already displaced.

While most US news media ignored Israel’s killing of American 17-year-old Tawfiq Ajaq, shot dead by Israeli forces on Jan. 19 in the West Bank, News Nation interviewed family members:

“Tawfiq Ajaq was a free spirit who enjoyed the outdoors and hanging with friends.”

“Bright kid, had a lot of dreams, would joke, laugh make fun of me, his mom, his brothers. He loves the woods, he loves to be out and about. … He just likes to be out with friends and just be free,” his father said.

“Ajaq’s relative, Joe Abdel Qaki, said that Ajaq and a friend were having a barbecue in a village field when he was shot by Israeli fire, once in the head and once in the chest.”

He said Israeli forces briefly detained him and other Palestinians at the scene, asking for their IDs before the men could get to Ajaq.

The boy’s father implored Americans to “see with their own eyes” the ongoing violence in the West Bank.

“The American society does not know the true story,” he said. “Come here on the ground and see what’s going on. … How many fathers and mothers have to say goodbye to their children? How many more?”

On Monday, he called out the Biden administration for continuing to provide military support to Israel.

The medical group Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) says that several blocks in Khan Younis, including those where Nasser Hospital is located, have received orders to evacuate.

“MSF staff members can hear bombs and heavy gunfire close to Nasser,” the group said in a social media post on Tuesday.

“They are currently unable to evacuate along with the thousands of people in the hospital, including 850 patients, due to roads to and from the building being either inaccessible or too dangerous.”

Hamas reportedly called on the UN, Red Cross and World Health Organization to step in “immediately” and “shoulder their responsibilities” to stop Israel’s attacks on Gaza’s hospitals, saying that the Nasser and El Amal hospitals in Khan Younis are being directly targeted with Israeli drone fire and bombardment, endangering the lives of patients, medics, and thousands of displaced people taking shelter in the medical centers.

“The deliberate and ongoing targeting of hospitals is a war crime unfolding in front of the eyes and ears of the entire world, and it comes in the context of Israel’s genocidal war against our people in the Gaza Strip, with the full support of the American administration,” the group said in a statement.

Targeting hospitals is a war crime.

Palestinian children wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen amid shortages of food supplies in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 16, 2024
Palestinian children wait to receive food cooked by a charity kitchen amid shortages of food supplies in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on January 16, 2024 (photos)
Al Jazeera reports: The speed at which “starvation” has been brought about among Gaza’s population is “unprecedented”, according to Alex De Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in the US.

“I’ve been studying this for 40 years and I’ve never seen a population reduced [to this level of hunger] with the same speed and rigor and ruthlessness,” De Waal told Al Jazeera.

“An entire population being reduced to this stage is really unprecedented. We haven’t seen it in Ethiopia, in Sudan and Yemen – pretty much anywhere else in the world,” he said.

De Waal said that while all famines are political acts, he described the current food crisis in Gaza as a “military act” by Israel that amounts to the “war crime of starvation”.

“[The destruction of] food, medicine, water and sanitation is being done on a scale that I don’t think we have witnessed anywhere else in the contemporary world,” he added.

More information is here.

Middle East Monitor reports: Israel’s Kan TV declared on Monday, “A high-level Israeli security delegation arrived this afternoon [Monday] in the United States to attend meetings with officials in the American army and the American military and defense industries…to push for immediate purchase deals to continue the fighting [in Gaza], and to prevent a shortage of ammunition and weapons.”

According to the same source, the Israeli delegation is seeking to reach a major deal that “includes supplying Israel with thousands of ammunitions for warplanes, with missiles and bombs, as well as tank and artillery shells, armored vehicles, and additional military equipment that will allow the Israeli army to continue the war in Gaza, and a possible war in Lebanon.”

RECOMMENDED READING: Against every instinct: How doctors in Gaza persevere amid Israel attacks

Al Jazeera reports on a speech that Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki gave to the UN Security Council:

The faith of the perpetrators is irrelevant. The faith of the victims is irrelevant. What matters only are the countless innocent lives destroyed and the violent shattering of the laws enacted post-World War II to preserve humanity. [Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is driven by] his own political survival at the expense of the survival of millions of Palestinians under Israel’s illegal occupation and peace and security for all.

Norway’s Deputy Foreign Minister Andreas Motzfeldt Kravik reiterated his country’s support for the two-state solution after meeting with Jordanian officials Tuesday.

This is one of a number of recent expressions of support for Palestinian rights and/or a two-state solution. Others include UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Keir Starmer, leader of the UK Labor Party, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell, French Foreign Minister, Stéphane Séjourné, Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares, China’s ambassador to the UN Zhang Jun, Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan, and others.

Associated Press reports: Palestinian militants carried out the deadliest single attack on Israeli forces in Gaza since the Hamas raid that triggered the war, killing 21 soldiers, the military said Tuesday, a significant setback that could add to mounting calls for a cease-fire. 3 more soldiers were killed in a separate incident.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned the Israeli soldiers, who died when the blast from a rocket-propelled grenade triggered explosives they were laying to blow up buildings. But he vowed to press ahead until “absolute victory,” including crushing Hamas and freeing more than 100 Israeli hostages still held by the militants.

Israelis are increasingly questioning whether it’s possible to achieve those war aims.

WEST BANK: WAFA reports: Israeli forces Tuesday evening shot and killed a young Palestinian man at a checkpoint east of Tulkarm, in the northern occupied West Bank.

The Ministry of Health said that the soldiers prevented ambulances from reaching the young man, who was later identified as 21-year-old Kareem Nashaat Ayesh. He died of his critical wounds shortly after.

RECOMMENDED READING: Israel’s rising use of drone strikes in the West Bank

Al Jazeera reports: Israeli ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan has again railed against calls for a ceasefire, saying that the Middle East is suffering from a “cancer” and that Israel will not accept the continued existence of Hamas.

“Shockingly, many here on the Security Council are advocating for a permanent ceasefire, while giving no thought to the implications,” Erdan said. “What do you think will happen if there is a ceasefire? I will tell you what will happen: Hamas will remain in power, they will regroup and rearm, and soon Israelis will face another attempted Holocaust.”

In reality, international law supports the efforts of resistance groups against an occupying power, even to the point of armed resistance. Hamas has clearly and. openly stated that its enemy is not the Jewish people, but the racist ideology of Zionism – the ideology under which Israel dispossessed 750,000 Palestinian people and exiled them to Gaza and other locations.

