"When will I lose all of this?"
March 13, 2024 7:28 AM Subscribe
In Gaza, death seems to be closer than water - Maha Hussaini: 'During one of the relatively ‘safe’ times in Gaza, around the summer of 2022, I sat on a comfy couch, soft music playing in the background, a cup of cold fresh orange juice in my hand, and I thought: "When will I lose all of this?"' || Gaza as Twilight of Israel Exceptionalism (by Raz Segal & Luigi Daniele) - The very different ways in which Holocaust scholars, on the one hand, and those working in Genocide Studies, on the other, have responded to the unfolding mass violence in Israel and Palestine after 7 October point to an unprecedented crisis in Holocaust and Genocide Studies. We argue that the crisis stems from the significant evidence for genocide in Israel’s attack on Gaza, which has exposed the exceptional status accorded to Israel as a foundational element in the field, that is, the idea that Israel, the state of Holocaust survivors, can never perpetrate genocide || Killed in Gaza database (you can search either in English or in Arabic) || CNN visual presentation of dead children
This is a fresh thread on the ongoing warfare in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The last previous active thread is when news from Rafah broke. The precious serial one (with links to older threads) coincided with the ICJ judgement that found that there is a plausible case for genocide.
Related threads where this current round of violence is relevant:
Would you sacrifice the possibility of a better world for this one?
in the name of anti-antisemitism, Europe is doomed to repeat its past
A Closer Look at Self-immolations in Freedom Struggles
Stupor Snoozeday? Not exactly.
Joe Biden's final State of the Union (before the 2024 election)
This is a fresh thread on the ongoing warfare in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The last previous active thread is when news from Rafah broke. The precious serial one (with links to older threads) coincided with the ICJ judgement that found that there is a plausible case for genocide.
Related threads where this current round of violence is relevant:
Would you sacrifice the possibility of a better world for this one?
in the name of anti-antisemitism, Europe is doomed to repeat its past
A Closer Look at Self-immolations in Freedom Struggles
Stupor Snoozeday? Not exactly.
Joe Biden's final State of the Union (before the 2024 election)
Ramadan Mubarak.
posted by constraint at 8:02 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
posted by constraint at 8:02 AM on March 13 [14 favorites]
The Over There is very much Here and enough of us have our comforts and conveniences that we'll probably try to grasp at the last bits of distraction to the bitter end. Cue: The Royals (etc)
I don't follow. Are you saying that what is happening in Gaza is going to happen elsewhere (its not, Gaza has been steadily ground to dust by Israel for decades)?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:16 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
I don't follow. Are you saying that what is happening in Gaza is going to happen elsewhere (its not, Gaza has been steadily ground to dust by Israel for decades)?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 8:16 AM on March 13 [1 favorite]
Are you saying that what is happening in Gaza is going to happen elsewhere
this is trivially true
apartheid and genocide, oppression of a weaker group by a much more powerful group: we don't make it very far if we keep ignoring the lesson here. I don't know about you, but from Canada this is looking very familiar.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:40 AM on March 13 [15 favorites]
this is trivially true
apartheid and genocide, oppression of a weaker group by a much more powerful group: we don't make it very far if we keep ignoring the lesson here. I don't know about you, but from Canada this is looking very familiar.
posted by elkevelvet at 8:40 AM on March 13 [15 favorites]
It's probably obvious to state, but crazy to think that less than a century has passed since the Holocaust, and already the state of Israel has gone from being refuge to the victims of an attempted genocide, to the perpetrator of one. It's baffling to imagine how this has been allowed to happen, until you remember that the West is not the arbiter of global morality that it purports to be.
posted by winterportage at 8:43 AM on March 13 [27 favorites]
posted by winterportage at 8:43 AM on March 13 [27 favorites]
Are you saying that what is happening in Gaza is going to happen elsewhere
Is going to?
It has been.
Since the end of WWII there has never really been a time when at least somewhere on Earth there was not some government attempting to commit genocide. It is, apparently, one of the things that unites a great many governments: the urge to exterminate a minority group.
"Never Again" was a lie from the instant the words were said. It has been happening again, and again, and again, and again, for close to 80 years after people first said it. And as often as not the US government has been an active and enthusiastic sponsor and supporter of those genocides.
What is happening in Gaza is simply how any government on the planet behaves when it has a minority group that is inconvenient to the ruling class, or when the ruling class decides it needs a scapegoat to use to distract the majority from other problems. It will never end until we can get the governments of Earth to agree to surrender enough sovereignty that some transnational organization can intervene BEFORE the killing starts and force changes on the government which is either committing genocide or credibly about to begin committing genocide.
Which is to say: never.
In almost every single case since WWII all the governments that supposedly oppose genocide have united in their agreement that any particular genocide you care to name doesn't count, or would be too destabilizing to stop, or whatever. Or, of course, the ever popular denial that any genocide is taking place and how DARE you sir, how DARE you imply that the good people of our long time ally and friend are committing genocide!?!
posted by sotonohito at 9:05 AM on March 13 [29 favorites]
Is going to?
It has been.
Since the end of WWII there has never really been a time when at least somewhere on Earth there was not some government attempting to commit genocide. It is, apparently, one of the things that unites a great many governments: the urge to exterminate a minority group.
"Never Again" was a lie from the instant the words were said. It has been happening again, and again, and again, and again, for close to 80 years after people first said it. And as often as not the US government has been an active and enthusiastic sponsor and supporter of those genocides.
What is happening in Gaza is simply how any government on the planet behaves when it has a minority group that is inconvenient to the ruling class, or when the ruling class decides it needs a scapegoat to use to distract the majority from other problems. It will never end until we can get the governments of Earth to agree to surrender enough sovereignty that some transnational organization can intervene BEFORE the killing starts and force changes on the government which is either committing genocide or credibly about to begin committing genocide.
Which is to say: never.
In almost every single case since WWII all the governments that supposedly oppose genocide have united in their agreement that any particular genocide you care to name doesn't count, or would be too destabilizing to stop, or whatever. Or, of course, the ever popular denial that any genocide is taking place and how DARE you sir, how DARE you imply that the good people of our long time ally and friend are committing genocide!?!
posted by sotonohito at 9:05 AM on March 13 [29 favorites]
this is trivially true
What I find grating about this claim is that this has been going on for 70+ years, this isn't something new or unexpected, but genocide isn't everywhere. There's not some invisible structural force pushing Israel to commit genocide, this is the result of choices and policies.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:05 AM on March 13 [9 favorites]
What I find grating about this claim is that this has been going on for 70+ years, this isn't something new or unexpected, but genocide isn't everywhere. There's not some invisible structural force pushing Israel to commit genocide, this is the result of choices and policies.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 9:05 AM on March 13 [9 favorites]
Ramadan Mubarak
Before I go to sleep before suhoor: a few stories-
Motassem A Dalloul: To persuade his wife to break her fast in the south of #Gaza:
1- He spent two days looking for someone having a chicken.
2- He insisted to take a picture beside it.
3- He did not eat anything from it because it belonged to an 18-member-family.
4- He sent it to his wife’s mobile in the south of #Gaza.
5- He lied on her and told her that he still have enough money to buy and eat chicken and meat.
This happened in front of me and I took the picture for him myself.
Ramy Abdu: Deborah, an American woman, was targeted by Israeli military warplanes in a bombing on her home in Deir al-Balah city.
She sends a message to all Americans to support Gaza, stating that the injustice against Gaza must stop.
I haven't heard any official statements from the US Govt about her or other Palestinian-Americans who've been harmed or killed, unlike the IDF soldier that just got a shout on CNN after being killed (Itay Chen). Anyway, I thought it's an interesting contrast because in the video she was adamant about not leaving Palestine because it's her home - similar statements have been made on the other side.
Hossam Shabat: In today's airdrop failures , supplies were dropped by the Baptist Hospital, causing damage to the hospital's solar panels, which play a vital role in generating electricity. I have mentioned it before, and I will say it again , these airdrops are chaotic, dangerous, humiliating, killing people and destroying our very few resources left , we deserve for aid to enter in a safe dignified way .
This tweet showing the men praying witir (a non-obligatory customary prayer at the end of terawih prayers, a Ramadan custom for the evenings) at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, praying for Gaza. But note they're praying at the outside compounds because they're still not allowed inside.
Pictures of Khalil Kawa and other Palestinian Christians distributing dates and water to Palestinian Muslims in Nablus.
Just posted: At least one UNRWA staff killed when Israeli Forces hit UNRWA centre used for food and lifesaving supplies
posted by cendawanita at 9:18 AM on March 13 [17 favorites]
Before I go to sleep before suhoor: a few stories-
Motassem A Dalloul: To persuade his wife to break her fast in the south of #Gaza:
1- He spent two days looking for someone having a chicken.
2- He insisted to take a picture beside it.
3- He did not eat anything from it because it belonged to an 18-member-family.
4- He sent it to his wife’s mobile in the south of #Gaza.
5- He lied on her and told her that he still have enough money to buy and eat chicken and meat.
This happened in front of me and I took the picture for him myself.
Ramy Abdu: Deborah, an American woman, was targeted by Israeli military warplanes in a bombing on her home in Deir al-Balah city.
She sends a message to all Americans to support Gaza, stating that the injustice against Gaza must stop.
I haven't heard any official statements from the US Govt about her or other Palestinian-Americans who've been harmed or killed, unlike the IDF soldier that just got a shout on CNN after being killed (Itay Chen). Anyway, I thought it's an interesting contrast because in the video she was adamant about not leaving Palestine because it's her home - similar statements have been made on the other side.
Hossam Shabat: In today's airdrop failures , supplies were dropped by the Baptist Hospital, causing damage to the hospital's solar panels, which play a vital role in generating electricity. I have mentioned it before, and I will say it again , these airdrops are chaotic, dangerous, humiliating, killing people and destroying our very few resources left , we deserve for aid to enter in a safe dignified way .
This tweet showing the men praying witir (a non-obligatory customary prayer at the end of terawih prayers, a Ramadan custom for the evenings) at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, praying for Gaza. But note they're praying at the outside compounds because they're still not allowed inside.
Pictures of Khalil Kawa and other Palestinian Christians distributing dates and water to Palestinian Muslims in Nablus.
Just posted: At least one UNRWA staff killed when Israeli Forces hit UNRWA centre used for food and lifesaving supplies
posted by cendawanita at 9:18 AM on March 13 [17 favorites]
It's probably obvious to state, but crazy to think that less than a century has passed since the Holocaust, and already the state of Israel has gone from being refuge to the victims of an attempted genocide, to the perpetrator of one.
Less than a century? Describing the 48 war as a genocide misses the point but it was most certainly a campaign of ethnic cleansing and much larger in scale than what we are seeing now. That was three years after Hitler's suicide!!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:37 AM on March 13 [13 favorites]
Less than a century? Describing the 48 war as a genocide misses the point but it was most certainly a campaign of ethnic cleansing and much larger in scale than what we are seeing now. That was three years after Hitler's suicide!!
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 11:37 AM on March 13 [13 favorites]
this is trivially true
What I find grating about this claim is that this has been going on for 70+ years, this isn't something new or unexpected, but genocide isn't everywhere. There's not some invisible structural force pushing Israel to commit genocide, this is the result of choices and policies.
Yeah, I agree that it is 'grating' because this idea that genocide is something unexceptional and ubiquitous makes people who are not at all helpless (like most of us sitting here in the United States) feel helpless and a little jaded and smug and as though this genocide should not be a topic of special concern.
Yes, genocide is everywhere and always but every single time, there were people who could have done things to stop it and not just people who formally hold the levers of power. We are not powerless and I personally believe that it is our responsibility, both to bear witness and remember what is happening right now and to do what is in our power and our abilities to resist it.
Even if you don't want or don't have the capacity to go to protests or donate e-sims (https://gazaesims.com/) or whatever, even putting on a Palestine pin, wearing a keffiyeh, putting up a "Ceasefire Now" sign--these all matter! They matter to the Arab and Palestinian-Americans living in your communities and they mean something to policymakers and to organizers.
posted by lizard2590 at 12:05 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
What I find grating about this claim is that this has been going on for 70+ years, this isn't something new or unexpected, but genocide isn't everywhere. There's not some invisible structural force pushing Israel to commit genocide, this is the result of choices and policies.
Yeah, I agree that it is 'grating' because this idea that genocide is something unexceptional and ubiquitous makes people who are not at all helpless (like most of us sitting here in the United States) feel helpless and a little jaded and smug and as though this genocide should not be a topic of special concern.
Yes, genocide is everywhere and always but every single time, there were people who could have done things to stop it and not just people who formally hold the levers of power. We are not powerless and I personally believe that it is our responsibility, both to bear witness and remember what is happening right now and to do what is in our power and our abilities to resist it.
Even if you don't want or don't have the capacity to go to protests or donate e-sims (https://gazaesims.com/) or whatever, even putting on a Palestine pin, wearing a keffiyeh, putting up a "Ceasefire Now" sign--these all matter! They matter to the Arab and Palestinian-Americans living in your communities and they mean something to policymakers and to organizers.
posted by lizard2590 at 12:05 PM on March 13 [9 favorites]
A friend sent me this poem by the late poet Dr. Refaat Alareer (murdered/assassinated in December 2023). It's quite moving.
I am You - Dr. Refaat Alareer
…Look in the mirror:
The horror, the horror!
The butt of your M-16 on my cheekbone
The yellow patch it left
The bullet-shaped scar expanding
Like a swastika,
Snaking across my face,
The heartache flowing
Out of my eyes dripping
Out of my nostrils piercing
My ears flooding
The place.
Like it did to you
70 years ago
Or so.
I am just you.
I am your past haunting
Your present and your future.
I strive like you did.
I fight like you did.
I resist like you resisted
And for a moment,
I’d take your tenacity
As a model,
Were you not holding
The barrel of the gun
Between my bleeding
Eyes.
…The very same gun
The very same bullet
That had killed your Mom
And killed your Dad
Is being used,
Against me,
By you.
Mark this bullet and mark in your gun.
If you sniff it, it has your and my blood.
It has my present and your past.
It has my present.
It has your future.
That’s why we are twins,
Same life track
Same weapon
Same suffering
Same facial expressions drawn
On the face of the killer,
Same everything
Except that in your case
The victim has evolved, backward,
Into a victimizer.
I tell you.
I am you.
Except that I am not the you of now.
I do not hate you.
I want to help you stop hating
And killing me.
I tell you:
The noise of your machine gun
Renders you deaf
The smell of the powder
Beats that of my blood.
The sparks disfigure
My facial expressions.
Would you stop shooting?
For a moment?
Would you?
All you have to do
Is close your eyes
(Seeing these days
Blinds our hearts.)
Close your eyes, tightly
So that you can see
In your mind’s eye.
Then look into the mirror.
One. Two.
I am you.
I am your past.
And killing me,
You kill you.
posted by nikoniko at 12:51 PM on March 13 [42 favorites]
I am You - Dr. Refaat Alareer
…Look in the mirror:
The horror, the horror!
The butt of your M-16 on my cheekbone
The yellow patch it left
The bullet-shaped scar expanding
Like a swastika,
Snaking across my face,
The heartache flowing
Out of my eyes dripping
Out of my nostrils piercing
My ears flooding
The place.
Like it did to you
70 years ago
Or so.
I am just you.
I am your past haunting
Your present and your future.
I strive like you did.
I fight like you did.
I resist like you resisted
And for a moment,
I’d take your tenacity
As a model,
Were you not holding
The barrel of the gun
Between my bleeding
Eyes.
…The very same gun
The very same bullet
That had killed your Mom
And killed your Dad
Is being used,
Against me,
By you.
Mark this bullet and mark in your gun.
If you sniff it, it has your and my blood.
It has my present and your past.
It has my present.
It has your future.
That’s why we are twins,
Same life track
Same weapon
Same suffering
Same facial expressions drawn
On the face of the killer,
Same everything
Except that in your case
The victim has evolved, backward,
Into a victimizer.
I tell you.
I am you.
Except that I am not the you of now.
I do not hate you.
I want to help you stop hating
And killing me.
I tell you:
The noise of your machine gun
Renders you deaf
The smell of the powder
Beats that of my blood.
The sparks disfigure
My facial expressions.
Would you stop shooting?
For a moment?
Would you?
All you have to do
Is close your eyes
(Seeing these days
Blinds our hearts.)
Close your eyes, tightly
So that you can see
In your mind’s eye.
Then look into the mirror.
One. Two.
I am you.
I am your past.
And killing me,
You kill you.
posted by nikoniko at 12:51 PM on March 13 [42 favorites]
It's very difficult not to despair. The first thing I thought when the ground assault began was that this was the start of something much bigger. That this won't be the only war Israel will fight over the next few years, that it will be changed fundamentally, at least in the eyes of the world, and that the map of the Middle East is going to be redrawn, and that it won't leave anyone in the region - or in the rest of the world, really - intact. Who knows, maybe something good will come of it, though I cannot imagine what.
posted by somebodystrousers at 6:39 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
posted by somebodystrousers at 6:39 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
It might feel tempting to despair but if even Palestinians still in the occupied territories can hold their head up, even as there's a clear campaign or at the very least custom of invalidating any support for them outside in the greater world, but still there are people who are speaking up, then for me I think, the very least I can do outside here, is to not concede the grounds when the subject comes up - this is where I think this particular series of war crimes currently culminating in a genocide is so unusual. Usually western spaces aren't so rigidly policing against critical voices, but it does go back to the idea that Israel as a country is so exceptional even its war crimes must be above reproach.
posted by cendawanita at 9:51 PM on March 13 [12 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:51 PM on March 13 [12 favorites]
I mean, as an outsider, the only reason I know about the checkered past of American political history is through learning from critical voices, who were provided respectable platforms. Can barely get the same about Palestine. Isn't that odd? That's not even an American state.
posted by cendawanita at 9:53 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 9:53 PM on March 13 [5 favorites]
From KQED: At least 200 pro-Palestinian protesters blocked security gates and traffic into San Francisco International Airport’s International Terminal Wednesday morning, demanding a permanent cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war that continues to rage in Gaza.
...Jennifer Trang, who helped lead Wednesday’s protest, said organizers had tried several failed tactics before deciding that the airport protest was necessary.
“We have met with elected officials, written letters, and passed city-wide resolutions,” Trang said in a statement. “We have taken to the streets. We have sounded the alarm in the media. The world has denounced the Israeli war against Palestinians in Gaza and our politicians continue to fuel and fund this genocide. … We need a permanent cease-fire and an end to the siege on Gaza now.”
As best I can tell, this action hasn't gotten a lot of coverage.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:38 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
...Jennifer Trang, who helped lead Wednesday’s protest, said organizers had tried several failed tactics before deciding that the airport protest was necessary.
“We have met with elected officials, written letters, and passed city-wide resolutions,” Trang said in a statement. “We have taken to the streets. We have sounded the alarm in the media. The world has denounced the Israeli war against Palestinians in Gaza and our politicians continue to fuel and fund this genocide. … We need a permanent cease-fire and an end to the siege on Gaza now.”
As best I can tell, this action hasn't gotten a lot of coverage.
posted by Bella Donna at 2:38 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
This is just straight up wretched, and there's a lot of competition -
Sydney Morning Herald: It’s crazy’: Desperate Gazans left in despair after Australian visas cancelled midair
Palestinians fleeing the war in Gaza have been left in despair and financial distress after being granted Australian visas only to be told they were cancelled while en route to Australia.
This masthead spoke to two Gazan women in Cairo who said they were shocked to learn they could not board a connecting flight to Australia with their children after their visas were seemingly cancelled while they were midair this week.
(...) Samah Sabawi, a Palestinian-Australian writer from Melbourne, said other Gazans had suffered a similar experience in recent days after being granted visitor visas to Australia.
“It’s happening to a lot of people now,” said Sabawi, who is currently in Cairo and has become a port of call for Gazans seeking refuge in Australia.
“When people get to their airports, that’s when they seem to trigger something in the system. Somebody was saying that they were returned from Kuala Lumpur, somebody was returned from Qatar, somebody was returned from China.
“It’s like they are cancelling people midair, almost in a panicked way. It’s crazy.”
Cassandra’s letter of cancellation, issued by the Department of Home Affairs, states: “As part of the visa application process, you were required to meet section 600.211 which states the visa applicant genuinely intends to stay temporarily in Australia.
“The delegate considered the situation in your home country, including the current conflict, the internal displacement of persons and the difficult circumstances facing ordinary citizens there.
“The delegate considered you never intended a genuine stay temporarily in Australia and therefore the visa was granted based on circumstances that never existed.”
So.... Can't make your friendly country stop the killings but can't give a temporary visa on account of no one can tell how long will the killings continue.
posted by cendawanita at 7:46 AM on March 14 [18 favorites]
Sydney Morning Herald: It’s crazy’: Desperate Gazans left in despair after Australian visas cancelled midair
Palestinians fleeing the war in Gaza have been left in despair and financial distress after being granted Australian visas only to be told they were cancelled while en route to Australia.
This masthead spoke to two Gazan women in Cairo who said they were shocked to learn they could not board a connecting flight to Australia with their children after their visas were seemingly cancelled while they were midair this week.
(...) Samah Sabawi, a Palestinian-Australian writer from Melbourne, said other Gazans had suffered a similar experience in recent days after being granted visitor visas to Australia.
“It’s happening to a lot of people now,” said Sabawi, who is currently in Cairo and has become a port of call for Gazans seeking refuge in Australia.
“When people get to their airports, that’s when they seem to trigger something in the system. Somebody was saying that they were returned from Kuala Lumpur, somebody was returned from Qatar, somebody was returned from China.
“It’s like they are cancelling people midair, almost in a panicked way. It’s crazy.”
Cassandra’s letter of cancellation, issued by the Department of Home Affairs, states: “As part of the visa application process, you were required to meet section 600.211 which states the visa applicant genuinely intends to stay temporarily in Australia.
“The delegate considered the situation in your home country, including the current conflict, the internal displacement of persons and the difficult circumstances facing ordinary citizens there.
“The delegate considered you never intended a genuine stay temporarily in Australia and therefore the visa was granted based on circumstances that never existed.”
So.... Can't make your friendly country stop the killings but can't give a temporary visa on account of no one can tell how long will the killings continue.
posted by cendawanita at 7:46 AM on March 14 [18 favorites]
Naomi Klein on Jonathan Glazer's Oscar speech (best international film for "The Zone of Interest")
If Jonathan Glazer’s brave Oscar acceptance speech made you uncomfortable, that was the pointposted by Artful Codger at 8:02 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
Fwiw, maybe this will eventually get covered by English/international press, but in the meantime I've seen tweets from an Israeli account (they've locked up now) where they're saying the movie is playing now in the country and audiences are plenty mad - the reference didn't pass them by.
(I have the screenshot but I'll just quote this bit without attribution: this is why l'm always saying western zionists are actually much dumber than israelis. israelis know what they're doing and can barely repress the guilt if forced to confront it for even one moment. western zionists live in a full fledged fantasy world. imho.)
posted by cendawanita at 8:54 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
(I have the screenshot but I'll just quote this bit without attribution: this is why l'm always saying western zionists are actually much dumber than israelis. israelis know what they're doing and can barely repress the guilt if forced to confront it for even one moment. western zionists live in a full fledged fantasy world. imho.)
posted by cendawanita at 8:54 AM on March 14 [9 favorites]
In literary/culture news:
The prestigious lit magazine Guernica has pulled and retracted a piece from an Israeli writer after several of its staff resigned in protest. "From the Edges of a Broken World" can be viewed on the Wayback Machine - I'm unsure if it's appropriate to post here, but if you look for it, you can find it. Co-publisher Madhuri Sastry said the essay “attempts to soften the violence of colonialism and genocide”.
Multiple writers have withdrawn from the PEN World Voices Festival, including: Naomi Klein, Hisham Matar, Maaza Mengiste, etc.
Dozens of artists boycott SXSW over its military sponsorship and Israeli ties.
The Jewish Communal Fund has barred its members from donating to Jewish Voice for Peace because of its stance on the war.
I made a post a few days ago about Mehdi Hasan's new media venture - he currently has an article up about head of the Shirat Moshe Hesder Yeshiva in Jaffa Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, who called for the killing of all Palestinians, including children.
posted by toastyk at 12:44 PM on March 14 [8 favorites]
The prestigious lit magazine Guernica has pulled and retracted a piece from an Israeli writer after several of its staff resigned in protest. "From the Edges of a Broken World" can be viewed on the Wayback Machine - I'm unsure if it's appropriate to post here, but if you look for it, you can find it. Co-publisher Madhuri Sastry said the essay “attempts to soften the violence of colonialism and genocide”.
Multiple writers have withdrawn from the PEN World Voices Festival, including: Naomi Klein, Hisham Matar, Maaza Mengiste, etc.
Dozens of artists boycott SXSW over its military sponsorship and Israeli ties.
The Jewish Communal Fund has barred its members from donating to Jewish Voice for Peace because of its stance on the war.
I made a post a few days ago about Mehdi Hasan's new media venture - he currently has an article up about head of the Shirat Moshe Hesder Yeshiva in Jaffa Rabbi Eliyahu Mali, who called for the killing of all Palestinians, including children.
posted by toastyk at 12:44 PM on March 14 [8 favorites]
Over a hundred artists in the SXSW protest now. There have also been groups protesting at specific military-sponsored events during SXSW.
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:01 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 2:01 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]
Have we already covered the billions of dollars of oil under the West Bank and other Palestinian occupied lands, and the port for "aid" the US military is building near the offshore oil field in Gaza?
posted by infini at 3:56 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]
posted by infini at 3:56 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]
infini: when i've briefly mentioned it in other threads (related to the extremely stupid and obviously shady "temporary port" idea), mefites accused me of being a conspiracy theorist.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:02 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:02 PM on March 14 [5 favorites]
WAWOG has gone live with The New York Times War Crimes, a detailed investigation of how the NYT has manufactured consent for Palestinian genocide. Lots to dig into here.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:20 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:20 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]
Geologists and resources economists have confirmed that the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) lies above sizeable reservoirs of oil and natural gas wealth, in Area C of the West Bank and the Mediterranean coast off the Gaza Strip, according to a recent UNCTAD study.
New discoveries of natural gas in the Levant Basin are in the range of 122 trillion cubic foot while recoverable oil is estimated at 1.7 billion barrels, according to the study, entitled “The Economic Cost of Occupation for the Palestinian People: The Unrealized Oil and Natural Gas Potential.”
2019 report from that well known conspiracy theorist the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
these are the same lands now being cleared away...quite rapidly in fact
posted by infini at 4:27 PM on March 14 [7 favorites]
New discoveries of natural gas in the Levant Basin are in the range of 122 trillion cubic foot while recoverable oil is estimated at 1.7 billion barrels, according to the study, entitled “The Economic Cost of Occupation for the Palestinian People: The Unrealized Oil and Natural Gas Potential.”
2019 report from that well known conspiracy theorist the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
these are the same lands now being cleared away...quite rapidly in fact
posted by infini at 4:27 PM on March 14 [7 favorites]
Foreign Policy link (use reader mode to bypass popup)
October 11, 2023, 5:28 PM
With its ample offshore natural gas resources, Israel has long dreamed of establishing itself as a major energy player in the Eastern Mediterranean, and in its more ambitious moments, even becoming a key supplier to Europe.
[...]
Natural gas prices went up firstly because Israel shut down a big offshore production platform in missile range of Gaza, and secondly because a pipeline in the Baltic mysteriously developed a hole
[...]
There are bigger Israeli offshore fields, which are as yet unaffected, as well as smaller ones, but the onshore war is already having offshore effects.
Back story going back 20 years
On Oct. 29, Israel announced that it awarded 12 licenses for exploring additional offshore natural gas fields to six companies, including British Petroleum and Italian energy giant Eni. These awards show that Israel has no intention of letting the genocide it is carrying out against Gaza’s people interfere with its ongoing theft of Palestinian resources.
posted by infini at 4:45 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
October 11, 2023, 5:28 PM
With its ample offshore natural gas resources, Israel has long dreamed of establishing itself as a major energy player in the Eastern Mediterranean, and in its more ambitious moments, even becoming a key supplier to Europe.
[...]
Natural gas prices went up firstly because Israel shut down a big offshore production platform in missile range of Gaza, and secondly because a pipeline in the Baltic mysteriously developed a hole
[...]
There are bigger Israeli offshore fields, which are as yet unaffected, as well as smaller ones, but the onshore war is already having offshore effects.
Back story going back 20 years
On Oct. 29, Israel announced that it awarded 12 licenses for exploring additional offshore natural gas fields to six companies, including British Petroleum and Italian energy giant Eni. These awards show that Israel has no intention of letting the genocide it is carrying out against Gaza’s people interfere with its ongoing theft of Palestinian resources.
posted by infini at 4:45 PM on March 14 [2 favorites]
Aschner, E. (1947). OIL, PALESTINE, AND THE POWERS:" The Struggle for Strategic Resources in the Middle East". Commentary, 4, 456.
readable page 1 is quite enough - the arabian pipeline was to come through here
Colgan, J. D. (2017). Irene L. Gendzier, Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of US Policy in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015). Pp. 432. 28.00 paper. ISBNs: 9780231152891, 9780231152891. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 49(2), 360-362.
posted by infini at 4:51 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]
readable page 1 is quite enough - the arabian pipeline was to come through here
Colgan, J. D. (2017). Irene L. Gendzier, Dying to Forget: Oil, Power, Palestine, and the Foundations of US Policy in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2015). Pp. 432. 28.00 paper. ISBNs: 9780231152891, 9780231152891. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 49(2), 360-362.
posted by infini at 4:51 PM on March 14 [4 favorites]
Those facts are going to play well with the credit-claiming happening in domestic press: (Jpost) Diplomatic source to 'Post': Gaza maritime route was Netanyahu’s idea - exclusive
Then, you have this hell of an end quote in this story filed by the BBC WH correspondent: Biden and Netanyahu's deepening rift on public display - Dave Harden, a former mission director at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the West Bank and Gaza, told the BBC that Mr Netanyahu didn't appear to be listening.
"He almost treats Biden as some kind of inconsequential second secretary of a low-ranked European power… the gap between Israel and the US just deepens," said Mr Harden.
Which makes today's news interesting. Earlier I shared that NYMag article about Biden exploring regime change, and unsurprisingly I've been seeing angry posts about how dare America for attempting to impose their will etc *laughs in global south*
Anyway, today, I saw this tweet by Naks Bilal: Israeli chattering class is in full meltdown mode in recognising that it is a vassal state of American interests, and that soon Biden and his gang are going to give Tel Aviv a dose of democracy.
Next will be for a Palestinian state to be imposed against all their will.
What's up? Well:
Al-Jazeera: US Senate leader Chuck Schumer calls for new Israel elections amid Gaza war
Haaretz: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Says Netanyahu Has 'Lost His Way,' Calls for New Elections
I'm aware of the statecraft that requires Bibi being pinned with all the blame but, just as an example outside of all the polling, and thanks to @ireallyhateyou for sharing to the outside world, we're talking about a country with hit songs like this (not the harbu darbu one shared way earlier in the siege): 'Until Gaza is erased': Israel's 'genocidal' anthems go viral. Or this sort of conversation (radio show also captured by @ireallyhateyou) about the Flour Massacre (of which daily ones continue to happen since). Or this Channel 14 panel show (screengrabs on twitter) where everyone is laughing and having a good time talking about burning villages and people being killed.
posted by cendawanita at 6:15 PM on March 14 [9 favorites]
Then, you have this hell of an end quote in this story filed by the BBC WH correspondent: Biden and Netanyahu's deepening rift on public display - Dave Harden, a former mission director at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in the West Bank and Gaza, told the BBC that Mr Netanyahu didn't appear to be listening.
"He almost treats Biden as some kind of inconsequential second secretary of a low-ranked European power… the gap between Israel and the US just deepens," said Mr Harden.
Which makes today's news interesting. Earlier I shared that NYMag article about Biden exploring regime change, and unsurprisingly I've been seeing angry posts about how dare America for attempting to impose their will etc *laughs in global south*
Anyway, today, I saw this tweet by Naks Bilal: Israeli chattering class is in full meltdown mode in recognising that it is a vassal state of American interests, and that soon Biden and his gang are going to give Tel Aviv a dose of democracy.
Next will be for a Palestinian state to be imposed against all their will.
What's up? Well:
Al-Jazeera: US Senate leader Chuck Schumer calls for new Israel elections amid Gaza war
Haaretz: U.S. Senate Majority Leader Says Netanyahu Has 'Lost His Way,' Calls for New Elections
I'm aware of the statecraft that requires Bibi being pinned with all the blame but, just as an example outside of all the polling, and thanks to @ireallyhateyou for sharing to the outside world, we're talking about a country with hit songs like this (not the harbu darbu one shared way earlier in the siege): 'Until Gaza is erased': Israel's 'genocidal' anthems go viral. Or this sort of conversation (radio show also captured by @ireallyhateyou) about the Flour Massacre (of which daily ones continue to happen since). Or this Channel 14 panel show (screengrabs on twitter) where everyone is laughing and having a good time talking about burning villages and people being killed.
posted by cendawanita at 6:15 PM on March 14 [9 favorites]
Ah, I always miss one thing... Anyway, somewhat of note (UN sausage-making), then there's latest US draft resolution being circulated, via Rami Ayari: NEW: @USUN circulates Rev5 of their draft resolution on #Gaza to #UNSC members and requests it be put into blue. The mention of a “six-week” ceasefire has been removed and draft reso now “unequivocally supports international diplomatic efforts to establish an immediate and sustained ceasefire as part of a deal that releases the hostages, and that allows the basis for a more durable peace to alleviate humanitarian suffering.” It still does not demand a #CeasefireNOW as overwhelming majority of council members would want. Vote timing TBD.
posted by cendawanita at 6:21 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 6:21 PM on March 14 [1 favorite]
New thread open specifically on Schumer's comments.
(His niece must be so mad right now)
posted by cendawanita at 6:32 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]
(His niece must be so mad right now)
posted by cendawanita at 6:32 PM on March 14 [3 favorites]
Copying this bit of cladivs's comment in the other thread:
UK grants asylum to Palestinian citizen of Israel in ‘seismic’ U-turn. 3-13.
Canada pauses non-lethal military exports to Israel — government source 3-14
Turkey's Erdogan calls for pressure on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza 3-11
India's Modi Is Losing Patience With Netanyahu, and With Israel's War in Gaza 3-14
The asylum article is of significance for me - the petition was successfully argued on the claim that Israel is an apartheid state, in short. The precedence being set here is quite noteworthy.
In any case, from Australia: Australia to resume funding to UN Palestinian aid agency UNRWA
South Africa: South Africa warns its citizens serving in Israeli army of arrest upon their return home
Maybe I should add this one to that other thread -- from American Prospect: AIPAC Talking Points Revealed
posted by cendawanita at 10:32 PM on March 14 [6 favorites]
UK grants asylum to Palestinian citizen of Israel in ‘seismic’ U-turn. 3-13.
Canada pauses non-lethal military exports to Israel — government source 3-14
Turkey's Erdogan calls for pressure on Israel to allow more aid into Gaza 3-11
India's Modi Is Losing Patience With Netanyahu, and With Israel's War in Gaza 3-14
The asylum article is of significance for me - the petition was successfully argued on the claim that Israel is an apartheid state, in short. The precedence being set here is quite noteworthy.
In any case, from Australia: Australia to resume funding to UN Palestinian aid agency UNRWA
South Africa: South Africa warns its citizens serving in Israeli army of arrest upon their return home
Maybe I should add this one to that other thread -- from American Prospect: AIPAC Talking Points Revealed
posted by cendawanita at 10:32 PM on March 14 [6 favorites]
'Striking energy deals in disputed seas: the case of the Gaza Marine gas field'
"The field can potentially benefit the Palestinian Authority (PA) in terms of export revenue and energy independence. However, the legal status of the field remains unclear, and the 2023 Israel–Hamas war further complicated this matter. On the one hand, although Israel has not made any legal claim to Gaza Marine, its approval to develop the field is still considered necessary by all parties involved. On the other hand, while the PA views itself as the rightful owner of the field, it has had no effective control over Gaza’s coastline or waters since 2007, weakening its claim."
is important to understand the difference between what is under Gaza Strip itself and Gaza Marine 22 miles offshore.
as "The gas fields that lie under the Mediterranean do not conform to national borders."
briefly covered gas and oil in Gaza in the first month of the war considered a thing to little impractical to discuss giving the current situation. everybody likes to evaluate the gas and there is real potential but no one at this point is going to invest in the extraction which would cost billions and billions of dollars and that's just for the structure/ drilling to extract the gas let alone the facilities to distribute it. It's also slightly politically hypocritical to push about potential wealth in the form of natural gas when this is considered an energy source in transition albeit slow. but cash is cash.
that's why I concentrated on the water situation in Gaza for a bit as it seemed to be more important given its quality and necessity in a peacetime situation this would imply that is supersedes the needs of gas and oil at the moment. either way whether it's gas or water Israel will have to be involved in those decisions regardless.
as far as I have gleaned very few companies exist that can produce these sorts of extraction facilities and most are unwilling to do it at this point without peace and stability in the region.
posted by clavdivs at 11:10 PM on March 14
"The field can potentially benefit the Palestinian Authority (PA) in terms of export revenue and energy independence. However, the legal status of the field remains unclear, and the 2023 Israel–Hamas war further complicated this matter. On the one hand, although Israel has not made any legal claim to Gaza Marine, its approval to develop the field is still considered necessary by all parties involved. On the other hand, while the PA views itself as the rightful owner of the field, it has had no effective control over Gaza’s coastline or waters since 2007, weakening its claim."
is important to understand the difference between what is under Gaza Strip itself and Gaza Marine 22 miles offshore.
as "The gas fields that lie under the Mediterranean do not conform to national borders."
briefly covered gas and oil in Gaza in the first month of the war considered a thing to little impractical to discuss giving the current situation. everybody likes to evaluate the gas and there is real potential but no one at this point is going to invest in the extraction which would cost billions and billions of dollars and that's just for the structure/ drilling to extract the gas let alone the facilities to distribute it. It's also slightly politically hypocritical to push about potential wealth in the form of natural gas when this is considered an energy source in transition albeit slow. but cash is cash.
that's why I concentrated on the water situation in Gaza for a bit as it seemed to be more important given its quality and necessity in a peacetime situation this would imply that is supersedes the needs of gas and oil at the moment. either way whether it's gas or water Israel will have to be involved in those decisions regardless.
as far as I have gleaned very few companies exist that can produce these sorts of extraction facilities and most are unwilling to do it at this point without peace and stability in the region.
posted by clavdivs at 11:10 PM on March 14
The asylum article is of significance for me - the petition was successfully argued on the claim that Israel is an apartheid state, in short. The precedence being set here is quite noteworthy.
And it stands in stark contrast with the news about Australia cancelling travel visas from Palestinians in transit in order to prevent them from claiming asylum once there that you had posted up above.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:50 AM on March 15 [3 favorites]
And it stands in stark contrast with the news about Australia cancelling travel visas from Palestinians in transit in order to prevent them from claiming asylum once there that you had posted up above.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:50 AM on March 15 [3 favorites]
MEDIA CONTINUES TO FRAME MASS STARVATION IN GAZA AS NATURAL DISASTER RATHER THAN DELIBERATE SIEGE TACTIC (Adam Johnson, at The Real News)
Enemy countries deliberately starve civilians because they are ontologically evil. The US—and the allies it arms, funds, and backs at the UN—are passive observers to the human suffering they unleash. Or, more perversely, they are humanitarian saviors because they announce a trivial or pointless PR stunt to work around the very horrors that they, themselves, deliberately created. “Urgent aid en route to Gaza amid severe food crisis,” CBS news announces while showing triumphant b-roll of US war ships carrying token, PR-driven aid deliveries to circumvent a blockade they, themselves, are arming and funding. “Inside a U.S. airdrop mission to rush food into Gaza,” another CBS News report breathlessly proclaims.posted by adrienneleigh at 11:16 AM on March 15 [10 favorites]
Brown peoples.
or do we still dance around these realpolitikal facts?
posted by infini at 1:06 PM on March 15 [3 favorites]
or do we still dance around these realpolitikal facts?
posted by infini at 1:06 PM on March 15 [3 favorites]
Huh??
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:26 PM on March 15
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 1:26 PM on March 15
Passive voice third party tone or whatever the technical term is when there is no perpertrator or active voice used to say things like "they were famished to death" or "a 6 year old died in a car" is how you distinguish its an Other death. Nobody caused it. It just happened. According to Western media.
posted by infini at 2:02 PM on March 15 [6 favorites]
posted by infini at 2:02 PM on March 15 [6 favorites]
Yup, yup, yup.
Fwiw these links are samples of my earnest attempt to have more compassion for my mom than the Euro-Settler Trash*le parent ever did, and so I second the Western reframing of how these things "just happen" when happening in brown human populations that, coincidentally, also happen to be too inconvenient to bring up in any conversation in the Western Hemisphere Ever. That brown babies have been historically better off as fertilizer in the food supply chain for the [upper caste populations of the] West and what continues to happen in Gaza is not at all lost on me.
posted by human ecologist at 12:31 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
Fwiw these links are samples of my earnest attempt to have more compassion for my mom than the Euro-Settler Trash*le parent ever did, and so I second the Western reframing of how these things "just happen" when happening in brown human populations that, coincidentally, also happen to be too inconvenient to bring up in any conversation in the Western Hemisphere Ever. That brown babies have been historically better off as fertilizer in the food supply chain for the [upper caste populations of the] West and what continues to happen in Gaza is not at all lost on me.
posted by human ecologist at 12:31 AM on March 16 [5 favorites]
just a response to your first link 'yup' - my mom was born during that famine, and I during the one 22 years later
posted by infini at 2:35 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
posted by infini at 2:35 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
I have many feelings watching this video - Bisan basically went back on her own yt channel (she's been mostly on TT and IG with ppl reposting her wartime content elsewhere) and decided to start a storyteller series: Gaza - The Beginning. It looks so idyllic until you remember why she had to be on the beach.
She is such a storyteller. But I'm conscious I'm watching a story of resistance as well as a historical frame that's clearly formed by modern times. While it reminded me of this news piece (Keeping traditions alive under Israeli oppression - this opened with the story about the boy who was shot simply for playing with fireworks for Ramadan), I was actually thinking of her learning Arabic channel - this video that I used to watch pre-Oct 7 and it's been humbling to rewatch it: Which Country do Palestinians Like the Most? . Can't help but think about how many she's interviewed may have already died, and the buildings in the background gone. And all those Western countries being named in the video whose governments don't consider them people.
Anyway. FT: The lost future of young Gazans
posted by cendawanita at 2:44 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
She is such a storyteller. But I'm conscious I'm watching a story of resistance as well as a historical frame that's clearly formed by modern times. While it reminded me of this news piece (Keeping traditions alive under Israeli oppression - this opened with the story about the boy who was shot simply for playing with fireworks for Ramadan), I was actually thinking of her learning Arabic channel - this video that I used to watch pre-Oct 7 and it's been humbling to rewatch it: Which Country do Palestinians Like the Most? . Can't help but think about how many she's interviewed may have already died, and the buildings in the background gone. And all those Western countries being named in the video whose governments don't consider them people.
Anyway. FT: The lost future of young Gazans
posted by cendawanita at 2:44 AM on March 16 [4 favorites]
Guardian: Israeli human rights groups accuse country of failing to abide by ICJ’s Gaza aid ruling -Twelve of Israel’s most prominent human rights organisations have signed an open letter accusing the country of failing to comply with the international court of justice’s (ICJ) provisional ruling that it should facilitate access of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
(...) In their letter, the rights groups say Israel was legally obliged to implement the measures ordered by the court but had so far failed to do so. Signatories to the letter include the military whistleblower group Breaking the Silence and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
SCMP: Consumer boycott widens to include Israeli dates as Muslims in Malaysia, Indonesia observe Ramadan
BBC: Israel says it plans 'humanitarian islands' for Gaza displaced
Cars are in short supply now, as is fuel for them, so most people would have to walk once again, carrying their belongings.
Palestinians are hungrier and weaker than they were five months ago, which would also make large-scale movement slow.
The central part of the strip where Israel proposes to relocate them has been badly damaged by repeated ground and air attacks.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said he was yet to receive further details, but "needed to see a plan to get civilians out of harm's way" of any ground operation in Rafah and ensure they had food, shelter and medicine.
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel's war cabinet, had suggested a new military operation would begin in Rafah by the start of the Islamic holy month Ramadan if no new hostage release deal was agreed.
That did not happen, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reference it when he addresses the Israeli people.
Susan Abulhawa in Al-Jazeera: Love in the time of genocide
Before long, their shelter was surrounded by tanks. A “quadcopter” – a new Israeli terror invention – flew into the rooms, spraying the walls above their heads with bullets. Everyone screamed and cried, “even the men”, Nina said. “It broke my heart to see the strong men of our family cowering in fear like that.”
Eventually, soldiers entered. “At least 80 of them,” she said. They separated the men from the women and children, stripping the former to nothing but their boxers in the dead of winter. The women and children were crammed into a small storage room, the men split into two classrooms. For three nights and four days, they listened to the screams of their husbands, fathers, and brothers being beaten and tortured in the other rooms, until finally, soldiers ordered the women, in broken Arabic, to take their children and “go south”.