A view of the makeshift tent camp where Palestinians displaced by the Israeli ground offensive on the Gaza Strip are staying, in Rafah, January 23, 2024
A view of the makeshift tent camp where Palestinians displaced by the Israeli ground offensive on the Gaza Strip are staying, in Rafah, January 23, 2024 (photo)
Times of Israel reports: Two Likud ministers are promoting an upcoming conference that calls for the reestablishment of Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip as a way to boost security for Israel after the war against the people of Gaza ends.

The conference, under the heading “Only settlement will bring security,” is organized by a group of movements that want to resettle Gaza, led by Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan and the Nachala Settlement Movement. It is scheduled for Sunday in Jerusalem.

In order to settle in Gaza, Israel would have to transfer Palestinians out of the Strip. Israeli settlements and settlers on Palestinian land are a violation of international law. Forced transfer of a people group is a crime against humanity.

HOUTHI UPDATE: The US Department of Defense reports: U.S. and partner forces launched additional defensive strikes against military targets in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen yesterday…the second round of precision strikes to be carried out by the U.S. and United Kingdom with support from Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands in response to a series of attacks launched by the [allegedly] Iran-backed group against commercial ships operating in the Red Sea.

“These precision strikes are intended to disrupt and degrade the capabilities that the Houthis use to threaten global trade and the lives of innocent mariners, and are in response to a series of illegal, dangerous and destabilizing Houthi actions since our coalition strikes on January 11, including anti-ship ballistic missile and unmanned aerial system attacks that struck two U.S.-owned merchant vessels,” the partner nations said in a joint statement following the strikes.

The reason for the Houthi threat, which the US has yet to address, is Israel’s brutal war against Gaza.

Additionally, British prime minister Rishi Sunak has told the House of Commons, “We’re going to use the most effective means at our disposal to cut off the Houthis’ financial resources, where they are used to fund these attacks. We are working closely with the United States on this and plan to announce new sanctions measures in the coming days.”

US Central Command also reported: In response to attacks by the Iranian-backed militia group Kataib Hezbollah (KH), including the attack on al-Asad Airbase in western Iraq on Jan. 20, on Jan. 24 at 12:15 a.m., U.S. CENTCOM forces conducted unilateral airstrikes against three facilities used by Iranian-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia group and other Iran-affiliated groups in Iraq.

Palestine make history sealing their passage to the knockout stages of the AFC Asian Cup for the first time in their history.
Palestine make history sealing their passage to the knockout stages of the AFC Asian Cup for the first time in their history. (photo)
The Center for Constitutional Rights reports: Today, a U.S.-based Palestinian rights organization prevailed when the Supreme Court refused to take up a lawsuit brought by the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and several U.S. citizens who live in Israel.

Citing the speech and expressive activities of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), including its support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, the lawsuit had argued that the group provided “material support” for terrorism. The dismissal by the district court had been unanimously affirmed by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.

This lawsuit is just one example of a long line of efforts to silence Palestinians for advocating for their freedom – in this case, by wielding the accusation of support for terrorism to discredit and dehumanize Palestinians for their advocacy, including their support for boycotts.

In dismissing the suit in March 2021, the lower court said the arguments were, “to say the least, not persuasive.” Advocates say the suit is part of a broader effort to criminalize and silence the political activities of supporters of Palestinian rights, a threat that has only increased as Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza intensifies.

“USCPR’s message is justice for all and an end to funding genocide. There’s no lawsuit in the world that can stop us from pushing our demands for human rights,” said Ahmad Abuznaid, Executive Director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. “We will remain focused on opposing Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and pursuing justice and freedom for the Palestinian people.”

RECOMMENDED READING: ‘Negligence’: Columbia University students furious at administration after skunk water doused on protesters

More information on Day 109 is here.

STATISTICS OCTOBER 7 – JANUARY 23:

Palestinian death toll from October 7 – January 23: at least 25,877* (~25,490 in Gaza* (over 11,000 children, 7,500 women), and at least 387 in the West Bank (98 children). This does not include an estimated 7,000 more still buried under rubble (70% women and children). Euro-Med Monitor reports 32,246 Palestinian deaths.

About 1.7 million people have been displaced (about 85% of the population).

Palestinian injuries from October 7 – January 23: at least 67,702** (including at least 63,354 in Gaza and 4,348 in the West Bank).

Israeli forces killed American teen Tawfiq Hafiz Ajjaq from Louisiana in the West Bank on January 19. It remains unknown how many additional Americans are among the casualties.

Reported Israeli death toll from October 7 – January 23: ~1,139 (9 killed in West Bank, 219 in Gaza), including 32 Americans, and 8,730 injured, approximately 36 children).

NOTE: It is unknown at this time how many of the deaths and injuries in Israel may have been caused by Israeli soldiers; additionally, since Israel has a policy of universal conscription, it is unknown how many of those attending the outdoor rave a few miles from Gaza on stolen Palestinian land were Israeli soldiers.

*Previously, IAK did not include 471 Gazans killed in the Al Ahli hospital blast since the source of the projectile was being disputed. However, given that much evidence points to Israel as the culprit, Israel had previously bombed the hospital and has attacked many others, Israel is prohibiting outside experts from investigating the scene, and since the UN and other agencies are including the deaths from the attack in their cumulative totals, if Americans knew is now also doing so.

Find previous daily casualty figures and daily news updates here.

For more news, go here and here. Broadcast news from the region is here.

Hover over each bar for exact numbers.
Source: IsraelPalestineTimeline.org

12 Essential Facts for Understanding the Current Israel-Gaza Violence
The West’s complete contempt for the lives of Palestinians will not be forgotten
Israel has repeatedly rejected Hamas truce offers
Why the Guardian’s ‘Hamas mass rape’ story doesn’t pass the sniff test
Israel’s torture and humiliation of female and male Gazan prisoners
Coverage of Gaza War in NYTimes & other major papers heavily favored Israel, analysis shows
Two reports debunk New York Times ‘investigative report’ of mass rape on October 7th
John Mearsheimer: Genocide in Gaza
Flashback: Israeli Journalist said Israel is pushing US into war with Iran
Israel’s Assault on Gaza Is Unlike Any War in Recent Memory
US poised to give Israel $18 billion in aid this year
Essential facts and stats about the Hamas-Gaza-Israel war
What media reports fail to tell you about October 7

https://israelpalestinenews.org/israeli-snipers-tanks-drones-positioned-fire-life-khan-younis-day-109/

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 84: Gaza at ‘catastrophic threshold’ of famine, West Bank marks ‘deadliest year on record’ for Palestinian children
Israel faces growing tensions between the war cabinet and the far-right coalition government as Egypt presents a ceasefire proposal. Meanwhile, Israeli forces kill at least three Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

Mondoweiss Palestine BureauDecember 29, 2023
People struggle to recover bodies and survivors from under the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli airstrike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. (Photo: by Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
People struggle to recover bodies and survivors from under the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli airstrike on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, December 28, 2023. (Photo: by Bashar Taleb/APA Images)
Casualties:

21,507 killed* and at least 55,915 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
316 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
*This figure is the latest confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health as of December 29. Due to breakdowns in communication networks within the Gaza Strip, the Ministry of Health in Gaza has been unable to regularly and accurately update its tolls since mid-November. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 30,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.

Key Developments

Deadly airstrikes pummel several areas across Gaza, killing 187 people in 24 hours.
Fighting continues to rage on between Israeli ground troops and Palestinian armed groups, as Israeli army announces an expansion of operations in Khan Younis.
U.N. says hunger in Gaza has passed “catastrophic threshold,” as UNRWA estimates 40 percent of the population is at risk of famine while aid barely trickles in.
Health and human rights groups denounce Israel’s continued targeting of Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis and Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia amid systematic attacks on the health care system in Gaza.
Palestinians who were detained in northern Gaza report threats, violence, and humiliation at the hands of Israeli forces.
Hamas delegation heads to Cairo on Friday to discuss Egyptian proposal for ceasefire, reiterates call for complete cessation of Israeli aggression in Gaza, and for Palestinians to determine the shape of their own political future.
Israeli leadership torn between war cabinet and far-right elements of coalition government, who refuse to consider possibility of Palestinian Authority involvement in Gaza.
Leaked Israeli High Court draft ruling indicates one of most contested clauses of Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul could be struck down, reigniting internal Israeli disputes.
Thousands of demonstrators call for release of hostages in Jerusalem i culmination of five days of protests, Israeli army releases probe into killing of three Israeli hostages by own soldiers.
Israel continues to shell southern Lebanon and Syria, armed groups in neighboring countries respond.
U.S. forces intercept Yemeni drone and missile in Red Sea.
Israeli forces shoot and kill a Palestinian man allegedly responsible for stabbing attack at checkpoint near Jerusalem on Thursday, raids home and detains relatives.
Palestinian killed by Israeli forces in southern occupied West Bank on Friday following alleged car-ramming attack.
Israeli forces detain more than 15 Palestinians during violent overnight raids, as U.N. raises the alarm about the rising violence in the occupied West Bank.
Peace Now warns Israel is expanding illegal settlements in northern and southern West Bank “in the shadow of war.”
Hundreds of protesters in Times Square hold mock funeral procession on Thursday to denounce killing of thousands of Palestinian children by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Gaza continues to suffer

Twelve weeks into the Israeli rampage in the Gaza Strip, airstrikes continue to flatten the small Palestinian territory, killing dozens as fighting rages on between Israeli ground forces and Palestinian resistance fighters.

Deadly Israeli airstrikes were reported since Thursday afternoon in Rafah and Khan Younis in southern Gaza, as well as in the Nuseirat, al-Bureij, and al-Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza, and in Beit Hanoun and the Gaza City neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza reported at midday on Friday that at least 187 people had been killed and 312 wounded in the span of 24 hours, raising the total toll to at least 21,507 killed and at least 55,915 wounded in the Gaza Strip since October 7.

Meanwhile, Palestinian groups reported ongoing fighting in the area of Khan Younis, Khuza’a, al-Bureij, Tal al-Zaatar, and various areas in Gaza City – contradicting Israeli claims that the northern Gaza Strip is under full army control.

The Israeli army has meanwhile announced its plans to expand its operations in Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of internally displaced civilians have fled since October. More than 1.9 million internally displaced Palestinians in what was already one of the most densely populated areas on earth continue to be squeezed into ever tinier slivers of land, with an estimated 100,000 people fleeing to Rafah in recent days alone.

Israel confirmed the death of one Israeli soldier on Thursday, bringing the official toll of the ground invasion in Gaza to 168 soldiers — although a government gag order prevents Israeli media from reporting on the full scope of military casualties.

The humanitarian catastrophe Israel has deliberately inflicted on Gaza through its refusal to allow in sufficient aid and its destruction of essential infrastructure has begun to affect its own troops as well. At least one soldier has died as a result of a fungal infection likely due to exposure to sewage leaks, with Israeli media reporting that more soldiers could also suffer from similar infections.

The impact on Israeli troops pales in comparison to the devastation wrought on Palestinians, who are starving and suffering from a host of injuries and preventable illnesses amid a complete collapse of the medical system.

The Gaza Ministry of Health announced that 20 patients were scheduled to leave Gaza on Friday to receive medical treatment in Egypt, but noted that many more were in dire need of care they were unable to receive in the bombarded enclave. “Our urgent priority is to evacuate for treatment abroad 5,000 wounded with serious and complex cases to save their lives,” Gaza Ministry of Health spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that only 76 trucks of aid were allowed into the Gaza Strip on Thursday, far below the pre-October 7 average of 500 trucks a day.

“You think getting aid into Gaza is easy? Think again,” U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffiths posted on X on Friday, listing stringent inspections, bombardments, damaged roads, and desperate civilians crammed into smaller and smaller areas as only some of the obstacles making the delivery of these small amounts of food, medicine, and other essential items even more difficult.

On Friday morning, an UNRWA official reported that Israeli forces fired at an aid convoy in northern Gaza, even as it was driving on “a route designated by the Israeli army,” damaging one vehicle.

According to UNRWA, 40 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are “at risk of famine.” The U.N. has meanwhile activated a Famine Review Committee for Gaza “due to evidence surpassing the acute food insecurity Phase 5,” described as the “catastrophic threshold.”

Israel has meanwhile continued to target Palestinian health facilities and workers, notably the Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis and Kamal Adwan Hospital in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, prompting condemnation from Palestinian human rights organizations.

A Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) paramedic who was detained by Israeli forces in Jabalia said soldiers held him and other paramedics for hours with their hands tied behind their backs, and heavily beat them, including on their heads and “sensitive areas,” and that one of his colleagues was repeatedly hit with rocks. He added that Israeli bulldozers ran over ambulances, destroying them completely. PRCS says at least eight of its staff members are still detained by Israeli forces.

Al-Qidra said on Thursday that Israel was detaining at least 99 health personnel in “harsh conditions of torture, starvation, and exposure to extreme cold.”

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) meanwhile shared the testimony of one of its researchers, Ayman Lubbad, who was detained by Israeli forces for a week earlier this month.

“Men and boys as young as 14 were instructed to strip and kneel in the street […] They inappropriately photographed us while we were half-naked and forced some of us to dance,” Lubbad said. “Upon learning that I work for a human rights organization, the interrogator threateningly said: ‘I will teach you your rights very well in prison.’”

Egyptian proposal to be discussed amid internal Israeli turmoil

Amid the carnage, Egypt reiterated on Thursday that it was awaiting responses to its framework proposal to obtain a ceasefire in Gaza, a hostage swap agreement, and map out future Palestinian governance after the war.

A Hamas delegation was due in Cairo on Friday to discuss the proposal. In a press conference on Thursday, the Palestinian group said it was open “to any ideas or proposals to stop the aggression completely and finally on our people in the Gaza Strip,” but that there would be no deal to release Israeli hostages until Israeli pummeling of Gaza ceased.

It nonetheless stressed that “the management of Palestinian affairs is a Palestinian internal decision, and it is the decision of the Palestinian people alone, and our people will not accept a leadership that comes to them on the back of a Zionist or American tank.”

“Our people today want a national leadership that carries the project of liberation and commits to resistance in all its forms to achieve national goals,” Hamas added.

Meanwhile, Israeli Finance Minister and far-right extremist settler Bezalel Smotrich dug in his heels on Friday following reports that the U.S. was pressuring Tel Aviv to release Palestinian Authority tax revenue it has been withholding since October 7.

Because Israel controls all international borders with the occupied Palestinian territories, it collects customs and other forms of revenue on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, the nominal political body operating in the occupied West Bank. However, Israel has repeatedly withheld these taxes over the years as a punitive tactic, regardless of whether the P.A. is involved.

“As long as I am Finance Minister, not a single shekel will go to the Nazi terrorists in Gaza,” Smotrich wrote on X.

Smotrich is involved in growing tensions within Israeli leadership, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been facing pressure from the war cabinet — which includes himself, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and opposition leader Benny Gantz — and his far-right coalition government. A war cabinet meeting that had been scheduled for Thursday to discuss scenarios for “the day after” the war was postponed after Smotrich opposed its discussion of any future in which the PA might play a role.

Netanyahu was facing a slew of corruption charges and internal dissent due to his attempt to hijack the judicial system before the war.

The Israeli High Court is reportedly set to strike down a key part of the prime minister’s controversial judicial overhaul, according to a draft ruling leaked on Thursday, bringing back to the fore a national debate that had been effectively silenced since October 7.

Netanyahu is now also facing pressure for his handling of the hostage situation. Thousands of protesters rallied in Jerusalem on Thursday night, calling for the release of hostages.

An estimated 130 people are still believed to be held by Hamas and other Palestinian groups in Gaza as bargaining chips to obtain the release of thousands of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. While 105 hostages were released during a six-day truce in November, Israel has since failed to release more hostages through combat operations.

The Israeli army released on Thursday the results of its internal investigation into the killing of three Israeli hostages by Israeli forces earlier this month while they were waving a white flag. The probe found that soldiers shot at the hostages who were calling for help, despite their commander having ordered them not to shoot. The Times of Israel nevertheless reported that “the soldiers involved in the incident were not expected to be dismissed or to stand trial due to their actions.”

‘Deadliest year on record’ for children in the West Bank

At least three Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank since Thursday, as confrontations between Israeli forces and Palestinians were reported in several areas during military raids.

A Palestinian man identified as Ahmad Alyan was killed after allegedly carrying out a stabbing attack at the Israeli military checkpoint of Mizmoria between Jerusalem and Bethlehem on Thursday night, reportedly injuring two Israeli police officers. Israeli forces later raided his family’s home in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal al-Mukaber, detaining his parents and sister.

An alleged car-ramming attack took place near the illegal Israeli settlement of Otniel on Friday afternoon, with the driver killed on the spot by Israeli forces. The P.A. Ministry of Health identified the driver as Amr Abdel Fattah Abu Hussein, and said he was killed east of the Palestinian town of Dura.

Another Palestinian, identified as 38-year-old Muhammad Sayel Al-Jundi from the town of Yatta, was shot and killed by Israeli forces at a checkpoint between Hebron and Bethlehem on Thursday night. WAFA news agency did not provide more detail on the circumstances surrounding his death.

Israeli forces have continued to violently raid Palestinian towns and villages across the West Bank, provoking clashes in al-Faraa refugee camp, Balata refugee camp, Qalqilya, Rafat, Kafr Aqab, and Ain al-Sultan refugee camp.

At least three Palestinians were wounded during the Israeli raid in al-Faraa, and another five were detained, in addition to 14 other Palestinians detained overnight across the occupied West Bank. Israeli forces also seized children’s toys in a raid in the southern city of Hebron, WAFA reported.

In East Jerusalem, Israeli forces once again fired rubber-coated metal bullets, tear gas, and skunk water at worshippers seeking to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque on Friday.

The spike in violent Israeli repression in the West Bank since October 7 has led the UN to raise the alarm in a report released on Thursday.

“The use of military tactics means and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said. “The violations documented in this report repeat the pattern and nature of violations reported in the past in the context of the long-standing Israeli occupation of the West Bank. However, the intensity of the violence and repression is something that has not been seen in years.”

UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Adele Khodr meanwhile said on Thursday that 2023 was the “deadliest year on record for children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” with 83 children killed since October 7 alone.

“Children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been experiencing grinding violence for many years, yet the intensity of that violence has dramatically increased,” Khodr said. “The suffering of children in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, must not fade into the background of the current conflict — it is part of it.”

As Israeli state violence rages on, the settler colonial enterprise continues advancing in violation of international law. Israeli settlers expanded a road in the World Heritage site of Battir near Bethlehem on Thursday, seeking to further entrench a settler outpost built in the area in recent years.