All the women complied, except Nina. “I didn’t care anymore. I was ready to die but I wasn’t going to leave without my husband.” She ran into the rooms where the men were being held, calling Hamad’s name. None dared respond. It was dark and soldiers were pulling her away. She fought them as they laughed, seemingly amused by her hysteria. “Crazy,” they called her.
(...)She and Hamad made it out together. When they finally arrived somewhere safe, they realised his leg had been broken, his wrists were cut by the plastic ties, and his back bore the Star of David.
Among the screams Nina had heard over the previous days had been her husband’s, as a soldier used a knife to carve the Jewish symbol into his back.
posted by cendawanita at 4:17 AM on March 16 [9 favorites]
(...) In their letter, the rights groups say Israel was legally obliged to implement the measures ordered by the court but had so far failed to do so. Signatories to the letter include the military whistleblower group Breaking the Silence and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
SCMP: Consumer boycott widens to include Israeli dates as Muslims in Malaysia, Indonesia observe Ramadan
BBC: Israel says it plans 'humanitarian islands' for Gaza displaced
Cars are in short supply now, as is fuel for them, so most people would have to walk once again, carrying their belongings.
Palestinians are hungrier and weaker than they were five months ago, which would also make large-scale movement slow.
The central part of the strip where Israel proposes to relocate them has been badly damaged by repeated ground and air attacks.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said he was yet to receive further details, but "needed to see a plan to get civilians out of harm's way" of any ground operation in Rafah and ensure they had food, shelter and medicine.
Benny Gantz, a member of Israel's war cabinet, had suggested a new military operation would begin in Rafah by the start of the Islamic holy month Ramadan if no new hostage release deal was agreed.
That did not happen, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continues to reference it when he addresses the Israeli people.
Susan Abulhawa in Al-Jazeera: Love in the time of genocide
Before long, their shelter was surrounded by tanks. A “quadcopter” – a new Israeli terror invention – flew into the rooms, spraying the walls above their heads with bullets. Everyone screamed and cried, “even the men”, Nina said. “It broke my heart to see the strong men of our family cowering in fear like that.”
Eventually, soldiers entered. “At least 80 of them,” she said. They separated the men from the women and children, stripping the former to nothing but their boxers in the dead of winter. The women and children were crammed into a small storage room, the men split into two classrooms. For three nights and four days, they listened to the screams of their husbands, fathers, and brothers being beaten and tortured in the other rooms, until finally, soldiers ordered the women, in broken Arabic, to take their children and “go south”.
All the women complied, except Nina. “I didn’t care anymore. I was ready to die but I wasn’t going to leave without my husband.” She ran into the rooms where the men were being held, calling Hamad’s name. None dared respond. It was dark and soldiers were pulling her away. She fought them as they laughed, seemingly amused by her hysteria. “Crazy,” they called her.
(...)She and Hamad made it out together. When they finally arrived somewhere safe, they realised his leg had been broken, his wrists were cut by the plastic ties, and his back bore the Star of David.
Among the screams Nina had heard over the previous days had been her husband’s, as a soldier used a knife to carve the Jewish symbol into his back.
posted by cendawanita at 4:17 AM on March 16 [9 favorites]
Brown peoples.
or do we still dance around these realpolitikal facts?
Huh??
and, and this, because of then about, see, at this point and, the main point of, why, and compare....
that sound you hear is me hitting the wall called Western Civilization.
posted by clavdivs at 4:15 PM on March 16
or do we still dance around these realpolitikal facts?
Huh??
and, and this, because of then about, see, at this point and, the main point of, why, and compare....
that sound you hear is me hitting the wall called Western Civilization.
posted by clavdivs at 4:15 PM on March 16
clavdivs: Gandhi was pretty problematic in a lot of ways, but i always think about the apocryphal story of when he was asked "What do you think of Western Civilization?"
He is reputed to have said, "I think it would be a good idea."
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:42 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
He is reputed to have said, "I think it would be a good idea."
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:42 PM on March 16 [3 favorites]
- Guardian: ‘Everyone has friends in jail’: how Palestinian prisoners became central to Gaza ceasefire talks
“The prisoners are seen as a huge rights issue for Palestinians and a major security issue for Israel. But though this is one of the most contentious issues, it’s also where we see a willingness to compromise,” said Dr Julie Norman, an associate professor of political science at University College London and the author of a book on Palestinian prisoners.
After weeks of fruitless negotiations, news came in a quick flurry on Friday with a fresh set of demands from Hamas and an announcement that an Israeli delegation would travel to Qatar to rejoin indirect talks mediated by the Gulf state.
(...) Norman described any prisoner release as “probably the bitterest pill for Israelis to swallow”.
“They don’t want to reward what Hamas has done, and they don’t want to release people who could harm them in the future,” she said. “Part of the aims of the 7 October attack was to force a prisoner release and that is one of the most politically significant things that any such organisation can achieve.”
Hamas is willing to release women, men under 19 and over 50 years old, and ill people – a total of 40 hostages, the Palestinian officials said.
According to a leaked draft of the new proposal, Hamas wants any ceasefire to lead to a definitive end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza – which has killed more than 31,000 people, according to local health officials – but will now accept an initial 40-day pause in hostilities.
Other demands include the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, more humanitarian aid entering the territory and the return of all those displaced from the territory’s ruined northern parts.
(...)“The prisoners are very important because of the mentality of the Palestinians … There is a tradition of solidarity with those who make sacrifices. If you gain the freedom of someone with a long sentence, you bring a dead person back to life. It creates hope.”
Of the prisoners released during the ceasefire in November, eight are back behind bars.
One is Obeida Hammad, who served 17 months of administrative detention without charge before being released, but was then rearrested by the Israeli army three weeks ago in a 4am raid on his home in Silwad.
Badriya Hammad, the 19-year-old’s mother, said her son had not been involved in any illegal activities since his release and he had dreaded going back to prison, where he had endured harsh conditions.
“He was very shocked. They told him to get dressed and take any medicine he needed and then put handcuffs on him and led him away. We have not heard anything since. There is no charge, so we don’t know what he is supposed to have done wrong,” she said.
(...) Partly as a consequence of the new detentions, Hamas negotiators are demanding guarantees that any freed prisoners will not be put straight back in jail, the Palestinian officials said.
- +972: ‘We scream, starve, and die alone’: Life in the ruins of Shuja’iya - Israel’s month-long invasion of the Gaza City neighborhood left behind a trail of devastation. Still under siege, its Palestinian residents are risking death to get their hands on a bag of flour.
Although the fighting in Shuja’iya has been scaled back since late December, the Israeli army continues to enter the neighborhood periodically, forcing residents to flee from one area to another each time. The number of casualties and missing people from Israel’s invasion is not yet fully known: with Israeli forces still besieging the neighborhood, no medical teams have been able to enter in order to evacuate the wounded or retrieve the dead. What did become clear to surviving residents upon the retreat of Israeli troops in late December, however, was the scale of the destruction.
- +972: Armchair humanitarianism’: The problem with Gaza’s maritime aid corridor - While aid is desperately needed, critics warn the U.S.-led plan evades the fundamental cause of Gaza’s starvation: Israel’s total control of the Strip. (that reminds me that I've seen photos of the aid packages being awash in the sea... Ending up in Israel. Yay.)
Anyway, BBC: Israel-Gaza: Aid reaches Gaza shore in first sea delivery
That's nice: Gaza has no functioning port, so a makeshift jetty stemming from the shoreline was built by WCK's team using rubble from destroyed buildings.
Per Mohammad Alsaafin: For the first time in months, Gaza's police in the north deployed to secure the entry of six aid trucks carrying flour. Highly risky since Israel has targeted police as they escort trucks.
Good news: trucks reached their destination safely. Flour will be distributed to bakeries.
- interactive presentation from OSINT-based Forensic Architecture: Humanitarian Violence: Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after 7 October 2023 is turning principles of humanitarianism into weapons, deployed against a civilian population.
[FA] has documented three phases of mass displacement across Gaza, presented as ‘humanitarian’ evacuation orders directing civilians towards supposed ‘safe zones’.
- Also from them: Destruction of medical infrastructure in Gaza - Since 7 October 2023, we have aggregated news reports of Israeli military attacks on medical infrastructure in Gaza. Our analysis suggests that hospitals in Gaza are being subjected to a systematic pattern of intimidation and violence by the Israeli military as part of the ongoing invasion.
- Mondoweiss: Violating intimacies - Israeli soldiers have photographed themselves posing with the lingerie of Palestinian women they have displaced or killed in Gaza. They join a long line of conquest images, from Abu Ghraib images to the spectacle of Jim Crow-era lynchings.
There is something unspeakably vile and infantile about the images of Israeli troops circulating on social media showing them posing for pictures with intimate apparel pilfered from the bedrooms of Gazan women. Amid the daily onslaught of murder, deprivation, and forced starvation, not to mention images of mutilated Palestinian children, here are Israeli soldiers beside themselves with self-congratulatory glee, gallivanting around snatching bras and ogling panties.
How could they? But of course, they could. Of course, they would. While most militaries strive to present at least a public veneer of discipline and self-control, the IDF is charting a new course in the socially grotesque, delighted to revel in the foulest behavior aimed at total disregard for Palestinian life.
But these images, showing soldiers playing amidst their dirty work, shook me more than others. The video of women IDF soldiers dancing awkwardly with Gaza crumbling in the background was more pathetic than painful. The soldiers blowing up a building for their IG livestreams was brazen cynicism. The soldier who made a how-to video showing how he defecates in a plastic bag because there is no water in Gaza toilets, and then throwing that bag casually amid the rubble, was just plain disgusting.
These pictures enter a different realm where one’s most intimate relations and private thoughts, feelings, and desires have been penetrated, looted, picked apart, and turned into jokes.
These images are performances of masculinity based on humiliation, which day in and day out, is the fuel powering the occupation.
BBC: How gunfire and fear engulfed Gaza hospital before Israeli raid
The BBC has spent several weeks establishing what happened at Nasser, one of Gaza's biggest and busiest hospitals until an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid last month. On Tuesday, we revealed accusations from medical staff that they were detained, beaten and humiliated by IDF forces during the raid, prompting the UK government to call for answers from Israel. The US State Department said Israel has a "moral responsibility" to investigate credible reports of abuses or violations of humanitarian law.
Now, through witness testimony and analysis of verified video footage, we can show how the days leading up to the raid unfolded. Medics, patients and displaced civilians sheltering outside the main entrance described how they were trapped as anyone who tried to move around would be shot at.
The BBC has verified footage of 21 incidents of gunfire or its impact filmed from within the hospital grounds and has confirmed the shooting of three people there.
Al-Jazeera: Not just the UNRWA report: Countless accounts of Israeli torture in Gaza - Al Jazeera spoke to several released detainees about their ordeals in Israeli holding facilities. (with videos)
Another detained man told UNRWA: “They made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire – I have burns [in the anus]. The soldiers hit me with their shoes on my chest and used something like a metal stick that had a small nail on the side,” he said.
“They asked us to drink from the toilet and made the dogs attack us,” he recalled, before describing how he had seen the bodies of “maybe nine” people who had been detained and killed, including one who had died after they had “put the electric stick up his [anus]. He got so sick, we saw worms coming out of his body and then he died,” he said.
- Reuters: Israeli tank in 'likely scenario' fired machine gun at reporters after deadly shelling, report finds
BEIRUT/THE HAGUE, March 7 (Reuters) - An Israeli tank crew killed a Reuters reporter in Lebanon in October by firing two shells at a clearly identified group of journalists and then "likely" opened fire on them with a heavy machine gun in an attack that lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds, according to a report into the incident published on Thursday.
The report by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) - which was contracted by Reuters to analyse evidence from the Oct. 13 attack that killed visuals journalist Issam Abdallah - found that a tank 1.34 km away in Israel fired two 120 mm rounds at the reporters.
The first shell killed Abdallah, 37, and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28.
posted by cendawanita at 12:08 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
“The prisoners are seen as a huge rights issue for Palestinians and a major security issue for Israel. But though this is one of the most contentious issues, it’s also where we see a willingness to compromise,” said Dr Julie Norman, an associate professor of political science at University College London and the author of a book on Palestinian prisoners.
After weeks of fruitless negotiations, news came in a quick flurry on Friday with a fresh set of demands from Hamas and an announcement that an Israeli delegation would travel to Qatar to rejoin indirect talks mediated by the Gulf state.
(...) Norman described any prisoner release as “probably the bitterest pill for Israelis to swallow”.
“They don’t want to reward what Hamas has done, and they don’t want to release people who could harm them in the future,” she said. “Part of the aims of the 7 October attack was to force a prisoner release and that is one of the most politically significant things that any such organisation can achieve.”
Hamas is willing to release women, men under 19 and over 50 years old, and ill people – a total of 40 hostages, the Palestinian officials said.
According to a leaked draft of the new proposal, Hamas wants any ceasefire to lead to a definitive end to Israel’s offensive in Gaza – which has killed more than 31,000 people, according to local health officials – but will now accept an initial 40-day pause in hostilities.
Other demands include the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza, more humanitarian aid entering the territory and the return of all those displaced from the territory’s ruined northern parts.
(...)“The prisoners are very important because of the mentality of the Palestinians … There is a tradition of solidarity with those who make sacrifices. If you gain the freedom of someone with a long sentence, you bring a dead person back to life. It creates hope.”
Of the prisoners released during the ceasefire in November, eight are back behind bars.
One is Obeida Hammad, who served 17 months of administrative detention without charge before being released, but was then rearrested by the Israeli army three weeks ago in a 4am raid on his home in Silwad.
Badriya Hammad, the 19-year-old’s mother, said her son had not been involved in any illegal activities since his release and he had dreaded going back to prison, where he had endured harsh conditions.
“He was very shocked. They told him to get dressed and take any medicine he needed and then put handcuffs on him and led him away. We have not heard anything since. There is no charge, so we don’t know what he is supposed to have done wrong,” she said.
(...) Partly as a consequence of the new detentions, Hamas negotiators are demanding guarantees that any freed prisoners will not be put straight back in jail, the Palestinian officials said.
- +972: ‘We scream, starve, and die alone’: Life in the ruins of Shuja’iya - Israel’s month-long invasion of the Gaza City neighborhood left behind a trail of devastation. Still under siege, its Palestinian residents are risking death to get their hands on a bag of flour.
Although the fighting in Shuja’iya has been scaled back since late December, the Israeli army continues to enter the neighborhood periodically, forcing residents to flee from one area to another each time. The number of casualties and missing people from Israel’s invasion is not yet fully known: with Israeli forces still besieging the neighborhood, no medical teams have been able to enter in order to evacuate the wounded or retrieve the dead. What did become clear to surviving residents upon the retreat of Israeli troops in late December, however, was the scale of the destruction.
- +972: Armchair humanitarianism’: The problem with Gaza’s maritime aid corridor - While aid is desperately needed, critics warn the U.S.-led plan evades the fundamental cause of Gaza’s starvation: Israel’s total control of the Strip. (that reminds me that I've seen photos of the aid packages being awash in the sea... Ending up in Israel. Yay.)
Anyway, BBC: Israel-Gaza: Aid reaches Gaza shore in first sea delivery
That's nice: Gaza has no functioning port, so a makeshift jetty stemming from the shoreline was built by WCK's team using rubble from destroyed buildings.
Per Mohammad Alsaafin: For the first time in months, Gaza's police in the north deployed to secure the entry of six aid trucks carrying flour. Highly risky since Israel has targeted police as they escort trucks.
Good news: trucks reached their destination safely. Flour will be distributed to bakeries.
- interactive presentation from OSINT-based Forensic Architecture: Humanitarian Violence: Israel’s military campaign in Gaza after 7 October 2023 is turning principles of humanitarianism into weapons, deployed against a civilian population.
[FA] has documented three phases of mass displacement across Gaza, presented as ‘humanitarian’ evacuation orders directing civilians towards supposed ‘safe zones’.
- Also from them: Destruction of medical infrastructure in Gaza - Since 7 October 2023, we have aggregated news reports of Israeli military attacks on medical infrastructure in Gaza. Our analysis suggests that hospitals in Gaza are being subjected to a systematic pattern of intimidation and violence by the Israeli military as part of the ongoing invasion.
- Mondoweiss: Violating intimacies - Israeli soldiers have photographed themselves posing with the lingerie of Palestinian women they have displaced or killed in Gaza. They join a long line of conquest images, from Abu Ghraib images to the spectacle of Jim Crow-era lynchings.
There is something unspeakably vile and infantile about the images of Israeli troops circulating on social media showing them posing for pictures with intimate apparel pilfered from the bedrooms of Gazan women. Amid the daily onslaught of murder, deprivation, and forced starvation, not to mention images of mutilated Palestinian children, here are Israeli soldiers beside themselves with self-congratulatory glee, gallivanting around snatching bras and ogling panties.
How could they? But of course, they could. Of course, they would. While most militaries strive to present at least a public veneer of discipline and self-control, the IDF is charting a new course in the socially grotesque, delighted to revel in the foulest behavior aimed at total disregard for Palestinian life.
But these images, showing soldiers playing amidst their dirty work, shook me more than others. The video of women IDF soldiers dancing awkwardly with Gaza crumbling in the background was more pathetic than painful. The soldiers blowing up a building for their IG livestreams was brazen cynicism. The soldier who made a how-to video showing how he defecates in a plastic bag because there is no water in Gaza toilets, and then throwing that bag casually amid the rubble, was just plain disgusting.
These pictures enter a different realm where one’s most intimate relations and private thoughts, feelings, and desires have been penetrated, looted, picked apart, and turned into jokes.
These images are performances of masculinity based on humiliation, which day in and day out, is the fuel powering the occupation.
BBC: How gunfire and fear engulfed Gaza hospital before Israeli raid
The BBC has spent several weeks establishing what happened at Nasser, one of Gaza's biggest and busiest hospitals until an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid last month. On Tuesday, we revealed accusations from medical staff that they were detained, beaten and humiliated by IDF forces during the raid, prompting the UK government to call for answers from Israel. The US State Department said Israel has a "moral responsibility" to investigate credible reports of abuses or violations of humanitarian law.
Now, through witness testimony and analysis of verified video footage, we can show how the days leading up to the raid unfolded. Medics, patients and displaced civilians sheltering outside the main entrance described how they were trapped as anyone who tried to move around would be shot at.
The BBC has verified footage of 21 incidents of gunfire or its impact filmed from within the hospital grounds and has confirmed the shooting of three people there.
Al-Jazeera: Not just the UNRWA report: Countless accounts of Israeli torture in Gaza - Al Jazeera spoke to several released detainees about their ordeals in Israeli holding facilities. (with videos)
Another detained man told UNRWA: “They made me sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire – I have burns [in the anus]. The soldiers hit me with their shoes on my chest and used something like a metal stick that had a small nail on the side,” he said.
“They asked us to drink from the toilet and made the dogs attack us,” he recalled, before describing how he had seen the bodies of “maybe nine” people who had been detained and killed, including one who had died after they had “put the electric stick up his [anus]. He got so sick, we saw worms coming out of his body and then he died,” he said.
- Reuters: Israeli tank in 'likely scenario' fired machine gun at reporters after deadly shelling, report finds
BEIRUT/THE HAGUE, March 7 (Reuters) - An Israeli tank crew killed a Reuters reporter in Lebanon in October by firing two shells at a clearly identified group of journalists and then "likely" opened fire on them with a heavy machine gun in an attack that lasted 1 minute and 45 seconds, according to a report into the incident published on Thursday.
The report by the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) - which was contracted by Reuters to analyse evidence from the Oct. 13 attack that killed visuals journalist Issam Abdallah - found that a tank 1.34 km away in Israel fired two 120 mm rounds at the reporters.
The first shell killed Abdallah, 37, and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi, 28.
posted by cendawanita at 12:08 AM on March 17 [7 favorites]
Updates with no links because I'm still waiting for decent reports (or else I'll corral the threads):
- Al-Shifa hospital is being bombarded, again. This time the story is that this is in retaliation to the commander who led the first attack just got nerfed by militants.
- Ansarallah announced their blockade will expand to all of Indian Ocean trade
- (I'm speculating that there's a link) EU just awarded a historic deal with Egypt. Here's a report from Guardian.
posted by cendawanita at 10:50 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
- Al-Shifa hospital is being bombarded, again. This time the story is that this is in retaliation to the commander who led the first attack just got nerfed by militants.
- Ansarallah announced their blockade will expand to all of Indian Ocean trade
- (I'm speculating that there's a link) EU just awarded a historic deal with Egypt. Here's a report from Guardian.
posted by cendawanita at 10:50 PM on March 17 [2 favorites]
Cross-posting from the other thread: Great Irish Famine historians issue St. Patrick's Day statement on Gaza (signatories include Cormac Ó Gráda)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:23 AM on March 18 [5 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:23 AM on March 18 [5 favorites]
- Oxfam: Inflicting Unprecedented Suffering and Destruction: Seven ways the government of Israel is deliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip:
1. A total military siege amounting to collective punishment
2. An unjustifiably inefficient process of inspection protocols
3. Arbitrary rejections of ‘dual-use items’ [these include dates, traditionally eaten to break fast for Muslims]
4. Decimation, destruction and disruption
5. Attacks on aid workers, humanitarian facilities and aid convoys
6. Forced displacement and an absence of safety
7. Systematic denial of humanitarian missions and access restrictions on humanitarian workers
- Time (Dec 2023): What Palestinian Children Face in Israeli Prisons - An estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been held in military detention over the past 20 years, with Save the Children noting that they are “the only children in the world who are systematically prosecuted in military courts.” As of Nov. 20, Israeli forces had arrested as many as 880 Palestinian children this year, a practice made possible under Israel’s draconian military laws.
- Democracy Now: “Towers of Ivory and Steel”: Jewish Scholar Says Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom
There's an essay from Maya Wind on DawnMENA that's adapted from her book: How Israeli Universities and Legal Scholars Collaborate With Israel's Military. It's like whole faculties of John Yoo.
(Can be read together with this The Conversation piece: The war in Gaza is wiping out Palestine’s education and knowledge systems)
- Watan (in Arabic; by Younis Tirawi): Photographed by occupation soldiers... dozens of video clips and photos showing their crimes in Gaza
However, in this investigative article, we will uniquely transfer the lens of the Israeli soldier, to exclusive scenes that have not been previously published or documented in the media, revealing new crimes in Gaza, which we reveal for the first time, and whose publication by the soldiers can only be explained. A phenomenon that expresses the “above the law” of the occupying state, and its indifference to accountability, accountability and deterrence from the international community.
On pages such as Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms, the phenomenon of occupation army soldiers publishing pictures of the brutality and crimes they commit on the shoulders of the increasing suffering in the Gaza Strip is evident. From pictures of burning homes and blowing up property, and humiliating details about kidnapped Palestinians. With the support of open sources on social media, we found dozens of documents from inside the lens of occupation soldiers and verified their identities and units. (a lot of photos and videos)
- Mondoweiss: Are we indeed all Palestinians? - Are we indeed ‘all Palestinians’ as we chant on the streets of New York and London? If so, this rallying cry must abandon metaphor and manifest materially in resistance and refusal. Because Gaza cannot stand alone in sacrifice.
Fragmentation is not merely symbolic, it has transformed us into a million people living in a million states at once. One segment of our society, what remains of it anyway, has paid a steeper, bloodier price than the rest in recent years—a detail one cannot simply gloss over.
Once upon a time, I could easily estrange myself from the classes that I have long despised and envied (the elites, the bourgeoises, and those for whom Palestine is an aesthetic metaphor), but a new class has emerged in the narrow inferno of the Gaza Strip: the starved and the repeatedly, relentlessly, implacably dispossessed, and it is impossible to be more than an impotent spectator, impossible to belong to that class, not without bruises, not without sacrifice.
It is tempting, almost comforting—particularly as I look at the food on my table and the roof over my head—to indulge in guilt, but it is an unproductive sentiment, it does not start revolutions. Guilt imposes itself like a nagging cavity, you are acutely aware of its presence, but you continue to shovel the same sweets in your mouth, until your teeth rot, until you self-destruct.
These days I am haunted by a subtler, though deadlier, refrain, an unwanted realization: Gaza has the right to forsake us, to never forgive us, to spit in our faces. How many wars has it confronted? How many martyrs has it given? How many bodies were stolen from it, snatched from their fathers’ embrace? And how many of us stutter when asked about resistance, or disavow our right to resist entirely, our need to resist? How many of us choose our careers over our kin? How many of us could have done something, anything, but did not?
- Haaretz: 'Israeli Settlers Can Now Do Whatever They Please. They Want to Drive Off Those Who Live There' - Erella Dunayevsky, an Israeli activist in the West Bank for decades, has lost hope that the conflict can be solved. Her new book details countless incidents of harassment and violence in the South Hebron Hills
-The Nation: What Was Palestine Before the Nakba? - A stunning photo archive reveals a time before the walls and checkpoints, when Palestine was not defined by its ailments but by its industries and cultures
posted by cendawanita at 8:19 AM on March 18 [7 favorites]
1. A total military siege amounting to collective punishment
2. An unjustifiably inefficient process of inspection protocols
3. Arbitrary rejections of ‘dual-use items’ [these include dates, traditionally eaten to break fast for Muslims]
4. Decimation, destruction and disruption
5. Attacks on aid workers, humanitarian facilities and aid convoys
6. Forced displacement and an absence of safety
7. Systematic denial of humanitarian missions and access restrictions on humanitarian workers
- Time (Dec 2023): What Palestinian Children Face in Israeli Prisons - An estimated 10,000 Palestinian children have been held in military detention over the past 20 years, with Save the Children noting that they are “the only children in the world who are systematically prosecuted in military courts.” As of Nov. 20, Israeli forces had arrested as many as 880 Palestinian children this year, a practice made possible under Israel’s draconian military laws.
- Democracy Now: “Towers of Ivory and Steel”: Jewish Scholar Says Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom
There's an essay from Maya Wind on DawnMENA that's adapted from her book: How Israeli Universities and Legal Scholars Collaborate With Israel's Military. It's like whole faculties of John Yoo.
(Can be read together with this The Conversation piece: The war in Gaza is wiping out Palestine’s education and knowledge systems)
- Watan (in Arabic; by Younis Tirawi): Photographed by occupation soldiers... dozens of video clips and photos showing their crimes in Gaza
However, in this investigative article, we will uniquely transfer the lens of the Israeli soldier, to exclusive scenes that have not been previously published or documented in the media, revealing new crimes in Gaza, which we reveal for the first time, and whose publication by the soldiers can only be explained. A phenomenon that expresses the “above the law” of the occupying state, and its indifference to accountability, accountability and deterrence from the international community.
On pages such as Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms, the phenomenon of occupation army soldiers publishing pictures of the brutality and crimes they commit on the shoulders of the increasing suffering in the Gaza Strip is evident. From pictures of burning homes and blowing up property, and humiliating details about kidnapped Palestinians. With the support of open sources on social media, we found dozens of documents from inside the lens of occupation soldiers and verified their identities and units. (a lot of photos and videos)
- Mondoweiss: Are we indeed all Palestinians? - Are we indeed ‘all Palestinians’ as we chant on the streets of New York and London? If so, this rallying cry must abandon metaphor and manifest materially in resistance and refusal. Because Gaza cannot stand alone in sacrifice.
Fragmentation is not merely symbolic, it has transformed us into a million people living in a million states at once. One segment of our society, what remains of it anyway, has paid a steeper, bloodier price than the rest in recent years—a detail one cannot simply gloss over.
Once upon a time, I could easily estrange myself from the classes that I have long despised and envied (the elites, the bourgeoises, and those for whom Palestine is an aesthetic metaphor), but a new class has emerged in the narrow inferno of the Gaza Strip: the starved and the repeatedly, relentlessly, implacably dispossessed, and it is impossible to be more than an impotent spectator, impossible to belong to that class, not without bruises, not without sacrifice.
It is tempting, almost comforting—particularly as I look at the food on my table and the roof over my head—to indulge in guilt, but it is an unproductive sentiment, it does not start revolutions. Guilt imposes itself like a nagging cavity, you are acutely aware of its presence, but you continue to shovel the same sweets in your mouth, until your teeth rot, until you self-destruct.
These days I am haunted by a subtler, though deadlier, refrain, an unwanted realization: Gaza has the right to forsake us, to never forgive us, to spit in our faces. How many wars has it confronted? How many martyrs has it given? How many bodies were stolen from it, snatched from their fathers’ embrace? And how many of us stutter when asked about resistance, or disavow our right to resist entirely, our need to resist? How many of us choose our careers over our kin? How many of us could have done something, anything, but did not?
- Haaretz: 'Israeli Settlers Can Now Do Whatever They Please. They Want to Drive Off Those Who Live There' - Erella Dunayevsky, an Israeli activist in the West Bank for decades, has lost hope that the conflict can be solved. Her new book details countless incidents of harassment and violence in the South Hebron Hills
-The Nation: What Was Palestine Before the Nakba? - A stunning photo archive reveals a time before the walls and checkpoints, when Palestine was not defined by its ailments but by its industries and cultures
posted by cendawanita at 8:19 AM on March 18 [7 favorites]
IPC: Famine is imminent as 1.1 million people, half of Gaza, experience catastrophic food insecurity
Coverage in WSJ (archived) and NYT (archived)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:27 AM on March 19 [4 favorites]
Coverage in WSJ (archived) and NYT (archived)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:27 AM on March 19 [4 favorites]
Things of note from the new (sigh) Al-Shifa raid:
- from the article: sisted that there is “no obligation” for patients and medical staff to evacuate the hospital.
However, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents on the ground reported that Israeli forces used loudspeakers to order hundreds of people sheltering at the hospital to evacuate.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit shows dozens of Palestinians fleeing the hospital as Israeli forces launched operations in the area.
- AJ video reporting
- Gabriel Elizondo - AJE: As many as 80 people detained by Israeli military, including journalists and medical staff.
Broadcast equipment to transmit video to outside world also destroyed.
@AJArabic correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul beaten by Israeli forces and taken to unknown location.
- A claim I have seen, eg Tariq Kenney-Shaw: Israeli forces killed Faiq Al-Mabhouh, commander of Gaza’s civilian police, during last nights attack on Al-Shifa Hospital. This comes just days after Biden warned Israel to stop targeting members of Gaza’s police force who escort aid trucks because of the breakdown in order.
Israel’s latest raid on Al-Shifa was an act of petty revenge after Al-Mabhouh coordinated a successful aid distribution in northern Gaza.
---
And coincidentally: (Memo) Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti beaten by guards
Prominent Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti has been attacked with clubs by Israeli prison guards and suffered bleeding in his eye, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed reported the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs and Barghouti’s family saying.
Barghouti, 64, who is a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, is being subjected to isolation, torture and humiliation, said his wife, Fadwa Barghouti.
Fadwa explained that her husband’s life and the lives of other prominent prisoners are in great danger, adding that the Israeli prison administration “deliberately brutalises them in order to break their morale.”
“Marwan was subjected to continuous attacks, which we learned of on 6 and 12 March [through lawyers], which caused bleeding in one of his eyes, while the prison’s repressive forces constantly threatened him,” she added, explaining that he had been relocated five times during the last three months, and each time he was assaulted and his prison conditions were tightened.
Israel doesn't want to live next to people who can govern themselves.
---
TNR (by Fares Abraham) : Palestinian Christians Suffer—and Many American Churches Don’t Care - We share the beliefs and traditions of Christians everywhere. Why do so many Western churches ignore us?
BFM radio (Malaysia): Interview with Rev Munther Isaac - “It’s As If Palestinian and Arab Christians Don’t Exist.”
posted by cendawanita at 8:03 AM on March 19 [3 favorites]
- from the article: sisted that there is “no obligation” for patients and medical staff to evacuate the hospital.
However, Al Jazeera Arabic correspondents on the ground reported that Israeli forces used loudspeakers to order hundreds of people sheltering at the hospital to evacuate.
Footage verified by Al Jazeera’s Sanad verification unit shows dozens of Palestinians fleeing the hospital as Israeli forces launched operations in the area.
- AJ video reporting
- Gabriel Elizondo - AJE: As many as 80 people detained by Israeli military, including journalists and medical staff.
Broadcast equipment to transmit video to outside world also destroyed.
@AJArabic correspondent Ismail Al-Ghoul beaten by Israeli forces and taken to unknown location.
- A claim I have seen, eg Tariq Kenney-Shaw: Israeli forces killed Faiq Al-Mabhouh, commander of Gaza’s civilian police, during last nights attack on Al-Shifa Hospital. This comes just days after Biden warned Israel to stop targeting members of Gaza’s police force who escort aid trucks because of the breakdown in order.
Israel’s latest raid on Al-Shifa was an act of petty revenge after Al-Mabhouh coordinated a successful aid distribution in northern Gaza.
---
And coincidentally: (Memo) Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti beaten by guards
Prominent Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti has been attacked with clubs by Israeli prison guards and suffered bleeding in his eye, Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed reported the Palestinian Commission for Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs and Barghouti’s family saying.
Barghouti, 64, who is a member of the Central Committee of Fatah, is being subjected to isolation, torture and humiliation, said his wife, Fadwa Barghouti.
Fadwa explained that her husband’s life and the lives of other prominent prisoners are in great danger, adding that the Israeli prison administration “deliberately brutalises them in order to break their morale.”
“Marwan was subjected to continuous attacks, which we learned of on 6 and 12 March [through lawyers], which caused bleeding in one of his eyes, while the prison’s repressive forces constantly threatened him,” she added, explaining that he had been relocated five times during the last three months, and each time he was assaulted and his prison conditions were tightened.
Israel doesn't want to live next to people who can govern themselves.
---
TNR (by Fares Abraham) : Palestinian Christians Suffer—and Many American Churches Don’t Care - We share the beliefs and traditions of Christians everywhere. Why do so many Western churches ignore us?
BFM radio (Malaysia): Interview with Rev Munther Isaac - “It’s As If Palestinian and Arab Christians Don’t Exist.”
posted by cendawanita at 8:03 AM on March 19 [3 favorites]
Younis Tirawi on Twitter:
Israeli settler organizations submitted a request to storm Gaza’s old city to do prayers in Omari Mosque. Among the applicants are Israeli soldiers in Gaza.posted by adrienneleigh at 11:53 AM on March 19 [5 favorites]
The organizers believe that the Israeli military will consider the request and approve the event
I know that mostly this is about power and wealth, but I am so weary of the whole measuring who's god has the bigger dick aspect of this.
I must admit my imagintion is insufficient, I didn't anticipate that OF COURSE Jewish fanatics would want to invade Muslim holy spaces and perform Jewish prayers there as a sort of religious equivilent to a dog pissing on something to mark its territory.
I just. Ugh. Seriously what the fuck. And I also know that Jews maliciously praying in Muslim holy spaces is going to generate more outrage among Muslims worldwide than the genoide does. The same people who have sat around and done nothing at all while Gaza is demolished were on their feet and rioting when Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon of Mohammad.
I know people can be stupid and cruel and irrational without religion, but it seems like religion makes it so much worse.
posted by sotonohito at 12:45 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
I must admit my imagintion is insufficient, I didn't anticipate that OF COURSE Jewish fanatics would want to invade Muslim holy spaces and perform Jewish prayers there as a sort of religious equivilent to a dog pissing on something to mark its territory.
I just. Ugh. Seriously what the fuck. And I also know that Jews maliciously praying in Muslim holy spaces is going to generate more outrage among Muslims worldwide than the genoide does. The same people who have sat around and done nothing at all while Gaza is demolished were on their feet and rioting when Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon of Mohammad.
I know people can be stupid and cruel and irrational without religion, but it seems like religion makes it so much worse.
posted by sotonohito at 12:45 PM on March 19 [1 favorite]
Through out these threads, one aspect that I respect is that for 98% of the comments if not more, religiousity has been kept separate as much as possible from the information shared and with-in context.
an anthromorphic appendage of God should have very little to do in the minds of people who commit crimes against humanity, or War wage war in the name of religion alone.
for example, in one of these posts, relayed information that the United States warned Iran of an eminent attack by ISIS.
The religious aspect is not the underlying message as it was conveyed by a secular entity. All the major players involved have God on their flag, motto, creed, or money.
posted by clavdivs at 1:47 PM on March 19
an anthromorphic appendage of God should have very little to do in the minds of people who commit crimes against humanity, or War wage war in the name of religion alone.
for example, in one of these posts, relayed information that the United States warned Iran of an eminent attack by ISIS.
The religious aspect is not the underlying message as it was conveyed by a secular entity. All the major players involved have God on their flag, motto, creed, or money.
posted by clavdivs at 1:47 PM on March 19
clavdivs: fanatical settlers petitioning to colonize a mosque, and the expectation that the Israeli government is going to let them, are in fact things that are bound up with religiosity. It is certainly not the case that "dueling religions" are the CAUSE of the occupation of Palestine (nor the Palestinians' hatred of Israel), but there are definitely ways in which religion is used as a cudgel in the ongoing conflict.
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:26 PM on March 19 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:26 PM on March 19 [3 favorites]
Kushner Pitches Moving Palestinians Out of Gaza’s ‘Valuable’ Waterfront
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:21 PM on March 19 [8 favorites]
During an interview with Tarek Masoud, the faculty chair of Harvard’s Middle East Initiative, Kushner proposed moving Palestinians to Israel’s arid desert region to “clean up” Gaza’s “valuable” waterfront.Winner of the ADL Abraham Accords Champion Award, everyone!
“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable to—if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” Kushner said, without clarifying who exactly would profit off such a project. He added that the area could’ve had great potential if “all the money” in Gaza had gone into “education and innovation,” instead of its tunnel network and munitions.
Kushner’s statement comes on the heels of warnings from the United Nations that the people of Gaza are facing an “imminent famine” as Israel continues its offensive.
Kushner suggested displacing the remaining Palestinians from the “valuable” waterfront, and dropping them in the Negev desert.
[. . .]
“I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now, and I’m looking at the situation and I’m thinking: what would I do if I was there?” Kushner said.
When asked if Israel should allow a Palestinian state, Kushner said it was a “super bad idea” and would “essentially be rewarding an act of terror.”
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:21 PM on March 19 [8 favorites]
if it ends up that anyone jared fucking kushner knows builds something waterfronty in gaza, and people are "dropped" (dropped? like pallets of food incompetently parachuted?) into the desert to enable this, then presumably at some point someone will quite understandably take exception and do something along the lines of blowing up the waterfronty thing, or maybe blowing up jared kushner, and i am just saying in advance that i will not be performing ostentatious condemnatory throat-clearing about the blowing-up or whatever before opining on the merits of forced displacement for real estate purposes. come to think of it, i guess the venn diagram of "forced displacement" and "the real estate business" is pretty close to circular. jared kushner. jesus christ.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:15 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
posted by busted_crayons at 4:15 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
I just. Ugh. Seriously what the fuck. And I also know that Jews maliciously praying in Muslim holy spaces is going to generate more outrage among Muslims worldwide than the genoide does. The same people who have sat around and done nothing at all while Gaza is demolished were on their feet and rioting when Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon of Mohammad.
There has been an enormous amount of outrage (and generosity and care and mutual aid and support) among Muslims worldwide over the genocide in Gaza--far more than from Westerners pontificating on a website.
I don't think it comes from a place of actual malice but "I also know that Jews maliciously praying in Muslim holy spaces is going to generate more outrage among Muslims worldwide than the genoide does" is really fucking Islamophobic/xenophobic and I can't imagine its equivalent being said on this site about any other religious group. It's really objectifying and treats Muslims as some sort of nameless foreign other that you know about from the headlines, rather than people who might be in the room with you. For my own comfort in this space, I would humbly request that you do better.
posted by lizard2590 at 6:28 PM on March 19 [15 favorites]
There has been an enormous amount of outrage (and generosity and care and mutual aid and support) among Muslims worldwide over the genocide in Gaza--far more than from Westerners pontificating on a website.
I don't think it comes from a place of actual malice but "I also know that Jews maliciously praying in Muslim holy spaces is going to generate more outrage among Muslims worldwide than the genoide does" is really fucking Islamophobic/xenophobic and I can't imagine its equivalent being said on this site about any other religious group. It's really objectifying and treats Muslims as some sort of nameless foreign other that you know about from the headlines, rather than people who might be in the room with you. For my own comfort in this space, I would humbly request that you do better.
posted by lizard2590 at 6:28 PM on March 19 [15 favorites]
Good news everyone, it only took IDF six months... Wait, that's not Gaza:
JPost: IDF establishes special team to locate tunnels in West Bank
In full: The IDF's central command established a special team to locate tunnels in the West Bank, Ynet reported on Tuesday.
The team includes military engineering and intelligence experts, along with civilian professionals who are assessing the situation in conjunction with intelligence information, the report added.
This comes amid reports by residents of Bat Hefer hearing digging in the area.
Ynet further added that the examinations have uncovered five shafts so far, but they have not led to tunnels.
posted by cendawanita at 8:45 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
JPost: IDF establishes special team to locate tunnels in West Bank
In full: The IDF's central command established a special team to locate tunnels in the West Bank, Ynet reported on Tuesday.
The team includes military engineering and intelligence experts, along with civilian professionals who are assessing the situation in conjunction with intelligence information, the report added.
This comes amid reports by residents of Bat Hefer hearing digging in the area.
Ynet further added that the examinations have uncovered five shafts so far, but they have not led to tunnels.
posted by cendawanita at 8:45 PM on March 19 [2 favorites]
Small steps. The vile Eylon Levy, Israeli spokesman and zionist recruiter/apologist in UK has been suspended after a twitter / X exchange with foreign secretary David Cameron.
Sara Netanyahu had been gunning for him.
posted by adamvasco at 5:17 AM on March 20 [4 favorites]
Sara Netanyahu had been gunning for him.
posted by adamvasco at 5:17 AM on March 20 [4 favorites]
Al Jaezeera English documentary on October 7th
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:07 PM on March 20 [5 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:07 PM on March 20 [5 favorites]
The vile Eylon Levy, Israeli spokesman and zionist recruiter/apologist in UK has been suspended after a twitter / X exchange with foreign secretary David Cameron
Have to really thank MP Alicia Kerns for this because somewhere in the replies or jumping off of Cameron's tweet was the exchange when all she did was variations of bureaucratic, "can you confirm this please?" and then using that as basis for raising an inquiry with the Ministry.
---
I have to wait to watch that documentary until the weekend, but an earlier 8-min excerpt was posted - it's basically a video presentation of the earlier reporting made but with AJ fact checking. It's bombshell enough for its own FPP, but mefi has enough shocks as it is I think.
--
New Arab: Doctors who visited Gaza speak of 'appalling atrocities,' collapsing healthcare
Jeremy Konyndyk (threadreader)
A quick primer on famine terminology, technical jargon, and plain language.
Humanitarians tend to be very cautious in using the term famine - it has a lot of power and shouldn't thrown around casually.
(...) Why is famine only "imminent" (i.e. not yet underway) if hunger and malnutrition are at famine levels and children are starting to die of starvation?
Because this verbiage refers to a formal famine *declaration*, rather than famine conditions per se.
Most times when humanitarians say "famine is looming/imminent/underway" they actually mean "a formal famine declaration is...."
This is a problem, because those are not the same thing. A famine declaration is a lagging indicator, only occurring once a famine is pretty advanced.
To declare famine, three quantitative thresholds must be met: severe food deprivation, child malnutrition, and overall mortality.
In practice, by the time those thresholds have been met, rigorously measured, and analyzed, famine is already well underway.
(...) formal declaration also hinges on being able to measure and quantify those thresholds. That is often quite difficult in an active conflict environment.
It's extremely difficult right now in Gaza.
So that can further delay a declaration beyond the real onset of starvation.
FWIW, in our @RefugeesIntl statement on the IPC report, we chose to say that famine is "getting underway."
We feel that's the best reflection of the current reality. Famine-level hunger is widespread; malnutrition as well; deaths are beginning.
Ori Goldberg (threadreader): 1/ Run of the mill Israelis don't talk about the starvation of Gaza. There is a lot of chatter about how Hamas is responsible for the Gazans' plight. There is no mercy for the Gazans who die in the daily bombings and bombardments. Even acknowledgement is rare.
Small break: (AJ) Displaced Palestinian cooks maqlouba during wartime for his family
posted by cendawanita at 4:02 PM on March 20 [5 favorites]
Have to really thank MP Alicia Kerns for this because somewhere in the replies or jumping off of Cameron's tweet was the exchange when all she did was variations of bureaucratic, "can you confirm this please?" and then using that as basis for raising an inquiry with the Ministry.
---
I have to wait to watch that documentary until the weekend, but an earlier 8-min excerpt was posted - it's basically a video presentation of the earlier reporting made but with AJ fact checking. It's bombshell enough for its own FPP, but mefi has enough shocks as it is I think.
--
New Arab: Doctors who visited Gaza speak of 'appalling atrocities,' collapsing healthcare
Jeremy Konyndyk (threadreader)
A quick primer on famine terminology, technical jargon, and plain language.
Humanitarians tend to be very cautious in using the term famine - it has a lot of power and shouldn't thrown around casually.
(...) Why is famine only "imminent" (i.e. not yet underway) if hunger and malnutrition are at famine levels and children are starting to die of starvation?
Because this verbiage refers to a formal famine *declaration*, rather than famine conditions per se.
Most times when humanitarians say "famine is looming/imminent/underway" they actually mean "a formal famine declaration is...."
This is a problem, because those are not the same thing. A famine declaration is a lagging indicator, only occurring once a famine is pretty advanced.
To declare famine, three quantitative thresholds must be met: severe food deprivation, child malnutrition, and overall mortality.
In practice, by the time those thresholds have been met, rigorously measured, and analyzed, famine is already well underway.
(...) formal declaration also hinges on being able to measure and quantify those thresholds. That is often quite difficult in an active conflict environment.
It's extremely difficult right now in Gaza.
So that can further delay a declaration beyond the real onset of starvation.
FWIW, in our @RefugeesIntl statement on the IPC report, we chose to say that famine is "getting underway."
We feel that's the best reflection of the current reality. Famine-level hunger is widespread; malnutrition as well; deaths are beginning.
Ori Goldberg (threadreader): 1/ Run of the mill Israelis don't talk about the starvation of Gaza. There is a lot of chatter about how Hamas is responsible for the Gazans' plight. There is no mercy for the Gazans who die in the daily bombings and bombardments. Even acknowledgement is rare.
Small break: (AJ) Displaced Palestinian cooks maqlouba during wartime for his family
posted by cendawanita at 4:02 PM on March 20 [5 favorites]
US urges 'immediate' ceasefire at UN as Gaza war grinds on (France24):
The United States has circulated for the first time a draft UN resolution calling for an "immediate" ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war, as warnings grow of famine in besieged Gaza.posted by kmt at 4:21 AM on March 21 [3 favorites]
Clearer and clearer indication that Israel's strategy is to kill those distributing aid.
I really don't see how genuine mass starvation is going to be avoided if the US doesn't put the arm on Israel. The actual, literal goal seems to be to starve an entire population and walk in over their corpses. This has seemed somewhat likely to me since food aid was cut, but now it seems like a definite plan. Every step of the way, you imagine that there isn't any further things can sink and every step of the way there's new depravity.
If a US-backed ceasefire weren't so desperately needed, I'd just make fun of how, when this could have been stopped at any point, it's been allowed to continue to where even the great and powerful US can't stomach the carnage any more.
posted by Frowner at 5:31 AM on March 21 [11 favorites]
I really don't see how genuine mass starvation is going to be avoided if the US doesn't put the arm on Israel. The actual, literal goal seems to be to starve an entire population and walk in over their corpses. This has seemed somewhat likely to me since food aid was cut, but now it seems like a definite plan. Every step of the way, you imagine that there isn't any further things can sink and every step of the way there's new depravity.
If a US-backed ceasefire weren't so desperately needed, I'd just make fun of how, when this could have been stopped at any point, it's been allowed to continue to where even the great and powerful US can't stomach the carnage any more.
posted by Frowner at 5:31 AM on March 21 [11 favorites]
Israel’s War on the Education Sector in the Gaza Strip
Palestinians’ experience with displacement, asylum, and dispossession since the Nakba in 1948 sparked what can be described as an educational revolution, leading them to become one of the world’s most skilled and educated societies. At the same time, the education sector in Palestine generally, and in Gaza in particular, has suffered from continuous targeting by the Israeli occupation. Israel’s ongoing genocidal war in Gaza has had massive human and infrastructure costs. It has destroyed schools, universities, and technical institutes and has killed large numbers of teachers and students in an apparent attempt to punish the Gaza Strip by depriving of the means to educate its inhabitants and to prepare them for the future.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 7:01 AM on March 21 [5 favorites]
The Current Scholasticide
Israel’s Gaza war has systematically and deliberately targeted the education sector with the intention of displacement and marginalization. Karma Nabulsi, an Oxford University scholar, first coined the term “scholasticide” to describe the willful demolition of educational infrastructure. This term was popularized during Israel’s 2008–2009 invasion of Gaza. Researchers today argue that the Israeli army’s current attack on educational institutions in Palestine is a clear example of scholasticide, part of a well-established and long-standing pattern of deliberate assaults against the creation of knowledge and cultural heritage carried out as part of colonial occupation policies to deter the Palestinians from resisting. The ongoing war since October 7 is the worst in terms of destruction and loss, particularly in the education sector.
The actual, literal goal seems to be to starve an entire population and walk in over their corpses.
With the major caveat that I'm as uninformed as anyone else here, it has looked to me for the past couple of months that the goal is to take the population right to the brink of famine, dialing the aid flows up and down to keep it there without either alleviating it or letting it go into full mass famine. In addition to the moral/legal problems with this strategy, it's also not exactly easy to dial aid flows up and down appropriately and the risk of full famine due to incompetence is really high. Certainly the countries that are airdropping aid think differently.
To the person who is hungry, I don't know if that is a meaningful difference at all. But from where I am sitting, that is what the current strategy looks like, and I think this is why we've had dire warnings of incipient famine for weeks and weeks without having it actually cross over into mass deaths.
when this could have been stopped at any point, it's been allowed to continue to where even the great and powerful US can't stomach the carnage any more.
That definitely seems to be the dynamic, at least on the D side of the aisle. The quotes coming out from the GOP after their private session with Bibi suggest that they are more than happy to support "finishing the job" and accept Bibi's assurances about civilian protections regardless of the outcome.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:05 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
With the major caveat that I'm as uninformed as anyone else here, it has looked to me for the past couple of months that the goal is to take the population right to the brink of famine, dialing the aid flows up and down to keep it there without either alleviating it or letting it go into full mass famine. In addition to the moral/legal problems with this strategy, it's also not exactly easy to dial aid flows up and down appropriately and the risk of full famine due to incompetence is really high. Certainly the countries that are airdropping aid think differently.
To the person who is hungry, I don't know if that is a meaningful difference at all. But from where I am sitting, that is what the current strategy looks like, and I think this is why we've had dire warnings of incipient famine for weeks and weeks without having it actually cross over into mass deaths.
when this could have been stopped at any point, it's been allowed to continue to where even the great and powerful US can't stomach the carnage any more.
That definitely seems to be the dynamic, at least on the D side of the aisle. The quotes coming out from the GOP after their private session with Bibi suggest that they are more than happy to support "finishing the job" and accept Bibi's assurances about civilian protections regardless of the outcome.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:05 AM on March 21 [1 favorite]
If a US-backed ceasefire weren't so desperately needed, I'd just make fun of how, when this could have been stopped at any point, it's been allowed to continue to where even the great and powerful US can't stomach the carnage any more
Early and strong influence from the US after Oct 7 might have made a difference, but revenge is the right ofkings sovereign nations, especially our allies, so there was never going to be any real initial restraint placed on Israel's response to a massive terrorist provocation. And after a month or two of that, there was no politically-palatable way for the US to then exert real pressure on Israel. Even had it been possible for the US to stop arms funding or shipment (eg congress doesnt override a presidential order), Israel would have carried on with other resources and allies, and Biden would be politically a dead man walking.
It's all unspeakably awful, and yet it seems inevitable. For almost two decades, the government of Israel has had zero expectation of or desire for negotiating a Palestinian state into being, and with the US as ally and backer, they will not be arm-twisted into it. Israel sees Palestine as incompatible with their existence and security, and they're ending its possibility. Israel will be a pariah state for a decade or a generation, but there will no longer be the Palestine issue. Any other nation that's also battling an insurgency will have some sympathy.
Gaza is no longer viable for Gazans, the job is done. A ceasefire and aid now will keep Gazans barely fed and sheltered til the world figures out where to send them. Yes I'm cynical this year.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:15 AM on March 21
Early and strong influence from the US after Oct 7 might have made a difference, but revenge is the right of
It's all unspeakably awful, and yet it seems inevitable. For almost two decades, the government of Israel has had zero expectation of or desire for negotiating a Palestinian state into being, and with the US as ally and backer, they will not be arm-twisted into it. Israel sees Palestine as incompatible with their existence and security, and they're ending its possibility. Israel will be a pariah state for a decade or a generation, but there will no longer be the Palestine issue. Any other nation that's also battling an insurgency will have some sympathy.
Gaza is no longer viable for Gazans, the job is done. A ceasefire and aid now will keep Gazans barely fed and sheltered til the world figures out where to send them. Yes I'm cynical this year.
posted by Artful Codger at 8:15 AM on March 21
Waleed Shahid:
They think this is a winning strategy, of course, and I don't know if I'm more scared of whether they're right or wrong.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:26 AM on March 21 [10 favorites]
White House can’t even name why Muslim Democrats are mad. “We understand that the events of 10/7 that took more than 1,200 souls in Israel. Hamas…as we know, took hostage more than 200 people, and what that led to, that war led to, is incredibly painful.”I think it's abundantly clear that both the administration and campaign, as well as a large chunk of the base, have essentially given up on the Arab and Muslim communities, with the Terminally Online #Resistance numbnuts just turning on them outright.
They think this is a winning strategy, of course, and I don't know if I'm more scared of whether they're right or wrong.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:26 AM on March 21 [10 favorites]
If the strategy "works," the result will be rightward movement for the party. If the strategy fails, muslims and the left will be blamed and the prescription will be rightward movement for the party. We've been here before and will be again, and again.
posted by Coeliac McCarthy at 8:35 AM on March 21 [11 favorites]
posted by Coeliac McCarthy at 8:35 AM on March 21 [11 favorites]
Re: Israel picking off the people who provided a semblance of order -
Muhammad Shehada (threadreader): Israel is surgically & methodically assassinating anyone that tries to ensure the safe distribution of aid in Gaza & prevent looting & chaos
In 72 hours, Israel killed 3 top police officials, 24 social workers, & a prominent tribal leader who all worked on securing aid convoys🧵
Nour Naim: The Meqbil family worked in currency exchange,aiding Gazans in facilitating financial transfers when banks in #Gaza were failing to do so! This provoked Israeli army, which opposes any signs of stability or return of life to Gaza. As a result, they targeted & killed entire family
Subpoint: Zionists who think they're doing something -
Taleed El-Sabawi: The latest act of violence by pro-Israeli operatives, they have made small donations to my fundraiser to feed my family in Gaza & then mass reported the transactions to @Paypal as being dissatisfied with “my products”—so that my PayPal account would be automatically deactivated. My account has been deactivated, with $600+ in it and @PayPal will not release it until Sept. Money that is supposed to go to feed starving people in Gaza. @paypal didn’t even reach out to me to inquire. And are now holding donations hostage.
Euro-Med Monitor: International community must act immediately to stop Israeli army’s massacre of Palestinians at Al-Shifa Hospital (the photo in the article of the special surgery building, I believe that's just been detonated)
Newly-released detainees and eyewitnesses told Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor that Israeli army forces have carried out unlawful killings and executions against displaced Palestinian civilians inside Al-Shifa Medical Complex for three days in a row, and that the military operations there are ongoing.
A survivor who asked to be identified only as “M.K.” confirmed that Israeli soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the hospital’s morgue area, that gunshots were then heard, and that the soldiers left without the prisoners. “The soldiers detained me and handcuffed me in the hospital courtyard; I was left undressed for more than nine hours,” M.K. stated.
I know there's been claims of these are Hamas, and coincidentally if anyone's willing to go thru the auto translate and go through this thread: On March 10, Netanyahu claimed in an interview that for every Hamas operative that lsrael killed in the war in Gaza, between 1 and 1.5 civilians were killed and that Israel killed 13,000 terrorists (hence it killed around 17,000 civilians). In many of the responses to the tweet it is claimed that this is an excellent figure on a historical scale, which indicates how surgical and careful the lsrael Defense Forces are. Well, we went to check it out.
Younis Tirawi: Video revealed by Jazeera from Shifa Hospital.
Israeli officer today on the loudspeakers telling women and children who are left in the hospital “If you get out of the building, we will shoot you. Don’t play with us. Once we get the hostages, we will allow you to leave”
---
Small wins, from Younis as well (threadreader): “I’m very happy that thèse vidéos came out, so now you know all over the world that when we catch terrorists we torture them”
We have identified the man who shared the video, his name is Samuel Ohnona. He admitted to me that he is a soldier & that he tortures kidnapped -
"I'm so glad the videos came out, so everyone knows we're torturing them."
The chat group members scrambled to escape when they realised. But anyway, the small win: Praise be to God, for the sake of our people and their blood, which will not be in vain.
Following my investigative journalistic efforts, members of the French Parliament immediately contacted the Public Prosecutor in Paris so that they could open an investigation into the participation of a soldier of French
origin in war crimes and acts of torture in Gaza
Alex de Waal (in Guardian): We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war
The Famine Review Committee reported this week that Gaza is facing “imminent famine”.
The Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, set up 20 years ago, provides the most authoritative assessments of humanitarian crises. Its figures for Gaza are the worst ever by any metric. It estimates that 677,000 people, or 32% of all Gazans, are in “catastrophic” conditions today and a further 41% are in “emergency” conditions. It expects fully half of Gazans, more than 1 million people, to be in “catastrophe” or “famine” within weeks.
A parallel report from the Famine Early Warning System Network of the US Agency for International Development sounds the same alarm. It is the clearest warning that the network has given at any time in its 40-year history.
Apparently not even Yemen got close to having famine declared.
posted by cendawanita at 8:54 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
Muhammad Shehada (threadreader): Israel is surgically & methodically assassinating anyone that tries to ensure the safe distribution of aid in Gaza & prevent looting & chaos
In 72 hours, Israel killed 3 top police officials, 24 social workers, & a prominent tribal leader who all worked on securing aid convoys🧵
Nour Naim: The Meqbil family worked in currency exchange,aiding Gazans in facilitating financial transfers when banks in #Gaza were failing to do so! This provoked Israeli army, which opposes any signs of stability or return of life to Gaza. As a result, they targeted & killed entire family
Subpoint: Zionists who think they're doing something -
Taleed El-Sabawi: The latest act of violence by pro-Israeli operatives, they have made small donations to my fundraiser to feed my family in Gaza & then mass reported the transactions to @Paypal as being dissatisfied with “my products”—so that my PayPal account would be automatically deactivated. My account has been deactivated, with $600+ in it and @PayPal will not release it until Sept. Money that is supposed to go to feed starving people in Gaza. @paypal didn’t even reach out to me to inquire. And are now holding donations hostage.
Euro-Med Monitor: International community must act immediately to stop Israeli army’s massacre of Palestinians at Al-Shifa Hospital (the photo in the article of the special surgery building, I believe that's just been detonated)
Newly-released detainees and eyewitnesses told Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor that Israeli army forces have carried out unlawful killings and executions against displaced Palestinian civilians inside Al-Shifa Medical Complex for three days in a row, and that the military operations there are ongoing.
A survivor who asked to be identified only as “M.K.” confirmed that Israeli soldiers repeatedly took prisoners into the hospital’s morgue area, that gunshots were then heard, and that the soldiers left without the prisoners. “The soldiers detained me and handcuffed me in the hospital courtyard; I was left undressed for more than nine hours,” M.K. stated.
I know there's been claims of these are Hamas, and coincidentally if anyone's willing to go thru the auto translate and go through this thread: On March 10, Netanyahu claimed in an interview that for every Hamas operative that lsrael killed in the war in Gaza, between 1 and 1.5 civilians were killed and that Israel killed 13,000 terrorists (hence it killed around 17,000 civilians). In many of the responses to the tweet it is claimed that this is an excellent figure on a historical scale, which indicates how surgical and careful the lsrael Defense Forces are. Well, we went to check it out.
Younis Tirawi: Video revealed by Jazeera from Shifa Hospital.
Israeli officer today on the loudspeakers telling women and children who are left in the hospital “If you get out of the building, we will shoot you. Don’t play with us. Once we get the hostages, we will allow you to leave”
---
Small wins, from Younis as well (threadreader): “I’m very happy that thèse vidéos came out, so now you know all over the world that when we catch terrorists we torture them”
We have identified the man who shared the video, his name is Samuel Ohnona. He admitted to me that he is a soldier & that he tortures kidnapped -
"I'm so glad the videos came out, so everyone knows we're torturing them."
The chat group members scrambled to escape when they realised. But anyway, the small win: Praise be to God, for the sake of our people and their blood, which will not be in vain.
Following my investigative journalistic efforts, members of the French Parliament immediately contacted the Public Prosecutor in Paris so that they could open an investigation into the participation of a soldier of French
origin in war crimes and acts of torture in Gaza
Alex de Waal (in Guardian): We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war
The Famine Review Committee reported this week that Gaza is facing “imminent famine”.
The Integrated Phase Classification (IPC) system, set up 20 years ago, provides the most authoritative assessments of humanitarian crises. Its figures for Gaza are the worst ever by any metric. It estimates that 677,000 people, or 32% of all Gazans, are in “catastrophic” conditions today and a further 41% are in “emergency” conditions. It expects fully half of Gazans, more than 1 million people, to be in “catastrophe” or “famine” within weeks.
A parallel report from the Famine Early Warning System Network of the US Agency for International Development sounds the same alarm. It is the clearest warning that the network has given at any time in its 40-year history.
Apparently not even Yemen got close to having famine declared.
posted by cendawanita at 8:54 AM on March 21 [9 favorites]
New U.S. public opinion poll out from Pew about the recent conflict
Polling ended about a month ago; the most interesting finding imho was that only half of respondents could correctly say which side had suffered more deaths since Oct 7th.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 1:22 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
Polling ended about a month ago; the most interesting finding imho was that only half of respondents could correctly say which side had suffered more deaths since Oct 7th.
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 1:22 PM on March 21 [2 favorites]
They think this is a winning strategy, of course, and I don't know if I'm more scared of whether they're right or wrong.
in michigan, the scuttlebutt is that the local dems are taking the front on reconciliation and whatnot. I don't know about the rest of the country. Gov. Whitmer is making progress while the Dutch coast Republicans don't seem to be interfering. I would have framed it as an uncommitted vote in the primary is a citizens right to protest but emphasize that in the general election, if the United States is getting its conscious back, that an uncommitted vote would be a vote for Trump.
posted by clavdivs at 2:05 PM on March 21
clavdivs (et alii): I think Adam Johnson has the best take on voting uncommitted, vote shaming, etc. over on his newsletter:
This is why the timing is important, and liberal, progressive, and left-adjacent types attempting to rally the troops—or downplay the power of Uncommitted Movement—right now are so vulgar and careerist. What purpose does this rallying serve other than to undermine leverage pressuring Biden to change course? Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of powerless voters’ control, the only leverage they have is a credible threat of mass vote-withholding. To concede this eight months out serves no functional purpose other than giving the White House the signal that it will suffer no consequences for crossing a clear red line of supporting the mass killing and starvation of a civilian population.posted by adrienneleigh at 3:27 PM on March 21 [8 favorites]
Assuming one simultaneously holds the two morally sound positions of wanting to stop and genocide and make sure Trump doesn’t have a second term, they are effectively resigned to a game of chicken with the DNC and White House. Who will flinch first matters, and for morally self-evident reasons, it’s best for humanity—and for the goal of stopping Trump—if the President does so first. But it’s a game of chicken that must exist; indeed, Biden has left voters of conscience no choice.
interesting. basically what I said above except for the author of The linked article provided mentions the 1982 Reagan magic phone call.
Helen Thomas: "The Israeli Cabinet already had decided 'not to take any action that will lead to the accusation that Israel is sabotaging the chance for a political settlement,' Israeli news reports monitored at the State Department said."
it was threatening to bring Habib back from the talks because the Lebanese where going to stop the talks if the bombing didn't stop. What a cluster fuck. "The siege lasted until August, when an agreement was reached in August 1982. More than 14,000 PLO combatants evacuated the country in August and September, supervised by the Multinational Force in Lebanon, an international peacekeeping force with troops from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy. About 6,500 Fatah fighters relocated from Beirut to Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, both North and South Yemen, Greece, and Tunisia—the latter of which became the new PLO headquarters.[79]
"Israel withdrew its forces from west Beirut on 29 September, officially ending Operation Peace for Galilee. Philip Habib, Ronald Reagan's envoy to Lebanon, provided an understanding (i.e., assurance) to the PLO that the Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps would not be harmed. However, increased hostilities against the US resulted in the April 1983 United States Embassy bombing. In response, the US brokered the May 17 Agreement, in an attempt to stall hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. However, this agreement eventually failed to take shape, and hostilities continued. These attacks were attributed to Iranian-backed Islamist guerrillas. Following this incident, international peacekeeping forces were withdrawn from Lebanon"
notice how King Fhad was trying to get Reagan on the phone all concerned like with George Schultz hovering over his shoulder.
what makes that significant.
posted by clavdivs at 4:53 PM on March 21
Helen Thomas: "The Israeli Cabinet already had decided 'not to take any action that will lead to the accusation that Israel is sabotaging the chance for a political settlement,' Israeli news reports monitored at the State Department said."
it was threatening to bring Habib back from the talks because the Lebanese where going to stop the talks if the bombing didn't stop. What a cluster fuck. "The siege lasted until August, when an agreement was reached in August 1982. More than 14,000 PLO combatants evacuated the country in August and September, supervised by the Multinational Force in Lebanon, an international peacekeeping force with troops from the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy. About 6,500 Fatah fighters relocated from Beirut to Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, both North and South Yemen, Greece, and Tunisia—the latter of which became the new PLO headquarters.[79]
"Israel withdrew its forces from west Beirut on 29 September, officially ending Operation Peace for Galilee. Philip Habib, Ronald Reagan's envoy to Lebanon, provided an understanding (i.e., assurance) to the PLO that the Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps would not be harmed. However, increased hostilities against the US resulted in the April 1983 United States Embassy bombing. In response, the US brokered the May 17 Agreement, in an attempt to stall hostilities between Israel and Lebanon. However, this agreement eventually failed to take shape, and hostilities continued. These attacks were attributed to Iranian-backed Islamist guerrillas. Following this incident, international peacekeeping forces were withdrawn from Lebanon"
notice how King Fhad was trying to get Reagan on the phone all concerned like with George Schultz hovering over his shoulder.
what makes that significant.
posted by clavdivs at 4:53 PM on March 21
50% of Biden voters say Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, poll finds
posted by StarkRoads at 9:58 PM on March 21 [5 favorites]
posted by StarkRoads at 9:58 PM on March 21 [5 favorites]
huh, the USS New Jersey is being towed into dry dock this week It's last combat operations were Beirut. here's a clip of Ronald Reagan reacting to the 83 barracks bombing with a reversal saying that "they will not take over any part of the world" quite a massive shift, little bonus at the end of the clip you'll see Reagan and the cabinet with vice president Bush drinking coffee eating a donut and waving at the guy at the head of the table to start reading.
posted by clavdivs at 10:51 PM on March 21
posted by clavdivs at 10:51 PM on March 21
We are about to witness in Gaza the most intense famine since the second world war (Alex de Waal at The Guardian)
(Warning: this article is really traumatic to read. It doesn't shy away from the details.)
A solid breakdown of what famine actually means on the ground -- in Gaza, it means 200 deaths from starvation per day, and those deaths are going to be ugly. And it supports what i've been saying almost since these threads started: even if Israel stops all aggression and lets unlimited aid in starting now, people are going to die, and keep dying for months, and we will be lucky if the death toll stops in the low six figures.
(Once starvation has started, you can't just feed people. Refeeding syndrome means they'll die anyway without significant supportive care, which Palestinians won't get because Israel has also destroyed basically all their hospitals.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:40 AM on March 22 [11 favorites]
(Warning: this article is really traumatic to read. It doesn't shy away from the details.)
A solid breakdown of what famine actually means on the ground -- in Gaza, it means 200 deaths from starvation per day, and those deaths are going to be ugly. And it supports what i've been saying almost since these threads started: even if Israel stops all aggression and lets unlimited aid in starting now, people are going to die, and keep dying for months, and we will be lucky if the death toll stops in the low six figures.
(Once starvation has started, you can't just feed people. Refeeding syndrome means they'll die anyway without significant supportive care, which Palestinians won't get because Israel has also destroyed basically all their hospitals.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:40 AM on March 22 [11 favorites]
Russia and China veto US resolution calling for immediate cease-fire in Gaza
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Justinian at 10:12 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Justinian at 10:12 AM on March 22 [2 favorites]
Justinian - I don't think that deserves a shrug, as both countries (as well as Guyana, which abstained) have been extremely clear about why they vetoed it. Agree or disagree, their reasoning is quite clear and pointed.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:48 PM on March 22 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:48 PM on March 22 [5 favorites]
There's also this gem, from the AP article:
Meanwhile, the 10 elected members of the Security Council have put their own resolution in a final form. It demands an immediate humanitarian cease-fire for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan that began March 10 to be “respected by all parties leading to a permanent sustainable cease-fire.” The Palestinian U.N. ambassador said the vote would take place Saturday morning.posted by adrienneleigh at 1:49 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]
The resolution also demands “the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages” and emphasizes the urgent need to protect civilians and deliver humanitarian aid throughout the Gaza Strip.
The Russian, Chinese and Algerian ambassadors urged council members to support it, but Thomas-Greenfield said the text’s current form “fails to support sensitive diplomacy in the region. Worse, it could actually give Hamas an excuse to walk away from the deal on the table.”
“The Sunk-Cost Fallacy of Colonialism” [26:24]—Swolesome, 22 March 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 5:20 PM on March 22 [4 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 5:20 PM on March 22 [4 favorites]
NYT: Ocasio-Cortez, in House Speech, Accuses Israel of ‘Genocide’ (archived)
Zogby: "Here’s something that’s sick & cruelly ironic: the US is building up a pier in Gaza using rubble from destroyed Palestinian homes that are being trucked to the site by Israeli trucks. It’s enough to make your brain explode in fury."
Loffredo: "Before marching into Gaza, an Israeli settler from New York explained to me that that she wants to live on the beach in Gaza after the Palestinians are cleaned out.
"We have lists already of about 500 families that are willing, on the drop of a hat to move to Gaza...People are going to start building towns. We have the names of towns. It's already being planned.""
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:14 AM on March 23 [11 favorites]
Zogby: "Here’s something that’s sick & cruelly ironic: the US is building up a pier in Gaza using rubble from destroyed Palestinian homes that are being trucked to the site by Israeli trucks. It’s enough to make your brain explode in fury."
Loffredo: "Before marching into Gaza, an Israeli settler from New York explained to me that that she wants to live on the beach in Gaza after the Palestinians are cleaned out.
"We have lists already of about 500 families that are willing, on the drop of a hat to move to Gaza...People are going to start building towns. We have the names of towns. It's already being planned.""
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:14 AM on March 23 [11 favorites]
I hope it is clear to everyone now that if Biden was keeping aid flowing as part of some strategy to influence Israel it has utterly failed. It has only made sure the IDF will enter the next phase of the genocide fully armed.
At this point there can be no ambiguity. Choosing to keep arming Israel is choosing to support genocide.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:11 AM on March 23 [11 favorites]
At this point there can be no ambiguity. Choosing to keep arming Israel is choosing to support genocide.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 6:11 AM on March 23 [11 favorites]
I think that's exactly why the aid (and public support) was uninterrupted and I think the reporting supports that. If the reporting is correct the Biden admin is not happy with how little Israel is listening to them which is why they are starting to move on the UN resolutions etc. We'll see how much they're bending soon I assume.
posted by Justinian at 10:30 AM on March 23
posted by Justinian at 10:30 AM on March 23
Over here with the Palestine updates now (Israel-specific in the Netanyahu thread).
- the Al-Shifa Hospital siege is still ongoing, though people have managed to escape. Been seeing testimonials from those, this particular one made it to MEE Arabic. Tweet: “They raped women, kidnapped women, executed women, and pulled dead bodies from under the rubble to unleash their dogs on them.”
Jamila al-Hissi, a Palestinian woman who was besieged for six days in a building in the vicinity of al-Shifa hospital, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces raped, tortured and executed women inside the hospital.
The YouTube clip.
- The Intercept: “Man-Made Hell On Earth”: A Canadian Doctor on His Medical Mission to Gaza - “I saw scenes that were horrific and I never want to see again,” said Yasser Khan, a surgeon from Toronto.
- Guardian: Unicef official tells of ‘utter annihilation’ after travelling length of Gaza - James Elder describes children on the brink of death and families desperate for clean water, food and shelter
- Bellingcat (15/3): Gaza's Trees Disappear, Showing a Humanitarian Crisis
- TRT (opinion by Talia Ringer): Many Israelis are in denial about Gaza's plight. Let's change that - When an Israeli-American began befriending Palestinians for the first time in October of last year, it changed the academic's whole perspective on the war. Now they're hoping to help others do the same.
Guardian (25/2): We started a group chat to help fellow doctors in Gaza. Then it went quiet
As the security situation of the hospital deteriorated and the internet became spotty, Alser left us audio messages detailing Israeli orders to leave the hospital or face the threat that the hospital would be bombed. He stayed in the hospital with other doctors and nurses to treat his patients beyond the deadline set by the military. The next message was about the subsequent bombing of the hospital that killed one patient in their hospital bed and injured others.
A subsequent attack by an armed drone shot one of the doctors we had been supporting in the head. While this doctor should experience a good recovery, the bullet was centimeters from killing him.
- Mondoweiss (24/2): Of families, mills, and gardens
If life is being uprooted from the land, where, then, does one look for it in Gaza?
Under the rubble.
People return, because they always return, to their smashed homes. Scrambling among the unsteady heaps, they retrieve what the cement and rebar will relinquish: a frying pan, a chair, schoolbooks, a favorite stuffed animal.
But the greatest prizes are retrieved by men in orange vests, the ash of their former city lodged permanently in their beards. They are the ones who pull children from the depths, like midwives birthing a new life. They spend hours calming these pockets of life found amidst mounds of death, encouraging their little ones to breathe – kudh nefes, habibi – as others, like cement surgeons, use saws, drills, and blood-stained hands to extract. Through the narrowest of openings, babies coated in dust and debris emerge, crouched and shivering, first slowly, deliberately, and then in one final energetic burst, to the cheers of their new family. They are washed in water from a plastic bottle; swaddled in a shirt. The bundle is then placed in someone’s arm, and even in the dim light of a cell phone, one sees tears trace a path down his dust-covered cheeks. He rocks and coos and sings to soothe himself as much as the miracle in his arms.
- Forensic Architecture (26/2): An Assessment of Visual Material Presented by the
Israeli Legal Team at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Method
For each of the pieces of visual evidence we examined:
. We verified the source, time, and location based on information collected from publicly available material.
. We conducted additional analysis using open-source research and satellite images sourced from Planet.
. When the Israeli team presented a video still, we located the source video and examined it in its entirety. We also investigated any claims made by Israeli government or military sources when the video in question was originally published.
. In some cases, we employed 3D modelling to reconstruct key physical sites relevant to the claims, and calculated distances, shadows, positions of figures and other elements, and trajectories of projectiles seen in the video where applicable.
. We cross-checked the available material against cartographic information about the known location of the Israeli military at the time of each incident and evacuation orders given by them.
Findings
We found eight instances where the Israeli legal team misrepresented the visual evidence they cited, through a combination of incorrect annotations and labelling, and misleading verbal descriptions. These instances are presented and explained in this report.
Our study also reveals that the Israeli legal team presented single instances of alleged Palestinian military use of civilian infrastructure as blanket justifications for the systematic and widespread attacks on civilians, shelters, schools, and hospitals.
- Democracy Now also interviewed Eyal Weizman, the founder and director of FA, on their work mapping and tracking the current genocide, specifically on previously shared report on how Israel's evacuation policies are basically systematic forced displacement.
posted by cendawanita at 10:58 PM on March 23 [9 favorites]
- the Al-Shifa Hospital siege is still ongoing, though people have managed to escape. Been seeing testimonials from those, this particular one made it to MEE Arabic. Tweet: “They raped women, kidnapped women, executed women, and pulled dead bodies from under the rubble to unleash their dogs on them.”
Jamila al-Hissi, a Palestinian woman who was besieged for six days in a building in the vicinity of al-Shifa hospital, told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces raped, tortured and executed women inside the hospital.
The YouTube clip.
- The Intercept: “Man-Made Hell On Earth”: A Canadian Doctor on His Medical Mission to Gaza - “I saw scenes that were horrific and I never want to see again,” said Yasser Khan, a surgeon from Toronto.
- Guardian: Unicef official tells of ‘utter annihilation’ after travelling length of Gaza - James Elder describes children on the brink of death and families desperate for clean water, food and shelter
- Bellingcat (15/3): Gaza's Trees Disappear, Showing a Humanitarian Crisis
- TRT (opinion by Talia Ringer): Many Israelis are in denial about Gaza's plight. Let's change that - When an Israeli-American began befriending Palestinians for the first time in October of last year, it changed the academic's whole perspective on the war. Now they're hoping to help others do the same.
Guardian (25/2): We started a group chat to help fellow doctors in Gaza. Then it went quiet
As the security situation of the hospital deteriorated and the internet became spotty, Alser left us audio messages detailing Israeli orders to leave the hospital or face the threat that the hospital would be bombed. He stayed in the hospital with other doctors and nurses to treat his patients beyond the deadline set by the military. The next message was about the subsequent bombing of the hospital that killed one patient in their hospital bed and injured others.
A subsequent attack by an armed drone shot one of the doctors we had been supporting in the head. While this doctor should experience a good recovery, the bullet was centimeters from killing him.
- Mondoweiss (24/2): Of families, mills, and gardens
If life is being uprooted from the land, where, then, does one look for it in Gaza?
Under the rubble.
People return, because they always return, to their smashed homes. Scrambling among the unsteady heaps, they retrieve what the cement and rebar will relinquish: a frying pan, a chair, schoolbooks, a favorite stuffed animal.
But the greatest prizes are retrieved by men in orange vests, the ash of their former city lodged permanently in their beards. They are the ones who pull children from the depths, like midwives birthing a new life. They spend hours calming these pockets of life found amidst mounds of death, encouraging their little ones to breathe – kudh nefes, habibi – as others, like cement surgeons, use saws, drills, and blood-stained hands to extract. Through the narrowest of openings, babies coated in dust and debris emerge, crouched and shivering, first slowly, deliberately, and then in one final energetic burst, to the cheers of their new family. They are washed in water from a plastic bottle; swaddled in a shirt. The bundle is then placed in someone’s arm, and even in the dim light of a cell phone, one sees tears trace a path down his dust-covered cheeks. He rocks and coos and sings to soothe himself as much as the miracle in his arms.
- Forensic Architecture (26/2): An Assessment of Visual Material Presented by the
Israeli Legal Team at the International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Method
For each of the pieces of visual evidence we examined:
. We verified the source, time, and location based on information collected from publicly available material.
. We conducted additional analysis using open-source research and satellite images sourced from Planet.
. When the Israeli team presented a video still, we located the source video and examined it in its entirety. We also investigated any claims made by Israeli government or military sources when the video in question was originally published.
. In some cases, we employed 3D modelling to reconstruct key physical sites relevant to the claims, and calculated distances, shadows, positions of figures and other elements, and trajectories of projectiles seen in the video where applicable.
. We cross-checked the available material against cartographic information about the known location of the Israeli military at the time of each incident and evacuation orders given by them.
Findings
We found eight instances where the Israeli legal team misrepresented the visual evidence they cited, through a combination of incorrect annotations and labelling, and misleading verbal descriptions. These instances are presented and explained in this report.
Our study also reveals that the Israeli legal team presented single instances of alleged Palestinian military use of civilian infrastructure as blanket justifications for the systematic and widespread attacks on civilians, shelters, schools, and hospitals.
- Democracy Now also interviewed Eyal Weizman, the founder and director of FA, on their work mapping and tracking the current genocide, specifically on previously shared report on how Israel's evacuation policies are basically systematic forced displacement.
posted by cendawanita at 10:58 PM on March 23 [9 favorites]
I am thinking about the people who trumpeted the (extremely badly-sourced) "Hamas mass rape including of corpses" stories all over the net; i am wondering what kind of excuses they are going to make for dismissing these Palestinian women's stories about the IDF. Because we know they are going to.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:43 PM on March 23 [8 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:43 PM on March 23 [8 favorites]
California Gov. Newsom calls for a ceasefire, drawing mixed reactions: “I certainly welcome Gov. Newsom’s support for a ceasefire. It should be noted however, that like President Biden, Gov. Newsom is making a political as opposed to a moral, ethical, or a principled judgment,” said Yousef Baker, co-director of the Middle East Studies program at California State University, Long Beach. “Newsom and other leading Democrats need to step up and show true humanistic leadership and put pressure on the Israeli government to halt its collective murder of Palestinians.”
Israel has formed a task force to carry out covert campaigns at US universities: According to the report, the Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora Affairs ministries have established a task force to carry out “shaming and pressuring” operations at U.S. universities. The task force, chaired by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and led by senior government officials, drew up a multifaceted “action plan,” according to Ynetnews, involving political and psychological operations against its critics. The plan aims at “inflicting economic and employment consequences on antisemitic [read: pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide] students and compelling universities to distance them from their campuses.” The plan specifies that actions taken “should not have the signature of the State of Israel on it.”
Israel seizes 800 hectares of Palestinian land in occupied West Bank: Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared 800 hectares (1,977 acres) in the occupied West Bank as state land, in a move that will facilitate the use of the ground for settlement building.
The announcement on Friday came as United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
posted by toastyk at 3:01 PM on March 24 [11 favorites]
Israel has formed a task force to carry out covert campaigns at US universities: According to the report, the Foreign Affairs and the Diaspora Affairs ministries have established a task force to carry out “shaming and pressuring” operations at U.S. universities. The task force, chaired by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and led by senior government officials, drew up a multifaceted “action plan,” according to Ynetnews, involving political and psychological operations against its critics. The plan aims at “inflicting economic and employment consequences on antisemitic [read: pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide] students and compelling universities to distance them from their campuses.” The plan specifies that actions taken “should not have the signature of the State of Israel on it.”
Israel seizes 800 hectares of Palestinian land in occupied West Bank: Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has declared 800 hectares (1,977 acres) in the occupied West Bank as state land, in a move that will facilitate the use of the ground for settlement building.
The announcement on Friday came as United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel for talks with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
posted by toastyk at 3:01 PM on March 24 [11 favorites]
"From 2:50 to 4:30 a.m. (Sanaa time)
March 23, the Iranian-backed Houthis launched four anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) into the Red Sea in the vicinity of M/V Huang Pu, a Panamanian-flagged, Chinese-owned, Chinese-operated oil tanker...
At 4:25 p.m. (Sanaa time), a fifth ballistic missile was detected as fired toward M/V Huang Pu. The ship issued a distress call but did not request assistance. M/V Huang Pu suffered minimal damage, and a fire on board was extinguished within 30 minutes. No casualties were reported, and the vessel resumed its course. The Houthis attacked the MV Huang despite previously stating they would not attack Chinese vessels."
rut-ro
"U.S. Central Command and the Royal Jordanian Air Force conducted a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop into Northern Gaza on March 24, 2024, at 12:18 p.m. (Gaza time) to provide essential relief to civilians in Gaza affected by the ongoing conflict."
posted by clavdivs at 5:21 PM on March 24 [1 favorite]
March 23, the Iranian-backed Houthis launched four anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBM) into the Red Sea in the vicinity of M/V Huang Pu, a Panamanian-flagged, Chinese-owned, Chinese-operated oil tanker...
At 4:25 p.m. (Sanaa time), a fifth ballistic missile was detected as fired toward M/V Huang Pu. The ship issued a distress call but did not request assistance. M/V Huang Pu suffered minimal damage, and a fire on board was extinguished within 30 minutes. No casualties were reported, and the vessel resumed its course. The Houthis attacked the MV Huang despite previously stating they would not attack Chinese vessels."
rut-ro
"U.S. Central Command and the Royal Jordanian Air Force conducted a combined humanitarian assistance airdrop into Northern Gaza on March 24, 2024, at 12:18 p.m. (Gaza time) to provide essential relief to civilians in Gaza affected by the ongoing conflict."
posted by clavdivs at 5:21 PM on March 24 [1 favorite]
13,000 meals for 2 million starving people. it's eaten before it hits the ground. it's so puny it's worse than doing nothing
posted by dis_integration at 7:46 PM on March 24 [9 favorites]
posted by dis_integration at 7:46 PM on March 24 [9 favorites]
BREAKING: Netanyahu cancels the departure of an Israeli delegation for talks at the White house about Rafah after the U.S. abstains on a security council resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of all hostages.The US didn't veto the latest resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire, which passed earlier today.
posted by Justinian at 8:19 AM on March 25 [5 favorites]
UN watchers are apparently going, ???, at the US ambassador describing the resolution as "non-binding". It's binding, but perhaps the technicality they're hinging their statement is that it's not a Chapter 7 resolution (that requires force to implement it), according to Rami Ayari (AJ reporter on the UN beat).
Earlier:
AJ: Kamala Harris warns Israel of ‘consequences’ of Rafah assault
JPost: US official accused IDF of sexually abusing Palestinian women, general says
IDF Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi met with the holder of the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio at the US State Department, who accused Israel of "systematically" sexually abusing Palestinian woman, the general explained in an interview on 103FM.
Recounting his meeting, he explained, "It was a meeting that shook me. We sat there, talked about the situation, and suddenly she accused Israel of systematically sexually abusing Palestinian women."
Lara Friedman commenting on the US Congress bill (throwing it here for relevance). Small silver linings, from the pov of the imperial core:
The language Congress has landed on in this bill is a “punt.” As in, apparently there was insufficient support/political will in Congress (and the Administration) either to re-start funding to UNRWA or to ban funding for UNRWA permanently (despite vocal views from members on both sides of that argument). So the issue has been punted to next year, after the 2024 elections — with the “compromise” being that Republicans succeeded in extending their authority with respect to UNRWA funding into 2025 (i.e., when they may not any longer control the House) and Democrats succeeded in preventing a permanent UNRWA funding ban being added to SFOPS (suggesting they are trying to save UNRWA).
In one of her tweets today/yesterday she also noted the fact that the ICC *and* statehood restriction for Palestine as an aid condition is language since 2015 (so uh... Blame Obama.)
posted by cendawanita at 8:40 AM on March 25 [4 favorites]
Earlier:
AJ: Kamala Harris warns Israel of ‘consequences’ of Rafah assault
JPost: US official accused IDF of sexually abusing Palestinian women, general says
IDF Brig.-Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi met with the holder of the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio at the US State Department, who accused Israel of "systematically" sexually abusing Palestinian woman, the general explained in an interview on 103FM.
Recounting his meeting, he explained, "It was a meeting that shook me. We sat there, talked about the situation, and suddenly she accused Israel of systematically sexually abusing Palestinian women."
Lara Friedman commenting on the US Congress bill (throwing it here for relevance). Small silver linings, from the pov of the imperial core:
The language Congress has landed on in this bill is a “punt.” As in, apparently there was insufficient support/political will in Congress (and the Administration) either to re-start funding to UNRWA or to ban funding for UNRWA permanently (despite vocal views from members on both sides of that argument). So the issue has been punted to next year, after the 2024 elections — with the “compromise” being that Republicans succeeded in extending their authority with respect to UNRWA funding into 2025 (i.e., when they may not any longer control the House) and Democrats succeeded in preventing a permanent UNRWA funding ban being added to SFOPS (suggesting they are trying to save UNRWA).
In one of her tweets today/yesterday she also noted the fact that the ICC *and* statehood restriction for Palestine as an aid condition is language since 2015 (so uh... Blame Obama.)
posted by cendawanita at 8:40 AM on March 25 [4 favorites]
Ramy Abdul: Breaking: In a surprising statement, Hamas welcomed the UNSC's decision and called for its immediate implementation. Hamas also affirmed their readiness to engage in a prisoner exchange process leading to the release of detainees held by both sides.
Earlier: Israel proposes releasing more than 700 Palestinian prisoners for 40 hostages
Let's contemplate just how they got that many.
Unrelated to UNSC but the hospitals currently being besieged again - Al-Shifa was the first apparently: (MEMO) Women in Gaza are being raped and this is not being investigated or reported’
posted by cendawanita at 9:33 AM on March 25 [7 favorites]
Earlier: Israel proposes releasing more than 700 Palestinian prisoners for 40 hostages
Let's contemplate just how they got that many.
Unrelated to UNSC but the hospitals currently being besieged again - Al-Shifa was the first apparently: (MEMO) Women in Gaza are being raped and this is not being investigated or reported’
posted by cendawanita at 9:33 AM on March 25 [7 favorites]
...it's weird and mildly annoying to me that Abdul uses the word "surprising", tbh. Hamas has in fact been calling for the international community to investigate this entire fucking time! They've signaled over and over again that they will respect the authority of the UN! Epistemic closure has led a lot of otherwise sensible people to believe that Hamas is of course always lying, i guess?
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:38 AM on March 25 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:38 AM on March 25 [5 favorites]
You gotta play the optics I suppose.
Speaking of, Trump is calling for a ceasefire. I give no credence to the position, only to the pincer movement.
posted by cendawanita at 9:51 AM on March 25 [3 favorites]
Speaking of, Trump is calling for a ceasefire. I give no credence to the position, only to the pincer movement.
posted by cendawanita at 9:51 AM on March 25 [3 favorites]
Cendawanita, I had to Google.