Peace Now released a new report on Thursday on the expansion of the Battir outpost, as well as the expansion of the Homesh settlement in the northern West Bank “in the shadow of war.”

“While Israel is at war, Smotrich and his colleagues are asserting facts on the ground that may open up another front in the West Bank,” Peace Now wrote. “If we don’t stop the dream of settlement in the northern West Bank and in Battir, we will wake up to the nightmare of settlements in the Gaza Strip.”

Before you go - We need your help. Mainstream media’s wilful complicity in the genocide of Palestinian people is a reminder of just how vital our work at Mondoweiss is. This article and our extensive coverage since October 7 have been made possible by readers like you who donate to keep our reporting free and independent.

With your support, we will continue covering the ongoing events in Gaza and across Palestine, as well as amplifying the Palestine movement worldwide. Together, we will make sure to keep reporting Palestinian stories, even when the rest of the world looks away.

Support our critical work with a donation today.

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/12/operation-al-aqsa-flood-day-84-gaza-at-catastrophic-threshold-of-famine-west-bank-marks-deadliest-year-on-record-for-palestinian-children/

Israel’s Genocide Betrays the Holocaust
By obscuring and falsifying the lessons of the Holocaust we perpetuate the evil that defined it.

Chris Hedges

Never Again and Again and Again - by Mr. Fish

Israel’s lebensraum master plan for Gaza, borrowed from the Nazi’s depopulation of Jewish ghettos, is clear. Destroy infrastrutrue, medical facilities and sanitation, including access to clean water. Block shipments of food and fuel. Unleash indiscriminate industrial violence to kill and wound hundreds a day. Let starvation — the U.N. estimates that more than half a million people are already starving — and epidemics of infectious diseases, along with the daily massacres and the displacement of Palestinians from their homes, turn Gaza into a mortuary. The Palestinians are being forced to choose between death from bombs, disease, exposure or starvation or being driven from their homeland.

There will soon reach a point where death will be so ubiquitous that deportation - for those who want to live - will be the only option.

Danny Danon, Israel's former Ambassador to the U.N. and a close ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told Israel’s Kan Bet radio that he has been contacted by “countries in Latin America and Africa that are willing to absorb refugees from the Gaza Strip.” “We have to make it easier for Gazans to leave for other countries,” he said. “I'm talking about voluntary migration by Palestinians who want to leave.”

The problem for now “is countries that are willing to absorb them, and we're working on this,” Netanyahu told Likud Knesset members.

In the Warsaw Ghetto, the Germans handed out three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade to anyone who “voluntarily” registered for deportation. “There were times when hundreds of people had to wait in line for several hours to be ‘deported,’” Marek Edelman, one of the commanders of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, writes in “The Ghetto Fights.” “The number of people anxious to obtain three kilograms of bread was such that the transports, now leaving twice daily with 12,000 people, could not accommodate them all.”

The Nazis shipped their victims to death camps. The Israelis will ship their victims to squalid refugee camps in countries outside of Israel. Israeli leaders are also cynically advertising the proposed ethnic cleansing as voluntary and a humanitarian gesture to solve the catastrophe they created.

This is the plan. No one, especially the Biden administration, intends to stop it.

The most disturbing lesson I learned while covering armed conflicts for two decades is that we all have the capacity, with little prodding, to become willing executioners. The line between the victim and the victimizer is razor thin. The dark lusts of racial and ethnic supremacy, of vengeance and hate, of the eradication of those we condemn as embodying evil, are poisons that are not circumscribed by race, nationality, ethnicity or religion. We can all become Nazis. It takes very little. And if we do not stand in eternal vigilance over evil — our evil — we become, like those carrying out the mass killing in Gaza, monsters.

The cries of those expiring under the rubble in Gaza are the cries of the boys and men executed by the Bosnian Serbs at Srebrenica, the over 1.5 million Cambodians killed by the Khmer Rouge, the thousands of Tutsi families burned alive in churches and the tens of thousands of Jews executed by the Einsatzgruppen at Babi Yar in Ukraine. The Holocaust is not an historical relic. It lives, lurking in the shadows, waiting to ignite its vicious contagion.

We were warned. Raul Hilberg. Primo Levi. Bruno Bettelheim. Hannah Arendt. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. They understood the dark recesses of the human spirit. But this truth is bitter and hard to confront. We prefer the myth. We prefer to see in our own kind, our own race, our own ethnicity, our own nation, our own religion, superior virtues. We prefer to sanctify our hatred. Some of those who bore witness to this awful truth, including Levi, Bettelheim, Jean Améry, the author of “At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and Its Realities,” and Tadeusz Borowski, who wrote “This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen,” committed suicide. The German playwright and revolutionary Ernst Toller, unable to rouse an indifferent world to assist victims and refugees from the Spanish Civil War, hanged himself in 1939 in a room at the Mayflower Hotel in New York City. On his hotel desk were photos of dead Spanish children.

“Most people have no imagination,” Toller writes. “If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so. What separated a German mother from a French mother? Slogans which deafened us so that we could not hear the truth.”

Primo Levi railed against the false, morally uplifting narrative of the Holocaust that culminates in the creation of the state of Israel — a narrative embraced by the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. The contemporary history of the Third Reich, he writes, could be “reread as a war against memory, an Orwellian falsification of memory, falsification of reality, negation of reality.” He wonders if “we who have returned” have “been able to understand and make others understand our experience.”

Levi saw us reflected in Chaim Rumkowski, the Nazi collaborator and tyrannical leader of the Łódź Ghetto. Rumkowski sold out his fellow Jews for privilege and power, although he was sent to Auschwitz on the final transport where Jewish Sonderkommando — prisoners forced to help herd victims into the gas chambers and dispose of their bodies — in an act of vengeance reportedly beat him to death outside a crematorium.

“We are all mirrored in Rumkowski,” Levi reminds us. “His ambiguity is ours, it is our second nature, we hybrids molded from clay and spirit. His fever is ours, the fever of Western civilization, that ‘descends into hell with trumpets and drums,’ and its miserable adornments are the distorting image of our symbols of social prestige.” We, like Rumkowski, “are so dazzled by power and prestige as to forget our essential fragility. Willingly or not we come to terms with power, forgetting that we are all in the ghetto, that the ghetto is walled in, that outside the ghetto reign the lords of death, and that close by the train is waiting.”

Levi insists that the camps “could not be reduced to the two blocks of victims and persecutors.” He argues, “It is naive, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism sanctifies its victims; on the contrary; it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.” He chronicles what he called the “gray zone” between corruption and collaboration. The world, he writes, is not black and white, “but a vast zone of gray consciences that stands between the great men of evil and the pure victims.” We all inhabit this gray zone. We all can be induced to become part of the apparatus of death for trivial reasons and paltry rewards. This is the terrifying truth of the Holocaust.

It is hard not to be cynical about the plethora of university courses about the Holocaust given the censorship and banning of groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace, imposed by university administrations. What is the point of studying the Holocaust if not to understand its fundamental lesson — when you have the capacity to stop genocide and you do not, you are culpable? It is hard not to be cynical about the “humanitarian interventionists” — Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Samantha Power — who talk in sanctimonious rhymes about the “Responsibility to Protect” but are silent about war crimes when speaking out would threaten their status and careers. None of the “humanitarian interventions” they championed, from Bosnia to Libya, come close to replicating the suffering and slaughter in Gaza. But there is a cost to defending Palestinians, a cost they do not intend to pay. There is nothing moral about denouncing slavery, the Holocaust or dictatorial regimes that oppose the United States. All it means is you champion the dominant narrative.

The moral universe has been turned upside down. Those who oppose genocide are accused of advocating it. Those who carry out genocide are said to have the right to “defend” themselves. Vetoing ceasefires and providing 2,000-pound bombs to Israel that throw out metal fragments for thousands of feet is the road to peace. Refusing to negotiate with Hamas will free the hostages. Bombing hospitals, schools, mosques, churches, ambulances and refugee camps, along with killing three former Israeli hostages, stripped to the waist, waving an improvised white flag and calling out for help in Hebrew, are routine acts of war. Killing over 21,300 people, including more than 7,700 children, injuring over 55,000 and rendering nearly all of the 2.3 million people in Gaza homeless, is a way to “deradicalize” Palestinians. None of this makes sense, as protesters around the world realize.

A new world is being born. It is a world where the old rules, more often honored in the breach than the observance, no longer matter. It is a world where vast bureaucratic structures and technologically advanced systems carry out in public view vast killing projects. The industrialized nations, weakened, fearful of global chaos, are sending an ominous message to the Global South and anyone who might think of revolt — we will kill you without restraint.

One day, we will all be Palestinians.

“I fear that we live in a world in which war and racism are ubiquitous, in which the powers of government mobilization and legitimization are powerful and increasing, in which a sense of personal responsibility is increasingly attenuated by specialization and bureaucratization, and in which the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms,” Christopher R. Browning writes in Ordinary Men, about a German reserve police battalion in World War Two that was ultimately responsible for the murder of 83,000 Jews. “In such a world, I fear, modern governments that wish to commit mass murder will seldom fail in their efforts for being unable to induce ‘ordinary men’ to become their ‘willing executioners.’”

Evil is protean. It mutates. It finds new forms and new expressions. Germany orchestrated the murder of six million Jews, as well as over six million Gypsies, Poles, homosexuals, communists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Freemasons, artists, journalists, Soviet prisoners of war, people with physical and intellectual disabilities and political opponents. It immediately set out after the war to expiate itself for its crimes. It deftly transferred its racism and demonization to Muslims, with racial supremacy remaining firmly rooted in the German psyche. At the same time, Germany and the U.S. rehabilitated thousands of former Nazis, especially from the intelligence services and the scientific community, and did little to prosecute those who directed Nazi war crimes. Germany today is Israel’s second largest arms supplier following the U.S.

The supposed campaign against anti-Semitism, interpreted as any statement that is critical of the State of Israel or denounces the genocide, is in fact the championing of White Power. It is why the German state, which has effectively criminalized support for the Palestinians, and the most retrograde white supremists in the United States, justify the carnage. Germany’s long relationship with Israel, including paying over $90 billion since 1945 in reparations to Holocaust survivors and their heirs, is not about atonement, as the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé writes, but blackmail.

“The argument for a Jewish state as compensation for the Holocaust was a powerful argument, so powerful that nobody listened to the outright rejection of the U.N. solution by the overwhelming majority of the people of Palestine,” Pappé writes. “What comes out clearly is a European wish to atone. The basic and natural rights of the Palestinians should be sidelined, dwarfed and forgotten altogether for the sake of the forgiveness that Europe was seeking from the newly formed Jewish state. It was much easier to rectify the Nazi evil vis-à -vis a Zionist movement than facing the Jews of the world in general. It was less complex and, more importantly, it did not involve facing the victims of the Holocaust themselves, but rather a state that claimed to represent them. The price for this more convenient atonement was robbing the Palestinians of every basic and natural right they had and allowing the Zionist movement to ethnically cleanse them without fear of any rebuke or condemnation.”

The Holocaust was weaponized from almost the moment Israel was founded. It was bastardized to serve the apartheid state. If we forget the lessons of the Holocaust, we forget who we are and what we are capable of becoming. We seek our moral worth in the past, rather than the present. We condemn others, including the Palestinians, to an endless cycle of slaughter. We become the evil we abhor. We consecrate the horror.

Share

https://open.substack.com/pub/chrishedges/p/israels-genocide-betrays-the-holocaust?r=29hg4d&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

Meta censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, report claims
Rights group says Facebook and Instagram routinely engage in ‘six key patterns of undue censorship’ of content supporting Palestine

Richard Luscombe
Protesters unfurl the Palestinian flag in front of a sign with the Meta name, symbol and address.
Meta has engaged in a “systemic and global” censorship of pro-Palestinian content since the outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war on 7 October, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In a scathing 51-page report, the organization documented and reviewed more than a thousand reported instances of Meta removing content and suspending or permanently banning accounts on Facebook and Instagram. The company exhibited “six key patterns of undue censorship” of content in support of Palestine and Palestinians, including the taking down of posts, stories and comments; disabling accounts; restricting users’ ability to interact with others’ posts; and “shadow banning”, where the visibility and reach of a person’s material is significantly reduced, according to HRW.

Examples it cites include content originating from more than 60 countries, mostly in English, and all in “peaceful support of Palestine, expressed in diverse ways”. Even HRW’s own posts seeking examples of online censorship were flagged as spam, the report said.