Trump calls on Israel to ‘finish up’ the war in Gaza because it is ‘losing a lot of the world’: In an interview with Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, the former president said he had watched images of bombs being dropped on residential buildings in Gaza every night, calling it a “big mistake”.
“You have to finish up your war ... You gotta get it done. And I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace, we can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support,” he told the newspaper.
posted by toastyk at 9:56 AM on March 25 [4 favorites]
Trump calls on Israel to ‘finish up’ the war in Gaza because it is ‘losing a lot of the world’: In an interview with Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, the former president said he had watched images of bombs being dropped on residential buildings in Gaza every night, calling it a “big mistake”.
“You have to finish up your war ... You gotta get it done. And I am sure you will do that. And we gotta get to peace, we can’t have this going on. And I will say, Israel has to be very careful, because you’re losing a lot of the world, you’re losing a lot of support,” he told the newspaper.
posted by toastyk at 9:56 AM on March 25 [4 favorites]
Oh yeah, Trump doesn't actually mean "ceasefire", and nobody sensible thinks he does. But the thing is, it's still a tactic that might peel more people off of Biden, because Biden is so relentlessly refusing to do the right thing here.
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:07 AM on March 25 [5 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:07 AM on March 25 [5 favorites]
Coincidentally today, Francesca Albanese as Special Rapporteur just posted advance copy of her report: Anatomy of a Genocide - Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in
the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
Nimer Sultany has a thread of highlights. I'll just c&p the conclusion:
93. The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the
destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group. This report finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the following acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to groups’ members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by
senior military and government officials.
94. Israel has sought to conceal its eliminationist conduct of hostilities sanctioning the commission of international crimes as IHL-abiding. Distorting IHL customary rules, including distinction, proportionality and precautions, Israel has de facto treated an entire protected group and its life-sustaining infrastructure as ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorist-supporting’, thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable. In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition. This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroying the fabric of life in Gaza and causing
irreparable harm to its entire population.
95. Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler colonial process of erasure. For over seven decades this process has suffocated the Palestinian people as a group – demographically, culturally, economically and politically –, seeking to displace it and expropriate and control its land and resources. The ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all.
This is an imperative owed to the victims of this highly preventable tragedy, and to future generations in that land.
posted by cendawanita at 10:07 AM on March 25 [15 favorites]
the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967
Nimer Sultany has a thread of highlights. I'll just c&p the conclusion:
93. The overwhelming nature and scale of Israel's assault on Gaza and the
destructive conditions of life it has inflicted reveal an intent to physically destroy Palestinians as a group. This report finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the following acts of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza has been met: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to groups’ members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part. Genocidal acts were approved and given effect following statements of genocidal intent issued by
senior military and government officials.
94. Israel has sought to conceal its eliminationist conduct of hostilities sanctioning the commission of international crimes as IHL-abiding. Distorting IHL customary rules, including distinction, proportionality and precautions, Israel has de facto treated an entire protected group and its life-sustaining infrastructure as ‘terrorist’ or ‘terrorist-supporting’, thus transforming everything and everyone into either a target or collateral damage, hence killable or destroyable. In this way, no Palestinian in Gaza is safe by definition. This has had devastating, intentional effects, costing the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, destroying the fabric of life in Gaza and causing
irreparable harm to its entire population.
95. Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a long-standing settler colonial process of erasure. For over seven decades this process has suffocated the Palestinian people as a group – demographically, culturally, economically and politically –, seeking to displace it and expropriate and control its land and resources. The ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all.
This is an imperative owed to the victims of this highly preventable tragedy, and to future generations in that land.
posted by cendawanita at 10:07 AM on March 25 [15 favorites]
(in case anyone is wondering, we're already 15 days into Ramadan. Eid will be around 10-11 April.)
posted by cendawanita at 10:10 AM on March 25 [6 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 10:10 AM on March 25 [6 favorites]
Alon Mizrahi: (via X / Twitter) quoted in full so that you don't have to visit the hellsite.
As an Israeli in this dark disgusting inhuman time, there are many things I see and hear and can tell you about and are worthy of research and serious consideration, but there is one part of it that is so uncanny, so disheartening, so extraordinary, that I can hardly describe it, and you won't get it. Because it's so hard to believe, or conceptualize.
I'm referring to the total and complete lack of public debate in Israel about any of this. Try to get this to your head: for Israelis, the genocide is not happening. The war is not real. Even the low-intensity conflict with Hizbullah up north is not real. How can I explain something that doesn't exist? But it doesn't. Can you believe it?
No one argues about any of this, and no one weighs the pros and cons of any single part of it. It is not talked about.
Israel has captives in Gaza, but no one knows why, or as part of what. It is not talked about. It is forbidden to talk about this, or about starvation, of the scale of death and destruction in Gaza.
Moreover: it is forbidden to talk about Palestinians in general, so they are never mentioned, and haven't been mentioned in 20 years at least in Israeli media. So if you try to talk to Israelis about Palestinians, they will not know what you're referring to. They will think you only say it because you hate them.
Could you believe it, that the most crucial element of a society's situation can be disappeared from its conversation, its consciousness and its politics.
But for Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians don't exist, I'm telling you. If they ever do exist, it is in the moment before being shot to death by a soldier or police officer - and then they die, and vanish once more.
There is no genocide, no Gaza, no Palestine, no occupation, no starvation, no dead children, no pregnant women in unimaginable distress. None of it exists. It is all, 100% of it, ancient antisemitism's new clothes.
You cannot truly comprehend it. It is too much to believe, I know it. I live it and can't believe it. But it's true. Israel's management of consciousness has become so expert, its propaganda skills, so profound and total, internalized so fully, that Israelis have no idea - no idea at all - where, when, and how they exist. Absolutely zero idea.
And it is this component of Israel that will stay with me, and I will marvel at, and continue to always think about, and grapple with. This is the truly incredible part of it. If you told me this, or if I read it in a book, I would not believe the extent to which thought control is possible. But now I do.
posted by adamvasco at 9:31 AM on March 26 [16 favorites]
As an Israeli in this dark disgusting inhuman time, there are many things I see and hear and can tell you about and are worthy of research and serious consideration, but there is one part of it that is so uncanny, so disheartening, so extraordinary, that I can hardly describe it, and you won't get it. Because it's so hard to believe, or conceptualize.
I'm referring to the total and complete lack of public debate in Israel about any of this. Try to get this to your head: for Israelis, the genocide is not happening. The war is not real. Even the low-intensity conflict with Hizbullah up north is not real. How can I explain something that doesn't exist? But it doesn't. Can you believe it?
No one argues about any of this, and no one weighs the pros and cons of any single part of it. It is not talked about.
Israel has captives in Gaza, but no one knows why, or as part of what. It is not talked about. It is forbidden to talk about this, or about starvation, of the scale of death and destruction in Gaza.
Moreover: it is forbidden to talk about Palestinians in general, so they are never mentioned, and haven't been mentioned in 20 years at least in Israeli media. So if you try to talk to Israelis about Palestinians, they will not know what you're referring to. They will think you only say it because you hate them.
Could you believe it, that the most crucial element of a society's situation can be disappeared from its conversation, its consciousness and its politics.
But for Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians don't exist, I'm telling you. If they ever do exist, it is in the moment before being shot to death by a soldier or police officer - and then they die, and vanish once more.
There is no genocide, no Gaza, no Palestine, no occupation, no starvation, no dead children, no pregnant women in unimaginable distress. None of it exists. It is all, 100% of it, ancient antisemitism's new clothes.
You cannot truly comprehend it. It is too much to believe, I know it. I live it and can't believe it. But it's true. Israel's management of consciousness has become so expert, its propaganda skills, so profound and total, internalized so fully, that Israelis have no idea - no idea at all - where, when, and how they exist. Absolutely zero idea.
And it is this component of Israel that will stay with me, and I will marvel at, and continue to always think about, and grapple with. This is the truly incredible part of it. If you told me this, or if I read it in a book, I would not believe the extent to which thought control is possible. But now I do.
posted by adamvasco at 9:31 AM on March 26 [16 favorites]
I don't see anything unique about this post October 7th groupthink in Israeli society or that the worst elements of their natures are drowning out objections raised by the more cool headed and pragmatic members of society. The United States did the same thing after the Sept 11th attacks. I think people are shocked because they had mythologized Israel instead of accepting it as it is.
posted by interogative mood at 1:37 PM on March 26
posted by interogative mood at 1:37 PM on March 26
cendawanita, when I go to that twitter link, it stops after 20 tweets or so and comes across as concluding. Certainly don't see 90+ tweets thread nor the ones you have (thankfully) c/p here.
posted by infini at 1:42 PM on March 26
posted by infini at 1:42 PM on March 26
The United States did the same thing after the Sept 11th attacks.
precisely. i was 13 years old and even i found the vibe to be absolutely surreal and deranged. i don't think "it's no different from the mentality of americans after 9/11" has the rhetorical function i think you're suggesting it does. that mentality was unreal and contributed to unimaginable destruction over the next couple of decades, including in the US itself. it's not shocking that the same mentality has taken hold in israel; the fact that it's not unprecedented elsewhere doesn't negate what mizrahi is saying, though. acting like the post-9/11 US amounts to failing to clear a deeply subterranean bar.
posted by busted_crayons at 2:03 PM on March 26 [8 favorites]
precisely. i was 13 years old and even i found the vibe to be absolutely surreal and deranged. i don't think "it's no different from the mentality of americans after 9/11" has the rhetorical function i think you're suggesting it does. that mentality was unreal and contributed to unimaginable destruction over the next couple of decades, including in the US itself. it's not shocking that the same mentality has taken hold in israel; the fact that it's not unprecedented elsewhere doesn't negate what mizrahi is saying, though. acting like the post-9/11 US amounts to failing to clear a deeply subterranean bar.
posted by busted_crayons at 2:03 PM on March 26 [8 favorites]
> They've signaled over and over again that they will respect the authority of the UN! Epistemic closure has led a lot of otherwise sensible people to believe that Hamas is of course always lying, i guess?
It's pretty well accepted, if not outright admitted, that both the American and the Israeli position on the UN is that they will only respect the authority of the UN when it makes decisions in their own interests and the UN be damned if it decides against them, so I assume they just think the same is true of everyone else.
posted by dis_integration at 4:26 PM on March 26 [10 favorites]
It's pretty well accepted, if not outright admitted, that both the American and the Israeli position on the UN is that they will only respect the authority of the UN when it makes decisions in their own interests and the UN be damned if it decides against them, so I assume they just think the same is true of everyone else.
posted by dis_integration at 4:26 PM on March 26 [10 favorites]
UN: Anatomy of a Genocide – Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 to Human Rights Council – Advance unedited version finds "There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met."
NYT: Gazans Drown Trying to Retrieve Airdropped Aid, Authorities Say (archived)
Irish Examiner: Gaza rhetoric is meaningless when there is zero action (writeup of speech by UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese)
JPost: Suspended government spokesman Eylon Levy dismissed from his position - report
Recent Atlantic article on I/P issue at Stanford strangely doesn't mention the pro-Palestine student that was deliberately hit by a car
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:29 AM on March 27 [7 favorites]
NYT: Gazans Drown Trying to Retrieve Airdropped Aid, Authorities Say (archived)
Irish Examiner: Gaza rhetoric is meaningless when there is zero action (writeup of speech by UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese)
JPost: Suspended government spokesman Eylon Levy dismissed from his position - report
Recent Atlantic article on I/P issue at Stanford strangely doesn't mention the pro-Palestine student that was deliberately hit by a car
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:29 AM on March 27 [7 favorites]
Zeteo - Mehdi Hasan's new media outlet is hosting a town hall on Gaza with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese this Friday for paid subscribers.
Speaking of the Atlantic, Stanford Daily just published an article on how mainstream media shapes student activism - Over recent months, many Stanford student activists have also been victims of doxxing, including those involved in protests around the Israel-Gaza war or those who publicly objected to conservative judge Kyle Duncan’s visit to the law school last spring.
Draper Dayton ’25, a participant of the Sit-In to-Stop Genocide, said members of the sit-in are frequently harassed and photographed. Many have had sensitive personal information published online via doxxing websites, including names, pictures and even photos of their dorm room doors, he said.
PEN America is accused by its staff union Pen America Union of stifling speech and political activity from its workers: PEN America Management’s language chills free expression while asking union members to surrender their rights as workers and renounce a safeguard from retaliation. Sweeping restrictions like these coming from a leading free-expression organization would set a very dangerous precedent for employees everywhere.
Given current events, the need for robust protections to employees’ rights to political activity and speech in their personal time is of increased importance. It is incredibly disappointing to see Management does not respect this internally, despite PEN’s guidance to other organizations.
Majority in the US now disapprove of Israeli action in Gaza: All three major party groups in the U.S. have become less supportive of Israel’s actions in Gaza than they were in November. This includes declines of 18 percentage points in approval among both Democrats and independents and a seven-point decline among Republicans.
Independents have shifted from being divided in their views of the Israeli military action to opposing it. Democrats, who were already largely opposed in November, are even more so now, with 18% approving and 75% disapproving.
Republicans still support Israel’s military efforts, but a reduced majority -- 64%, down from 71% -- now approve.
posted by toastyk at 4:22 PM on March 27 [11 favorites]
Speaking of the Atlantic, Stanford Daily just published an article on how mainstream media shapes student activism - Over recent months, many Stanford student activists have also been victims of doxxing, including those involved in protests around the Israel-Gaza war or those who publicly objected to conservative judge Kyle Duncan’s visit to the law school last spring.
Draper Dayton ’25, a participant of the Sit-In to-Stop Genocide, said members of the sit-in are frequently harassed and photographed. Many have had sensitive personal information published online via doxxing websites, including names, pictures and even photos of their dorm room doors, he said.
PEN America is accused by its staff union Pen America Union of stifling speech and political activity from its workers: PEN America Management’s language chills free expression while asking union members to surrender their rights as workers and renounce a safeguard from retaliation. Sweeping restrictions like these coming from a leading free-expression organization would set a very dangerous precedent for employees everywhere.
Given current events, the need for robust protections to employees’ rights to political activity and speech in their personal time is of increased importance. It is incredibly disappointing to see Management does not respect this internally, despite PEN’s guidance to other organizations.
Majority in the US now disapprove of Israeli action in Gaza: All three major party groups in the U.S. have become less supportive of Israel’s actions in Gaza than they were in November. This includes declines of 18 percentage points in approval among both Democrats and independents and a seven-point decline among Republicans.
Independents have shifted from being divided in their views of the Israeli military action to opposing it. Democrats, who were already largely opposed in November, are even more so now, with 18% approving and 75% disapproving.
Republicans still support Israel’s military efforts, but a reduced majority -- 64%, down from 71% -- now approve.
posted by toastyk at 4:22 PM on March 27 [11 favorites]
ICJ announced additional provisional measures. I look forward to Israel not honouring a single iota and for the US and the West to just keep burning their moral reputation to ash.
Rami Ayari has a summary. (Full announcement):
NEW provisional measures by @CIJ_ICJ (focused on provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in #Gaza) order #Israel to:
1. "Take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza, including by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary."
2. "Ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance."
3. "Submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order, within one month as from the date of this Order."
posted by cendawanita at 11:33 AM on March 28 [5 favorites]
Rami Ayari has a summary. (Full announcement):
NEW provisional measures by @CIJ_ICJ (focused on provision of basic services and humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in #Gaza) order #Israel to:
1. "Take all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full co-operation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza, including by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary."
2. "Ensure with immediate effect that its military does not commit acts which constitute a violation of any of the rights of the Palestinians in Gaza as a protected group under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, including by preventing, through any action, the delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance."
3. "Submit a report to the Court on all measures taken to give effect to this Order, within one month as from the date of this Order."
posted by cendawanita at 11:33 AM on March 28 [5 favorites]
Also:
Guardian: Ireland backs bid to include blocking of aid in definition of genocide - Dublin joins South Africa’s case in the international court of justice, arguing that stopping delivery of essentials may constitute ‘genocidal intent’
AA: Belgium to intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel at top UN court - Move not meant to side with 'one or the other party,' but to strengthen 'universality of international agreements,' says Foreign Minister Hajda Lahbib
Winnipeg Free Press: United States implored Canada behind the scenes to keep supporting UNRWA: [International Development Minister] Hussen
The decision came about two weeks after Hussen met with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American envoy to the UN.
She urged Ottawa “to not disengage from UNRWA,” as the organization is known, Hussen said.
“She implored us to continue to engage UNRWA and to provide UNRWA with the support that it needs, in recognition of the lifeline that UNRWA provides to Palestinians,” the minister said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
CNN: Why I’m resigning from the State Department
(Also Annelle Sheline was interviewed on Democracy Now)
Guardian: State department official’s resignation highlights rifts over US Gaza policy - Annelle Sheline says ‘I no longer wanted to be affiliated with this administration,’ claiming Biden is flouting US law over Israel
From her CNN piece: Whatever credibility the United States had as an advocate for human rights has almost entirely vanished since the war began. Members of civil society have refused to respond to my efforts to contact them. Our office seeks to support journalists in the Middle East; yet when asked by NGOs if the US can help when Palestinian journalists are detained or killed in Gaza, I was disappointed that my government didn’t do more to protect them. Ninety Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed in the last five months, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That is the most recorded in any single conflict since the CPJ started collecting data in 1992.
By resigning publicly, I am saddened by the knowledge that I likely foreclose a future at the State Department. I had not initially planned a public resignation. Because my time at State had been so short — I was hired on a two-year contract — I did not think I mattered enough to announce my resignation publicly. However, when I started to tell colleagues of my decision to resign, the response I heard repeatedly was, “Please speak for us.”
NDTV: "Palestinians Have Been Denied Their Homeland": [External Affairs Minister] S Jaishankar - He stated that what transpired on October 7 was a 'terrorist attack' but also acknowledged, in reference to the Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza, that every response must take into account something called international humanitarian law.
(RIP to all the "India is lion sir" hindutva accounts)
posted by cendawanita at 11:45 AM on March 28 [10 favorites]
Guardian: Ireland backs bid to include blocking of aid in definition of genocide - Dublin joins South Africa’s case in the international court of justice, arguing that stopping delivery of essentials may constitute ‘genocidal intent’
AA: Belgium to intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel at top UN court - Move not meant to side with 'one or the other party,' but to strengthen 'universality of international agreements,' says Foreign Minister Hajda Lahbib
Winnipeg Free Press: United States implored Canada behind the scenes to keep supporting UNRWA: [International Development Minister] Hussen
The decision came about two weeks after Hussen met with Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the American envoy to the UN.
She urged Ottawa “to not disengage from UNRWA,” as the organization is known, Hussen said.
“She implored us to continue to engage UNRWA and to provide UNRWA with the support that it needs, in recognition of the lifeline that UNRWA provides to Palestinians,” the minister said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
CNN: Why I’m resigning from the State Department
(Also Annelle Sheline was interviewed on Democracy Now)
Guardian: State department official’s resignation highlights rifts over US Gaza policy - Annelle Sheline says ‘I no longer wanted to be affiliated with this administration,’ claiming Biden is flouting US law over Israel
From her CNN piece: Whatever credibility the United States had as an advocate for human rights has almost entirely vanished since the war began. Members of civil society have refused to respond to my efforts to contact them. Our office seeks to support journalists in the Middle East; yet when asked by NGOs if the US can help when Palestinian journalists are detained or killed in Gaza, I was disappointed that my government didn’t do more to protect them. Ninety Palestinian journalists in Gaza have been killed in the last five months, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. That is the most recorded in any single conflict since the CPJ started collecting data in 1992.
By resigning publicly, I am saddened by the knowledge that I likely foreclose a future at the State Department. I had not initially planned a public resignation. Because my time at State had been so short — I was hired on a two-year contract — I did not think I mattered enough to announce my resignation publicly. However, when I started to tell colleagues of my decision to resign, the response I heard repeatedly was, “Please speak for us.”
NDTV: "Palestinians Have Been Denied Their Homeland": [External Affairs Minister] S Jaishankar - He stated that what transpired on October 7 was a 'terrorist attack' but also acknowledged, in reference to the Israeli counteroffensive in Gaza, that every response must take into account something called international humanitarian law.
(RIP to all the "India is lion sir" hindutva accounts)
posted by cendawanita at 11:45 AM on March 28 [10 favorites]
Melissa Barrera talks about getting fired from the Scream franchise over her pro-Palestine posts: Several agents and managers THR spoke to believe that Barrera hurt some of her projects by speaking out in support of Palestine. But they say it was a not a permanent strike against her, given that public sentiment has shifted somewhat as details about the humanitarian crisis emerge. “Before it was, ‘How dare you,’ but now her comments are being seen more positively,” says one top dealmaker.
Note, if you are in the UK there's a Cinema for Gaza auction going on. Via the r/fauxmoi subreddit, which is pro-Palestine.
Meta dodged questions on Gaza censorship according to Sen Warren and Sanders.
How Biden boxed himself in on Gaza: Inside the country, there are portraits and murals and graffiti of Biden on street corners, all coming from a place of true goodwill toward the president. But he is unwilling to use what should be a tremendous amount of earned leverage to draw firm red lines in Israel’s military operations and the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Palestinians—or else cut off weapons to Israel.
No one has been able to convince him otherwise. “This is Biden’s personal project, this is his decision,” Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, told me. “Nobody can touch it except Biden. He is the one that is holding reins of this policy of arming Israel.”
Israel is no longer a small, defenseless state. It is a nuclear-armed regional power whose politics has been shaped by the endless occupation of Palestinian lands, policies that Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups have documented as apartheid, and now the incredible lethality that characterizes the ongoing systemic violence in Gaza.
Times of Israel reports that "the High Court of Justice issues an interim order barring the government from funding the monthly stipends of at least some ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students after April 1, as the legal framework for deferring their military service will no longer exist."
posted by toastyk at 12:04 PM on March 28 [6 favorites]
Note, if you are in the UK there's a Cinema for Gaza auction going on. Via the r/fauxmoi subreddit, which is pro-Palestine.
Meta dodged questions on Gaza censorship according to Sen Warren and Sanders.
How Biden boxed himself in on Gaza: Inside the country, there are portraits and murals and graffiti of Biden on street corners, all coming from a place of true goodwill toward the president. But he is unwilling to use what should be a tremendous amount of earned leverage to draw firm red lines in Israel’s military operations and the transfer of humanitarian assistance to Palestinians—or else cut off weapons to Israel.
No one has been able to convince him otherwise. “This is Biden’s personal project, this is his decision,” Sarah Yager, Washington director of Human Rights Watch, told me. “Nobody can touch it except Biden. He is the one that is holding reins of this policy of arming Israel.”
Israel is no longer a small, defenseless state. It is a nuclear-armed regional power whose politics has been shaped by the endless occupation of Palestinian lands, policies that Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups have documented as apartheid, and now the incredible lethality that characterizes the ongoing systemic violence in Gaza.
Times of Israel reports that "the High Court of Justice issues an interim order barring the government from funding the monthly stipends of at least some ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students after April 1, as the legal framework for deferring their military service will no longer exist."
posted by toastyk at 12:04 PM on March 28 [6 favorites]
The United States did the same thing after the Sept 11th attacks. I think people are shocked because they had mythologized Israel instead of accepting it as it is.
There was a massive protest movement against the Iraq war in the US--as well as a movement against Islamophobia. I remember because I was a brown kid living in New York and though the Islamophobia of the time was extremely intense, there were also many, many voices against it.
Is that happening in Israel?
posted by lizard2590 at 1:03 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]
There was a massive protest movement against the Iraq war in the US--as well as a movement against Islamophobia. I remember because I was a brown kid living in New York and though the Islamophobia of the time was extremely intense, there were also many, many voices against it.
Is that happening in Israel?
posted by lizard2590 at 1:03 PM on March 28 [5 favorites]
Idk but don't look up the recent Purim pix and posts.
posted by cendawanita at 5:42 PM on March 28 [3 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 5:42 PM on March 28 [3 favorites]
lizard2590: there's a moderately-active anti-war movement in Israel, but it should be noted that the vast majority of those activists aren't even slightly antizionist or pro-Palestinian -- their opposition to the war is generally based in some combination of
a) wanting the hostages to be returned, and understanding that a ceasefire is the best way to accomplish that;
b) wanting Netanyahu gone, and understanding that he can't effectively be gotten rid of in the middle of an invasion;
c) not wanting Israeli soldiers to be killed or wounded in military action, or traumatized by being "forced" to murder tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Almost all of them would still be somewhere between indifferent and totally ecstatic if all the Palestinians got genocided, as long as their own people weren't damaged in the process.
There are also nonzionist/antizionist Jewish Israelis, albeit very few, and some of them are extremely involved in anti-war/pro-Palestinian activism. A good window into that world, if you have Twitter, is Twitter user @ireallyhateyou, who's an antizionist Israeli activist and often discusses the various activist currents inside Israel.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:34 PM on March 28 [6 favorites]
a) wanting the hostages to be returned, and understanding that a ceasefire is the best way to accomplish that;
b) wanting Netanyahu gone, and understanding that he can't effectively be gotten rid of in the middle of an invasion;
c) not wanting Israeli soldiers to be killed or wounded in military action, or traumatized by being "forced" to murder tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians.
Almost all of them would still be somewhere between indifferent and totally ecstatic if all the Palestinians got genocided, as long as their own people weren't damaged in the process.
There are also nonzionist/antizionist Jewish Israelis, albeit very few, and some of them are extremely involved in anti-war/pro-Palestinian activism. A good window into that world, if you have Twitter, is Twitter user @ireallyhateyou, who's an antizionist Israeli activist and often discusses the various activist currents inside Israel.
posted by adrienneleigh at 11:34 PM on March 28 [6 favorites]
Even the US state department is now admitting that famine is currently occurring in Gaza.
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:53 PM on March 29 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:53 PM on March 29 [3 favorites]
Almost all of them would still be somewhere between indifferent and totally ecstatic if all the Palestinians got genocided, as long as their own people weren't damaged in the process.
This is an odd framing that ignores the very long-standing peace and reconciliation movement there, among many others.
But I'm also reminded of what it was like in the US in the years right after the 9/11/2001 attacks and how, even though the antiwar people could mobilize large protest marches, they otherwise had pretty much zero traction politically and were overall really marginalized. There is a weird mass psychology that happens when people feel under attack, as well as very effective mechanisms for blocking critical voices from entering the political center of power that are employed during those times.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:33 AM on March 30 [2 favorites]
This is an odd framing that ignores the very long-standing peace and reconciliation movement there, among many others.
But I'm also reminded of what it was like in the US in the years right after the 9/11/2001 attacks and how, even though the antiwar people could mobilize large protest marches, they otherwise had pretty much zero traction politically and were overall really marginalized. There is a weird mass psychology that happens when people feel under attack, as well as very effective mechanisms for blocking critical voices from entering the political center of power that are employed during those times.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:33 AM on March 30 [2 favorites]
FYI for anyone interested in donating to individuals or families in Gaza who need medical treatment.
posted by Bella Donna at 7:07 AM on March 30 [4 favorites]
posted by Bella Donna at 7:07 AM on March 30 [4 favorites]
A searing analysis of the "Aid Wars" - comparing this to what happened with the US and the Philippines - The aim of this strategy is to achieve by starvation what could not be achieved by military force. To effect regime change in Gaza, Israel and the US are conspiring on a “policy of attraction” to break the will of the Palestinians people, incentivizing them to reject Hamas and embrace the authority of whomever they permit to govern.
From this morning, 3 UN observers and a translator wounded in south Lebanon: 5th paragraph - Two security sources had earlier told Reuters the observers were wounded in an Israeli strike outside the border town of Rmeish. followed by a denial from the Israeli government. Hmm...
posted by toastyk at 8:29 AM on March 30 [5 favorites]
From this morning, 3 UN observers and a translator wounded in south Lebanon: 5th paragraph - Two security sources had earlier told Reuters the observers were wounded in an Israeli strike outside the border town of Rmeish. followed by a denial from the Israeli government. Hmm...
posted by toastyk at 8:29 AM on March 30 [5 favorites]
This is an odd framing that ignores the very long-standing peace and reconciliation movement there...
...even though the antiwar people could mobilize large protest marches, they otherwise had pretty much zero traction politically and were overall really marginalized.
Are the anti-war movement in Israel able to arrange large protest marches? I haven't heard much, and like adrienneleigh suggests, what little I *have* heard about has been based around A, B or C, and very noticeably not D "what we're doing is wrong and Palestinian lives matter" which seems like a really important distinction to me.
posted by Audreynachrome at 4:34 PM on March 30 [3 favorites]
...even though the antiwar people could mobilize large protest marches, they otherwise had pretty much zero traction politically and were overall really marginalized.
Are the anti-war movement in Israel able to arrange large protest marches? I haven't heard much, and like adrienneleigh suggests, what little I *have* heard about has been based around A, B or C, and very noticeably not D "what we're doing is wrong and Palestinian lives matter" which seems like a really important distinction to me.
posted by Audreynachrome at 4:34 PM on March 30 [3 favorites]
Dip Flash: most of the Israeli peace & reconciliation movement organizations are still Zionist; you can throw a rock and hit orgs like this one, which wants a return to 1967 borders because they think that's the best way to ensure Israel's stability and security. Don't get me wrong, i'm willing to critically support these orgs to the extent that they actually do work toward ending occupation and apartheid! But i stand by my statement that, even before October 7, most Israelis (even anti-war Israelis) are at best indifferent to the actual fate of Palestinians.
Al Jazeera has had salient criticisms of many movement entities, both Israeli and joint Israeli-Palestinian, for years (this article is from 2016).
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:00 PM on March 30 [4 favorites]
Al Jazeera has had salient criticisms of many movement entities, both Israeli and joint Israeli-Palestinian, for years (this article is from 2016).
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:00 PM on March 30 [4 favorites]
Also, toastyk, yeah, Israel has been bombing and using white phosphorus on Lebanon for months now. Both Netanyahu and the US State Department have made statements that make it extremely clear that Israel wants to invade Lebanon and probably will sooner rather than later.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:03 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:03 PM on March 30 [1 favorite]
This is an odd framing that ignores the very long-standing peace and reconciliation movement there, among many others.
The opinion polls on Israeli public opinion about the genocide are genuinely terrifying. There is overwhelming support for the genocide, except for a minority that support more force. There is so much genocidal music that has achieved mass popularity, like this.
Though I have Palestinian friends, I'll admit that I don't know any Israelis well--I would love to think that there is a diversity of opinion there and a concern for Palestinian lives but I am not seeing it. For folks who do know Israelis or others who have connections to folks in Israel, is this a mischaracterization?
I would love to be proved wrong but from the outside, this looks like a public that's falling into terrifying genocidal fascism with all differences of opinion that exist being marginalized or suppressed.
posted by lizard2590 at 9:01 AM on March 31 [5 favorites]
The opinion polls on Israeli public opinion about the genocide are genuinely terrifying. There is overwhelming support for the genocide, except for a minority that support more force. There is so much genocidal music that has achieved mass popularity, like this.
Though I have Palestinian friends, I'll admit that I don't know any Israelis well--I would love to think that there is a diversity of opinion there and a concern for Palestinian lives but I am not seeing it. For folks who do know Israelis or others who have connections to folks in Israel, is this a mischaracterization?
I would love to be proved wrong but from the outside, this looks like a public that's falling into terrifying genocidal fascism with all differences of opinion that exist being marginalized or suppressed.
posted by lizard2590 at 9:01 AM on March 31 [5 favorites]
I would start with Michael Sfard and Breaking the Silence as (too) rare voices of sanity in Israel
https://twitter.com/BtSIsrael
https://twitter.com/sfardm?lang=en
Lots of the work is in hebrew and behind paywalls. Google translate and archive.org or archive.is can get you some of the way there.
posted by lalochezia at 2:52 PM on March 31 [1 favorite]
https://twitter.com/BtSIsrael
https://twitter.com/sfardm?lang=en
Lots of the work is in hebrew and behind paywalls. Google translate and archive.org or archive.is can get you some of the way there.
posted by lalochezia at 2:52 PM on March 31 [1 favorite]
NYRB: The Road to Famine in Gaza (archived)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:04 AM on April 1 [2 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 4:04 AM on April 1 [2 favorites]
There is a weird mass psychology that happens when people feel under attack
yes, very weird, a mass psychology mysteriously divorced from decades of propaganda, arising solely from recent provocation and nowhere else
posted by busted_crayons at 4:31 AM on April 1 [7 favorites]
yes, very weird, a mass psychology mysteriously divorced from decades of propaganda, arising solely from recent provocation and nowhere else
posted by busted_crayons at 4:31 AM on April 1 [7 favorites]
Haaretz: Israel Created 'Kill Zones' in Gaza. Anyone Who Crosses Into Them Is Shot (archived)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:35 AM on April 1 [5 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 5:35 AM on April 1 [5 favorites]
Al-Jazeera: Japan to resume funding to UNRWA, following Sweden, Finland and Canada
Al-Jazeera: Palestinian Christians barred from Jerusalem’s Old City at Easter; Rev. Munther Isaac Easter Vigil for Gaza
New Arab: This Easter, Gaza's Christian community is on the brink of extinction - Israel's war threatens the world's oldest Christian community. But Western powers who pay lip service to religious minorities are silent, writes Khalil Sayegh.
NYT: A Loyal Israel Ally, Germany Shifts Tone as the Toll in Gaza Mounts - Supporting Israel is seen as a historic duty in Germany, but the worsening crisis has pushed German officials to ask whether that backing has gone too far.
“What changed for Germany is that it’s untenable, this unconditional support for Israel,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. “In sticking to this notion of Staatsräson, they gave the false impression that Germany actually offered carte blanche to Netanyahu.”
(...) The country needs to maintain friendly relations around the world to pursue its own interests, whether Europe is cutting deals with Egypt to curb migration or seeking support for measures to back Ukraine against Russia. Foreign-policy experts say that by hewing to its strong support of Israel, Germany has also undermined its ability to credibly criticize authoritarian governments like that of Russia’s Vladimir V. Putin for human rights violations.
The sense of diminishing credibility on human rights is particularly strong in the set of developing or underdeveloped countries sometimes referred to as the Global South, a point brought home during a visit to Berlin this month by Malaysia’s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.
(...) Berlin’s toughened stance over the war is unlikely to indicate any broader turn against Israel. This week, the Interior Ministry said it would include questions about Israel in an updated citizenship test, a reflection of how strongly Germany sees support of Israel as part of its own identity.
And beyond a change in tone, there is little Berlin is likely to do that is not symbolic, policymakers say, unless Washington takes tougher measures. In a written reply to a question from a lawmaker, Sevim Dagdelen, on whether Germany would stop arms deliveries, the government said it would consider them on a “case by case” basis.
The most important decision it could make, said Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesman for the center-right Christian Democrats in the Parliament, was to restore funding to the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians, UNRWA. In the wake of allegations that some of the agency’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack or its aftermath, Germany said it would suspend the funding. (U.N. officials said they had fired 10 of the 12 employees initially accused and had ordered an investigation into the agency, while imploring nations that suspended aid payments to reconsider.)
Now, Germany appears to be changing its position. This week, Germany said it would again fund the agency in the areas where it operates outside Gaza.
Weeks earlier, German diplomats sought the removal of the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, as a precondition to restore funding, according to German and European Union officials familiar with the situation.
But the same officials said they had observed a marked softening of Germany’s stance since then, and that the Germans appeared to have abandoned the request that Mr. Lazzarini be replaced. E.U. and German officials said Germany was likely to release funding for Gaza operations by May.
“That could be one small action,” Mr. Benner, the foreign policy analyst, said. “But I think the damage is already done in terms of German credibility. Now, it’s a mission of damage control.”
BBC: Gaza's al-Shifa hospital in ruins after two-week Israeli raid - video included, with harrowing descriptions of bodies.
Guardian: UK government lawyers say Israel is breaking international law, claims top Tory in leaked recording - Chair of foreign affairs select committee Alicia Kearns said at a Tory fundraiser that legal advice would mean the UK has to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay (comments made about two weeks ago; embedded in article)
On Saturday night, Kearns, a former Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence official, who has repeatedly pressed ministers, including foreign secretary David Cameron, on the legal advice they have received, stood by her comments and called for the government to come clean.
“I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make,” she said. “Transparency at this point is paramount, not least to uphold the international rules-based order.”
The revelation will place Lord Cameron and prime minister Rishi Sunak under intense pressure because any such legal advice would mean the UK had to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay.
Legal experts said that not to do so would risk putting the UK in breach of international law itself, as it would be seen as aiding and abetting war crimes by a country it was exporting arms to.
CNN: Israel admits killing 2 Palestinians and then burying them with a bulldozer after shocking video surfaces
MSNBC: New IDF video prompts war crimes concerns as pressure mounts on Biden - Israel has come under harsh criticism following new footage of what appears to be four unarmed Palestinian civilians killed by IDF missile strikes. (like the CNN piece, it's also a Western re-report of an Al-Jazeera news piece based on leaked footage)
Guardian: Israel alone? Allies’ fears grow over conduct – and legality – of war in Gaza
Counterpunch: U.S. Complicity in Israel’s “Plausible” Genocide
BBC: Journalists injured in al-Aqsa hospital air strike
Al-Aqsa is the last hospital functioning in the central Gaza Strip.
The journalists were among hundreds who are sheltering in makeshift tents in the grounds of the hospital.
Most of the journalists camped inside the hospital grounds are from northern Gaza. They continue to work under extremely tough conditions, with little food, water or electricity, and the ever-present threat of Israeli strikes.
Many work by selling photos documenting life in and around the hospital, while also looking after their young families living with them inside the tents.
The tent closest to the explosion belonged to the Turkish news agency Anadolu.
"They hit the tent without any warning, we were staying in the tent as a group of journalists peacefully with no terrorists among us," Ali Hamad, a photographer, told Reuters news agency.
"We were preparing our cameras and all of a sudden the tent was hit, everything went dark with debris and rocks flying above our heads and there were flames."
Saeed Jaras, a freelance photographer, said: "We are unarmed journalists and we have nothing to do with anything."
The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that four people were killed and 17 injured in the airstrike.
Guardian: Israel lodges proposal with UN for dismantling of Palestinian relief agency - Exclusive: Aid officials warn that transferring Unrwa’s functions to other bodies with famine looming would be disastrous
RTE (Ireland): Israel warns Ireland over calls to break trade links
Fox News (can't suss out how to take them when it comes to coverage of this topic): FBI agents question woman over anti-Israel Facebook posts in viral video
FBI agents allegedly told an Oklahoma woman that the agency spends "every day, all day long" questioning people about their social media posts when they arrived at her house to ask about posts she made online.
Rolla Abdeljawad, of Stillwater, claims she was told by FBI agents who showed up at her home on Wednesday that Facebook had handed over screenshots of her posts. Abdeljawad told the agents she did not want to talk and asked them to show their badges on camera, but the agents refused, video posted to the social media platform X by her lawyer, Hassan Shibly, shows. The woman wrote on Facebook that she later confirmed with local police that the people who showed up at her home were actually FBI agents.
FT: Saudi Arabia’s Israel strategy upended by anger over Gaza war - Riyadh caught between renewed popular support for Palestinians and US pressure to normalise relations with Israel - fwiw it's now Day 8 of daily mass protests in Jordan, with news of similar coming from Morrocco and Egypt. The region is going to prove every single Israeli intel sent back to Washington in the last decade, at least, wrong. There's still few months to November so don't pack up the victory lap on Biden's foreign affairs cred though.
posted by cendawanita at 6:14 AM on April 1 [11 favorites]
Al-Jazeera: Palestinian Christians barred from Jerusalem’s Old City at Easter; Rev. Munther Isaac Easter Vigil for Gaza
New Arab: This Easter, Gaza's Christian community is on the brink of extinction - Israel's war threatens the world's oldest Christian community. But Western powers who pay lip service to religious minorities are silent, writes Khalil Sayegh.
NYT: A Loyal Israel Ally, Germany Shifts Tone as the Toll in Gaza Mounts - Supporting Israel is seen as a historic duty in Germany, but the worsening crisis has pushed German officials to ask whether that backing has gone too far.
“What changed for Germany is that it’s untenable, this unconditional support for Israel,” said Thorsten Benner, director of the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. “In sticking to this notion of Staatsräson, they gave the false impression that Germany actually offered carte blanche to Netanyahu.”
(...) The country needs to maintain friendly relations around the world to pursue its own interests, whether Europe is cutting deals with Egypt to curb migration or seeking support for measures to back Ukraine against Russia. Foreign-policy experts say that by hewing to its strong support of Israel, Germany has also undermined its ability to credibly criticize authoritarian governments like that of Russia’s Vladimir V. Putin for human rights violations.
The sense of diminishing credibility on human rights is particularly strong in the set of developing or underdeveloped countries sometimes referred to as the Global South, a point brought home during a visit to Berlin this month by Malaysia’s prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim.
(...) Berlin’s toughened stance over the war is unlikely to indicate any broader turn against Israel. This week, the Interior Ministry said it would include questions about Israel in an updated citizenship test, a reflection of how strongly Germany sees support of Israel as part of its own identity.
And beyond a change in tone, there is little Berlin is likely to do that is not symbolic, policymakers say, unless Washington takes tougher measures. In a written reply to a question from a lawmaker, Sevim Dagdelen, on whether Germany would stop arms deliveries, the government said it would consider them on a “case by case” basis.
The most important decision it could make, said Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesman for the center-right Christian Democrats in the Parliament, was to restore funding to the main U.N. agency aiding Palestinians, UNRWA. In the wake of allegations that some of the agency’s employees participated in the Oct. 7 attack or its aftermath, Germany said it would suspend the funding. (U.N. officials said they had fired 10 of the 12 employees initially accused and had ordered an investigation into the agency, while imploring nations that suspended aid payments to reconsider.)
Now, Germany appears to be changing its position. This week, Germany said it would again fund the agency in the areas where it operates outside Gaza.
Weeks earlier, German diplomats sought the removal of the head of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, as a precondition to restore funding, according to German and European Union officials familiar with the situation.
But the same officials said they had observed a marked softening of Germany’s stance since then, and that the Germans appeared to have abandoned the request that Mr. Lazzarini be replaced. E.U. and German officials said Germany was likely to release funding for Gaza operations by May.
“That could be one small action,” Mr. Benner, the foreign policy analyst, said. “But I think the damage is already done in terms of German credibility. Now, it’s a mission of damage control.”
BBC: Gaza's al-Shifa hospital in ruins after two-week Israeli raid - video included, with harrowing descriptions of bodies.
Guardian: UK government lawyers say Israel is breaking international law, claims top Tory in leaked recording - Chair of foreign affairs select committee Alicia Kearns said at a Tory fundraiser that legal advice would mean the UK has to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay (comments made about two weeks ago; embedded in article)
On Saturday night, Kearns, a former Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence official, who has repeatedly pressed ministers, including foreign secretary David Cameron, on the legal advice they have received, stood by her comments and called for the government to come clean.
“I remain convinced the government has completed its updated assessment on whether Israel is demonstrating a commitment to international humanitarian law, and that it has concluded that Israel is not demonstrating this commitment, which is the legal determination it has to make,” she said. “Transparency at this point is paramount, not least to uphold the international rules-based order.”
The revelation will place Lord Cameron and prime minister Rishi Sunak under intense pressure because any such legal advice would mean the UK had to cease all arms sales to Israel without delay.
Legal experts said that not to do so would risk putting the UK in breach of international law itself, as it would be seen as aiding and abetting war crimes by a country it was exporting arms to.
CNN: Israel admits killing 2 Palestinians and then burying them with a bulldozer after shocking video surfaces
MSNBC: New IDF video prompts war crimes concerns as pressure mounts on Biden - Israel has come under harsh criticism following new footage of what appears to be four unarmed Palestinian civilians killed by IDF missile strikes. (like the CNN piece, it's also a Western re-report of an Al-Jazeera news piece based on leaked footage)
Guardian: Israel alone? Allies’ fears grow over conduct – and legality – of war in Gaza
Counterpunch: U.S. Complicity in Israel’s “Plausible” Genocide
BBC: Journalists injured in al-Aqsa hospital air strike
Al-Aqsa is the last hospital functioning in the central Gaza Strip.
The journalists were among hundreds who are sheltering in makeshift tents in the grounds of the hospital.
Most of the journalists camped inside the hospital grounds are from northern Gaza. They continue to work under extremely tough conditions, with little food, water or electricity, and the ever-present threat of Israeli strikes.
Many work by selling photos documenting life in and around the hospital, while also looking after their young families living with them inside the tents.
The tent closest to the explosion belonged to the Turkish news agency Anadolu.
"They hit the tent without any warning, we were staying in the tent as a group of journalists peacefully with no terrorists among us," Ali Hamad, a photographer, told Reuters news agency.
"We were preparing our cameras and all of a sudden the tent was hit, everything went dark with debris and rocks flying above our heads and there were flames."
Saeed Jaras, a freelance photographer, said: "We are unarmed journalists and we have nothing to do with anything."
The chief of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that four people were killed and 17 injured in the airstrike.
Guardian: Israel lodges proposal with UN for dismantling of Palestinian relief agency - Exclusive: Aid officials warn that transferring Unrwa’s functions to other bodies with famine looming would be disastrous
RTE (Ireland): Israel warns Ireland over calls to break trade links
Fox News (can't suss out how to take them when it comes to coverage of this topic): FBI agents question woman over anti-Israel Facebook posts in viral video
FBI agents allegedly told an Oklahoma woman that the agency spends "every day, all day long" questioning people about their social media posts when they arrived at her house to ask about posts she made online.
Rolla Abdeljawad, of Stillwater, claims she was told by FBI agents who showed up at her home on Wednesday that Facebook had handed over screenshots of her posts. Abdeljawad told the agents she did not want to talk and asked them to show their badges on camera, but the agents refused, video posted to the social media platform X by her lawyer, Hassan Shibly, shows. The woman wrote on Facebook that she later confirmed with local police that the people who showed up at her home were actually FBI agents.
FT: Saudi Arabia’s Israel strategy upended by anger over Gaza war - Riyadh caught between renewed popular support for Palestinians and US pressure to normalise relations with Israel - fwiw it's now Day 8 of daily mass protests in Jordan, with news of similar coming from Morrocco and Egypt. The region is going to prove every single Israeli intel sent back to Washington in the last decade, at least, wrong. There's still few months to November so don't pack up the victory lap on Biden's foreign affairs cred though.
posted by cendawanita at 6:14 AM on April 1 [11 favorites]
In terms of Israeli voices on socmed, commenting on the society itself, who I follow or track, you've seen from the shares I've made: Raphael Mimoun, Daniel Seidemann, Tali Shapiro, B.M., Idan Landau (he's mostly in Hebrew), Alon Mizrahi, Talia Ringer and Monica Marks (they're more centrist and get grief from both camps, but they're not Fania Oz-Salzberger so that's already a major plus), Mairav Zonsvein, and Ori Goldberg (a new one to me). But overall they would themselves describe themselves as a tiny minority of a tiny minority.
posted by cendawanita at 6:24 AM on April 1 [6 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 6:24 AM on April 1 [6 favorites]
yes, very weird, a mass psychology mysteriously divorced from decades of propaganda, arising solely from recent provocation and nowhere else
That's cute,and you do you, but my actual point is just that I don't see a lot of difference in how Israeli society has closed ranks on this (well, sort of, as you can see from the large protests against Netanyahu that just restarted) compared to how, say, American society reacted after Pearl Harbor or how Ukrainian society reacted after Russia's invasion. Some of that is simply how people are going to react when they feel under attack, some of that is from previous or current propaganda. It's always going to be a mix but it's silly to blame it all on past propaganda.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:00 AM on April 1 [1 favorite]
That's cute,and you do you, but my actual point is just that I don't see a lot of difference in how Israeli society has closed ranks on this (well, sort of, as you can see from the large protests against Netanyahu that just restarted) compared to how, say, American society reacted after Pearl Harbor or how Ukrainian society reacted after Russia's invasion. Some of that is simply how people are going to react when they feel under attack, some of that is from previous or current propaganda. It's always going to be a mix but it's silly to blame it all on past propaganda.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:00 AM on April 1 [1 favorite]
No comment:-
Al-Jazeera: Israeli parliament passes law paving the way for Al Jazeera closure - Netanyahu called for Knesset to pass legislation this evening to allow him to ‘immediately’ close the outlet in Israel.
I do have a comment but it's more about reminiscing about the early threads when it was apparently so unthinkable that Israel would even attack a hospital at all, what more with the thinnest of pretexts that doesn't survive even a cursory examination of the post-op outcomes.
Anyway.
The Nation:
AIPAC Says We’re Not Starving In Gaza. How Dare They? - Starvation is everywhere you look here. Denying that is beyond shameful.
WSJ: The Celebrity Chef Who Beat the U.S. Military at Getting Aid Into Gaza - José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen is already delivering food by sea to enclave where many are starving
Democracy Now: “The Worst of What Humanity Is Capable Of”: Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan on What She Saw in Gaza
NPB: Haaretz: Israel Created 'Kill Zones' in Gaza. Anyone Who Crosses Into Them Is Shot (archived)
apparently in the Hebrew version the phrase would be more literally translated as "extermination zones"
Anyway, remember the whole walk back on the US sanctions (or rather, clarification that they can still use their bank accounts, as long as not for settler activities, per TOI: "The sanctions infuriated Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who characterized them as a draconian obstruction of Israeli sovereignty, and the far-right lawmaker threatened to take steps in his capacity as head of the treasury that would significantly impede the Palestinian economy, the Israeli official adds, confirming reporting in the Israel Hayom daily.
"Ostensibly wary of such retaliatory actions, the US agreed to send a letter to the Finance Ministry clarifying that the sanctions were not intended to cut off those targeted from the entirety of their assets.")
Well: MEE: Israel may cut off Palestinian banks from global banking system next week - The decision by Israel's finance minister to isolate PA banks would paralyse Palestinian economy
And speaking of that guy, according to Benzi Sanders summarising an Ynet article: Holy shit, Smotrich is vetoing a purchase of F-15’s and F-35’s so he can have more money for settlements.
In the meantime, another active duty USAF guy has commenced their own protest: a hunger strike. Via Veterans for Peace: "Today active-duty Air Force Senior Airman Larry Hebert will begin a hunger strike to highlight the plight of the starving children of Gaza." (Fuller announcement)
posted by cendawanita at 10:38 AM on April 1 [9 favorites]
Al-Jazeera: Israeli parliament passes law paving the way for Al Jazeera closure - Netanyahu called for Knesset to pass legislation this evening to allow him to ‘immediately’ close the outlet in Israel.
I do have a comment but it's more about reminiscing about the early threads when it was apparently so unthinkable that Israel would even attack a hospital at all, what more with the thinnest of pretexts that doesn't survive even a cursory examination of the post-op outcomes.
Anyway.
The Nation:
AIPAC Says We’re Not Starving In Gaza. How Dare They? - Starvation is everywhere you look here. Denying that is beyond shameful.
WSJ: The Celebrity Chef Who Beat the U.S. Military at Getting Aid Into Gaza - José Andrés’s World Central Kitchen is already delivering food by sea to enclave where many are starving
Democracy Now: “The Worst of What Humanity Is Capable Of”: Pediatrician Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan on What She Saw in Gaza
NPB: Haaretz: Israel Created 'Kill Zones' in Gaza. Anyone Who Crosses Into Them Is Shot (archived)
apparently in the Hebrew version the phrase would be more literally translated as "extermination zones"
Anyway, remember the whole walk back on the US sanctions (or rather, clarification that they can still use their bank accounts, as long as not for settler activities, per TOI: "The sanctions infuriated Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich who characterized them as a draconian obstruction of Israeli sovereignty, and the far-right lawmaker threatened to take steps in his capacity as head of the treasury that would significantly impede the Palestinian economy, the Israeli official adds, confirming reporting in the Israel Hayom daily.
"Ostensibly wary of such retaliatory actions, the US agreed to send a letter to the Finance Ministry clarifying that the sanctions were not intended to cut off those targeted from the entirety of their assets.")
Well: MEE: Israel may cut off Palestinian banks from global banking system next week - The decision by Israel's finance minister to isolate PA banks would paralyse Palestinian economy
And speaking of that guy, according to Benzi Sanders summarising an Ynet article: Holy shit, Smotrich is vetoing a purchase of F-15’s and F-35’s so he can have more money for settlements.
In the meantime, another active duty USAF guy has commenced their own protest: a hunger strike. Via Veterans for Peace: "Today active-duty Air Force Senior Airman Larry Hebert will begin a hunger strike to highlight the plight of the starving children of Gaza." (Fuller announcement)
posted by cendawanita at 10:38 AM on April 1 [9 favorites]
oh jolly good israel bombed a consulate in damascus
perfectly normal country
well nothing bad could come of that at all
posted by lalochezia at 11:05 AM on April 1 [4 favorites]
perfectly normal country
well nothing bad could come of that at all
posted by lalochezia at 11:05 AM on April 1 [4 favorites]
That's cute,and you do you, but my actual point is just that I don't see a lot of difference in how Israeli society has closed ranks on this (well, sort of, as you can see from the large protests against Netanyahu that just restarted) compared to how, say, American society reacted after Pearl Harbor or how Ukrainian society reacted after Russia's invasion.
Do you have any insight on the answer to this question that I asked higher in the thread? Here it is again:
Though I have Palestinian friends, I'll admit that I don't know any Israelis well--I would love to think that there is a diversity of opinion there and a concern for Palestinian lives but I am not seeing it. For folks who do know Israelis or others who have connections to folks in Israel, is this a mischaracterization?
Frankly, I'm not sure how "American society reacted after Pearl Harbor" a literal century ago--i.e. setting up concentration camps for racial minorities--is super-relevant to this conversation? People did and believed a lot of terrible things a century ago and I should hope they won't do them now.
posted by lizard2590 at 11:11 AM on April 1 [3 favorites]
Do you have any insight on the answer to this question that I asked higher in the thread? Here it is again:
Though I have Palestinian friends, I'll admit that I don't know any Israelis well--I would love to think that there is a diversity of opinion there and a concern for Palestinian lives but I am not seeing it. For folks who do know Israelis or others who have connections to folks in Israel, is this a mischaracterization?
Frankly, I'm not sure how "American society reacted after Pearl Harbor" a literal century ago--i.e. setting up concentration camps for racial minorities--is super-relevant to this conversation? People did and believed a lot of terrible things a century ago and I should hope they won't do them now.
posted by lizard2590 at 11:11 AM on April 1 [3 favorites]
Israel may cut off Palestinian banks from global banking system next week - The decision by Israel's finance minister to isolate PA banks would paralyse Palestinian economy
Would this cut people off from things like PayPal and Venmo, so that it would freeze the informal aid that is going in as individual donations and freeze people's fundraisers to de facto bribe their way out of Gaza? Or since that's all Venmo/Paypal etc would it still work? And if it did, if the banks are cut off, will donations be any use, or will they just sit in a PayPal account?
It still looks like Israel's goal here is to literally kill every Palestinian and build over their corpses. They are hoping that starvation and disease will do what bombs don't, and I honestly don't see how people are going to be able to survive another six months with no hospitals and no food.
It's unbearable to think that at this time last year, things were maybe tough but completely normal, people were going about their business and now everything is rubble. Just this utter depravity that words cannot compass. During my lifetime terrible things have been done in the US and around the world, but this ruthless, highly visible, widely popular murder of a trapped civilian population in a small area purely for political convenience and land theft exceeds everything I thought I would witness.
posted by Frowner at 11:12 AM on April 1 [11 favorites]
Would this cut people off from things like PayPal and Venmo, so that it would freeze the informal aid that is going in as individual donations and freeze people's fundraisers to de facto bribe their way out of Gaza? Or since that's all Venmo/Paypal etc would it still work? And if it did, if the banks are cut off, will donations be any use, or will they just sit in a PayPal account?
It still looks like Israel's goal here is to literally kill every Palestinian and build over their corpses. They are hoping that starvation and disease will do what bombs don't, and I honestly don't see how people are going to be able to survive another six months with no hospitals and no food.
It's unbearable to think that at this time last year, things were maybe tough but completely normal, people were going about their business and now everything is rubble. Just this utter depravity that words cannot compass. During my lifetime terrible things have been done in the US and around the world, but this ruthless, highly visible, widely popular murder of a trapped civilian population in a small area purely for political convenience and land theft exceeds everything I thought I would witness.
posted by Frowner at 11:12 AM on April 1 [11 favorites]
compared to how, say, American society reacted after Pearl Harbor or how Ukrainian society reacted after Russia's invasion. Some of that is simply how people are going to react when they feel under attack, some of that is from previous or current propaganda. It's always going to be a mix but it's silly to blame it all on past propaganda.
for a start, nobody blamed it all on propaganda any more than you blamed it all on innate human psychological factors or whatever. i have myself, in earlier comments, compared the reaction in Israel to the post-9/11 hysteria in the US.
however, pearl harbor, and the russian invasion of ukraine (and, probably, 9/11) are extremely different in relevant ways from the 7 Oct atrocity, the reaction was significantly different in all cases (9/11 is maybe closest) and the public reaction is absolutely a function of the official reaction and of what's in the media. russia/ukraine, with palestine in the role of russia, is a particularly shocking comparison --- in fact, hyperbolic and ahistorical --- and needlessly distracting from the point you're making.
second, highlighting the feeling of being under attack, without mentioning the deliberate inflammation of the public mood by the government, media, etc., reads to me as just more of the same dynamic where anglophone discourse on gaza retreats to the trauma of the 7 Oct. attack whenever it's mentioned that the israeli military is committing much larger-scale atrocities with the enthusiastic support of large parts of the public, and that this is a predictable endpoint of a political project carried out with actual agency in the service of specific goals (not just a response to some sort of incomprehensible natural disaster). in fact, my understanding is that an endless loop of 7 Oct. reporting in Israeli media, including inaccurate claims later debunked, etc., is part of the mechanism for maintaining that support.
of course you are pointing out an indisputably real general phenomenon that plays some explanatory role. but.
posted by busted_crayons at 11:19 AM on April 1 [4 favorites]
for a start, nobody blamed it all on propaganda any more than you blamed it all on innate human psychological factors or whatever. i have myself, in earlier comments, compared the reaction in Israel to the post-9/11 hysteria in the US.
however, pearl harbor, and the russian invasion of ukraine (and, probably, 9/11) are extremely different in relevant ways from the 7 Oct atrocity, the reaction was significantly different in all cases (9/11 is maybe closest) and the public reaction is absolutely a function of the official reaction and of what's in the media. russia/ukraine, with palestine in the role of russia, is a particularly shocking comparison --- in fact, hyperbolic and ahistorical --- and needlessly distracting from the point you're making.
second, highlighting the feeling of being under attack, without mentioning the deliberate inflammation of the public mood by the government, media, etc., reads to me as just more of the same dynamic where anglophone discourse on gaza retreats to the trauma of the 7 Oct. attack whenever it's mentioned that the israeli military is committing much larger-scale atrocities with the enthusiastic support of large parts of the public, and that this is a predictable endpoint of a political project carried out with actual agency in the service of specific goals (not just a response to some sort of incomprehensible natural disaster). in fact, my understanding is that an endless loop of 7 Oct. reporting in Israeli media, including inaccurate claims later debunked, etc., is part of the mechanism for maintaining that support.
of course you are pointing out an indisputably real general phenomenon that plays some explanatory role. but.
posted by busted_crayons at 11:19 AM on April 1 [4 favorites]
NYT: Trump’s Call for Israel to ‘Finish Up’ War Alarms Some on the Right
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:15 PM on April 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 12:15 PM on April 1 [1 favorite]
Not posting links because I don't have Twitter and find interfacing with it as an outsider to be pointless and impossible, but a friend just sent me multiple accounts claiming that an Israeli strike has killed four or five aid workers with World Central Kitchen, the Jose Andres org doing work in Gaza per cendawanita's post earlier today.
Jose Andres is basically the patron saint of the thoughts and prayers wing of the Democratic Establishment, so you'd think it would mean something to them, but of course it won't.
posted by kensington314 at 3:45 PM on April 1 [8 favorites]
Jose Andres is basically the patron saint of the thoughts and prayers wing of the Democratic Establishment, so you'd think it would mean something to them, but of course it won't.
posted by kensington314 at 3:45 PM on April 1 [8 favorites]
Can you pass me the account @s on the screenshots if you have them? I'll go and take a look in a bit.... (Just finished sahur/suhoor here so I'm awake now)
posted by cendawanita at 3:47 PM on April 1 [3 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 3:47 PM on April 1 [3 favorites]
cendawanita I think I saw @ytirawi and @ryangrimm and @arictoler
posted by kensington314 at 3:51 PM on April 1 [3 favorites]
posted by kensington314 at 3:51 PM on April 1 [3 favorites]
Aid Workers From Jose Andres’ Non-Profit Killed in Airstrike: Report
posted by clavdivs at 4:26 PM on April 1 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 4:26 PM on April 1 [2 favorites]
my father was on the big island on December 7th and my aunt DeLucia was at hickam field and was strafed by Japanese planes. my father was sheltering in place after a baseball game and he went and overheard the guards talking because there was a lot of confusion and fear that the Japanese might land what were the orders upon civilians of the Japanese landed, shoot them. the comparison to fear and anxiety is apt but this can take place in any situation of great magnitude. Pearl harbor is not a good example because the Japanese destroyed a good amount of our military infrastructure of the Pacific fleet while Israel did not lose anything near that sort of War fighting capacity. United States was already gearing up for war prior to December 7th but after December 7th the escalation of War plans and production increased. that aspect can be compared to Ukraine in as far as Ukraine's military industrial complex, with Ukraine's allies filling in the gap after the attack (gezuntite), being very tempting for the United states, russia, and china. there's a desire to strike hard and fast after attacked ie bombing raids in Afghanistan within a week or so after 9/11. the Doolittle raid after Pearl harbor. On the night of September 11th, tucking the children into bed they were fearful that something like this might happen to them and I assured them that it won't happen to them and told them to be brave that this is their first war while I'm on my 7th. it's the lies, the half-truths, and running from entrenched rage that culminates into a sense of being proactive all thewhile knowing millions of people are going to die because of this event.
posted by clavdivs at 4:42 PM on April 1 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 4:42 PM on April 1 [1 favorite]
lalochezia: they killed two Iranian generals in the consulate strike, too. Iran is vowing revenge. Israel is trying so fucking hard to provoke a regional war, and the US seems to want them to.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:53 PM on April 1 [4 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:53 PM on April 1 [4 favorites]
Captain obvious here, but War is a racket, and it's very profitable for certain interests in the US. This is all so nauseating.
posted by nikoniko at 5:25 PM on April 1 [4 favorites]
posted by nikoniko at 5:25 PM on April 1 [4 favorites]
Well, if we're at war in November, a lot of people are going to think, "jesus god, this is bad but it will be so much worse if we elect Trump" - Biden would get that war president bounce and by the time our boys are on their way over there, people are going to forget about the Palestinians. Plus of course it's good for the economy and a nice fat bonus specifically for arms manufacturers and tech and a great way to boost surveillance. War is great for everyone who has a lot of money and whose kids won't have to go.
God I hate this. The thing I misunderstood when I was younger was just how fucking long it would take for the world to end. We're going to have years and years and decades more of this vile, monstrous, bloody-handed atrocity exhibition until every decent sentiment and habit is destroyed so that these fucking fucking demonic politicians can make each other richer, and it will all be as stupid and cruel and grotesque as possible until you want to be sick every time you wake up.
posted by Frowner at 5:26 PM on April 1 [6 favorites]
God I hate this. The thing I misunderstood when I was younger was just how fucking long it would take for the world to end. We're going to have years and years and decades more of this vile, monstrous, bloody-handed atrocity exhibition until every decent sentiment and habit is destroyed so that these fucking fucking demonic politicians can make each other richer, and it will all be as stupid and cruel and grotesque as possible until you want to be sick every time you wake up.
posted by Frowner at 5:26 PM on April 1 [6 favorites]
Frowner: i already want to be sick every time i wake up :( it's very, very hard to keep going lately.
I said it months ago but it's gotten truer every day: i no longer wonder, at all, how the original Holocaust happened, or how people denied the horror happening right in front of them for so long.
I feel so goddamn helpless.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:13 PM on April 1 [10 favorites]
I said it months ago but it's gotten truer every day: i no longer wonder, at all, how the original Holocaust happened, or how people denied the horror happening right in front of them for so long.
I feel so goddamn helpless.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:13 PM on April 1 [10 favorites]
Aid Workers From Jose Andres’ Non-Profit Killed in Airstrike: Report
I looked up Younis Tirawi's account and he listed as follows:
Two of the 4 foreign aid employees identified. There are still another British, an Irish.
Francom lalzawmi from Australia
Damian Sobol from Poland.
Saif Ab*o* Taha from Rafah, Palestine
(*No reason just that mefi's filters thinks that name is unfortunately a homonym for a slur for Australian Aboriginal people and wouldn't post this comment, so mentally remove the * please)
In addition, Nour Naim: 🚨Zomi & Chef Oli's last video shows them cooking meals for Gaza's hungry in @WCKitchen.
They were killed today by Israeli warplanes in #Gaza , in disregard of international laws, echoing the daily killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the past 177 days.
Speaking of Younis, an interesting thread he just posted (threadreader) - he was meant to take a bit of leave but he cut it short also because there's an attempt (as he describes) of defaming him by Israeli press (the thread details the chain of interview questioning and then later haranguing).
Bits I wanted to quote:
ince the beginning of the war, my family members have received two intimidating calls from the Israeli military, aimed at pressuring me to halt my work.
Despite these threats, I have chosen to continue with my work. Throughout the war, I have consistently shared public posts by Israeli soldiers on social media.
(...) The journalist claims what Israeli soldiers are comitting in the occupied territories is not a war crime incl. blowing civilian homes, torching, looting, displaying Palestinian women underwear, killing civilians, using schools as military bases. This includes the posts from WB ->
The upcoming report in Israeli media could further endanger my family, who have recently suffered physical harm from Israeli soldiers, making them more vulnerable from the attack of Israelis & settlers especially the right-wingers who consume the news and publish private info about me on their groups. This is possible bc Israeli soldiers have access to my personal details & ID info due to Israel controlling the Palestinian civil registry. Members of my family have furthermore been arbitrarily arrested by the Israeli occupation forces in the past
Mind you his reporting on these non-war crimes have yielded results like (archived Haaretz): France to Take Legal Action Against French-Israeli Soldiers Involved in War Crimes in Gaza - Following pressure from left-wing political party, Foreign Ministry says it will take legal action against any dual-national soldiers engaged in activities in Gaza that constitute war crimes
Speaking of France, I've inadvertently tapped into LatAm internet, and #Lulacron is a thing, and... Alonso Gurmendi: Ok so, last week, Lula and Macron (#Lulacron, it's gonna be a thing!) spent a lot of time in the Amazon discussing politics and took lots of funny pics. Today, France submitted a draft to the UN Security Council proposing the incorporation of Palestine into the UN as full member
QT-ing this tweet that has the full text: Just received New #Gaza resolution by @franceonu calling for “immediate ceasefire,” immediate and unconditional release of hostages, condemns Hamas Oct 7 attacks, demands unhindered humanitarian flow to Gaza, and urges int’l efforts to find peaceful solution
Random Ireland things: Due to Ireland’s outspoken support of Palestine, Zionists have been trying to uncover evidence of Ireland’s sordid antisemitic past. Failing… until they stumbled upon a Facebook page: SS Dundalk Commemoration. Dear God, the Irish town of Dundalk is commemorating the Wafen SS! /2
Dear reader, the SS in SS Dundalk Commemoration does not stand for Schutzstaffel, the evil minions of Hitler and main executioners of the Holocaust, but rather, Steam Ship. The group is made up of family members of those killed when the ship, SS Dundalk was torpedoed by a U-Boat.
(Keeping it light enough to keep our chins up. Witnessing is still something. Just browse the rest of Mefi. Or here. Wasn't it this thread or the other concurrent one where we hear that the genocide is likely a sham? But take a break if you need to.)
posted by cendawanita at 6:53 PM on April 1 [8 favorites]
I looked up Younis Tirawi's account and he listed as follows:
Two of the 4 foreign aid employees identified. There are still another British, an Irish.
Francom lalzawmi from Australia
Damian Sobol from Poland.
Saif Ab*o* Taha from Rafah, Palestine
(*No reason just that mefi's filters thinks that name is unfortunately a homonym for a slur for Australian Aboriginal people and wouldn't post this comment, so mentally remove the * please)
In addition, Nour Naim: 🚨Zomi & Chef Oli's last video shows them cooking meals for Gaza's hungry in @WCKitchen.
They were killed today by Israeli warplanes in #Gaza , in disregard of international laws, echoing the daily killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza over the past 177 days.
Speaking of Younis, an interesting thread he just posted (threadreader) - he was meant to take a bit of leave but he cut it short also because there's an attempt (as he describes) of defaming him by Israeli press (the thread details the chain of interview questioning and then later haranguing).
Bits I wanted to quote:
ince the beginning of the war, my family members have received two intimidating calls from the Israeli military, aimed at pressuring me to halt my work.
Despite these threats, I have chosen to continue with my work. Throughout the war, I have consistently shared public posts by Israeli soldiers on social media.
(...) The journalist claims what Israeli soldiers are comitting in the occupied territories is not a war crime incl. blowing civilian homes, torching, looting, displaying Palestinian women underwear, killing civilians, using schools as military bases. This includes the posts from WB ->
The upcoming report in Israeli media could further endanger my family, who have recently suffered physical harm from Israeli soldiers, making them more vulnerable from the attack of Israelis & settlers especially the right-wingers who consume the news and publish private info about me on their groups. This is possible bc Israeli soldiers have access to my personal details & ID info due to Israel controlling the Palestinian civil registry. Members of my family have furthermore been arbitrarily arrested by the Israeli occupation forces in the past
Mind you his reporting on these non-war crimes have yielded results like (archived Haaretz): France to Take Legal Action Against French-Israeli Soldiers Involved in War Crimes in Gaza - Following pressure from left-wing political party, Foreign Ministry says it will take legal action against any dual-national soldiers engaged in activities in Gaza that constitute war crimes
Speaking of France, I've inadvertently tapped into LatAm internet, and #Lulacron is a thing, and... Alonso Gurmendi: Ok so, last week, Lula and Macron (#Lulacron, it's gonna be a thing!) spent a lot of time in the Amazon discussing politics and took lots of funny pics. Today, France submitted a draft to the UN Security Council proposing the incorporation of Palestine into the UN as full member
QT-ing this tweet that has the full text: Just received New #Gaza resolution by @franceonu calling for “immediate ceasefire,” immediate and unconditional release of hostages, condemns Hamas Oct 7 attacks, demands unhindered humanitarian flow to Gaza, and urges int’l efforts to find peaceful solution
Random Ireland things: Due to Ireland’s outspoken support of Palestine, Zionists have been trying to uncover evidence of Ireland’s sordid antisemitic past. Failing… until they stumbled upon a Facebook page: SS Dundalk Commemoration. Dear God, the Irish town of Dundalk is commemorating the Wafen SS! /2
Dear reader, the SS in SS Dundalk Commemoration does not stand for Schutzstaffel, the evil minions of Hitler and main executioners of the Holocaust, but rather, Steam Ship. The group is made up of family members of those killed when the ship, SS Dundalk was torpedoed by a U-Boat.
(Keeping it light enough to keep our chins up. Witnessing is still something. Just browse the rest of Mefi. Or here. Wasn't it this thread or the other concurrent one where we hear that the genocide is likely a sham? But take a break if you need to.)
posted by cendawanita at 6:53 PM on April 1 [8 favorites]
Mission Accomplished:-
WCK Gaza update:
Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route.
“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable,” said World Central Kitchen CEO Erin Gore.
(...) World Central Kitchen is pausing our operations immediately in the region. We will be making decisions about the future of our work soon.
Al-Jazeera : Israel ‘agreed’ to take US Rafah concerns into consideration: White House - Top US and Israeli officials have ‘constructive engagement on Rafah’ during talks previously delayed by Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu.
(Itay Epshtain is quoting from the updated state budget where the details seem to be is that it's a planned six-month engagement.)
Meanwhile, CNN: Biden administration set to greenlight $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel
Of interest to me:
When it comes to intelligence sharing with Israel, the US has offered the Israeli government a significant amount of processing capacity, according to two sources familiar with the matter — essentially, computing power that allows Israel to sift through mass amounts of intercepts, imagery and other raw intelligence to extract meaningful trends or insights.
In theory, the intelligence community is not allowed to share information with partners that would be used to violate the international laws of armed conflict, and US officials insist that they are not giving Israel what’s known as “targeting intelligence”; in this case, intelligence used to target precise Hamas fighters or positions.
Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in November that the US military is “not participating in IDF target development,” and that their involvement is solely intended to help find the hostages.
But several sources familiar with US sharing efforts who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity said that is a distinction without a difference. Once the US provides a piece of intelligence to Israel, it has no control over how Israel combines it with other information, and there’s nothing to stop Israel from using that information to target Hamas operatives, the sources said.
“Israel provides assurances that operations making use of U.S. intelligence are conducted in a manner consistent with international law, including the Law of Armed Conflict, which calls for the protection of civilians,” a senior intelligence official told CNN in response to questions about the intelligence sharing.
The intelligence has continued to flow, sources said, even as the Biden administration has been pressing Israel to do more to prevent civilian casualties.
“Absent stronger oversight, it is impossible to discern how allies and partners are using U.S. intelligence in military operations,” Steven Katz, an active-duty Army officer currently working as a civilian in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, wrote in a piece on the national security blog Just Security, advocating for greater congressional oversight of intelligence sharing.
“In certain cases, the IC may be providing indirect support through intelligence sharing for partner operations conducted in a manner inconsistent with U.S. law and policy,” he said.
The State Department has a process in place to investigate reports that civilians have been killed by US weapons wielded by other nations, according to Katz, but no law exists requiring the intelligence community to track how US intelligence-sharing may contribute to civilian deaths.
A provision in an annual intelligence bill now before Congress would require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to submit an annual report to Congress detailing civilian casualties caused by foreign government operations in which US-shared intelligence played a “significant role.” But that bill has yet to be passed.
Al-Jazeera: As those fleeing al-Shifa get to south Gaza, they recount Israeli torture - Two people, one who was in the besieged hospital and one who lived nearby, tell of their ordeal to escape.
NBP: NYT: Trump’s Call for Israel to ‘Finish Up’ War Alarms Some on the Right
the article headline undersells the gallows humour I think. I don't trust the orange guy beyond what I'd trust a badly raised five-year-old child, but, it's hard to not make some kind of face reading this:
Two Israeli journalists traveled to Palm Beach, Fla., a little over a week ago, hoping to elicit from Donald J. Trump a powerful expression of support for their country’s war in Gaza.
Instead, one of them wrote that what they heard from Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago “shocked us to the core.”
“Both U.S. presidential candidates, Biden and Trump, are turning their rhetorical backs on Israel,” concluded Ariel Kahana, a right-wing settler who is the senior diplomatic correspondent for Israel Hayom. The newspaper is owned by the billionaire Republican donor Miriam Adelson; Ms. Adelson herself arranged the interview with Mr. Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the planning.
What had Mr. Trump said that so alarmed Mr. Kahana?
He told the interviewers that Israel was losing public support for its Gaza assault, that the images of devastation were bad for Israel’s global image and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should end his war soon — statements that sounded far more like something President Biden might say than the kind of cheerleading Mr. Netanyahu has come to expect from Washington Republicans.
“You have to finish up your war,” Mr. Trump said. “You have to get it done. We have to get to peace. We can’t have this going on.”
That statement apparently troubled Mr. Kahana even more than Mr. Biden’s warnings to Israel. Mr. Biden has called for a six-week cease-fire in exchange for Hamas releasing Israeli hostages. In the interview excerpts released by Israel Hayom, Mr. Trump did not qualify his call for Israel to finish the war by insisting on the release of hostages.
(...) In contrast, Mr. Trump’s hedging commentary to Israel Hayom is only the latest in a long line of public statements he has made to undercut Mr. Netanyahu, whom he has still not forgiven for congratulating Mr. Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
In 2021, Mr. Trump told the Axios journalist Barak Ravid that he had concluded that Mr. Netanyahu “never wanted peace” with the Palestinians.
Mr. Trump’s first reaction to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack was to criticize Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence services. Advisers privately pleaded with him to clean up his comments and he quickly turned to standard lines of support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
The ambiguity of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war has let different audiences hear what they want in his public statements. He has said nothing of substance about what he would do differently from Mr. Biden on Israel policy if he were president, and his team again refused to get into specifics when questioned by The New York Times.
Given that void, right-wing supporters of Israel and Israelis like Mr. Kahana are parsing every utterance from Mr. Trump, worried that in a second term he might not be as reliable an ally as he was in his first term, when he gave Mr. Netanyahu nearly everything he wanted, including moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
- and comparing that to his age cohort who we all agree is not senile with all his full mental faculties intact, and is absolutely not led by his ego and can move past being insulted (boy, does he).
posted by cendawanita at 12:04 AM on April 2 [8 favorites]
WCK Gaza update:
Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route.
“This is not only an attack against WCK, this is an attack on humanitarian organizations showing up in the most dire of situations where food is being used as a weapon of war. This is unforgivable,” said World Central Kitchen CEO Erin Gore.
(...) World Central Kitchen is pausing our operations immediately in the region. We will be making decisions about the future of our work soon.
Al-Jazeera : Israel ‘agreed’ to take US Rafah concerns into consideration: White House - Top US and Israeli officials have ‘constructive engagement on Rafah’ during talks previously delayed by Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu.
(Itay Epshtain is quoting from the updated state budget where the details seem to be is that it's a planned six-month engagement.)
Meanwhile, CNN: Biden administration set to greenlight $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets to Israel
Of interest to me:
When it comes to intelligence sharing with Israel, the US has offered the Israeli government a significant amount of processing capacity, according to two sources familiar with the matter — essentially, computing power that allows Israel to sift through mass amounts of intercepts, imagery and other raw intelligence to extract meaningful trends or insights.
In theory, the intelligence community is not allowed to share information with partners that would be used to violate the international laws of armed conflict, and US officials insist that they are not giving Israel what’s known as “targeting intelligence”; in this case, intelligence used to target precise Hamas fighters or positions.
Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said in November that the US military is “not participating in IDF target development,” and that their involvement is solely intended to help find the hostages.
But several sources familiar with US sharing efforts who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity said that is a distinction without a difference. Once the US provides a piece of intelligence to Israel, it has no control over how Israel combines it with other information, and there’s nothing to stop Israel from using that information to target Hamas operatives, the sources said.
“Israel provides assurances that operations making use of U.S. intelligence are conducted in a manner consistent with international law, including the Law of Armed Conflict, which calls for the protection of civilians,” a senior intelligence official told CNN in response to questions about the intelligence sharing.
The intelligence has continued to flow, sources said, even as the Biden administration has been pressing Israel to do more to prevent civilian casualties.
“Absent stronger oversight, it is impossible to discern how allies and partners are using U.S. intelligence in military operations,” Steven Katz, an active-duty Army officer currently working as a civilian in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, wrote in a piece on the national security blog Just Security, advocating for greater congressional oversight of intelligence sharing.
“In certain cases, the IC may be providing indirect support through intelligence sharing for partner operations conducted in a manner inconsistent with U.S. law and policy,” he said.
The State Department has a process in place to investigate reports that civilians have been killed by US weapons wielded by other nations, according to Katz, but no law exists requiring the intelligence community to track how US intelligence-sharing may contribute to civilian deaths.
A provision in an annual intelligence bill now before Congress would require the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to submit an annual report to Congress detailing civilian casualties caused by foreign government operations in which US-shared intelligence played a “significant role.” But that bill has yet to be passed.
Al-Jazeera: As those fleeing al-Shifa get to south Gaza, they recount Israeli torture - Two people, one who was in the besieged hospital and one who lived nearby, tell of their ordeal to escape.
NBP: NYT: Trump’s Call for Israel to ‘Finish Up’ War Alarms Some on the Right
the article headline undersells the gallows humour I think. I don't trust the orange guy beyond what I'd trust a badly raised five-year-old child, but, it's hard to not make some kind of face reading this:
Two Israeli journalists traveled to Palm Beach, Fla., a little over a week ago, hoping to elicit from Donald J. Trump a powerful expression of support for their country’s war in Gaza.
Instead, one of them wrote that what they heard from Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago “shocked us to the core.”
“Both U.S. presidential candidates, Biden and Trump, are turning their rhetorical backs on Israel,” concluded Ariel Kahana, a right-wing settler who is the senior diplomatic correspondent for Israel Hayom. The newspaper is owned by the billionaire Republican donor Miriam Adelson; Ms. Adelson herself arranged the interview with Mr. Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the planning.
What had Mr. Trump said that so alarmed Mr. Kahana?
He told the interviewers that Israel was losing public support for its Gaza assault, that the images of devastation were bad for Israel’s global image and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should end his war soon — statements that sounded far more like something President Biden might say than the kind of cheerleading Mr. Netanyahu has come to expect from Washington Republicans.
“You have to finish up your war,” Mr. Trump said. “You have to get it done. We have to get to peace. We can’t have this going on.”
That statement apparently troubled Mr. Kahana even more than Mr. Biden’s warnings to Israel. Mr. Biden has called for a six-week cease-fire in exchange for Hamas releasing Israeli hostages. In the interview excerpts released by Israel Hayom, Mr. Trump did not qualify his call for Israel to finish the war by insisting on the release of hostages.
(...) In contrast, Mr. Trump’s hedging commentary to Israel Hayom is only the latest in a long line of public statements he has made to undercut Mr. Netanyahu, whom he has still not forgiven for congratulating Mr. Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.
In 2021, Mr. Trump told the Axios journalist Barak Ravid that he had concluded that Mr. Netanyahu “never wanted peace” with the Palestinians.
Mr. Trump’s first reaction to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack was to criticize Mr. Netanyahu and Israeli intelligence services. Advisers privately pleaded with him to clean up his comments and he quickly turned to standard lines of support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
The ambiguity of Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about the Israel-Hamas war has let different audiences hear what they want in his public statements. He has said nothing of substance about what he would do differently from Mr. Biden on Israel policy if he were president, and his team again refused to get into specifics when questioned by The New York Times.
Given that void, right-wing supporters of Israel and Israelis like Mr. Kahana are parsing every utterance from Mr. Trump, worried that in a second term he might not be as reliable an ally as he was in his first term, when he gave Mr. Netanyahu nearly everything he wanted, including moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
- and comparing that to his age cohort who we all agree is not senile with all his full mental faculties intact, and is absolutely not led by his ego and can move past being insulted (boy, does he).
posted by cendawanita at 12:04 AM on April 2 [8 favorites]
Bellingcat has posted their investigation, showing that the IDF hit not just one, two, but actually three vehicles in succession. Disgusting and despicable. According to Hareetz, they were targeting a Hamas member who wasn't there. Sure thing guys, totally believable.
The Israelis are definitely getting what they wanted - UAE pauses aid support after Israeli strike kills humanitarian workers. WCK pauses Gaza operations.
Doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza.
Zeteo has posted the townhall for their paid subscribers with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. I have not had a chance to watch it yet.
Israel conceals 200+ troop deaths on the Lebanon front.
1 in 5 Wisconsin Democrats says Gaza will impact their primary vote.
posted by toastyk at 9:14 AM on April 2 [7 favorites]
The Israelis are definitely getting what they wanted - UAE pauses aid support after Israeli strike kills humanitarian workers. WCK pauses Gaza operations.
Doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza.
Zeteo has posted the townhall for their paid subscribers with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese. I have not had a chance to watch it yet.
Israel conceals 200+ troop deaths on the Lebanon front.
1 in 5 Wisconsin Democrats says Gaza will impact their primary vote.
posted by toastyk at 9:14 AM on April 2 [7 favorites]
From Common Dreams, posted today: When The Washington Post revealed Friday afternoon that “the Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel,” a lot of people cared. Readers of the story posted more than 10,000 comments on its webpage. A leading progressive site for breaking news, Common Dreams, quickly followed up with coverage under a headline that began with the word “obscene.” Responses on social media were swift and strong; a tweet about the Post scoop from our team at RootsAction received more than 600,000 views.
But at The New York Times—the nation’s purported newspaper of record—one day after another went by as the editors determined that the story about the massive new transfer of weaponry to Israel wasn’t worth reporting on at all. Yet it was solid. A Reuters dispatch said that two sources “confirmed” the Post’s report.
By omission, The New York Times gave a boost to a process of normalizing the slaughter in Gaza, as if shipping vast quantities of 2,000-pound bombs for use to take the lives of Palestinian civilians is unremarkable and unnewsworthy. Just another day at the genocide office.
From an interview published today with a former US State Department official by Isaac Chotiner in The New Yorker (bold is Chotiner): ... that’s very moving, but there is another kind of loss going on now which he apparently can’t conflate with his own experience.
Oh, if you’re asking me: Do I think that Joe Biden has the same depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians of Gaza as he does for the Israelis? No, he doesn’t, nor does he convey it. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:34 PM on April 2 [9 favorites]
But at The New York Times—the nation’s purported newspaper of record—one day after another went by as the editors determined that the story about the massive new transfer of weaponry to Israel wasn’t worth reporting on at all. Yet it was solid. A Reuters dispatch said that two sources “confirmed” the Post’s report.
By omission, The New York Times gave a boost to a process of normalizing the slaughter in Gaza, as if shipping vast quantities of 2,000-pound bombs for use to take the lives of Palestinian civilians is unremarkable and unnewsworthy. Just another day at the genocide office.
From an interview published today with a former US State Department official by Isaac Chotiner in The New Yorker (bold is Chotiner): ... that’s very moving, but there is another kind of loss going on now which he apparently can’t conflate with his own experience.
Oh, if you’re asking me: Do I think that Joe Biden has the same depth of feeling and empathy for the Palestinians of Gaza as he does for the Israelis? No, he doesn’t, nor does he convey it. I don’t think there’s any doubt about that.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:34 PM on April 2 [9 favorites]
The IDF has been exposed a poorly lead, undisciplined and badly trained. This incident is yet more evidence of the serious problems in the IDF.
posted by interogative mood at 10:50 PM on April 2
posted by interogative mood at 10:50 PM on April 2
I want to go with that argument, believe me, the lib West Wing impulse is strong, but it's such a cop-out.
This is a case of don't assume incompetence where malice might also explain.
Either the IOF's officers are completely and utterly incapable of doing their jobs, being run around in circles on things that really matter, totally unaware of what is going on in their own commands and entirely ineffective at addressing issues when brought to their attention, while somehow having concealed that total incompetence from every major training partner...
Or they just don't mind that much when the soldiers under their command loot, kill on impulse and laugh about it, post dismembered corpses to social media and spout genocidal rhetoric. To them, those aren't things that really matter.
I know which I think is more likely.
posted by Audreynachrome at 11:43 PM on April 2 [13 favorites]
This is a case of don't assume incompetence where malice might also explain.
Either the IOF's officers are completely and utterly incapable of doing their jobs, being run around in circles on things that really matter, totally unaware of what is going on in their own commands and entirely ineffective at addressing issues when brought to their attention, while somehow having concealed that total incompetence from every major training partner...
Or they just don't mind that much when the soldiers under their command loot, kill on impulse and laugh about it, post dismembered corpses to social media and spout genocidal rhetoric. To them, those aren't things that really matter.
I know which I think is more likely.
posted by Audreynachrome at 11:43 PM on April 2 [13 favorites]
The purpose of a system is what it does.
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:06 AM on April 3 [7 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 12:06 AM on April 3 [7 favorites]
Mod note: A few comments removed. Please drop the accusation and use of the term 'blood libel', it has no place in an already difficult thread.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:30 AM on April 3 [4 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:30 AM on April 3 [4 favorites]
The US Ambassador to Israel offers condolences to the murdered aid workers without once mentioning who murdered them.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:39 AM on April 3 [10 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:39 AM on April 3 [10 favorites]
I don't have a sub to Haaretz, but here's a few headlines I saw that may give a little perspective:
Israeli Army Sources: Gaza Aid Workers Killed Because 'IDF Officers on the Ground Do What They Want' - The IDF and defense ministry claimed that the aid workers' killing resulted from poor coordination. Israeli army sources later refuted their claims, saying the incident has 'no connection to coordination' and was caused by the fact that 'every commander sets the rules for himself'
Israel moves from "shadow war" to direct and explicit hit on Iran.
Israel's Energy Minister Cohen: 'If the United States doesn't completely back Israel - it has nothing to do in the Middle East'
posted by toastyk at 6:48 AM on April 3 [6 favorites]
Israeli Army Sources: Gaza Aid Workers Killed Because 'IDF Officers on the Ground Do What They Want' - The IDF and defense ministry claimed that the aid workers' killing resulted from poor coordination. Israeli army sources later refuted their claims, saying the incident has 'no connection to coordination' and was caused by the fact that 'every commander sets the rules for himself'
Israel moves from "shadow war" to direct and explicit hit on Iran.
Israel's Energy Minister Cohen: 'If the United States doesn't completely back Israel - it has nothing to do in the Middle East'
posted by toastyk at 6:48 AM on April 3 [6 favorites]
The IDF has been exposed a poorly lead, undisciplined and badly trained. This incident is yet more evidence of the serious problems in the IDF.
I wanted to come back to this because of a share from Daniel Seidemann of a translated 1990 interview with Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
I first discovered Yeshayahu Leibowitz when I came across an essay he wrote in 1968, barely a year after the Six-Day War, entitled ‘The Territories’ and published in his “Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State” in which he predicted a grim future for Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories:
“The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police—mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.”