“Censorship of content related to Palestine on Instagram and Facebook is systemic and global [and] Meta’s inconsistent enforcement of its own policies led to the erroneous removal of content about Palestine,” the group said in the report, citing “erroneous implementation, overreliance on automated tools to moderate content, and undue government influence over content removals” as the roots of the problem.

In a statement to the Guardian, Meta acknowledged it makes errors that are “frustrating” for people, but said that “the implication that we deliberately and systemically suppress a particular voice is false. Claiming that 1,000 examples, out of the enormous amount of content posted about the conflict, are proof of ‘systemic censorship’ may make for a good headline, but that doesn’t make the claim any less misleading.

Meta said it was the only company in the world to have publicly released human rights due diligence on issues related to Israel and Palestine .

“This report ignores the realities of enforcing our policies globally during a fast-moving, highly polarized and intense conflict, which has led to an increase in content being reported to us. Our policies are designed to give everyone a voice while at the same time keeping our platforms safe,” the company’s statement reads.

It is the second time this month that Meta has been challenged over accusations that it routinely silences pro-Palestinian content and voices.

Last week Elizabeth Warren, Democratic senator for Massachusetts, wrote to Meta’s co-founder and chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg, demanding information following hundreds of reports from Instagram users dating back to October that their content was demoted or removed, and their accounts subjected to shadow banning.

Alex Hern's weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives
Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
On Tuesday, Meta’s oversight board said the company had been wrong to remove two videos of the conflict in particular from Instagram and Facebook. The board said the videos were valuable for “informing the world about human suffering on both sides”. One showed the aftermath of an airstrike near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza via Instagram, the other a woman being taken hostage during the 7 October attack via Facebook. The clips were reinstated.

Users of Meta’s products have documented what they say is technological bias in favor of pro-Israel content and against pro-Palestinian posts. Instagram’s translation software replaced “Palestinian” followed by the Arabic phrase “Praise be to Allah” to “Palestinian terrorists” in English. WhatsApp’s AI, when asked to generate images of Palestinian boys and girls, created cartoon children with guns, whereas its images Israeli children did not include firearms.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram) censors pro-Palestinian views on a global scale, according to Human Rights Watch
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/dec/21/meta-facebook-instagram-pro-palestine-censorship-human-rights-watch-report

Biden became ‘Genocide Joe’ thanks to the Israel lobby
Philip WeissNovember 29, 2023
Netanyahu and Biden meet, July 14, 2022. Photo by Israeli government press office.
Netanyahu and Biden meet, July 14, 2022. Photo by Israeli government press office.
At Thanksgiving, a friend took me aside and said, “How does Israel get away with this? They are wiping these people out, you can see it before your eyes. But people here are losing their jobs if they say anything against it on social media. Health care workers have lost their jobs at hospitals.”

My friend is not alone. The upside of our government’s greenlight to Israel’s unending massacre and destruction in Gaza, with disease and famine looming, is that many are asking the same questions. Why is Joe Biden incapable of doing what any decent person would do, and any leader—of saying, Stop this madness now!

An overwhelming majority of countries in the region and world have condemned the brutal military offensive– what BBC describes as “apocalyptic,” and one high UN official says is “the worst” destruction he’s ever seen. (“They stopped counting the number of women and children killed.. . It’s complete and utter carnage.”)

And the progressive Democratic base is appalled. And there have been resignations at the State Department and at mainstream media. Even as Israelis regularly appear on our broadcasts, thanking Biden for his unwavering support.

The answer to this puzzle is that Biden fears the domestic political cost: the loss of the Israel lobby inside the Democratic Party. Biden fears the disaffection of the Jewish establishment that has for over 50 years dedicated itself to the principle that there must be no daylight between the U.S. and Israeli governments, even as war crimes are blasted over the airwaves.

This dynamic is rarely discussed in our media because it is thought to foster antisemitic theories of Jewish control. Even addressing the Israel lobby is labeled a conspiracy theory with lawless consequences — such as the reported vandalism of the Los Angeles home of the head of the Israel lobby group AIPAC, with red paint flung on his property as protesters shouted, Baby killer.

There is plenty of evidence for the idea that the lobby’s support is what weighs on Biden’s mind.

Jews are an important part of Biden’s Democratic base. 70 percent of Jews say they are Democrats. And the Jewish community appears to be overwhelmingly supportive of Israel, just as it was during other historical crises– with notable and honorable exceptions. We are “working around the clock to bring urgent relief to the people of Israel,” the Jewish Federations announces in its regular ad on WNYC, the NPR station I listen to.

The dissent of liberal Zionists is over – J Street is back with the rightwing pro-Israel groups in backing Israel’s “right to defend itself” and in opposing a ceasefire.

Zionists are flexing their political muscle in plain sight. AIPAC is said to be planning a multi-million-dollar offensive to pick off Squad members in Congress who have been critical of Israel. A progressive senatorial candidate in Michigan has reportedly been offered $20 million in campaign contributions from a former AIPAC donor to drop his bid and take on Rep. Rashida Tlaib instead. Big donors have withdrawn gifts from universities or threatened to do so in anger over anti-Zionist demonstrations and faculty statements. One Forbes headline said a “Jewish billionaire” was pulling his money from Columbia; and craven remarks equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism from Harvard’s president and Columbia’s too appear to be responses to donor pressure. Columbia’s banning of pro-Palestinian groups has the backing of the president and former president and has sent chills through the academic community.

The media are under similar top-down pressure from Israel supporters. “We are horrified and deeply saddened by the brutal attack on Israel,” the chairman of Comcast/MSNBC (who once participated in the Israeli Maccabee games) said last month, even as Israel was already pounding the Gaza Strip.

The CEO of Warner/CNN, David Zaslav, also issued a statement of support for Israel after it experienced “one of the deadliest [days] in Jewish history since the Holocaust.” Later Zaslav was reported to be considering taking part in a $50 million publicity campaign to “define Hamas to the American people as a terrorist organization.”

CNN’s coverage has been distinctly pro-Israel, as has MSNBC’s. While both networks have aired reports that portray the Palestinian nightmare of the last seven weeks, generally the coverage has been from the Israeli point of view, often with a propaganda-like tone. Israeli government spokespeople are frequent guests, and the Zionist ideology is happily ensconced throughout liberal media. Wolf Blitzer once worked for AIPAC; the Atlantic’s editor once was an Israeli prison guard; and Tom Friedman told a Jewish audience in 2021 that “Israel had me at hello,” and “Don’t worry. In times of crisis, I know where I will be. When the Jewish state is under threat.” Joe Scarborough regularly equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism.