Here we are reading this in 2014 and, clearly, he turned out to be right. I’m hardly the only one to think so given the large response I got when I tweeted the above paragraph.
posted by cendawanita at 6:52 AM on April 3 [11 favorites]
I wanted to come back to this because of a share from Daniel Seidemann of a translated 1990 interview with Yeshayahu Leibowitz:
I first discovered Yeshayahu Leibowitz when I came across an essay he wrote in 1968, barely a year after the Six-Day War, entitled ‘The Territories’ and published in his “Judaism, Human Values, and the Jewish State” in which he predicted a grim future for Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories:
“The Arabs would be the working people and the Jews the administrators, inspectors, officials, and police—mainly secret police. A state ruling a hostile population of 1.5 to 2 million foreigners would necessarily become a secret-police state, with all that this implies for education, free speech and democratic institutions. The corruption characteristic of every colonial regime would also prevail in the State of Israel. The administration would suppress Arab insurgency on the one hand and acquire Arab Quislings on the other. There is also good reason to fear that the Israel Defense Force, which has been until now a people’s army, would, as a result of being transformed into an army of occupation, degenerate, and its commanders, who will have become military governors, resemble their colleagues in other nations.”
Here we are reading this in 2014 and, clearly, he turned out to be right. I’m hardly the only one to think so given the large response I got when I tweeted the above paragraph.
posted by cendawanita at 6:52 AM on April 3 [11 favorites]
Poorly trained and out of control of the leadership doesn’t square with the world’s most moral military rhetoric. Either way it’s still the responsibility of the leadership of Israel (and by extension the US for continuing to support them) when people are harmed or killed regardless of how it happened.
posted by R343L at 7:32 AM on April 3 [6 favorites]
posted by R343L at 7:32 AM on April 3 [6 favorites]
A not particularly ordered list:
1. Please appreciate the passive phrasing of this BBC headline: Deadly air strike shows system to protect aid workers in crisis, agencies say
2. Just out from +972: ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza - The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.
Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.
The result, as the sources testified, is that thousands of Palestinians — most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting — were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program’s decisions.
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
The Lavender machine joins another AI system, “The Gospel,” about which information was revealed in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call in November 2023, as well as in the Israeli military’s own publications. A fundamental difference between the two systems is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list.
(Here my native ethnic group gets stereotyped as lazy but I see we're nowhere close)
Hmmm: The following investigation is organized according to the six chronological stages of the Israeli army’s highly automated target production in the early weeks of the Gaza war. First, we explain the Lavender machine itself, which marked tens of thousands of Palestinians using AI. Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes. Third, we describe how “dumb” bombs were chosen to strike these homes.
Fourth, we explain how the army loosened the permitted number of civilians who could be killed during the bombing of a target. Fifth, we note how automated software inaccurately calculated the amount of non-combatants in each household. And sixth, we show how on several occasions, when a home was struck, usually at night, the individual target was sometimes not inside at all, because military officers did not verify the information in real time.
2a. Common Dreams: (recap of the Haaretz piece) Israeli Newspaper Details IDF's Creation of 'Kill Zones' in Gaza - "In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate," said one Israeli reservist.
"One reason why the Israeli government, media, the Biden administration, et al. have been trying to undermine the credibility of Gazan casualty figures is to deflect from the fact that the IDF's own figures are almost certainly bullshit," foreign policy analyst Derek Davison wrote Sunday in response to the Haaretz story.
Brianna Rosen, a senior fellow at Just Security, argued that the "kind of indiscriminate killing" detailed in Haaretz's reporting "is illegal and falls far short of any gold standard for civilian harm."
2b. Nikkei: Israeli startups hope to export battle-tested AI military tech
2c. Sky UK (last week before the WCK strike): Israeli military 'examining' attack on Gaza aid shelter after Sky investigation - An attack on an aid shelter in Gaza killed the family members of a Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) staff and injured seven others. Following our investigation, the Israeli army says it "fired at a building that was identified as a building where terror activity is occurring".
Those killed were the wife and daughter-in-law of an MSF staff member - while the injured included four women aged 74, 29, 20 and 16 alongside twin girls - an 18-month-old baby and a 30-year-old man. All but one of those injured were from the same family.
Ms Nicolai told Sky News she was "perplexed" by the attack on the shelter.
The organisation said: "The shelter was used by humanitarian personnel and their family members, identified by an MSF flag, and notified to the Israeli authorities. We refute any allegations of terror activity occurring in MSF-run structures. It is a civilian space, and this shows that nowhere is safe."
3. Haaretz (Gideon Levy): We Need to Admit It: Israel Wants the War in Gaza
One can argue that if we don't destroy Hamas, the war will continue forever, and anyway it's a war for peace. But one cannot buy this when there's no strategic plan behind the lust for war. So what remains is the bare truth: Israel simply wants war. Left and right and center too. Everyone.
3a. MEE (Anthony Loewenstein): Western obsession with Netanyahu is misplaced. Most Israelis want war to go on
Excerpting this bit of colour: Haaretz is a prominent and daily opponent of Netanyahu, but seems torn between the mainstream Israeli view of the Gaza onslaught, publishing a slew of nationalistic and militaristic stories in the last six months, and a more humane position that correctly understands Israel is committing horrific abuses in Gaza that will stain the country forever.
3a-i. Foreign Policy: Israel Is a Strategic Liability for the United States
3a-ii. The Atlantic: U.S. Support for Israel’s War Has Become Indefensible - A good pretext for war is not enough to make a war just.
As well as: Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever
3b. Foreign Policy (Mairav Zonsvein): The Problem Isn’t Just Netanyahu, It’s Israeli Society - Despite blaming the prime minister, a large majority of Jewish Israeli citizens support his destructive policies in Gaza and beyond.
Putting all the blame on the prime minister misses the point. It disregards the fact that Israelis have long advanced, enabled, or come to terms with their country’s system of military occupation and dehumanization of Palestinians.
That’s true of other members of the war cabinet who are often depicted as counterweights or alternatives to the prime minister. It wasn’t Netanyahu but his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who called for a total siege of Gaza after Oct. 7: “no electricity, no fuel, no food, everything will be closed.” It wasn’t Netanyahu but the supposedly centrist president, Isaac Herzog, who implied that every resident of Gaza is a legitimate target when he said at the outset of the war that there’s an “entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved [in the Oct. 7 onslaught]—it’s absolutely not true.” (He later said his words were taken out of context.) Incendiary and genocidal language by various Israeli politicians and figures was well documented in South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice late last year.
Focusing on Netanyahu also ignores the rightward drift of the Israeli body politic, which has normalized racism and nationalism, especially evident in mainstream media’s coverage of the war. Israeli news rarely shows the suffering in Gaza, almost never platforms Palestinians, and military journalists seldom challenge or scrutinize the IDF’s version of events.
It also disregards the fact that Israelis are still showing up for reservist duty without question, almost six months into this war, despite distrusting Netanyahu’s leadership and motives, and despite having already threatened to refuse duty over the government’s judicial overhaul plan.
Despite the high number of soldiers killed since Oct. 7 (600) and wounded (over 3,000, not including much higher numbers suffering from post-traumatic stress), mothers of soldiers are not protesting the war, a factor that played a significant role in opposition to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon and eventual withdrawal.
posted by cendawanita at 8:24 AM on April 3 [16 favorites]
1. Please appreciate the passive phrasing of this BBC headline: Deadly air strike shows system to protect aid workers in crisis, agencies say
2. Just out from +972: ‘Lavender’: The AI machine directing Israel’s bombing spree in Gaza - The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.
Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.
The result, as the sources testified, is that thousands of Palestinians — most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting — were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program’s decisions.
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
The Lavender machine joins another AI system, “The Gospel,” about which information was revealed in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call in November 2023, as well as in the Israeli military’s own publications. A fundamental difference between the two systems is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list.
(Here my native ethnic group gets stereotyped as lazy but I see we're nowhere close)
Hmmm: The following investigation is organized according to the six chronological stages of the Israeli army’s highly automated target production in the early weeks of the Gaza war. First, we explain the Lavender machine itself, which marked tens of thousands of Palestinians using AI. Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes. Third, we describe how “dumb” bombs were chosen to strike these homes.
Fourth, we explain how the army loosened the permitted number of civilians who could be killed during the bombing of a target. Fifth, we note how automated software inaccurately calculated the amount of non-combatants in each household. And sixth, we show how on several occasions, when a home was struck, usually at night, the individual target was sometimes not inside at all, because military officers did not verify the information in real time.
2a. Common Dreams: (recap of the Haaretz piece) Israeli Newspaper Details IDF's Creation of 'Kill Zones' in Gaza - "In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate," said one Israeli reservist.
"One reason why the Israeli government, media, the Biden administration, et al. have been trying to undermine the credibility of Gazan casualty figures is to deflect from the fact that the IDF's own figures are almost certainly bullshit," foreign policy analyst Derek Davison wrote Sunday in response to the Haaretz story.
Brianna Rosen, a senior fellow at Just Security, argued that the "kind of indiscriminate killing" detailed in Haaretz's reporting "is illegal and falls far short of any gold standard for civilian harm."
2b. Nikkei: Israeli startups hope to export battle-tested AI military tech
2c. Sky UK (last week before the WCK strike): Israeli military 'examining' attack on Gaza aid shelter after Sky investigation - An attack on an aid shelter in Gaza killed the family members of a Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF) staff and injured seven others. Following our investigation, the Israeli army says it "fired at a building that was identified as a building where terror activity is occurring".
Those killed were the wife and daughter-in-law of an MSF staff member - while the injured included four women aged 74, 29, 20 and 16 alongside twin girls - an 18-month-old baby and a 30-year-old man. All but one of those injured were from the same family.
Ms Nicolai told Sky News she was "perplexed" by the attack on the shelter.
The organisation said: "The shelter was used by humanitarian personnel and their family members, identified by an MSF flag, and notified to the Israeli authorities. We refute any allegations of terror activity occurring in MSF-run structures. It is a civilian space, and this shows that nowhere is safe."
3. Haaretz (Gideon Levy): We Need to Admit It: Israel Wants the War in Gaza
One can argue that if we don't destroy Hamas, the war will continue forever, and anyway it's a war for peace. But one cannot buy this when there's no strategic plan behind the lust for war. So what remains is the bare truth: Israel simply wants war. Left and right and center too. Everyone.
3a. MEE (Anthony Loewenstein): Western obsession with Netanyahu is misplaced. Most Israelis want war to go on
Excerpting this bit of colour: Haaretz is a prominent and daily opponent of Netanyahu, but seems torn between the mainstream Israeli view of the Gaza onslaught, publishing a slew of nationalistic and militaristic stories in the last six months, and a more humane position that correctly understands Israel is committing horrific abuses in Gaza that will stain the country forever.
3a-i. Foreign Policy: Israel Is a Strategic Liability for the United States
3a-ii. The Atlantic: U.S. Support for Israel’s War Has Become Indefensible - A good pretext for war is not enough to make a war just.
As well as: Benjamin Netanyahu Is Israel’s Worst Prime Minister Ever
3b. Foreign Policy (Mairav Zonsvein): The Problem Isn’t Just Netanyahu, It’s Israeli Society - Despite blaming the prime minister, a large majority of Jewish Israeli citizens support his destructive policies in Gaza and beyond.
Putting all the blame on the prime minister misses the point. It disregards the fact that Israelis have long advanced, enabled, or come to terms with their country’s system of military occupation and dehumanization of Palestinians.
That’s true of other members of the war cabinet who are often depicted as counterweights or alternatives to the prime minister. It wasn’t Netanyahu but his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, who called for a total siege of Gaza after Oct. 7: “no electricity, no fuel, no food, everything will be closed.” It wasn’t Netanyahu but the supposedly centrist president, Isaac Herzog, who implied that every resident of Gaza is a legitimate target when he said at the outset of the war that there’s an “entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved [in the Oct. 7 onslaught]—it’s absolutely not true.” (He later said his words were taken out of context.) Incendiary and genocidal language by various Israeli politicians and figures was well documented in South Africa’s case at the International Court of Justice late last year.
Focusing on Netanyahu also ignores the rightward drift of the Israeli body politic, which has normalized racism and nationalism, especially evident in mainstream media’s coverage of the war. Israeli news rarely shows the suffering in Gaza, almost never platforms Palestinians, and military journalists seldom challenge or scrutinize the IDF’s version of events.
It also disregards the fact that Israelis are still showing up for reservist duty without question, almost six months into this war, despite distrusting Netanyahu’s leadership and motives, and despite having already threatened to refuse duty over the government’s judicial overhaul plan.
Despite the high number of soldiers killed since Oct. 7 (600) and wounded (over 3,000, not including much higher numbers suffering from post-traumatic stress), mothers of soldiers are not protesting the war, a factor that played a significant role in opposition to Israel’s occupation of Lebanon and eventual withdrawal.
posted by cendawanita at 8:24 AM on April 3 [16 favorites]
Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes.
I understand the logic of the approach, but that is seriously creepy.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:42 AM on April 3 [6 favorites]
I understand the logic of the approach, but that is seriously creepy.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:42 AM on April 3 [6 favorites]
Former (UK) supreme court judges say UK arming Israel breaches international law
Exclusive: More than 600 prominent lawyers sign letter that calls for end to exports as a ‘measure to prevent’ genocide
posted by lalochezia at 4:32 PM on April 3 [8 favorites]
Exclusive: More than 600 prominent lawyers sign letter that calls for end to exports as a ‘measure to prevent’ genocide
posted by lalochezia at 4:32 PM on April 3 [8 favorites]
Dip Flash: the "logic of the approach"? Like, intentionally committing serious war crimes?
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:58 PM on April 3 [7 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:58 PM on April 3 [7 favorites]
That Lavender AI article 👀 cendawanita posted...wtf
posted by nikoniko at 6:23 PM on April 3 [3 favorites]
posted by nikoniko at 6:23 PM on April 3 [3 favorites]
Dip Flash: the "logic of the approach"? Like, intentionally committing serious war crimes?
I'd guess that the US probably pioneered how to do this in a high tech way in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it's a really old tactic (to the point that I'd be surprised if it didn't show up in the Greek epics or Icelandic sagas). The logic being, if you want to find a "bad guy," you're going to have the easiest time finding him when he goes home to see his family, not when he is hiding out somewhere with his buddies.
However, bombing the house full of family members is not the inevitable end step of that logic, that's a choice and it was deservedly being criticized in cendawanita's link above.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 PM on April 3 [2 favorites]
I'd guess that the US probably pioneered how to do this in a high tech way in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it's a really old tactic (to the point that I'd be surprised if it didn't show up in the Greek epics or Icelandic sagas). The logic being, if you want to find a "bad guy," you're going to have the easiest time finding him when he goes home to see his family, not when he is hiding out somewhere with his buddies.
However, bombing the house full of family members is not the inevitable end step of that logic, that's a choice and it was deservedly being criticized in cendawanita's link above.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 PM on April 3 [2 favorites]
Dip Flash: thanks for the clarification. I agree, presented that way. Sorry, i'm incredibly on edge and hanging onto what little sanity i have left by my fucking fingernails.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:30 PM on April 3 [9 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:30 PM on April 3 [9 favorites]
It's morning where I am and apparently it's been a spicy few hours. Anyway--
- BBC (Jeremy Bowen): Bowen: The Israel-Gaza war is at a crossroads (analysis with an eye on the regional developments)
On that note, tweet from The Cradle: THE US NOW WANTS A 'DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION' FOR YEMEN:
US Special Envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking, said on Wednesday that the US is seeking a diplomatic solution for the Yemeni Armed Forces' blockade of the Red Sea.
This takes a turn from current US policy that has sought to solve the blockade through force, launching attacks on Yemen since February.
Following meetings in Saudi Arabia and Oman, the US special envoy told Reuters that "We favor a diplomatic solution, we know there is no military solution."
The Yemeni Armed Forces, along with most of the Axis of Resistance, have previously affirmed that they will only stop their operations once Israel's genocidal war on Gaza is halted.
- a couple of journalism pieces with either newish info or angle on the WCK airstrikes:-
Politico: Why the strike killing World Central Kitchen workers is different
The Israeli airstrike that killed aid workers in Gaza is resonating especially in Washington national security circles for two reasons: An American [who's not of Palestinian background] was killed [in a confirmed airstrike] and the aid group is based in DC, run by the politically outspoken Spanish-American chef JOSÉ ANDRÉ
WashPo: How Israeli strikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza unfolded
The WCK workers wore bulletproof vests within the armored cars. The group had reportedly complained to the Israeli military days earlier that an IDF sniper had fired into a WCK car, without any of the occupants being struck.
The team was used to dangerous situations. James Henderson, 33, a British volunteer, had been a Special Forces officer. Australian Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, listed on documents as the WCK’s country manager, had previously delivered food from the back of a motorcycle along earthquake-shattered roads in Haiti, a colleague told The Washington Post. She had written that even for her, Gaza was “intense.”
(...) Chris Cobb-Smith, a security consultant and former artillery officer in the British army, said in a message that the “small, confined detonation” suggested the vehicles were struck with a drone-fired missile that is “very accurate with significant penetrating power.”
All three vehicles were probably hit by the same kind of munition, Cobb-Smith said, as “it would be unreasonable, tactically to fire different munitions at different targets during an operation.”
- Guardian repack of the +972 & Local Call expose: ‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets - Israeli intelligence sources reveal use of ‘Lavender’ system in Gaza war and claim permission given to kill civilians in pursuit of low-ranking militants (I find it notable that it's out almost simultaneously. It usually takes about a week for their editorial to decide on surfacing this kind of reporting from non-mainstream Israeli media, and this is also presented as mutual exclusive deal with +972)
- In France, Le Monde is finally surfacing journalism that debunked the 40 beheaded babies disinfo: « Quarante bébés décapités » : itinéraire d’une rumeur au cœur de la bataille de l’information entre Israël et le Hamas - my french isn't great so my quick scan isn't necessarily showing anything new to me.
Maybe I should share it in the disinfo thread, but anyway: Comment cette fausse information est-elle née ? Peut-on la comparer à l’affaire des couveuses du Koweït, un récit fabriqué de toutes pièces de bébés kidnappés et massacrés, qui avait en partie servi à justifier la première guerre du Golfe ? L’enquête du Monde met en lumière une rumeur née de manière organique, d’un mélange d’émotion, de confusion et d’exagération macabre. Mais Israël n’a rien fait pour lutter contre, et a plus souvent tenté de l’instrumentaliser que de la démentir, alimentant les accusations de manipulation médiatique.. Emphasis for me: "But Israel did nothing to fight against it, and more often tried to exploit it than to deny it, fueling accusations of media manipulation."
- France reminds me of #lulacron, and coincidentally Reuters: Palestinians want April vote on full United Nations membership
- over at the UK side, this feels significant: (Guardian) UK government under pressure from Tories to stop arming Israel
Four Conservatives told the Guardian on Wednesday that the UK should stop exporting arms to Israel after its strike, which killed three British aid workers.
Their intervention comes after Peter Ricketts, a government national security adviser during David Cameron’s premiership, said the time had come to send a signal and stop exporting arms. David Jones, the Conservative MP for Clwyd West, said the Israeli strike on the aid convoy was “extraordinary”.
“The government should urgently reassess its supply of arms and deliver a stern warning to Israel about its conduct. Israel has every right to defend itself and every right to act proportionately – that doesn’t include people who are trying to do good,” he said.
“Given that we’ve seen three British citizens – all of them ex-forces – killed in what is, at best, a negligent manner I think that we really need to reassess our supply of weaponry there.
“I thought that [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s response – ‘these things happen in war’ – was completely inadequate, frankly shamefully inadequate.”
Commentary from Dr H.A. Hellyer: The conversation on Israel is quite different in London as compared to DC. Suspending arms sales to Israel is now a mainstream position in the security establishment in London. (Lord Ricketts is a stalwart in that establishment).
I've seen elsewhere that indicates there's an actual clock running down to some kind of decision.
- Loads of political gossip from the White House iftar that wasn't quite, but I gotta go in a bit before wrangling the links but people are welcome to go ahead and share. Things that were jumping out to me is basically a demonstration of the point mentioned in the new Isaac Chotiner interview, where even in that event Biden could not sympathise with no one but October 7 deaths.
posted by cendawanita at 6:35 PM on April 3 [5 favorites]
- BBC (Jeremy Bowen): Bowen: The Israel-Gaza war is at a crossroads (analysis with an eye on the regional developments)
On that note, tweet from The Cradle: THE US NOW WANTS A 'DIPLOMATIC SOLUTION' FOR YEMEN:
US Special Envoy to Yemen, Tim Lenderking, said on Wednesday that the US is seeking a diplomatic solution for the Yemeni Armed Forces' blockade of the Red Sea.
This takes a turn from current US policy that has sought to solve the blockade through force, launching attacks on Yemen since February.
Following meetings in Saudi Arabia and Oman, the US special envoy told Reuters that "We favor a diplomatic solution, we know there is no military solution."
The Yemeni Armed Forces, along with most of the Axis of Resistance, have previously affirmed that they will only stop their operations once Israel's genocidal war on Gaza is halted.
- a couple of journalism pieces with either newish info or angle on the WCK airstrikes:-
Politico: Why the strike killing World Central Kitchen workers is different
The Israeli airstrike that killed aid workers in Gaza is resonating especially in Washington national security circles for two reasons: An American [who's not of Palestinian background] was killed [in a confirmed airstrike] and the aid group is based in DC, run by the politically outspoken Spanish-American chef JOSÉ ANDRÉ
WashPo: How Israeli strikes on a World Central Kitchen convoy in Gaza unfolded
The WCK workers wore bulletproof vests within the armored cars. The group had reportedly complained to the Israeli military days earlier that an IDF sniper had fired into a WCK car, without any of the occupants being struck.
The team was used to dangerous situations. James Henderson, 33, a British volunteer, had been a Special Forces officer. Australian Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom, 43, listed on documents as the WCK’s country manager, had previously delivered food from the back of a motorcycle along earthquake-shattered roads in Haiti, a colleague told The Washington Post. She had written that even for her, Gaza was “intense.”
(...) Chris Cobb-Smith, a security consultant and former artillery officer in the British army, said in a message that the “small, confined detonation” suggested the vehicles were struck with a drone-fired missile that is “very accurate with significant penetrating power.”
All three vehicles were probably hit by the same kind of munition, Cobb-Smith said, as “it would be unreasonable, tactically to fire different munitions at different targets during an operation.”
- Guardian repack of the +972 & Local Call expose: ‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets - Israeli intelligence sources reveal use of ‘Lavender’ system in Gaza war and claim permission given to kill civilians in pursuit of low-ranking militants (I find it notable that it's out almost simultaneously. It usually takes about a week for their editorial to decide on surfacing this kind of reporting from non-mainstream Israeli media, and this is also presented as mutual exclusive deal with +972)
- In France, Le Monde is finally surfacing journalism that debunked the 40 beheaded babies disinfo: « Quarante bébés décapités » : itinéraire d’une rumeur au cœur de la bataille de l’information entre Israël et le Hamas - my french isn't great so my quick scan isn't necessarily showing anything new to me.
Maybe I should share it in the disinfo thread, but anyway: Comment cette fausse information est-elle née ? Peut-on la comparer à l’affaire des couveuses du Koweït, un récit fabriqué de toutes pièces de bébés kidnappés et massacrés, qui avait en partie servi à justifier la première guerre du Golfe ? L’enquête du Monde met en lumière une rumeur née de manière organique, d’un mélange d’émotion, de confusion et d’exagération macabre. Mais Israël n’a rien fait pour lutter contre, et a plus souvent tenté de l’instrumentaliser que de la démentir, alimentant les accusations de manipulation médiatique.. Emphasis for me: "But Israel did nothing to fight against it, and more often tried to exploit it than to deny it, fueling accusations of media manipulation."
- France reminds me of #lulacron, and coincidentally Reuters: Palestinians want April vote on full United Nations membership
- over at the UK side, this feels significant: (Guardian) UK government under pressure from Tories to stop arming Israel
Four Conservatives told the Guardian on Wednesday that the UK should stop exporting arms to Israel after its strike, which killed three British aid workers.
Their intervention comes after Peter Ricketts, a government national security adviser during David Cameron’s premiership, said the time had come to send a signal and stop exporting arms. David Jones, the Conservative MP for Clwyd West, said the Israeli strike on the aid convoy was “extraordinary”.
“The government should urgently reassess its supply of arms and deliver a stern warning to Israel about its conduct. Israel has every right to defend itself and every right to act proportionately – that doesn’t include people who are trying to do good,” he said.
“Given that we’ve seen three British citizens – all of them ex-forces – killed in what is, at best, a negligent manner I think that we really need to reassess our supply of weaponry there.
“I thought that [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s response – ‘these things happen in war’ – was completely inadequate, frankly shamefully inadequate.”
Commentary from Dr H.A. Hellyer: The conversation on Israel is quite different in London as compared to DC. Suspending arms sales to Israel is now a mainstream position in the security establishment in London. (Lord Ricketts is a stalwart in that establishment).
I've seen elsewhere that indicates there's an actual clock running down to some kind of decision.
- Loads of political gossip from the White House iftar that wasn't quite, but I gotta go in a bit before wrangling the links but people are welcome to go ahead and share. Things that were jumping out to me is basically a demonstration of the point mentioned in the new Isaac Chotiner interview, where even in that event Biden could not sympathise with no one but October 7 deaths.
posted by cendawanita at 6:35 PM on April 3 [5 favorites]
I just want to note, the binding UNSC resolution calls for a ceasefire during (what's left of) Ramadan and there's barely 5 days left.
posted by cendawanita at 6:38 PM on April 3 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 6:38 PM on April 3 [5 favorites]
Oh I have things to say. But I won't say it.
Bloomberg: US May Revoke Houthi Terrorist Label If They Stop Red Sea Ship Attacks
The US said it would consider revoking its recent designation of Yemen’s Houthis as terrorists if the Iran-backed militants cease their shipping attacks in and around the Red Sea.
“My hope is that we can find diplomatic off-ramps,” Tim Lenderking, President Joe Biden’s special envoy for Yemen, told reporters in an online press briefing on Wednesday. “To find ways to deescalate and allow us to pull back, eventually, the designation and of course to end the military strikes on Houthis’ military capability.”
The comments suggest Washington is once more leaning on diplomacy after a nearly three-month-long campaign of airstrikes against Houthi facilities in Yemen. Those have failed to stop the group’s missile and drone attacks against merchant vessels and warships, though the US says it has managed to degrade the Houthis’ military capabilities.
Asked by Bloomberg News after the briefing if the US was offering the Houthis a quid pro quo to end their attacks on ships in return for revoking the designation, Lenderking said: “We would certainly study that but not assume it’s an automatic thing.”
---
Reading past the usual "US is concerned bluster" scoop from Barak Ravid, some gossip:
Friction point: The U.S. officials told the Israelis the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that has been deteriorating over the last five months doesn't create confidence in Israel's ability to conduct an efficient and orderly evacuation of civilians from Rafah, the sources said.
(...)
State of play: Sullivan warned the Israelis in the meeting that in the next few weeks the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) organization could issue a famine declaration for Gaza, two sources said.
The sources said Sullivan told the Israelis that if that happens it would be only the third such declaration in the 21st century. "Sullivan said it would be a bad for Israel and for the U.S.," one of the sources said.
According to two sources, the Israelis said they don't agree Gaza is on the verge of famine. They claimed the IDF has the best information about the situation in Gaza and said other estimates are based on false information.
One of the sources said the U.S. side told the Israelis they are the only ones in the world that claim Gaza isn't on the verge of famine.
The U.S. made clear it disagrees with the Israeli assessment, especially of the situation in northern Gaza, and stressed that denying the problem is not a good position for Israel to take, the source said.
posted by cendawanita at 1:36 AM on April 4 [10 favorites]
Bloomberg: US May Revoke Houthi Terrorist Label If They Stop Red Sea Ship Attacks
The US said it would consider revoking its recent designation of Yemen’s Houthis as terrorists if the Iran-backed militants cease their shipping attacks in and around the Red Sea.
“My hope is that we can find diplomatic off-ramps,” Tim Lenderking, President Joe Biden’s special envoy for Yemen, told reporters in an online press briefing on Wednesday. “To find ways to deescalate and allow us to pull back, eventually, the designation and of course to end the military strikes on Houthis’ military capability.”
The comments suggest Washington is once more leaning on diplomacy after a nearly three-month-long campaign of airstrikes against Houthi facilities in Yemen. Those have failed to stop the group’s missile and drone attacks against merchant vessels and warships, though the US says it has managed to degrade the Houthis’ military capabilities.
Asked by Bloomberg News after the briefing if the US was offering the Houthis a quid pro quo to end their attacks on ships in return for revoking the designation, Lenderking said: “We would certainly study that but not assume it’s an automatic thing.”
---
Reading past the usual "US is concerned bluster" scoop from Barak Ravid, some gossip:
Friction point: The U.S. officials told the Israelis the humanitarian crisis in Gaza that has been deteriorating over the last five months doesn't create confidence in Israel's ability to conduct an efficient and orderly evacuation of civilians from Rafah, the sources said.
(...)
State of play: Sullivan warned the Israelis in the meeting that in the next few weeks the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) organization could issue a famine declaration for Gaza, two sources said.
The sources said Sullivan told the Israelis that if that happens it would be only the third such declaration in the 21st century. "Sullivan said it would be a bad for Israel and for the U.S.," one of the sources said.
According to two sources, the Israelis said they don't agree Gaza is on the verge of famine. They claimed the IDF has the best information about the situation in Gaza and said other estimates are based on false information.
One of the sources said the U.S. side told the Israelis they are the only ones in the world that claim Gaza isn't on the verge of famine.
The U.S. made clear it disagrees with the Israeli assessment, especially of the situation in northern Gaza, and stressed that denying the problem is not a good position for Israel to take, the source said.
posted by cendawanita at 1:36 AM on April 4 [10 favorites]
The "west" needs to be prepared, as it becomes more apparent that a cultural member of their group is firmly living in a different reality. When I was sleeping the Israeli High Court heard the petition by Israeli NGOs to remove impediments of humanitarian aid. The crux of state's argument however is that fundamentally Israel is not an occupying power and therefore is not subject to the Geneva Convention obligations as such. I'm reading through Itay Epshtain's thread.
Randomly other news: McDonald’s will buy every one of its 225 franchise restaurants in Israel, it announced Thursday, just weeks after saying that the Israel-Hamas war was hurting its business.
The fast food giant said it had struck an agreement with Israeli franchise Alonyal to buy the firm’s McDonald’s (MCD) franchise restaurants in the country.
Omri Padan, CEO and owner of Alonyal, said in a statement: “For more than 30 years, Alonyal Limited has been proud to bring the Golden Arches to Israel and serve our communities.” Alonyal employs more than 5,000 people across its McDonald’s restaurants in the country.
McDonald’s added in the statement that it “remains committed to the Israeli market and to ensuring a positive employee and customer experience in the market going forward.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. (CNN)
RIP to the franchisees in the other markets who've been arguing their dues aren't going to any part of the Israeli chain at all.
posted by cendawanita at 3:48 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
Randomly other news: McDonald’s will buy every one of its 225 franchise restaurants in Israel, it announced Thursday, just weeks after saying that the Israel-Hamas war was hurting its business.
The fast food giant said it had struck an agreement with Israeli franchise Alonyal to buy the firm’s McDonald’s (MCD) franchise restaurants in the country.
Omri Padan, CEO and owner of Alonyal, said in a statement: “For more than 30 years, Alonyal Limited has been proud to bring the Golden Arches to Israel and serve our communities.” Alonyal employs more than 5,000 people across its McDonald’s restaurants in the country.
McDonald’s added in the statement that it “remains committed to the Israeli market and to ensuring a positive employee and customer experience in the market going forward.”
The terms of the deal were not disclosed. (CNN)
RIP to the franchisees in the other markets who've been arguing their dues aren't going to any part of the Israeli chain at all.
posted by cendawanita at 3:48 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
Housekeeping to note, the Lavendar AI has its own FPP now
posted by cendawanita at 5:42 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 5:42 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
(of all the typos...)
posted by cendawanita at 5:50 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]
posted by cendawanita at 5:50 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]
Oh dang, it worked: (NYT) Israel Agrees to Open Erez Crossing for Gaza Aid After Biden Pressure, U.S. Says - Israel has come under rising pressure from U.S. officials and humanitarian agencies to allow more aid into Gaza, amid warnings that famine is looming.
The Biden administration said late Thursday that Israel had agreed to open another crossing for aid to get into Gaza amid a dire humanitarian crisis there.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli government about the announcement, which came hours after President Biden had a tense phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During the call, Mr. Biden threatened to condition future support for Israel on how it addresses his concerns about civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In a statement, the National Security Council said that Israel had agreed to open the Erez crossing to allow aid into northern Gaza, to use the port of Ashdod to direct aid into the enclave and to significantly increase deliveries from Jordan — “at the president’s request.”
“These steps,” the statement said, “must now be fully and rapidly implemented.”
CNN: Israeli cabinet approves reopening northern Gaza border crossing for first time since October 7, says official
posted by cendawanita at 6:08 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
The Biden administration said late Thursday that Israel had agreed to open another crossing for aid to get into Gaza amid a dire humanitarian crisis there.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Israeli government about the announcement, which came hours after President Biden had a tense phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. During the call, Mr. Biden threatened to condition future support for Israel on how it addresses his concerns about civilian casualties and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
In a statement, the National Security Council said that Israel had agreed to open the Erez crossing to allow aid into northern Gaza, to use the port of Ashdod to direct aid into the enclave and to significantly increase deliveries from Jordan — “at the president’s request.”
“These steps,” the statement said, “must now be fully and rapidly implemented.”
CNN: Israeli cabinet approves reopening northern Gaza border crossing for first time since October 7, says official
posted by cendawanita at 6:08 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
Yeah, unfortunately it's unlikely to actually help, for two reasons:
1. Israel is still going to insist on their Kafkaesque "inspection" procedures and exclusion lists for incoming aid, regardless of which crossing it uses (remember, for example, that children's insulin pens are on the excluded list); and
2. Settler fanatics are just going to hold their daily carnivals and dance parties to block this crossing, too, with the tolerance (if not outright collusion) of the IOF.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:00 PM on April 4 [8 favorites]
1. Israel is still going to insist on their Kafkaesque "inspection" procedures and exclusion lists for incoming aid, regardless of which crossing it uses (remember, for example, that children's insulin pens are on the excluded list); and
2. Settler fanatics are just going to hold their daily carnivals and dance parties to block this crossing, too, with the tolerance (if not outright collusion) of the IOF.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:00 PM on April 4 [8 favorites]
It is very much the tension between two kinds of national characters for sure but it does also mean the legitimacy of democratic advocacy lives to fight another day. It's in the interest of Israel now to take a cynical stance to say it'll not make a substantive difference because then why change at all? I'm settling in in my heckling chair for the long haul.
posted by cendawanita at 8:05 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:05 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
The problem is that liberal impulse to be satisfied with scraps. I'm saying, "that's it? That's all?"
posted by cendawanita at 8:07 PM on April 4 [5 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 8:07 PM on April 4 [5 favorites]
I think rather than being all, this is the just the beginning of what will be enormous changes in policy and politics.
posted by interogative mood at 9:07 PM on April 4
posted by interogative mood at 9:07 PM on April 4
This is a case of don't assume incompetence where malice might also explain.
¿Por qué no los dos?
Our chief weapon is incompetence... incompetence and malice... malice and incompetence... Our two weapons are malice and incompetence... and ruthless inefficiency.... Our three weapons are malice, and incompetence, and ruthless inefficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to lying and denial... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as malice, incompetence... I'll come in again.
posted by flabdablet at 9:16 PM on April 4 [3 favorites]
¿Por qué no los dos?
Our chief weapon is incompetence... incompetence and malice... malice and incompetence... Our two weapons are malice and incompetence... and ruthless inefficiency.... Our three weapons are malice, and incompetence, and ruthless inefficiency... and an almost fanatical devotion to lying and denial... Our four... no... Amongst our weapons... Amongst our weaponry... are such elements as malice, incompetence... I'll come in again.
posted by flabdablet at 9:16 PM on April 4 [3 favorites]
Incompetence and malice are not mutually exclusive. In my experience one follows the other. The incompetent often behave with malice that they imagine is strength.
posted by interogative mood at 9:24 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 9:24 PM on April 4 [2 favorites]
I think rather than being all, this is the just the beginning of what will be enormous changes in policy and politics.
I'm inclined to agree with a very strong proviso that this is still a conditional result. The reciprocal signalling (from grassroots; allies; others) next is going to play a big determinant which is why I'm very clear about being on guard against the liberal normalisation habit. This is unusual for Biden, sustaining the momentum is key because they'd like to close out the workweek with something positive enough the gracious takes can fill up the discursive weekend talk shops.
And from the Muslim demographic pov (even if Palestine is as much a Christian issue as well), Eid preparations are starting from this weekend because it'll likely to fall on Wednesday in many places. Please imagine all the opinion leaders having their work cut out for them as the next few days will have plenty of organic meetups and face time.
posted by cendawanita at 9:39 PM on April 4 [5 favorites]
I'm inclined to agree with a very strong proviso that this is still a conditional result. The reciprocal signalling (from grassroots; allies; others) next is going to play a big determinant which is why I'm very clear about being on guard against the liberal normalisation habit. This is unusual for Biden, sustaining the momentum is key because they'd like to close out the workweek with something positive enough the gracious takes can fill up the discursive weekend talk shops.
And from the Muslim demographic pov (even if Palestine is as much a Christian issue as well), Eid preparations are starting from this weekend because it'll likely to fall on Wednesday in many places. Please imagine all the opinion leaders having their work cut out for them as the next few days will have plenty of organic meetups and face time.
posted by cendawanita at 9:39 PM on April 4 [5 favorites]
Bassem Youssef on Palestine: The West is terrified of Israel (PoliticsJOE, YouTube/Piped/Invidious, 55m9s)
posted by flabdablet at 9:48 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 9:48 PM on April 4 [4 favorites]
We all know that Palestinians have had to have limbs amputated because of Israeli munitions ... apparently some of them have also had to have limbs amputated because of how tight their zip ties were while held in Israeli captivity. (archived Haaretz article)
"Just this week, two prisoners had their legs amputated due to handcuff injuries, which unfortunately is a routine event," the physician said in the letter. He said inmates are fed through straws, defecate in diapers, and are held constant restraints, which violate medical ethics and the law.posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 3:04 AM on April 5 [8 favorites]
Also shared in the Lavender thread:
HRW: Israeli Strike Killing 106 Civilians an Apparent War Crime
Euro-Med Monitor: Killing starving Palestinians, targeting aid trucks is a deliberate Israeli policy to reinforce famine in the Gaza Strip
----
ABC (Australia): Israeli military dismisses two officers over deadly drone strikes on World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza
With pressure mounting on Israel to hold itself accountable, Rear Admiral Hagari and other officials late on Thursday local time shared with reporters the results of the military's uncommonly speedy and detailed investigation.
As well as Sky (UK): 'They are a target in his eyes': IDF releases findings of what went wrong in strike that killed aid workers
From COGAT, those details were then sent to the Israeli military's Southern Command which would be operating armed-drone surveillance flights overhead. It is at this point in the chain of command that the IDF said details of the aid convoy "stopped somewhere... we don't know where".
The result of this is that the drone pilots and military cell, which would have flown previous missions already that evening, were not fully read in to the operation they were overseeing.
(...) The IDF said in their briefing: "So we have for sure two people that were identified with guns. And now there was a question and people said, maybe this is also a gun. You know, their vest, and they're not sure, they're trying to find out whether there are more people carrying guns... at this point, there is a misclassification... They are a target in his eyes, of the operator, mistake."
It's dark, not long before midnight, and the picture is unclear. It is now accepted that what was thought to be a gun could have been "a bag or something similar. We don't know".
In another twist of fortune, the large charity branding, stuck to the roofs of the cars to identify them, couldn't be seen by the drones. "That is a lesson we all need to learn," the IDF has conceded. "The cameras were unable to identify markings - they were not visible at night. This was a key factor."
Is there anything they do know? Is this why they think AI is so helpful? Did no one heckled them enough at military briefings, when they make claims about Hamas like the Scarlet Pimpernel?
"They see Hamas here
They see Hamas there
Those Israelis do see Hamas everywhere
Is Hamas in heaven or is in hell
That damned elusive--" never mind.
Anyway. Telegraph: Israel will pay compensation to dead aid workers’ families, say sources
Whatever I think about the optics of this organisation getting all this apologizing and not MSF or UNRWA or others, this is still the energy I want to see: WCK’s statement about the IDF preliminary investigation (TL; DR more needs to be done)
Certainly more of that energy than this: (Independent) Former officials speak out against Biden’s Israel support after aid worker killings: ‘No one can change his mind’ - Pressure from the White House has stalled investigations into Israel’s potential war crimes with US weapons, former officials say
Speaking out after the killing of seven international aid workers by Israel in Gaza, among them an American citizen, one former Pentagon attorney said that any US investigations into Israel’s actions were “perfunctory” and “performative” due to pressure from the White House.
The former officials say the president’s decades-long and deeply held personal connection to Israel renders US laws and regulations concerning US arms sales essentially toothless.
“There’s no incentive to investigate if the president and the White House themselves have announced that aid is unconditional,” said Brian Finucane, who worked for a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the State Department advising on arms transfers and the laws of war.
“That means they don’t want to hear inconvenient legal conclusions,” he told The Independent.
Mr Finucane said senior administration officials he had spoken to had been met with a “shrug” by the US intelligence community when they quizzed them about mass civilian casualty incidents caused by Israeli bombing, “because it’s no one’s job in the US intelligence community, apparently, to actually investigate these things.”
“It flows directly from Oval Office, as a function of Biden's long-held views on Israel,” he added.
His assessment was corroborated by two former State Department officials and a former Pentagon attorney — all of whom worked on the issue of US arms transfers — in interviews with The Independent.
I wonder if part of the focus in the news cycle on the WCK 7 could be editorially influenced by this understanding, that Biden certainly won't care otherwise. Yes the chef guy has been making the rounds, but that's the thing, he's getting the platform, not just a slot on Democracy Now. That's my personal speculation though, don't cite it.
Because as I promised to share, (Al-Jazeera) Why Biden’s White House iftar unravelled amid Gaza war - Sources tell Al Jazeera the White House cancelled Ramadan meal after many Muslim invitees declined to attend.
A key issue with such talks, activists say, is that the administration has been handpicking whom to meet with.
A Muslim advocate close to the administration presented a list of credible Palestinian American leaders to invite for a meeting at the White House last year, but the government rejected the suggested individuals, one source told Al Jazeera.
NBC: Displeasure with Biden's handling of Hamas-Israel war was on display at closed-door White House meeting
Just five minutes into a meeting with President Joe Biden, a Palestinian American doctor who has treated gravely injured patients in Gaza couldn’t bear to stay, so he left.
Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who specializes in emergency medicine, recalled getting emotional when talking about the many Palestinians he cared for, describing the scale of death in the six months since the war began.
“The decision to leave was a personal one,” he told NBC News in a phone interview, explaining he wanted to show the White House that “it was important to recognize the pain and the mourning that my community was in.”
Ahmad stressed that he wanted “to let the administration feel the way that we felt this past six months and kind of get up and walk away from them.”
He was one of only six Muslim American community leaders who attended a small meeting on Tuesday with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and senior administration officials at the White House.
Many others who had been invited to attend declined, according to multiple sources familiar with the outreach, underscoring the deepening tensions between the administration and the Muslim and Arab American communities over the president’s support of Israel in its bombardment of Gaza.
(...) Another doctor who attended was taken aback when she showed Biden prints of photos of malnourished children and women in Gaza — to which Biden responded that he had seen those images before. The problem, the doctor said, was that she had printed the photos from her own iPhone. (Another longer report of this in this CNN piece)
In the meantime:
Civil servants request to stop work over arms sales to Israel - Civil servants have expressed concern they could be deemed complicit in war crimes in Gaza if Israel is found to have broken international law.
Officials in the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) have raised concerns with senior civil servants that they may be liable if it is deemed Israel has broken international law.
In correspondence seen by Sky News, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents civil servants, has requested an urgent meeting with the department to discuss "the legal jeopardy faced by civil servants who are continuing to work on this policy".
The letter, sent on Wednesday, said: "Given the implications for our members we believe there are ample grounds to immediately suspend all such work.
"We therefore request that you meet with us urgently to discuss this matter and cease work immediately."
It is understood members have asked their employers to stop giving them tasks related to export licences to Israel, alongside other work that may be related to Israel's war on Gaza.
The PCS confirmed to Sky News that it is considering legal action against the government.
The correspondence shows the union has been asking ministers for its legal advice on arming Israel since January, when a preliminary ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Israel's acts in Gaza could amount to genocide.
(...) Labour MP John McDonnell, a founding member of the PCS union group in parliament, said following a government's instructions is not a defence when it comes to charges of war crimes - and ministers must "come clean" with the legal advice it is receiving.
He told Sky News: "These civil servants should not be put at risk.
"The Rome Statute covering war crimes is clear that following a superior's instructions is not a defence when it comes to charges of war crimes. The government must come clean on the legal advice they have."
Basically the UK is roiling more visibly than the US for all the theatre. Other news:Former supreme court judges say UK arming Israel breaches international law - Exclusive: More than 600 prominent lawyers sign letter that calls for end to exports as a ‘measure to prevent’ genocide
The 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, was sent on Wednesday evening and says: “While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue (to take two striking examples) the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel and to maintain threats of suspending UK aid to Unwra falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.”
But I'll cap this comment with a Jacobin article as it has eyewitness reports (Israel’s Horrific Massacre at Gaza’s Largest Hospital ) and a MEMO one as it had its ground correspondent examine the evidence (MEMO inspects extensive destruction of Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital as Israeli forces withdraw - with video). This was a two-week-long massacre yet its coverage just came and went.
posted by cendawanita at 7:36 AM on April 5 [6 favorites]
HRW: Israeli Strike Killing 106 Civilians an Apparent War Crime
Euro-Med Monitor: Killing starving Palestinians, targeting aid trucks is a deliberate Israeli policy to reinforce famine in the Gaza Strip
----
ABC (Australia): Israeli military dismisses two officers over deadly drone strikes on World Central Kitchen aid workers in Gaza
With pressure mounting on Israel to hold itself accountable, Rear Admiral Hagari and other officials late on Thursday local time shared with reporters the results of the military's uncommonly speedy and detailed investigation.
As well as Sky (UK): 'They are a target in his eyes': IDF releases findings of what went wrong in strike that killed aid workers
From COGAT, those details were then sent to the Israeli military's Southern Command which would be operating armed-drone surveillance flights overhead. It is at this point in the chain of command that the IDF said details of the aid convoy "stopped somewhere... we don't know where".
The result of this is that the drone pilots and military cell, which would have flown previous missions already that evening, were not fully read in to the operation they were overseeing.
(...) The IDF said in their briefing: "So we have for sure two people that were identified with guns. And now there was a question and people said, maybe this is also a gun. You know, their vest, and they're not sure, they're trying to find out whether there are more people carrying guns... at this point, there is a misclassification... They are a target in his eyes, of the operator, mistake."
It's dark, not long before midnight, and the picture is unclear. It is now accepted that what was thought to be a gun could have been "a bag or something similar. We don't know".
In another twist of fortune, the large charity branding, stuck to the roofs of the cars to identify them, couldn't be seen by the drones. "That is a lesson we all need to learn," the IDF has conceded. "The cameras were unable to identify markings - they were not visible at night. This was a key factor."
Is there anything they do know? Is this why they think AI is so helpful? Did no one heckled them enough at military briefings, when they make claims about Hamas like the Scarlet Pimpernel?
"They see Hamas here
They see Hamas there
Those Israelis do see Hamas everywhere
Is Hamas in heaven or is in hell
That damned elusive--" never mind.
Anyway. Telegraph: Israel will pay compensation to dead aid workers’ families, say sources
Whatever I think about the optics of this organisation getting all this apologizing and not MSF or UNRWA or others, this is still the energy I want to see: WCK’s statement about the IDF preliminary investigation (TL; DR more needs to be done)
Certainly more of that energy than this: (Independent) Former officials speak out against Biden’s Israel support after aid worker killings: ‘No one can change his mind’ - Pressure from the White House has stalled investigations into Israel’s potential war crimes with US weapons, former officials say
Speaking out after the killing of seven international aid workers by Israel in Gaza, among them an American citizen, one former Pentagon attorney said that any US investigations into Israel’s actions were “perfunctory” and “performative” due to pressure from the White House.
The former officials say the president’s decades-long and deeply held personal connection to Israel renders US laws and regulations concerning US arms sales essentially toothless.
“There’s no incentive to investigate if the president and the White House themselves have announced that aid is unconditional,” said Brian Finucane, who worked for a decade in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the State Department advising on arms transfers and the laws of war.
“That means they don’t want to hear inconvenient legal conclusions,” he told The Independent.
Mr Finucane said senior administration officials he had spoken to had been met with a “shrug” by the US intelligence community when they quizzed them about mass civilian casualty incidents caused by Israeli bombing, “because it’s no one’s job in the US intelligence community, apparently, to actually investigate these things.”
“It flows directly from Oval Office, as a function of Biden's long-held views on Israel,” he added.
His assessment was corroborated by two former State Department officials and a former Pentagon attorney — all of whom worked on the issue of US arms transfers — in interviews with The Independent.
I wonder if part of the focus in the news cycle on the WCK 7 could be editorially influenced by this understanding, that Biden certainly won't care otherwise. Yes the chef guy has been making the rounds, but that's the thing, he's getting the platform, not just a slot on Democracy Now. That's my personal speculation though, don't cite it.
Because as I promised to share, (Al-Jazeera) Why Biden’s White House iftar unravelled amid Gaza war - Sources tell Al Jazeera the White House cancelled Ramadan meal after many Muslim invitees declined to attend.
A key issue with such talks, activists say, is that the administration has been handpicking whom to meet with.
A Muslim advocate close to the administration presented a list of credible Palestinian American leaders to invite for a meeting at the White House last year, but the government rejected the suggested individuals, one source told Al Jazeera.
NBC: Displeasure with Biden's handling of Hamas-Israel war was on display at closed-door White House meeting
Just five minutes into a meeting with President Joe Biden, a Palestinian American doctor who has treated gravely injured patients in Gaza couldn’t bear to stay, so he left.
Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who specializes in emergency medicine, recalled getting emotional when talking about the many Palestinians he cared for, describing the scale of death in the six months since the war began.
“The decision to leave was a personal one,” he told NBC News in a phone interview, explaining he wanted to show the White House that “it was important to recognize the pain and the mourning that my community was in.”
Ahmad stressed that he wanted “to let the administration feel the way that we felt this past six months and kind of get up and walk away from them.”
He was one of only six Muslim American community leaders who attended a small meeting on Tuesday with Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and senior administration officials at the White House.
Many others who had been invited to attend declined, according to multiple sources familiar with the outreach, underscoring the deepening tensions between the administration and the Muslim and Arab American communities over the president’s support of Israel in its bombardment of Gaza.
(...) Another doctor who attended was taken aback when she showed Biden prints of photos of malnourished children and women in Gaza — to which Biden responded that he had seen those images before. The problem, the doctor said, was that she had printed the photos from her own iPhone. (Another longer report of this in this CNN piece)
In the meantime:
Civil servants request to stop work over arms sales to Israel - Civil servants have expressed concern they could be deemed complicit in war crimes in Gaza if Israel is found to have broken international law.
Officials in the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) have raised concerns with senior civil servants that they may be liable if it is deemed Israel has broken international law.
In correspondence seen by Sky News, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents civil servants, has requested an urgent meeting with the department to discuss "the legal jeopardy faced by civil servants who are continuing to work on this policy".
The letter, sent on Wednesday, said: "Given the implications for our members we believe there are ample grounds to immediately suspend all such work.
"We therefore request that you meet with us urgently to discuss this matter and cease work immediately."
It is understood members have asked their employers to stop giving them tasks related to export licences to Israel, alongside other work that may be related to Israel's war on Gaza.
The PCS confirmed to Sky News that it is considering legal action against the government.
The correspondence shows the union has been asking ministers for its legal advice on arming Israel since January, when a preliminary ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) found Israel's acts in Gaza could amount to genocide.
(...) Labour MP John McDonnell, a founding member of the PCS union group in parliament, said following a government's instructions is not a defence when it comes to charges of war crimes - and ministers must "come clean" with the legal advice it is receiving.
He told Sky News: "These civil servants should not be put at risk.
"The Rome Statute covering war crimes is clear that following a superior's instructions is not a defence when it comes to charges of war crimes. The government must come clean on the legal advice they have."
Basically the UK is roiling more visibly than the US for all the theatre. Other news:Former supreme court judges say UK arming Israel breaches international law - Exclusive: More than 600 prominent lawyers sign letter that calls for end to exports as a ‘measure to prevent’ genocide
The 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, was sent on Wednesday evening and says: “While we welcome the increasingly robust calls by your government for a cessation of fighting and the unobstructed entry to Gaza of humanitarian assistance, simultaneously to continue (to take two striking examples) the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel and to maintain threats of suspending UK aid to Unwra falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.”
But I'll cap this comment with a Jacobin article as it has eyewitness reports (Israel’s Horrific Massacre at Gaza’s Largest Hospital ) and a MEMO one as it had its ground correspondent examine the evidence (MEMO inspects extensive destruction of Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital as Israeli forces withdraw - with video). This was a two-week-long massacre yet its coverage just came and went.
posted by cendawanita at 7:36 AM on April 5 [6 favorites]
From COGAT, those details were then sent to the Israeli military's Southern Command which would be operating armed-drone surveillance flights overhead. It is at this point in the chain of command that the IDF said details of the aid convoy "stopped somewhere... we don't know where".
The result of this is that the drone pilots and military cell, which would have flown previous missions already that evening, were not fully read in to the operation they were overseeing.
Lying liars who lie, rot in hell. If they hadn't primed their troops to commit war crimes, the troops would have known or inferred that the convoy was from an NGO. What happens is they let their people push and push and push and commit escalating crimes and tortures (which is what we've seen) on the theory that only this way will they achieve the absolute maximum allowable violence. You encourage your guys to go kill-crazy and then wash your hands.
posted by Frowner at 7:52 AM on April 5 [10 favorites]
The result of this is that the drone pilots and military cell, which would have flown previous missions already that evening, were not fully read in to the operation they were overseeing.
Lying liars who lie, rot in hell. If they hadn't primed their troops to commit war crimes, the troops would have known or inferred that the convoy was from an NGO. What happens is they let their people push and push and push and commit escalating crimes and tortures (which is what we've seen) on the theory that only this way will they achieve the absolute maximum allowable violence. You encourage your guys to go kill-crazy and then wash your hands.
posted by Frowner at 7:52 AM on April 5 [10 favorites]
An anonymous friend of mine was involved in an action on Thursday at a military company in Sunnyvale, California. From one article:
Ari pointed out that Lockheed Martin supplies Israel with F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, Hellfire missiles and other weaponry used in the conflict.
"We thought to ourselves: 'not in our backyard,'" Ari said. "Lockheed Martin has an office right here in the Bay Area. How can we act like nothing is happening and then just let business as usual?"
My friend said the action was hardest on the people who were locked together using concrete and steel sleeves. These things are super heavy and the people who linked arms using these sleeves were there for 5 to 6 hours total. I admire my friend for participating. They acknowledged that the action was largely symbolic but I think visible resistance by American residents is important.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:57 PM on April 5 [8 favorites]
Ari pointed out that Lockheed Martin supplies Israel with F-16 and F-35 fighter jets, Hellfire missiles and other weaponry used in the conflict.
"We thought to ourselves: 'not in our backyard,'" Ari said. "Lockheed Martin has an office right here in the Bay Area. How can we act like nothing is happening and then just let business as usual?"
My friend said the action was hardest on the people who were locked together using concrete and steel sleeves. These things are super heavy and the people who linked arms using these sleeves were there for 5 to 6 hours total. I admire my friend for participating. They acknowledged that the action was largely symbolic but I think visible resistance by American residents is important.
posted by Bella Donna at 12:57 PM on April 5 [8 favorites]
Absolutely depressing that we’ve rushed all these advanced weapons to Israel to kill Palestinian civilians, but Ukraine who is fighting the Russian military has to wait for hand me down F-16s and mostly old stuff from the 1980s.
posted by interogative mood at 1:26 PM on April 5 [10 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 1:26 PM on April 5 [10 favorites]
Called my Senator's office this morning, Senator Alex Padilla of California.
Hi, I wanted to know what is Senator Padilla's response to the death of the World Central Kitchen aid workers this week, and over 200 other aid workers in Gaza.
I don't have any information I can share with you about that issue.
. . . uh, oh . . . okay. Well then has he joined the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza?
We don't have any information about this that we can share.
Does my Senator have no perspective you can share on a genocide that our government is funding and arming?
We don't have any information that I can share with you.
Is there anyone in the office who I can speak with who can literally just tell me where he stands on this issue?
They will just tell you the same thing -- we don't have any statement or position on this.
posted by kensington314 at 3:00 PM on April 5 [7 favorites]
Hi, I wanted to know what is Senator Padilla's response to the death of the World Central Kitchen aid workers this week, and over 200 other aid workers in Gaza.
I don't have any information I can share with you about that issue.
. . . uh, oh . . . okay. Well then has he joined the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza?
We don't have any information about this that we can share.
Does my Senator have no perspective you can share on a genocide that our government is funding and arming?
We don't have any information that I can share with you.
Is there anyone in the office who I can speak with who can literally just tell me where he stands on this issue?
They will just tell you the same thing -- we don't have any statement or position on this.
posted by kensington314 at 3:00 PM on April 5 [7 favorites]
Leon Panetta (former CIA director and also Obama's SecDef) on CNN tonight (clip on Twitter)
“You have to be able to verify, to take time…and I have to tell you that in the past, at least in my experience, the Israelis usually fire and then ask questions.”A trenchant comment on bluesky about the clip:
Leon Panetta on CNN saying "In my experience, the Israelis usually fire and then ask questions." It's like a dam broke and everybody who's known about the shit Israel's been doing for decades but wouldn't say anything is coming out of the woodworkposted by adrienneleigh at 6:46 PM on April 5 [5 favorites]
Holy shit. 40 democrats including fucking Nancy Pelosi have signed a letter urging Biden to pause weapons transfers to Israel. (Ha'aretz; archive)
"In light of this incident, we strongly urge you to reconsider your recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the airstrike is completed."
This is probably why Israel is bending over backward to fire people and apologize.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:04 PM on April 5 [8 favorites]
"In light of this incident, we strongly urge you to reconsider your recent decision to authorize the transfer of a new arms package to Israel and to withhold this and any future offensive arms transfers until a full investigation into the airstrike is completed."
This is probably why Israel is bending over backward to fire people and apologize.
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:04 PM on April 5 [8 favorites]
Holy shit. 40 democrats including fucking Nancy Pelosi have signed a letter urging Biden to pause weapons transfers to Israel.
Wow, Putin got to her too! Truly, the Russian disinformation is everywhere.
I will never forget the way she has behaved for the past six months or her profound moral cowardice.
posted by lizard2590 at 7:09 PM on April 5 [6 favorites]
Wow, Putin got to her too! Truly, the Russian disinformation is everywhere.
I will never forget the way she has behaved for the past six months or her profound moral cowardice.
posted by lizard2590 at 7:09 PM on April 5 [6 favorites]
It really does feel like it proves the adage about change happening slowly and then all at once. Earlier, just after the WCK 7 I could see the ground shifting at the talk shops, when I saw Elise Jordan and then Richard Haas speaking out on MSNBC. This is pre- the call that's now left Israeli discourse space in meltdown. UK press watchers also noted that suddenly you'd see more, "well, do you have any evidence?" in their interviews as well.
Otherwise, the various efforts from and in the Global South would still have noses thumbed at imo. Especially on the ICJ front, Nicaragua v Germany will have their submissions this Monday - this is where Nicaragua is taking Germany to court for the crime of complicity AND despite all the announcement from Ireland making the news, it's Colombia who's officially filed an application to present an intervention in South Africa v Israel. Meanwhile, not being the WCK I sincerely wish them every safety, as the Freedom Flotilla has officially announced their date to set out in mid-April.
With the ground shifting this much from their primary backers (even Germany now it's roiling even as they have to defend themselves) it's really hard to project what next. Will it be a Berlin Wall or a Tiannamen Square?
posted by cendawanita at 7:25 PM on April 5 [5 favorites]
Otherwise, the various efforts from and in the Global South would still have noses thumbed at imo. Especially on the ICJ front, Nicaragua v Germany will have their submissions this Monday - this is where Nicaragua is taking Germany to court for the crime of complicity AND despite all the announcement from Ireland making the news, it's Colombia who's officially filed an application to present an intervention in South Africa v Israel. Meanwhile, not being the WCK I sincerely wish them every safety, as the Freedom Flotilla has officially announced their date to set out in mid-April.
With the ground shifting this much from their primary backers (even Germany now it's roiling even as they have to defend themselves) it's really hard to project what next. Will it be a Berlin Wall or a Tiannamen Square?
posted by cendawanita at 7:25 PM on April 5 [5 favorites]
“It's Meant To Grind You Down: Authoritarianism Feeds Off Despair,” Jared Yates Sexton, Dispatches from a Collapsing State, 04 April 2024
posted by ob1quixote at 7:30 PM on April 5 [4 favorites]
posted by ob1quixote at 7:30 PM on April 5 [4 favorites]
Holy shit. 40 democrats including fucking Nancy Pelosi have signed a letter urging Biden to pause weapons transfers to Israel.
Now we know the value of seven European lives, in all this.
(This is not to disparage or lessen the tragic loss of the aid workers, of course aid workers are saints, and the dead among them martyrs.)
posted by kensington314 at 2:07 AM on April 6 [8 favorites]
Now we know the value of seven European lives, in all this.
(This is not to disparage or lessen the tragic loss of the aid workers, of course aid workers are saints, and the dead among them martyrs.)
posted by kensington314 at 2:07 AM on April 6 [8 favorites]
Now we know the value of seven European lives, in all this.
Yep, similar to how everyone gets excited when a blonde white girl gets abducted. It's an old pattern, like how the assault and killing of the nuns in El Salvador in 1980 got more attention than the actual genocide that was going on there at the time.
It kind of makes sense, in that people correctly see the killing of aid workers as undeniable proof that a regime is off the rails and acting as if there are no limits. While there are convoluted ways people can justify or ignore killings of civilians (like, claiming they are all actively supporting Hamas, say, thereby minimizing the difference between civilians and military targets), there just isn't any moral or functional argument that can be made in favor of killing neutral aid workers. It's an event that stands out for the clarity of the wrongness.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:16 AM on April 6 [2 favorites]
Yep, similar to how everyone gets excited when a blonde white girl gets abducted. It's an old pattern, like how the assault and killing of the nuns in El Salvador in 1980 got more attention than the actual genocide that was going on there at the time.
It kind of makes sense, in that people correctly see the killing of aid workers as undeniable proof that a regime is off the rails and acting as if there are no limits. While there are convoluted ways people can justify or ignore killings of civilians (like, claiming they are all actively supporting Hamas, say, thereby minimizing the difference between civilians and military targets), there just isn't any moral or functional argument that can be made in favor of killing neutral aid workers. It's an event that stands out for the clarity of the wrongness.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:16 AM on April 6 [2 favorites]
Not directly related to what's happening in Gaza but I was cheered by the news that one of the Hadid siblings (sister of Bella and Gigi) just launched an Arab and Palestine-focused film production company called Watermelon Pictures and the first film will be a documentary about a Palestinian-managed hotel opposite the West Bank wall.
The little promo film they made for it is also really great and was kind of cathartic to watch.
The last six months have been so heavy and so painful but as someone who's been doing Palestine organizing for a good few years and has (Jewish!) friends who were posted on that horrific Canary Mission website for saying the most milquetoast pro-Palestine things--it's been personally satisfying to at least see the unsayable become sayable and Palestinian voices actually start to exist in Western media.
It's also woken a lot of people who didn't care before to anti-imperialist organizing and global solidarity movements generally. I'm also an anti-Hindutva/Hindu nationalism organizer and that movement has been able to do a lot of base-building with anti-Zionist organizers.
posted by lizard2590 at 8:22 AM on April 6 [6 favorites]
The little promo film they made for it is also really great and was kind of cathartic to watch.
The last six months have been so heavy and so painful but as someone who's been doing Palestine organizing for a good few years and has (Jewish!) friends who were posted on that horrific Canary Mission website for saying the most milquetoast pro-Palestine things--it's been personally satisfying to at least see the unsayable become sayable and Palestinian voices actually start to exist in Western media.
It's also woken a lot of people who didn't care before to anti-imperialist organizing and global solidarity movements generally. I'm also an anti-Hindutva/Hindu nationalism organizer and that movement has been able to do a lot of base-building with anti-Zionist organizers.
posted by lizard2590 at 8:22 AM on April 6 [6 favorites]
It kind of makes sense, in that people correctly see the killing of aid workers as undeniable proof that a regime is off the rails and acting as if there are no limits.
The "establishment" didn't find it in their hearts to think such things until the WCK 7 because including them 196 aid workers have been killed in Gaza.
There's something to this tweet by Tom Gara: You have to understand, in war there are simply lines you cannot cross. Israel has a right to defend itself but we're talking about killing people who worked for the man who literally introduced the refined but authentic Spanish style tapas restaurant concept to DC (he was commenting on an excerpt in FT which I haven't sourced: "The latest incident has also affected Joe Biden in a way earlier ones did not. Put simply, Andrés is a Washington celebrity. He was one of the pioneers of high-quality restaurants in an early 1990s Washington that had a well-deserved reputation for dowdy food. Andrés's Jaleo introduced Spanish-style tapas food to America's capital. In 2016, his restaurant, Minibar, was one of Washington's first batch to merit a two-star Michelin award. Among others, Nancy Pelosi, the former US Speaker, has nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.")
Btw, not in Gaza, and in one of the final days of Ramadan, the IDF dropped tear gas into the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This isn't unusual btw. But maybe if we can just get someone from DC choking from the gas in realtime we might see some traction.
posted by cendawanita at 9:07 AM on April 6 [12 favorites]
The "establishment" didn't find it in their hearts to think such things until the WCK 7 because including them 196 aid workers have been killed in Gaza.
There's something to this tweet by Tom Gara: You have to understand, in war there are simply lines you cannot cross. Israel has a right to defend itself but we're talking about killing people who worked for the man who literally introduced the refined but authentic Spanish style tapas restaurant concept to DC (he was commenting on an excerpt in FT which I haven't sourced: "The latest incident has also affected Joe Biden in a way earlier ones did not. Put simply, Andrés is a Washington celebrity. He was one of the pioneers of high-quality restaurants in an early 1990s Washington that had a well-deserved reputation for dowdy food. Andrés's Jaleo introduced Spanish-style tapas food to America's capital. In 2016, his restaurant, Minibar, was one of Washington's first batch to merit a two-star Michelin award. Among others, Nancy Pelosi, the former US Speaker, has nominated him for a Nobel Peace Prize.")
Btw, not in Gaza, and in one of the final days of Ramadan, the IDF dropped tear gas into the Al-Aqsa Mosque. This isn't unusual btw. But maybe if we can just get someone from DC choking from the gas in realtime we might see some traction.
posted by cendawanita at 9:07 AM on April 6 [12 favorites]
The "establishment" didn't find it in their hearts to think such things until the WCK 7 because including them 196 aid workers have been killed in Gaza.
That is a really good point, thank you for highlighting that. It's unfortunate that always, every time, the lives that matter are western aid workers, never local. It's not a phenomenon that is limited to Gaza, but like with many things that inequality is extra visible there. It's like how local journalists being killed gets a muted "gee, that's too bad" reaction but a western camera crew getting killed gets a lot more attention.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:36 AM on April 6 [3 favorites]
That is a really good point, thank you for highlighting that. It's unfortunate that always, every time, the lives that matter are western aid workers, never local. It's not a phenomenon that is limited to Gaza, but like with many things that inequality is extra visible there. It's like how local journalists being killed gets a muted "gee, that's too bad" reaction but a western camera crew getting killed gets a lot more attention.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:36 AM on April 6 [3 favorites]
Newsy stuff:
Variety: Joaquin Phoenix, Elliott Gould, Chloe Fineman and More Jewish Creatives Support Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars Speech in Open Letter (EXCLUSIVE) - Boots Riley, Debra Winger, Joel Coen, Todd Haynes and Lenny Abrahamson are also on the list of signees
Unexpected (or not) escalation on who exactly is Hamas rhetoric: (Antiwar, reporting on a Brussels press conference) Blinken: Israel Becoming ‘Indistinguishable’ From Hamas
Reportage from Twitter, Akbar Shahid Ahmed: Second time in ~36 hours that we’ve seen an attempt by sources close to the Israeli government to refocus the global conversation to the prospect of Israeli-Arab deals — and be quickly shot down. (screenshot of an Aviva Klompas tweet about ambassador Ron Dermer's to-do in his DC visit to include the normalisation deal with KSA, to be replied by journalist Nadia Bilbassy, "sources close to the @SaudiEmbassyUSA confirmed to me that this is false and has no truth. Feel free to quote me.")
Regarding that visit, NBC: Top Israeli official Ron Dermer began yelling during a meeting with U.S. officials about Gaza, officials say - The meeting grew tense after the Americans questioned an Israeli plan to evacuate more than 1 million Palestinian civilians from Rafah and house them in tents.
Though, writing for Time this time, as far as Mairav Zonsvein is concerned: The U.S.-Israel Spat Over Rafah Is a Distraction: Spotlighting Rafah also serves one more purpose. Intentionally or not, keeping international attention fixed on southern Gaza draws attention away from the catastrophic situation unfolding in northern Gaza, where Palestinians face mass starvation, and where breakdowns in order display the failings (or features) of Israel’s war strategy. Israeli leaders insist that they cannot win the war without defeating what remains of Hamas in Rafah. But doing so will still leave many thousands of Hamas fighters intact, and the aftermath could look a lot like what is already happening in northern Gaza, just worse. That’s because the main challenge Israel faces is not just taking apart Hamas’s military capacities but also (and primarily) its governance—and figuring out what to replace it with.
Elsewhere and significant: (Al-Jazeera) UN rights body demands Israel be held accountable for possible ‘war crimes’ - UN Human Rights Council also backs call to halt all arms sales to Israel, highlighting warnings of ‘genocide’ in Gaza: Friday’s vote marked the first time that the UN’s top rights body has taken a position on the nearly six-month war, highlighting warnings of “genocide” in the conflict that has killed more than 33,000 people.
(Guardian) How Spain and Ireland became the EU’s sharpest critics of Israel - Each time Madrid and Dublin speak out on the war in Gaza others are emboldened to join them, sources say: Some European diplomats feel history will not look kindly on the EU’s inclination to look the other way on Israel and Gaza when the bloc was all too prepared to call out Russia’s actions in Ukraine. One senior diplomatic source told the Guardian that Spain and Ireland’s strong positions on Palestine were beginning to pay off, adding that each time Madrid and Dublin spoke out, the loneliness of their stance faded and others were emboldened to join them.
BBC: McDonald's to buy back Israeli restaurants after boycotts - I'm still on the wait and see with this one. Supposedly the reason why the McDonald's in Russia could have a quick pull out was that it wasn't fully owned by a franchisee? (But that doesn't sound right in my recollection...) And the main reason for the organic BDS on them was due to McDonald's Israel feeding the troops. But if there's no change there post-buyout, well good luck selling this decision in the depressed markets whose local franchisees have been trying to allay concerns that their dues go to HQ and doesn't effect Israel's at all.
BBC: Israel's military says body of hostage Elad Katzir recovered from Gaza in night raid (all that kill zones, and for what?)
Haaretz (ungated): Amira Haas - Daily Polls Show That Israelis Continue to Choose This War, Even if They Don't Want Netanyahu - Despite the mass protests calling for a hostage deal and new elections, Israelis still, seemingly without opposition, support the war in Gaza even if it means the sending their children to kill or be killed
TikTok photos posted by soldiers – indicating the unwillingness or inability of the IDF to halt the flow of selfies from Gaza – show a smug bestiality devoid of any inhibitions of soldiers and constitute one kind of poll. Parents who don't express shock or concern that their children, with their own smartphones, are providing the International Criminal Court with incriminating evidence against themselves, are also poll responders who embrace Netanyahu and his military policy, even if they aren't asked about it and even if they don't vote for him.
On that, a sample in a thread by Younis Tirawi (threadreader): 🧵 Israeli soldiers on social media in Gaza |
“We didn’t have condoms to bring you. But f*ck them up!!!”
Israeli soldier writes on the logistical packages sent to his fellow soldiers. In another post calling for nuking Gaza. “This is how I feel I want to see Gaza 😡” (1/X)
As well as: (Haaretz ungated) 'Fire on Your Walls of Gaza': How Israel's Army Uses Revenge Poetry to Boost Morale - An anthology published by the IDF includes poems which express a desire for vengeance and paint the combat in Gaza as a religious war
(Yanyway: (Independent) Bernie Sanders says Israel is ‘becoming a religious fundamentalist country’)
Oh and also: (Haaretz ungated) 'We're Not Only Here to Fuck Hamas': How Israeli Militarism Took Over Online Dating - Why are Israeli soldiers uploading photos of themselves inside Gazan homes or with Palestinian detainees to their dating profiles? Beyond the 'uniform effect' which turned U.S. firefighters into heroes after September 11, some experts say the violent militarism seen on dating apps is leading to disturbing trends in Israeli society – online and off
Israeli dating app users aged 22-40 that we have interviewed say that army uniforms and weapons are a hot accessory on dating profiles, and many bios make a direct reference to the ongoing war. "I feel that girls are throwing themselves at me since I started my reserve duty," says Shai, a 25-year-old reservist from the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. "After I uploaded photos of myself in uniform, girls seemed more attracted and interested in me. It also gave us a topic of conversation – it builds a lot of tension. I feel that a photo in my uniform is like standing next to a Ferrari. It's a status symbol."
posted by cendawanita at 10:06 AM on April 6 [9 favorites]
Variety: Joaquin Phoenix, Elliott Gould, Chloe Fineman and More Jewish Creatives Support Jonathan Glazer’s Oscars Speech in Open Letter (EXCLUSIVE) - Boots Riley, Debra Winger, Joel Coen, Todd Haynes and Lenny Abrahamson are also on the list of signees
Unexpected (or not) escalation on who exactly is Hamas rhetoric: (Antiwar, reporting on a Brussels press conference) Blinken: Israel Becoming ‘Indistinguishable’ From Hamas
Reportage from Twitter, Akbar Shahid Ahmed: Second time in ~36 hours that we’ve seen an attempt by sources close to the Israeli government to refocus the global conversation to the prospect of Israeli-Arab deals — and be quickly shot down. (screenshot of an Aviva Klompas tweet about ambassador Ron Dermer's to-do in his DC visit to include the normalisation deal with KSA, to be replied by journalist Nadia Bilbassy, "sources close to the @SaudiEmbassyUSA confirmed to me that this is false and has no truth. Feel free to quote me.")
Regarding that visit, NBC: Top Israeli official Ron Dermer began yelling during a meeting with U.S. officials about Gaza, officials say - The meeting grew tense after the Americans questioned an Israeli plan to evacuate more than 1 million Palestinian civilians from Rafah and house them in tents.
Though, writing for Time this time, as far as Mairav Zonsvein is concerned: The U.S.-Israel Spat Over Rafah Is a Distraction: Spotlighting Rafah also serves one more purpose. Intentionally or not, keeping international attention fixed on southern Gaza draws attention away from the catastrophic situation unfolding in northern Gaza, where Palestinians face mass starvation, and where breakdowns in order display the failings (or features) of Israel’s war strategy. Israeli leaders insist that they cannot win the war without defeating what remains of Hamas in Rafah. But doing so will still leave many thousands of Hamas fighters intact, and the aftermath could look a lot like what is already happening in northern Gaza, just worse. That’s because the main challenge Israel faces is not just taking apart Hamas’s military capacities but also (and primarily) its governance—and figuring out what to replace it with.
Elsewhere and significant: (Al-Jazeera) UN rights body demands Israel be held accountable for possible ‘war crimes’ - UN Human Rights Council also backs call to halt all arms sales to Israel, highlighting warnings of ‘genocide’ in Gaza: Friday’s vote marked the first time that the UN’s top rights body has taken a position on the nearly six-month war, highlighting warnings of “genocide” in the conflict that has killed more than 33,000 people.
(Guardian) How Spain and Ireland became the EU’s sharpest critics of Israel - Each time Madrid and Dublin speak out on the war in Gaza others are emboldened to join them, sources say: Some European diplomats feel history will not look kindly on the EU’s inclination to look the other way on Israel and Gaza when the bloc was all too prepared to call out Russia’s actions in Ukraine. One senior diplomatic source told the Guardian that Spain and Ireland’s strong positions on Palestine were beginning to pay off, adding that each time Madrid and Dublin spoke out, the loneliness of their stance faded and others were emboldened to join them.
BBC: McDonald's to buy back Israeli restaurants after boycotts - I'm still on the wait and see with this one. Supposedly the reason why the McDonald's in Russia could have a quick pull out was that it wasn't fully owned by a franchisee? (But that doesn't sound right in my recollection...) And the main reason for the organic BDS on them was due to McDonald's Israel feeding the troops. But if there's no change there post-buyout, well good luck selling this decision in the depressed markets whose local franchisees have been trying to allay concerns that their dues go to HQ and doesn't effect Israel's at all.
BBC: Israel's military says body of hostage Elad Katzir recovered from Gaza in night raid (all that kill zones, and for what?)
Haaretz (ungated): Amira Haas - Daily Polls Show That Israelis Continue to Choose This War, Even if They Don't Want Netanyahu - Despite the mass protests calling for a hostage deal and new elections, Israelis still, seemingly without opposition, support the war in Gaza even if it means the sending their children to kill or be killed
TikTok photos posted by soldiers – indicating the unwillingness or inability of the IDF to halt the flow of selfies from Gaza – show a smug bestiality devoid of any inhibitions of soldiers and constitute one kind of poll. Parents who don't express shock or concern that their children, with their own smartphones, are providing the International Criminal Court with incriminating evidence against themselves, are also poll responders who embrace Netanyahu and his military policy, even if they aren't asked about it and even if they don't vote for him.
On that, a sample in a thread by Younis Tirawi (threadreader): 🧵 Israeli soldiers on social media in Gaza |
“We didn’t have condoms to bring you. But f*ck them up!!!”
Israeli soldier writes on the logistical packages sent to his fellow soldiers. In another post calling for nuking Gaza. “This is how I feel I want to see Gaza 😡” (1/X)
As well as: (Haaretz ungated) 'Fire on Your Walls of Gaza': How Israel's Army Uses Revenge Poetry to Boost Morale - An anthology published by the IDF includes poems which express a desire for vengeance and paint the combat in Gaza as a religious war
(Yanyway: (Independent) Bernie Sanders says Israel is ‘becoming a religious fundamentalist country’)
Oh and also: (Haaretz ungated) 'We're Not Only Here to Fuck Hamas': How Israeli Militarism Took Over Online Dating - Why are Israeli soldiers uploading photos of themselves inside Gazan homes or with Palestinian detainees to their dating profiles? Beyond the 'uniform effect' which turned U.S. firefighters into heroes after September 11, some experts say the violent militarism seen on dating apps is leading to disturbing trends in Israeli society – online and off
Israeli dating app users aged 22-40 that we have interviewed say that army uniforms and weapons are a hot accessory on dating profiles, and many bios make a direct reference to the ongoing war. "I feel that girls are throwing themselves at me since I started my reserve duty," says Shai, a 25-year-old reservist from the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan. "After I uploaded photos of myself in uniform, girls seemed more attracted and interested in me. It also gave us a topic of conversation – it builds a lot of tension. I feel that a photo in my uniform is like standing next to a Ferrari. It's a status symbol."
posted by cendawanita at 10:06 AM on April 6 [9 favorites]
I'm getting whiplash from the tone in the news these days:
NBC: Class destroyed: The Rise and Ruin of Gaza's Revered Universities (special report; multimedia presentation; no passive language in terms of who did it)
Video of the Israel Defense Forces' demolition of Israa’s main building appeared online on Jan. 17. The IDF initially said that the building had been “used by Hamas for military activity” and that there were concerns the group might use it to attack Israeli forces.
Later, the IDF said there had been “flaws in the operational process, including in the decision to destroy the entire building,” noting that the commander who ordered the demolition was formally censured and that an investigation was ongoing. The IDF did not respond to a subsequent request for further information.
Israa and IUG were not alone — universities across Gaza have been leveled.
BBC: Gaza evacuation warnings from IDF contain many errors, BBC finds
Warnings contained contradictory information and sometimes misnamed districts. This made them confusing to Gazans seeking safety.
Experts say such mistakes could violate Israel's international law obligations.
Also BBC: Where does Israel get its weapons?
Israel is a major weapons exporter, but its military has been heavily reliant on imported aircraft, guided bombs and missiles to conduct what experts have described as one of the most intense and destructive aerial campaigns in recent history. (no surprise #1 is the US then followed by Germany)
Speaking of the exports side, ...yay Southeast Asia represent... Haaretz: At Singapore Airshow, the Gaza War Was a Selling Point for Israeli Arms Makers (ungated) - a definite read because it's sympathetic so you get all sorts of details big and small.
FT: US plans to label goods from Jewish settlements in occupied West Bank
The move would reverse a policy introduced by the Donald Trump administration in 2020 that required goods produced in the West Bank to be labelled as “Made in Israel”.
The Biden administration was close to announcing the step last month, after Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, announced the largest West Bank land seizure in decades. Smotrich’s announcement came during a visit to Israel by US secretary of state Antony Blinken, infuriating the administration.
Two days later the US abstained from a ceasefire resolution at the UN, allowing it to pass, and officials did not want to unveil the labelling requirement at the same time.
The US Department of State declined to comment.
posted by cendawanita at 10:34 AM on April 6 [8 favorites]
NBC: Class destroyed: The Rise and Ruin of Gaza's Revered Universities (special report; multimedia presentation; no passive language in terms of who did it)
Video of the Israel Defense Forces' demolition of Israa’s main building appeared online on Jan. 17. The IDF initially said that the building had been “used by Hamas for military activity” and that there were concerns the group might use it to attack Israeli forces.
Later, the IDF said there had been “flaws in the operational process, including in the decision to destroy the entire building,” noting that the commander who ordered the demolition was formally censured and that an investigation was ongoing. The IDF did not respond to a subsequent request for further information.
Israa and IUG were not alone — universities across Gaza have been leveled.
BBC: Gaza evacuation warnings from IDF contain many errors, BBC finds
Warnings contained contradictory information and sometimes misnamed districts. This made them confusing to Gazans seeking safety.
Experts say such mistakes could violate Israel's international law obligations.
Also BBC: Where does Israel get its weapons?
Israel is a major weapons exporter, but its military has been heavily reliant on imported aircraft, guided bombs and missiles to conduct what experts have described as one of the most intense and destructive aerial campaigns in recent history. (no surprise #1 is the US then followed by Germany)
Speaking of the exports side, ...yay Southeast Asia represent... Haaretz: At Singapore Airshow, the Gaza War Was a Selling Point for Israeli Arms Makers (ungated) - a definite read because it's sympathetic so you get all sorts of details big and small.
FT: US plans to label goods from Jewish settlements in occupied West Bank
The move would reverse a policy introduced by the Donald Trump administration in 2020 that required goods produced in the West Bank to be labelled as “Made in Israel”.
The Biden administration was close to announcing the step last month, after Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, announced the largest West Bank land seizure in decades. Smotrich’s announcement came during a visit to Israel by US secretary of state Antony Blinken, infuriating the administration.
Two days later the US abstained from a ceasefire resolution at the UN, allowing it to pass, and officials did not want to unveil the labelling requirement at the same time.
The US Department of State declined to comment.
posted by cendawanita at 10:34 AM on April 6 [8 favorites]
some experts say the violent militarism seen on dating apps is leading to disturbing trends in Israeli society – online and off
I'd say the violent militarism is the inevitable result of disturbing trends in Israeli society that have been present for decades.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:48 PM on April 6 [12 favorites]
I'd say the violent militarism is the inevitable result of disturbing trends in Israeli society that have been present for decades.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 12:48 PM on April 6 [12 favorites]
The headline of this article in CNN seems pretty spot-on to me: Six months into the war in Gaza, Israel has no exit strategy and no real plan for the future
Their plan was unworkable from day one, as we all discussed in the very earliest threads here about this, and it hasn't become any more workable since then. The analysis in that article is totally mainstream and won't have anything surprising to anyone who has been paying attention. What is noteworthy to me is how pessimistic the mainstream analyses are becoming, in this article and others I'm reading.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:28 PM on April 6 [6 favorites]
Their plan was unworkable from day one, as we all discussed in the very earliest threads here about this, and it hasn't become any more workable since then. The analysis in that article is totally mainstream and won't have anything surprising to anyone who has been paying attention. What is noteworthy to me is how pessimistic the mainstream analyses are becoming, in this article and others I'm reading.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:28 PM on April 6 [6 favorites]
Public mood in the United States, especially among Democrats and independents has been shifting for months due to the tireless efforts of activists. Disappointing to see their efforts ignored by some here and substituted with a myth that only the martyrdom of white westerners made the difference and that change was effortless and instantaneous,
posted by interogative mood at 9:44 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]
posted by interogative mood at 9:44 PM on April 6 [2 favorites]
Depends on how what's being perceived here, that metaphorical finger on the scale. Six months of just outright sieging with modern weaponry and technology is a long time. Governments can and do respond to matters with clear public demonstrations in a shorter timescale for less grave matters. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is an unfortunately close enough comparison in terms of political action and required barely any exhibition of public constituency beyond the usual. All credit to the activism that has taken place, certainly without it this moment could not arrive the way it did, but what that moment is to me, seems to be not the same thing being talked about in this conversation. My general understanding of political change is that takes two to tango - what happens on the ground needs to be met by what happens in the halls (of power). Friction and conflict of principles occurs when one side doesn't reciprocate and respond to actions of the other. This even includes responses that seems to answer the other side but is actually unilateral and on their own terms. What is the consequent and emergent result can still look like of a piece but not necessarily so. For example, crowd sourced resources such as GFMs to pay off transaction costs of leaving Gaza aka bribes at the Egyptian border is adapting to the fact that people can technically leave (this the governments can take credit) but certainly not at a meaningful and less corrupt ways. On the other hand the Guernica editor-in-chief's resignation WAS in response to the activism in that sector of the literary publishing world.
What change seemed instantaneous? Let's pick a few for quick takes (because it's absolutely not general and the same level of force). It's not the same as the change that met its moment imo.
For example, news coverage in the west. Just yesterday, suddenly Sky UK can run this kind of headline, "BREAKING: 33,137 Palestinians killed since 7 October, says Gaza Health Ministry". What happened to "died"? What happened to "Hamas-run"? Sure you can say it's activism and certainly that made people conscious of the language but editorially that was not signaled. No apologies, no statements of change moving forward. Just a quiet switch following the rhythm of the western elites now being proper upset. Just a co-optation of activist talking points without actually giving anyone credit. What IS being said and emphasised and repeated is the tragedy of the WCK 7. Meanwhile the dead of al-Shifa is barely being talked about even as WHO can finally access the site and they are seeing dead bodies abound. Now what kind of signalling do you need?
And yes, it does seem like that sentiments are changing among the Democrat base. But remember what I said about reciprocity? That finger on the scale in the current political landscape - which side is that metaphor standing for? It's been of six months of activism - that's crazy - and I'm still reading news like this: Hawkish Democrat Quietly Seeking To Extend U.S. Ban On U.N. Aid To Palestinians - Rep. Josh Gottheimer is urging fellow lawmakers to back calls to defund UNRWA as Palestinian suffering deepens and other nations restore support for the agency. That's dated 4 April. That's crazier. That was the norm though (in fact still is).
Just before that, Matt Miller can imply that UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is antisemitic for her report on the conditions in Gaza right now being pretty much genocide. How much more activism do you need, when even the UN is being invalidated and delegitimized? In the meantime, he's still working, he's still on that podium. He hasn't even apologized.
But yet, one tapas chef's people got killed, now suddenly it's open secret that as the belligerent occupation force Israel has had the ability to impact the quality of life in Gaza and the lack of aid and the famine currently undergoing is absolutely on their head (for all the misinformed wailing that there's been no war where one warring party is responsible for the welfare of the other), because now "suddenly", as per ToI: UN says Israel approved reopening of 20 bakeries, water pipeline in northern Gaza.
It feels sudden because it is sudden.
posted by cendawanita at 10:40 PM on April 6 [12 favorites]
What change seemed instantaneous? Let's pick a few for quick takes (because it's absolutely not general and the same level of force). It's not the same as the change that met its moment imo.
For example, news coverage in the west. Just yesterday, suddenly Sky UK can run this kind of headline, "BREAKING: 33,137 Palestinians killed since 7 October, says Gaza Health Ministry". What happened to "died"? What happened to "Hamas-run"? Sure you can say it's activism and certainly that made people conscious of the language but editorially that was not signaled. No apologies, no statements of change moving forward. Just a quiet switch following the rhythm of the western elites now being proper upset. Just a co-optation of activist talking points without actually giving anyone credit. What IS being said and emphasised and repeated is the tragedy of the WCK 7. Meanwhile the dead of al-Shifa is barely being talked about even as WHO can finally access the site and they are seeing dead bodies abound. Now what kind of signalling do you need?
And yes, it does seem like that sentiments are changing among the Democrat base. But remember what I said about reciprocity? That finger on the scale in the current political landscape - which side is that metaphor standing for? It's been of six months of activism - that's crazy - and I'm still reading news like this: Hawkish Democrat Quietly Seeking To Extend U.S. Ban On U.N. Aid To Palestinians - Rep. Josh Gottheimer is urging fellow lawmakers to back calls to defund UNRWA as Palestinian suffering deepens and other nations restore support for the agency. That's dated 4 April. That's crazier. That was the norm though (in fact still is).
Just before that, Matt Miller can imply that UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese is antisemitic for her report on the conditions in Gaza right now being pretty much genocide. How much more activism do you need, when even the UN is being invalidated and delegitimized? In the meantime, he's still working, he's still on that podium. He hasn't even apologized.
But yet, one tapas chef's people got killed, now suddenly it's open secret that as the belligerent occupation force Israel has had the ability to impact the quality of life in Gaza and the lack of aid and the famine currently undergoing is absolutely on their head (for all the misinformed wailing that there's been no war where one warring party is responsible for the welfare of the other), because now "suddenly", as per ToI: UN says Israel approved reopening of 20 bakeries, water pipeline in northern Gaza.