Our official political culture is Zionist. Joe Biden calls himself a Zionist. Last summer House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries took 22 first-year Democratic congresspeople on a tour of Israel and stood at Netanyahu’s side, alongside the head of AIPAC (whose house is the target of demonstrations).

Biden and Jeffries are surely concerned about Democratic fundraising. Israel supporters use campaign contributions to make sure that the policy debate in the U.S. “remains extremely narrow,” as Nathan Thrall wrote in the New York Times in 2019.

“Despite pointed critiques of American support for Israel by representatives like Betty McCollum of Minnesota, [Rashida] Tlaib and [Ilhan] Omar, there is little willingness among Democrats to argue publicly for substantially changing longstanding policy toward Israel,” Thrall said. “In part, some Hill staff members and former White House officials say, this is because of the influence of megadonors: Of the dozens of personal checks greater than $500,000 made out to the largest PAC for Democrats in 2018, the Senate Majority PAC, around three-fourths were written by Jewish donors. This provides fodder for anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and for some, it is the elephant in the room. Though the number of Jewish donors known to prioritize pro-Israel policies above all other issues is small, there are few if any pushing in the opposite direction.”

Yes, it’s about “Jewish donors.” At J Street in 2016 political experts described the “gigantic” and “shocking” magnitude of Jewish donors in Democratic Party campaigns– who are perceived to be pro-Israel. A former finance director for many Democratic congressional campaigns said she had always gone to AIPAC for a position paper on Israel before undertaking to raise money from the Jewish community.

To understand what Joe Biden is thinking, it is worth reviewing presidential history, to remind ourselves how significant the Israel lobby is as a force. A few key moments:

–Truman overrode his own State Department and his own opposition to the idea of a religious state to back Israel’s establishment and then turn a blind eye to its expansions. John Judis wrote in his history, “Genesis,” that Truman did so because he needed $100,000 from political donors Abe Feinberg and Ed Kaufmann – a huge sum in 1948–for a whistlestop campaign trip through the midwest when his campaign was broke and Thomas Dewey was threatening to make him a one-termer.

–Both Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush lost their bids for a second term in the White House, and it is said that both politicians saw the Israel lobby as a factor in those losses.

Carter repeatedly challenged Israel over its settlements and believed that taking on Israel and its American lobby cost him his job. “From the New York primary [in March 1980] onward, I believe Carter was left with the view that New York Jews had not only defeated him in the primary but were also a factor in his loss in November,” Carter aide Stuart Eizenstat writes.

Bush also hammered Israel over settlements, “because I think this is what the American people want,” he said. But Bill Clinton ran to Bush’s right in 1992 with the support of the Israel lobby and defeated him. Tom Friedman summarized the lesson: “President Bush the first stood outside the White House one day and said I’m one lonely man standing up against the Israel lobby. What happened as a result of that… is that Republicans post Bush I, and manifested most in his son Bush 2, took a strategic decision, they will never be out pro-Israel’d again. That they believe cost them electorally a lot.”

–Obama made the same calculation. His need for the endorsement of Haim Saban and other “major Jewish donors” caused him to give in on Israel’s unending landgrabs, Judis writes. And Obama aide Ben Rhodes confirms that view. When Obama and Netanyahu clashed the year before Obama’s reelection campaign, Rhodes had to call “a list of leading Jewish donors . . . to reassure them of Obama’s pro-Israel bona fides.”

Obama waited for his second term to take Israel on over the Iran deal in 2015. In a major speech, he said that Israel was the only country in the world that opposed the deal. And while Benjamin Netanyahu is completely “sincere” in his opposition, Obama said, “As president of the United States, it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty” to defer to Israel’s wishes on this matter.

–Trump of course abrogated his duty. He did whatever Israel wanted including trashing the Iran deal and moving the embassy and seeking to legalize illegal settlements – all to maintain the support of his largest donor Sheldon Adelson, who gave 100s of millions to Republicans.

This is the history that counts for Joe Biden. He is going to go by the playbook that has evolved over his lifetime — regardless of the growing sympathy for Palestinians in the Democratic base that is evident in poll after poll.

The good thing about today’s crisis is that the lobby’s influence is naked. “Sleepy Joe has a new nickname– Genocide Joe,” cracked another friend at Thanksgiving. It is impossible to imagine Biden ignoring the world’s calls for ceasefire or his own base’s outrage over the images of slaughtered Palestinian families and children – impossible to imagine that without the influence of the organized Jewish community, which patently does not care about these victims, or when it does mention them says that Hamas is to blame.

Another good effect of this crisis is that it has provided a different picture of the Jewish community from blind support for Israel: the vigorous opposition to Israel’s militarism among young and progressive Jews. Witness the incredible cease-fire demonstrations organized by IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace. The growth of anti-Zionism will transform (and redeem) the Jewish community. And be a major factor in transforming U.S. policy, as well.

Before you go – we need your support

At Mondoweiss, we understand the power of telling Palestinian stories. For 17 years, we have pushed back when the mainstream media published lies or echoed politicians’ hateful rhetoric. Now, Palestinian voices are more important than ever.

Our traffic has increased ten times since October 7, and we need your help to cover our increased expenses.

Support our journalists with a donation today.

https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/biden-became-genocide-joe-thanks-to-the-israel-lobby/

Amid Gaza war, activists in Argentina aim to expel Israeli water company.
Protesters have denounced the state-owned Israeli company Mekorot for its human rights record as it expands in Argentina.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/24/amid-gaza-war-activists-in-argentina-aim-to-expel-israeli-water-company

New Painting - "Blood On Our Hands"
Caitlin Johnstone

I’ve got a new oil painting I’m titling “Blood On Our Hands”, based on the demonstration at Tony Blinken’s Senate testimony last month where protesters painted their hands red and called for a ceasefire in Gaza:





____________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Go here to buy paperback editions of my writings from month to month. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.


Bitcoin donations: 1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2


https://open.substack.com/pub/caitlinjohnstone/p/new-painting-blood-on-our-hands?r=1tqe1i&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post