It feels sudden because it is sudden.
posted by cendawanita at 10:40 PM on April 6 [12 favorites]
I see Blue MAGA is still in denial that Biden is a monster whose Gaza policy has been driven in large part by his lack of ability to see them as human beings. Well, sorry folks, it's no longer a secret, especially in DC.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:18 AM on April 7 [5 favorites]
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:18 AM on April 7 [5 favorites]
Example from The Nation: What It Takes to Break Joe Biden’s Zionist Bubble
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:58 AM on April 7 [15 favorites]
On Tuesday, Joe Biden tried mend fences with Muslim Americans by inviting members of the community for a meeting, but the event was a disastrous display of the president’s disregard for Palestinian life. Biden’s first problem was that, as a result of his unwavering public support for Israel’s war in Gaza (sporadically tempered by rhetorical but ineffectual criticism), very few Muslims wanted to meet him. Most of his invitations were turned down; in the end, the event had only six attendees. One guest, Dr. Thaer Ahmad, who has recently been in Gaza providing medical aid, left after five minutes, saying he wanted to show the president “the pain and the mourning that my community was in.” Ahmad’s action was partly motivated by the fact that Biden continues to ramp up military aid to Israel. Ahmad is returning to Gaza to provide medical assistance, knowing full well he could be killed by bombs supplied by his own government—a situation he finds painful to think about.That anecdote about Dr. Ahmed's picture is just exceptionally--and worse, needlessly--cruel. Why the hell would you say that to anyone, even if it wasn't just a shitty lie to get them out of your face so you didn't have to worry about their dead families? Even worse, that was not a one-off! This is a pattern of hateful and cruel behavior towards Palestinians and Palestinian-Americans that Biden has personally shown, and that his staff (and now administration) have chosen to go along with, for decades now.
According to NBC News, another guest, Dr. Nahreen H. Ahmed, “was taken aback when she showed Biden prints of photos of malnourished children and women in Gaza—to which Biden responded that he had seen those images before. The problem, the doctor said, was that she had printed the photos from her own iPhone.” Biden was clearly making up the fiction of having seen the pictures before as a way not to have to look at them. As Ahmed rightly notes, Biden’s behavior “speaks volumes to the dismissive nature of the administration when it comes to strong-willed action towards a permanent cease-fire or, at a bare minimum, a red line on the invasion of Rafah.”
Biden’s callousness at that meeting is all the more striking because, when dealing with non-Palestinians, the president has long been famous for his empathy and fellow-feeling, especially for those distressed by death. Biden is a great humanitarian—unless the humans are Palestinians.
In holding fast to his position that there should be no red lines for Israel, Biden is shutting his ears to not just Muslim Americans but also the large majority of his own voters, and a growing body of dissent inside his own administration.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 3:58 AM on April 7 [15 favorites]
"All ground forces from the southern Gaza Strip have been withdrawn overnight." What does this mean?
posted by mittens at 5:03 AM on April 7
posted by mittens at 5:03 AM on April 7
Can't find any good reads on that yet. So far we have three developments that could explain it and they're not at all in line with each other - can't even give you a likelihood % on any of these:
- ceasefire negotiations is at a point where Hamas isn't budging from the demand of a total withdrawal and the return of Palestinians to their homes in the north
- Israel is capitulating to certain US demands and isn't proceeding with their stated Rafah plans and will be exploring a different strategy of targeted assaults + fresh engagement in the north (Khan Younis) despite earlier claims of the area being cleared - IDF fatalities reported
- wag the dog success with Iran: and they are really redeploying forces to prepare for a new regional warfront (even if this hasn't been brought up here, this is the thing that's really at the forefront of the Israeli public now because their everyday life has been made to notice this) . I'm tempted to slot the public demonstrations against Bibi and his cabinet yesterday under this point (which btw saw a Likud supporter ramming his car into protestors), even though polling still showed high support for the Gaza siege.
posted by cendawanita at 7:06 AM on April 7 [5 favorites]
- ceasefire negotiations is at a point where Hamas isn't budging from the demand of a total withdrawal and the return of Palestinians to their homes in the north
- Israel is capitulating to certain US demands and isn't proceeding with their stated Rafah plans and will be exploring a different strategy of targeted assaults + fresh engagement in the north (Khan Younis) despite earlier claims of the area being cleared - IDF fatalities reported
- wag the dog success with Iran: and they are really redeploying forces to prepare for a new regional warfront (even if this hasn't been brought up here, this is the thing that's really at the forefront of the Israeli public now because their everyday life has been made to notice this) . I'm tempted to slot the public demonstrations against Bibi and his cabinet yesterday under this point (which btw saw a Likud supporter ramming his car into protestors), even though polling still showed high support for the Gaza siege.
posted by cendawanita at 7:06 AM on April 7 [5 favorites]
For example, news coverage in the west. Just yesterday, suddenly Sky UK can run this kind of headline, ...
That shift is happening rapidly and is especially visible this week. The NY Times' latest update uses the same kind of blunt language around a stalled war with terrible civilian consequences:
Six months since it began, Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza appears to have reached an impasse that analysts and diplomats say has no resolution in sight, even as experts warn of famine, Gaza’s health system collapses and the death toll continues to climb. ...
Though Israel has routed Hamas in much of Gaza, and fighting seems to have slowed, the conflict is being drawn out by Israel’s reluctance to either hold ground it has captured or transfer its control to an alternative Palestinian leadership, creating a power vacuum.
Noteworthy here is how there isn't any quibble language about who is causing the conflict to drag on with no resolution in sight, nor any hiding of the human consequences.
I'm tempted to slot the public demonstrations against Bibi and his cabinet yesterday under this point (which btw saw a Likud supporter ramming his car into protestors), even though polling still showed high support for the Gaza siege.
My guess is that sooner or later there will be an attempt to throw Bibi under the bus in terms of responsibility for war crimes and overall strategic failures, as a way to move on without having to really confront those failures and locate responsibility more broadly.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:13 AM on April 7 [6 favorites]
That shift is happening rapidly and is especially visible this week. The NY Times' latest update uses the same kind of blunt language around a stalled war with terrible civilian consequences:
Six months since it began, Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza appears to have reached an impasse that analysts and diplomats say has no resolution in sight, even as experts warn of famine, Gaza’s health system collapses and the death toll continues to climb. ...
Though Israel has routed Hamas in much of Gaza, and fighting seems to have slowed, the conflict is being drawn out by Israel’s reluctance to either hold ground it has captured or transfer its control to an alternative Palestinian leadership, creating a power vacuum.
Noteworthy here is how there isn't any quibble language about who is causing the conflict to drag on with no resolution in sight, nor any hiding of the human consequences.
I'm tempted to slot the public demonstrations against Bibi and his cabinet yesterday under this point (which btw saw a Likud supporter ramming his car into protestors), even though polling still showed high support for the Gaza siege.
My guess is that sooner or later there will be an attempt to throw Bibi under the bus in terms of responsibility for war crimes and overall strategic failures, as a way to move on without having to really confront those failures and locate responsibility more broadly.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:13 AM on April 7 [6 favorites]
another guest, Dr. Nahreen H. Ahmed, “was taken aback when she showed Biden prints of photos of malnourished children and women in Gaza—to which Biden responded that he had seen those images before. The problem, the doctor said, was that she had printed the photos from her own iPhone.”
That will be the same kind of image-seeing he used for the beheaded babies.
posted by flabdablet at 8:20 AM on April 7 [9 favorites]
That will be the same kind of image-seeing he used for the beheaded babies.
posted by flabdablet at 8:20 AM on April 7 [9 favorites]
NYT: How Gaza Protesters Are Challenging Democratic Leaders (archived)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 11:37 AM on April 7 [3 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 11:37 AM on April 7 [3 favorites]
Speculation is largely that they've pulled forces out of Khan Younis to redeploy for the planned Rafah ground invasion. Which would be bad.
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:47 PM on April 7 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:47 PM on April 7 [2 favorites]
Yeah, can't discount that. In the meantime, I'm just coming online and while this is 6 hours ago, here's a report/comment from Taleed el-Sabawi:
Al-Jazeera Arabic is reporting that the U.S. is (finally) taking the lead on negotiations for a ceasefire. They are saying that the U.S. is indicating that they will finally pressure Israel to end the war on Gaza with a permanent ceasefire and will meet directly with Hamas leadership.
My commentary: This is interesting because the U.S. has not taken the lead in negotiations since Nov(?). if ever. If this is indeed true, then I suspect that this was driven in large part by the way Iran has played their hand in the last week. Iran refrained from retaliating against Israel, used psychological warfare to threaten retaliation but "when the time is right", sent Israel on high alert, and forced Israel to withdraw troops from Gaza in the case of a possible attack on the Israeli borders.
Note: Yes I saw that Israel is still threatening to invade Rafah, but I think this is posturing for leverage during the negotiations.
It seems that the Houthis' have committed 400,000 fighters to support Iran should a full regional war break out with Israel -- further pressuring the U.S. to deliver on its ceasefire promise. /2n
Reading all that in the context of these bits open in my tabs:
- Qatar throwing their hat into the public gossip: (JPost exclusive) Qatar to ‘Post’: We had hostage deal after Oct. 7, Israel took too long
AT THE HEART of the interviews I held in Qatar was the Gulf nation’s perceived support for Hamas as well as its efforts on behalf of the 253 people, many of them Israelis, seized as hostages in the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, many of whom are still being held in Gaza.
The officials were quick to point out that they were put in this complex position vis-a-vis Hamas at the specific request of the United States and Israel, a country with whom it has an open dialogue even though it does not have formal diplomatic relations.
When I asked a senior Qatari official about “the Israeli public perceptions that Qatar hosts Hamas in Doha and sends suitcases of cash to Gaza,” he pushed back.
These officials underscored that the humanitarian aid and financial support it has provided to the devastated coastal Israeli enclave, commonly misinterpreted, have in fact been actions taken at the request of the Israeli and US governments. This aid was targeted specifically at the poorest families in Gaza, with Qatar meticulously transferring funds to recipients listed by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
Further, the hosting of Hamas leaders in Doha, a contentious issue, was disclosed as being a strategic decision also made at the request of Washington.
According to the Qataris, this move was aimed at fostering dialogue and oversight rather than supporting the group’s ideologies and actions.
(...) “We approached Israel very soon after October 7 since we were able to agree with Hamas about the release of all civilian hostages,” a senior source close to the Qatari government revealed to the Post last week as he broke his daily Ramadan fast outside of Doha.
Israel did not respond so quickly, the source explained.
“We were only answered by Israel on October 16,” he said, stating that Israel was determined to enter Gaza to release its hostages on its own, as well as regain its deterrence.
Also: In a different conversation with a senior Qatari government official, the Post asked how they reacted once they saw the news on October 7. “We were shocked, surprised,” he said. “We spoke to Hamas immediately, and they initially said, ‘These are not our people; it went out of control.’” (in case this talking point is new for anyone following, please just note.)
- Hamas now too. (HuffPost exclusive) What Is Hamas Thinking Now? - HuffPost obtained rare interviews with Hamas leaders Mousa Abu Marzouk and Basem Naim, pressing them six months since Oct. 7 on the group's attacks on civilians and its vision for the future of Israel-Palestine.
Both Hamas leaders said their group remains committed to a 2017 political document that represented a tempering of its hard-line historic views ― a manifesto that claims Hamas has no quarrel with the Jewish people or Judaism broadly, instead opposing only aggressive actions fueled by Zionism. That suggests Hamas would accept a Palestinian state limited to territories Israel did not control before 1967, aligning it with the idea of a two-state solution.
Like the assertions of any player, particularly actual combatants, in this most sensitive of conflicts, their portrayal of the situation deserves to be taken with a large grain of salt.
Abu Marzouk’s own comments cast doubt on whether Hamas would tolerate a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel, particularly after Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed more extensive than any since the establishment of Israel in historic Palestine in 1948.
“The Israelis are creating generation after generation full of hatred, full of rage, full of a feeling of taking revenge, by killing Palestinians on a daily basis… I think that the Palestinians would not accept Israel in any case, but the Palestinians have no other option: The only option for the Palestinians is to live in this land to resist the occupation,” Abu Marzouk told HuffPost via a translator. Claiming most Israelis have dual citizenship ― an assertion that is not borne out by publicly available evidence and was rejected by an Israeli official who said the government does not have statistics on the matter ― he added: “They have a lot of options. And they can leave the land of Palestine at any time when they feel that it’s not beneficial anymore.”
Meanwhile, international opprobrium over and research on Hamas’ Oct. 7 violence is still growing.
HuffPost this week obtained new information about one major forthcoming report. Belkis Wille, an associate director at Human Rights Watch who has spent months working on an in-depth investigation of the attack, told HuffPost her organization has verified photo and video evidence of fighters with the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, “targeting and killing civilians,” citing the attackers’ uniforms and bandannas. Some attackers who were in civilian clothing were also clearly coordinating with al-Qassam fighters, she added.
Still, Western and Arab governments, along with most outside experts, believe Hamas will remain relevant to the future of Israel-Palestine regardless of how the current war concludes. Abu Marzouk and Naim clearly agree.
(...) HuffPost this week shared key Hamas statements included in this article with spokespeople at the State Department, the National Security Council at the White House and Israel’s embassy in Washington.
Only a State Department spokesperson responded, reaffirming the U.S. stance against dealing with Hamas, which it lists as a terrorist group, beyond limited indirect communications through third parties, such as Egypt and Qatar, as it makes plans for a territory where Hamas is deeply ingrained.
“We do not engage in public debates with terrorist organizations like Hamas,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “The U.S. remains committed to advancing the realization of an independent Palestinian state, standing side by side with Israel in peace and security.”
(...) Abu Marzouk told HuffPost: “We thought that America [would] allow for a partial aggression against Gaza, especially given that most of the victims are civilians.”
“We didn’t expect this brutality of America,” he said, citing an article in The Washington Post published the day before that revealed Biden greenlighted additional bombs and fighter jets for Israel. In the 1990s, the U.S. detained Abu Marzouk for more than a year over terrorism allegations; it deported him and continues to list him as a “specially designated national” under U.S. sanctions.
In Hamas’ view, they have sought negotiations and an end to fighting since soon after the attack. On Oct. 17, an unnamed senior Hamas official told NBC News that the group was willing to release all civilians ― Israelis and foreigners ― if Israel stopped bombing Gaza.
(...) In recent days, Israeli officials told reporters that they were becoming flexible on one question: letting displaced Gazans return to the northern part of the territory. On Monday, however, an Israeli source downplayed hopes of a deal in speaking with the Haaretz newspaper. On Thursday, Hamas rejected a framework approved by Israel and the intermediaries, blaming Netanyahu; separately, Biden urged Netanyahu “to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home.”
Both Hamas figures argued Netanyahu is personally unwilling to halt the war because it would mean his political collapse ― echoing an assessment that is now widely shared in global capitals. They described frustration with Biden’s continued support for his Israeli counterpart despite that position and deep distrust in the role of the U.S., which has historically attempted to be an intermediary in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
- ToI: Six months since Oct. 7, British PM Sunak says ‘terrible’ Israel-Hamas war ‘must end’
- I think Israel is losing the establishment Tories, judging from this Telegraph op-ed: What happened to Israel’s rules of engagement? - The country’s military claims to be one of the world’s most disciplined and ‘moral’ armies – so why does it keep killing innocent people?
That so many of these tragedies are being caused by drones is especially perplexing. Unlike snipers or lone soldiers, drone operators do not work in isolation and sit in a calm environment many miles away from the front line.
Further, the munitions they use are precision guided bombs, which can be swerved away from a target even as they fall.
The Telegraph interviewed two IDF drone operators in December at a base outside Tel Aviv. They said they never operate without a lawyer on an uplink, plus eyes on the ground and a senior officer in the room.
“We use small laser-guided bombs with a payload of about a hundredth of a fighter jet,” one of two pilots at the Palmachim Airbase, just south of Tel Aviv, said.
“We have two types. One can go down to the metre, meaning we could theoretically take out the driver of a vehicle, leaving the person in the back seat alive; shaken up but alive. The other has a kill radius of five to 10 metres.
“Part of our professionality is knowing which bomb to use for which mission. We can move it until the final seconds, and divert it into the sand if necessary. For every strike there must first be a designated abort area.”
(...) In cases involving its own citizens, and now foreign aid workers, the IDF conducts investigations. Where Palestinians are killed, however, it tends mainly to issue only retrospective assertions of blame, with little evidence to support them.
In the case of the four men killed in wasteland in January, for example, it simply asserted that the men were in an “active combat zone” and implied, without evidence, that one or more of them may earlier have been involved in fighting.
In the case of the journalists, it altered its story several times before alleging that the two of them had – at some point – been members of a terrorist organisation. When The Telegraph asked about apparent inconsistencies in a document produced by the IDF to show this, it declined to offer any further comment or explanation.
(On that note, the IDF has settled on a story about the WCK airstrikes, now with more Hamas - JPost: IDF dismisses two senior officers, censures 3 others in mistaken attack on aid workers)
- Guardian (Jonathan Freedland): After six months, the war in Gaza is making Israel a pariah state
- Politico: Democrats fear Netanyahu may have undermined Biden’s image among voters
posted by cendawanita at 7:27 PM on April 7 [6 favorites]
Al-Jazeera Arabic is reporting that the U.S. is (finally) taking the lead on negotiations for a ceasefire. They are saying that the U.S. is indicating that they will finally pressure Israel to end the war on Gaza with a permanent ceasefire and will meet directly with Hamas leadership.
My commentary: This is interesting because the U.S. has not taken the lead in negotiations since Nov(?). if ever. If this is indeed true, then I suspect that this was driven in large part by the way Iran has played their hand in the last week. Iran refrained from retaliating against Israel, used psychological warfare to threaten retaliation but "when the time is right", sent Israel on high alert, and forced Israel to withdraw troops from Gaza in the case of a possible attack on the Israeli borders.
Note: Yes I saw that Israel is still threatening to invade Rafah, but I think this is posturing for leverage during the negotiations.
It seems that the Houthis' have committed 400,000 fighters to support Iran should a full regional war break out with Israel -- further pressuring the U.S. to deliver on its ceasefire promise. /2n
Reading all that in the context of these bits open in my tabs:
- Qatar throwing their hat into the public gossip: (JPost exclusive) Qatar to ‘Post’: We had hostage deal after Oct. 7, Israel took too long
AT THE HEART of the interviews I held in Qatar was the Gulf nation’s perceived support for Hamas as well as its efforts on behalf of the 253 people, many of them Israelis, seized as hostages in the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, many of whom are still being held in Gaza.
The officials were quick to point out that they were put in this complex position vis-a-vis Hamas at the specific request of the United States and Israel, a country with whom it has an open dialogue even though it does not have formal diplomatic relations.
When I asked a senior Qatari official about “the Israeli public perceptions that Qatar hosts Hamas in Doha and sends suitcases of cash to Gaza,” he pushed back.
These officials underscored that the humanitarian aid and financial support it has provided to the devastated coastal Israeli enclave, commonly misinterpreted, have in fact been actions taken at the request of the Israeli and US governments. This aid was targeted specifically at the poorest families in Gaza, with Qatar meticulously transferring funds to recipients listed by the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).
Further, the hosting of Hamas leaders in Doha, a contentious issue, was disclosed as being a strategic decision also made at the request of Washington.
According to the Qataris, this move was aimed at fostering dialogue and oversight rather than supporting the group’s ideologies and actions.
(...) “We approached Israel very soon after October 7 since we were able to agree with Hamas about the release of all civilian hostages,” a senior source close to the Qatari government revealed to the Post last week as he broke his daily Ramadan fast outside of Doha.
Israel did not respond so quickly, the source explained.
“We were only answered by Israel on October 16,” he said, stating that Israel was determined to enter Gaza to release its hostages on its own, as well as regain its deterrence.
Also: In a different conversation with a senior Qatari government official, the Post asked how they reacted once they saw the news on October 7. “We were shocked, surprised,” he said. “We spoke to Hamas immediately, and they initially said, ‘These are not our people; it went out of control.’” (in case this talking point is new for anyone following, please just note.)
- Hamas now too. (HuffPost exclusive) What Is Hamas Thinking Now? - HuffPost obtained rare interviews with Hamas leaders Mousa Abu Marzouk and Basem Naim, pressing them six months since Oct. 7 on the group's attacks on civilians and its vision for the future of Israel-Palestine.
Both Hamas leaders said their group remains committed to a 2017 political document that represented a tempering of its hard-line historic views ― a manifesto that claims Hamas has no quarrel with the Jewish people or Judaism broadly, instead opposing only aggressive actions fueled by Zionism. That suggests Hamas would accept a Palestinian state limited to territories Israel did not control before 1967, aligning it with the idea of a two-state solution.
Like the assertions of any player, particularly actual combatants, in this most sensitive of conflicts, their portrayal of the situation deserves to be taken with a large grain of salt.
Abu Marzouk’s own comments cast doubt on whether Hamas would tolerate a Palestinian state coexisting with Israel, particularly after Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed more extensive than any since the establishment of Israel in historic Palestine in 1948.
“The Israelis are creating generation after generation full of hatred, full of rage, full of a feeling of taking revenge, by killing Palestinians on a daily basis… I think that the Palestinians would not accept Israel in any case, but the Palestinians have no other option: The only option for the Palestinians is to live in this land to resist the occupation,” Abu Marzouk told HuffPost via a translator. Claiming most Israelis have dual citizenship ― an assertion that is not borne out by publicly available evidence and was rejected by an Israeli official who said the government does not have statistics on the matter ― he added: “They have a lot of options. And they can leave the land of Palestine at any time when they feel that it’s not beneficial anymore.”
Meanwhile, international opprobrium over and research on Hamas’ Oct. 7 violence is still growing.
HuffPost this week obtained new information about one major forthcoming report. Belkis Wille, an associate director at Human Rights Watch who has spent months working on an in-depth investigation of the attack, told HuffPost her organization has verified photo and video evidence of fighters with the al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, “targeting and killing civilians,” citing the attackers’ uniforms and bandannas. Some attackers who were in civilian clothing were also clearly coordinating with al-Qassam fighters, she added.
Still, Western and Arab governments, along with most outside experts, believe Hamas will remain relevant to the future of Israel-Palestine regardless of how the current war concludes. Abu Marzouk and Naim clearly agree.
(...) HuffPost this week shared key Hamas statements included in this article with spokespeople at the State Department, the National Security Council at the White House and Israel’s embassy in Washington.
Only a State Department spokesperson responded, reaffirming the U.S. stance against dealing with Hamas, which it lists as a terrorist group, beyond limited indirect communications through third parties, such as Egypt and Qatar, as it makes plans for a territory where Hamas is deeply ingrained.
“We do not engage in public debates with terrorist organizations like Hamas,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “The U.S. remains committed to advancing the realization of an independent Palestinian state, standing side by side with Israel in peace and security.”
(...) Abu Marzouk told HuffPost: “We thought that America [would] allow for a partial aggression against Gaza, especially given that most of the victims are civilians.”
“We didn’t expect this brutality of America,” he said, citing an article in The Washington Post published the day before that revealed Biden greenlighted additional bombs and fighter jets for Israel. In the 1990s, the U.S. detained Abu Marzouk for more than a year over terrorism allegations; it deported him and continues to list him as a “specially designated national” under U.S. sanctions.
In Hamas’ view, they have sought negotiations and an end to fighting since soon after the attack. On Oct. 17, an unnamed senior Hamas official told NBC News that the group was willing to release all civilians ― Israelis and foreigners ― if Israel stopped bombing Gaza.
(...) In recent days, Israeli officials told reporters that they were becoming flexible on one question: letting displaced Gazans return to the northern part of the territory. On Monday, however, an Israeli source downplayed hopes of a deal in speaking with the Haaretz newspaper. On Thursday, Hamas rejected a framework approved by Israel and the intermediaries, blaming Netanyahu; separately, Biden urged Netanyahu “to empower his negotiators to conclude a deal without delay to bring the hostages home.”
Both Hamas figures argued Netanyahu is personally unwilling to halt the war because it would mean his political collapse ― echoing an assessment that is now widely shared in global capitals. They described frustration with Biden’s continued support for his Israeli counterpart despite that position and deep distrust in the role of the U.S., which has historically attempted to be an intermediary in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.
- ToI: Six months since Oct. 7, British PM Sunak says ‘terrible’ Israel-Hamas war ‘must end’
- I think Israel is losing the establishment Tories, judging from this Telegraph op-ed: What happened to Israel’s rules of engagement? - The country’s military claims to be one of the world’s most disciplined and ‘moral’ armies – so why does it keep killing innocent people?
That so many of these tragedies are being caused by drones is especially perplexing. Unlike snipers or lone soldiers, drone operators do not work in isolation and sit in a calm environment many miles away from the front line.
Further, the munitions they use are precision guided bombs, which can be swerved away from a target even as they fall.
The Telegraph interviewed two IDF drone operators in December at a base outside Tel Aviv. They said they never operate without a lawyer on an uplink, plus eyes on the ground and a senior officer in the room.
“We use small laser-guided bombs with a payload of about a hundredth of a fighter jet,” one of two pilots at the Palmachim Airbase, just south of Tel Aviv, said.
“We have two types. One can go down to the metre, meaning we could theoretically take out the driver of a vehicle, leaving the person in the back seat alive; shaken up but alive. The other has a kill radius of five to 10 metres.
“Part of our professionality is knowing which bomb to use for which mission. We can move it until the final seconds, and divert it into the sand if necessary. For every strike there must first be a designated abort area.”
(...) In cases involving its own citizens, and now foreign aid workers, the IDF conducts investigations. Where Palestinians are killed, however, it tends mainly to issue only retrospective assertions of blame, with little evidence to support them.
In the case of the four men killed in wasteland in January, for example, it simply asserted that the men were in an “active combat zone” and implied, without evidence, that one or more of them may earlier have been involved in fighting.
In the case of the journalists, it altered its story several times before alleging that the two of them had – at some point – been members of a terrorist organisation. When The Telegraph asked about apparent inconsistencies in a document produced by the IDF to show this, it declined to offer any further comment or explanation.
(On that note, the IDF has settled on a story about the WCK airstrikes, now with more Hamas - JPost: IDF dismisses two senior officers, censures 3 others in mistaken attack on aid workers)
- Guardian (Jonathan Freedland): After six months, the war in Gaza is making Israel a pariah state
- Politico: Democrats fear Netanyahu may have undermined Biden’s image among voters
posted by cendawanita at 7:27 PM on April 7 [6 favorites]
Democrats fear Netanyahu may have undermined Biden’s image among voters
O RLY
posted by flabdablet at 9:35 PM on April 7 [11 favorites]
O RLY
posted by flabdablet at 9:35 PM on April 7 [11 favorites]
Netanyahu is going to continue to try to murder his way out of this. He thinks that America will forget quickly once the fighting ends and facts on the ground are established. Unless Israel gets a new government things are looking incredibly grim.
posted by interogative mood at 9:43 PM on April 7 [1 favorite]
posted by interogative mood at 9:43 PM on April 7 [1 favorite]
A new government isn't going to solve a single fucking thing. The next PM is probably going to be Gallant or Gantz, and both of them are just as much warmongers as Netanyahu. More than 80% of Jewish Israelis support the "war" (including a whole contingent who think it isn't forceful enough)!
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:33 PM on April 7 [10 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 10:33 PM on April 7 [10 favorites]
ABC: Chef José Andrés says Israel's 'unforgivable' strike on his aid workers must force 'real reckoning'
Andrés was especially critical of Israel's bombardment of Gaza in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, saying Israel cannot be "destroying every building, every hospital, every school, every university."
Israeli officials have repeatedly defended their military operations in Gaza, insisting they take steps to curb civilian deaths while allowing aid to flow in that cannot benefit Hamas.
But Andrés lambasted Israel's forces in his interview on "This Week."
"You cannot be destroying just the future for decades of more than 2 million Palestinians and in the process leaving them hungry, leaving them without water," he said.
Andrés also rebuked the Biden administration’s supply of weapons to its longtime ally.
"What the White House did this week ... It seemed like a very significant shift, saying there would be consequences if they didn't allow essentially more humanitarian aid and take more care of civilian lives. Were you satisfied with that statement?" Raddatz asked.
"I think 'there will be consequences' is part of the problem," Andrés responded. "[There] should be already consequences. Support Israel right to defend itself, but you cannot be just giving weapons that they are [using to kill] American citizens who are humanitarians. You can be supporting Israel's right to defend themselves but, at the same time, you can be asking Israel to conduct themselves at the highest possible human level."
Well, at this rate, let's see which is more important for Biden - ineffectively getting Israel to stop or ineffectively getting a dinner reservation.
posted by cendawanita at 10:36 PM on April 7 [10 favorites]
Andrés was especially critical of Israel's bombardment of Gaza in its pursuit of Hamas fighters, saying Israel cannot be "destroying every building, every hospital, every school, every university."
Israeli officials have repeatedly defended their military operations in Gaza, insisting they take steps to curb civilian deaths while allowing aid to flow in that cannot benefit Hamas.
But Andrés lambasted Israel's forces in his interview on "This Week."
"You cannot be destroying just the future for decades of more than 2 million Palestinians and in the process leaving them hungry, leaving them without water," he said.
Andrés also rebuked the Biden administration’s supply of weapons to its longtime ally.
"What the White House did this week ... It seemed like a very significant shift, saying there would be consequences if they didn't allow essentially more humanitarian aid and take more care of civilian lives. Were you satisfied with that statement?" Raddatz asked.
"I think 'there will be consequences' is part of the problem," Andrés responded. "[There] should be already consequences. Support Israel right to defend itself, but you cannot be just giving weapons that they are [using to kill] American citizens who are humanitarians. You can be supporting Israel's right to defend themselves but, at the same time, you can be asking Israel to conduct themselves at the highest possible human level."
Well, at this rate, let's see which is more important for Biden - ineffectively getting Israel to stop or ineffectively getting a dinner reservation.
posted by cendawanita at 10:36 PM on April 7 [10 favorites]
At Rally for Hostages, Some Boo When Congressman Calls for Gaza Aid
Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York was booed on Sunday at a demonstration in Manhattan calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas after he encouraged attendees to also push for humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza.posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 2:29 AM on April 8 [4 favorites]
Democrats fear Netanyahu may have undermined Biden’s image among voters
Nah, Biden and the Democrats who have supported his racist, Islamophobic bullshit over the last six months did this to themselves. They walked into this with eyes wide open, knowingly misled the American voters, in some cases threatened the voters with investigations, and now some of them are freaking out that they've likely fucked up beyond repair. It doesn't matter if it's the raw hatred of Biden, the RussiaGate derangement of Pelosi, or the smarmy gloating of Gottheimer, they were more than happy to let this farce play out of their own free will.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 4:09 AM on April 8 [8 favorites]
Nah, Biden and the Democrats who have supported his racist, Islamophobic bullshit over the last six months did this to themselves. They walked into this with eyes wide open, knowingly misled the American voters, in some cases threatened the voters with investigations, and now some of them are freaking out that they've likely fucked up beyond repair. It doesn't matter if it's the raw hatred of Biden, the RussiaGate derangement of Pelosi, or the smarmy gloating of Gottheimer, they were more than happy to let this farce play out of their own free will.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 4:09 AM on April 8 [8 favorites]
Like the assertions of any player, particularly actual combatants, in this most sensitive of conflicts, their portrayal of the situation deserves to be taken with a large grain of salt.
I know this has been reiterated ad nauseam but God, I wish this level of skepticism was attached to reporting on IDF statements in Western media.
posted by lizard2590 at 7:43 AM on April 8 [9 favorites]
I know this has been reiterated ad nauseam but God, I wish this level of skepticism was attached to reporting on IDF statements in Western media.
posted by lizard2590 at 7:43 AM on April 8 [9 favorites]
lizard2590: right???? we can only dream!
Akbar Shahid Ahmed continues to be one of the best journalists covering this, and he's getting scoops nobody else is. (He's the one who got vilified & called a liar by the State Department some weeks back over a scoop that turned out to be true.)
I think the Hamas leaders represented themselves well in the interview, too, tbh. Do i think they're saints? No, of fucking course not. But the way Hamas is flattened into a one-note "fundamentalist" "militia" while Israel is given every benefit of complexity and nuance is something i find both tedious and vile, and i'm glad to see this little bit of pushback on that at least.
And Marzouk is absolutely on the money with this:
Akbar Shahid Ahmed continues to be one of the best journalists covering this, and he's getting scoops nobody else is. (He's the one who got vilified & called a liar by the State Department some weeks back over a scoop that turned out to be true.)
I think the Hamas leaders represented themselves well in the interview, too, tbh. Do i think they're saints? No, of fucking course not. But the way Hamas is flattened into a one-note "fundamentalist" "militia" while Israel is given every benefit of complexity and nuance is something i find both tedious and vile, and i'm glad to see this little bit of pushback on that at least.
And Marzouk is absolutely on the money with this:
“America does not want unity among the Palestinians…. Many times the U.S. has claimed that they don’t want the participation of terrorists in any body of the [Palestine Liberation Organization, the internationally recognized official representative of the Palestinian people], and they are meaning the active factions in the Palestinian arena: Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP,” Abu Marzouk said.posted by adrienneleigh at 8:57 AM on April 8 [5 favorites]
…
“America is now claiming that they are supporting the two-state solution, but …they are doing their best to undermine the Palestinian side, especially in this open conflict with Hamas, by supporting the weak Palestinian side of the PA in front of the most powerful side, which is Israel supported by the U.S.,” Abu Marzouk said.
Rather than debate the sincerity of his group, he continued, “at least they should put Hamas under the test by allowing the Palestinians to create a state. The ones who are refusing a Palestinian state are the Israelis.”
It's expected to be the last day of Ramadan, at least for my country today. I will never forgive that it was the Biden administration who established the precedent of lying that a UNSC resolution is non-binding. I hope Trump doesn't win because it doesn't bear thinking to what extent his people will run with this irresponsibility. But what is the categorical or substantive difference in this regard? Anyway, 24 hours or less to actually implement that ceasefire.
posted by cendawanita at 2:47 PM on April 8 [13 favorites]
posted by cendawanita at 2:47 PM on April 8 [13 favorites]
Our Foreign Minister being not completely terrible at the UN (he would be considered centre-right in NZ) - "Gaza A 'Wasteland'" (YT link to speech)
posted by phigmov at 11:37 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]
posted by phigmov at 11:37 PM on April 8 [1 favorite]
Michael Ben-Yair, former attorney general of Israel (1993-1996):
We already lost this war on Oct. 7th. Since then our loss has only deepened. Already in its second day, this war was a war of revenge with no purpose and no path forward.posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 5:14 AM on April 9 [7 favorites]
It ended not only in the failure to achieve its declared political goal - the destruction of Hamas, but, above all, in the failure to achieve its moral goal - the return of the abductees.
Instead, we brought destruction, death and hunger upon the millions of residents of the Gaza Strip, and became lepers and hated in the region and the entire world. The State of Israel will pay a very high price due to the wickedness and stupidity of its government.
Soon, disillusionment will also come from the wave of hyper-nationalism and racism that washed over the Jewish society in Israel, and we will have nothing left but to collect the fragments of the dream of the sovereignty of the Jewish people.
The State of Israel was founded by inspiring and visionary statesmen. It is collapsing due to the evil madness of small and pathless politicians. It is in doubt whether the state will reach 80 years old, like the previous sovereignty of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel."
The State of Israel was founded by inspiring and visionary statesmen
Funny way to say "terrorists and war criminals"; the present government of Israel isn't really doing anything that Irgun, Lehi, et al weren't doing in 1948. The only real difference is that the world can see what's happening now thanks to the internet and social media.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:43 AM on April 9 [8 favorites]
Funny way to say "terrorists and war criminals"; the present government of Israel isn't really doing anything that Irgun, Lehi, et al weren't doing in 1948. The only real difference is that the world can see what's happening now thanks to the internet and social media.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:43 AM on April 9 [8 favorites]
Lol, Pseudonymous Cognomen, exactly what i would've said if you hadn't said it first. <3
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:31 AM on April 9 [3 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:31 AM on April 9 [3 favorites]
Funny way to say "terrorists and war criminals"; the present government of Israel isn't really doing anything that Irgun, Lehi, et al weren't doing in 1948. The only real difference is that the world can see what's happening now thanks to the internet and social media.
Yeah, that was the part of the statement that made me scratch my head. If Israel is ever going to find a way out of what this man terms wickedness and stupidity, Israelis will have to have an actual honest reckoning with their past. And I've seen no evidence that that's happening even among so-called liberal Zionists.
posted by lizard2590 at 11:43 AM on April 9 [4 favorites]
Yeah, that was the part of the statement that made me scratch my head. If Israel is ever going to find a way out of what this man terms wickedness and stupidity, Israelis will have to have an actual honest reckoning with their past. And I've seen no evidence that that's happening even among so-called liberal Zionists.
posted by lizard2590 at 11:43 AM on April 9 [4 favorites]
I for one am shocked, shocked I say! that an appeal to Israeli’s by an Israeli politician would include such an appeal to some shared cultural mythic version of their history. Good thing you called them out. If only experts such as yourselves were sitting at the table, I’m sure this conflict could have been solved decades ago.
posted by interogative mood at 12:06 PM on April 9 [1 favorite]
posted by interogative mood at 12:06 PM on April 9 [1 favorite]
And a good thing that all of us are writing our comments as citizens of countries that were founded by egalitarian leaders of great moral standing and benevolence in their dealings with the prior inhabitants, right?
posted by Dip Flash at 12:26 PM on April 9
posted by Dip Flash at 12:26 PM on April 9
And a good thing that all of us are writing our comments as citizens of countries that were founded by egalitarian leaders of great moral standing and benevolence in their dealings with the prior inhabitants, right?
God, the whataboutism never ends.
I for one am shocked, shocked I say! that an appeal to Israeli’s by an Israeli politician would include such an appeal to some shared cultural mythic version of their history. Good thing you called them out. If only experts such as yourselves were sitting at the table, I’m sure this conflict could have been solved decades ago
You've been wrong so many times over the past six months that one might think you would have learned some humility.
But yes, it is as it ever was--whataboutism and weirdly hyper-defensive ad hominem to distract from having no arguments with any merit. But I guess that's Zionism.
posted by lizard2590 at 2:00 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
God, the whataboutism never ends.
I for one am shocked, shocked I say! that an appeal to Israeli’s by an Israeli politician would include such an appeal to some shared cultural mythic version of their history. Good thing you called them out. If only experts such as yourselves were sitting at the table, I’m sure this conflict could have been solved decades ago
You've been wrong so many times over the past six months that one might think you would have learned some humility.
But yes, it is as it ever was--whataboutism and weirdly hyper-defensive ad hominem to distract from having no arguments with any merit. But I guess that's Zionism.
posted by lizard2590 at 2:00 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
And a good thing that all of us are writing our comments as citizens of countries that were founded by egalitarian leaders of great moral standing and benevolence in their dealings with the prior inhabitants, right?
Actually, my perspective is informed by my understanding of American history as including a series of crimes against the prior inhabitants, and my own rather close family connections to some of the ugliest bits of that history (Andrew Jackson's wife is my 2nd cousin 5x removed, my 4th great-grandmother's 2nd husband was the brother of the man who wrote the text of the Indian Removal bill; my 1st cousin 5x removed was colonel of the 10th Minnesota, and presided over the mass execution of 38 Dakota Sioux in 1862--the largest mass execution in US history). For what it's worth, I also think Andrew Jackson was a war criminal, by modern standards, and the actions of the US against Native Americans constitute a genocide for which this country has not yet paid adequate reparations.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:58 PM on April 9 [8 favorites]
Actually, my perspective is informed by my understanding of American history as including a series of crimes against the prior inhabitants, and my own rather close family connections to some of the ugliest bits of that history (Andrew Jackson's wife is my 2nd cousin 5x removed, my 4th great-grandmother's 2nd husband was the brother of the man who wrote the text of the Indian Removal bill; my 1st cousin 5x removed was colonel of the 10th Minnesota, and presided over the mass execution of 38 Dakota Sioux in 1862--the largest mass execution in US history). For what it's worth, I also think Andrew Jackson was a war criminal, by modern standards, and the actions of the US against Native Americans constitute a genocide for which this country has not yet paid adequate reparations.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 2:58 PM on April 9 [8 favorites]
Yeah, @Dip Flash, that would be a great burn for all those anti-occupation activists who desrcribe George Washington and Andrew Jackson as "visionary and inspiring statemen."
posted by lizard2590 at 3:06 PM on April 9 [6 favorites]
posted by lizard2590 at 3:06 PM on April 9 [6 favorites]
And a good thing that all of us are writing our comments as citizens of countries that were founded by egalitarian leaders of great moral standing and benevolence in their dealings with the prior inhabitants, right?
wtf are you on about? presumably the comments you're addressing were written in the same spirit i'd have written them, namely as a citizen of shitty states with shitty histories way worse than israel's, which has nothing to do with the topic at hand except to the extent that those states are complicit in the exact stuff being criticised. like this is almost too embarrassingly obvious to mention and it's a bit of a fart in the lift to make everyone point it out.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:34 PM on April 9 [4 favorites]
wtf are you on about? presumably the comments you're addressing were written in the same spirit i'd have written them, namely as a citizen of shitty states with shitty histories way worse than israel's, which has nothing to do with the topic at hand except to the extent that those states are complicit in the exact stuff being criticised. like this is almost too embarrassingly obvious to mention and it's a bit of a fart in the lift to make everyone point it out.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:34 PM on April 9 [4 favorites]
I cannot now forgo this opportunity to appeal from this rostrum directly to the American people, asking it to give its support to our heroic and fighting people. I ask it whole-heartedly to endorse right and justice, to recall George Washington to mind, heroic Washington whose purpose was his nation's freedom and independence, Abraham Lincoln, champion of the destitute and the wretched, and also Woodrow Wilson, whose doctrine of Fourteen Points remains subscribed to and venerated by our people. . — Yasser Arafat speaking at the UN 13 Nov 1974.
posted by interogative mood at 3:35 PM on April 9
posted by interogative mood at 3:35 PM on April 9
arafat posting irrelevant cringe (except possibly some of the fourteen points thing, but that doesn't map onto the founding mythology stuff in the ben-yair quote) to court the americans is quite different from an israeli statesman appealing to the founding mythology of israel to convince israelis, at least because the former is obviously just doing politics while the latter may well be sincere.
posted by busted_crayons at 3:46 PM on April 9 [5 favorites]
posted by busted_crayons at 3:46 PM on April 9 [5 favorites]
There are so many good and valid criticisms of Israel's conduct and actions, not just in this war but in the past decades. That it was founded by terrible people who did terrible things, while also creating a new nation with all the good and bad that entails, is flat out the dumbest and least relevant criticism possible, because that's how virtually all modern states started, many in circumstances far, far worse than Israel's. But if the goal is to cast aspersions on Israel's founding as uniquely illegitimate, that's an A++ approach for sure.
posted by Dip Flash at 3:51 PM on April 9
posted by Dip Flash at 3:51 PM on April 9
that's how virtually all modern states started
Not really, just the ones founded by settler colonialists (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc). The idea that that is somehow a normal process of state formation reveals both a distorted perspective and an ignorance of broader history.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:53 PM on April 9 [8 favorites]
Not really, just the ones founded by settler colonialists (USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc). The idea that that is somehow a normal process of state formation reveals both a distorted perspective and an ignorance of broader history.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 3:53 PM on April 9 [8 favorites]
I’m curious which countries you think meet that criteria.
posted by interogative mood at 4:00 PM on April 9
posted by interogative mood at 4:00 PM on April 9
But if the goal is to cast aspersions on Israel's founding as uniquely illegitimate, that's an A++ approach for sure.
what? some politician said some rose-tinted bullshit about some historical bad actors, and one needn't list all the corresponding bad actors in histories not currently under discussion in order to point out that a politician is, as they are wont to do, telling lies for rhetorical effect? because we're talking about this thing right now, and not the other things. obviously. gtfo with this low-key-slanderous insinuation garbage. nobody said "uniquely" and you fucking know it.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:02 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
what? some politician said some rose-tinted bullshit about some historical bad actors, and one needn't list all the corresponding bad actors in histories not currently under discussion in order to point out that a politician is, as they are wont to do, telling lies for rhetorical effect? because we're talking about this thing right now, and not the other things. obviously. gtfo with this low-key-slanderous insinuation garbage. nobody said "uniquely" and you fucking know it.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:02 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
I’m curious which countries you think meet that criteria.
The majority of existing states were not founded by people who felt it necessary to engage in genocide, ethnic cleansing, and subjugation of the existing inhabitants of the territory they occupy. Not sure why "we just had to kill/expel them all" should be taken as a normal part of the process of state formation.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:23 PM on April 9 [2 favorites]
The majority of existing states were not founded by people who felt it necessary to engage in genocide, ethnic cleansing, and subjugation of the existing inhabitants of the territory they occupy. Not sure why "we just had to kill/expel them all" should be taken as a normal part of the process of state formation.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:23 PM on April 9 [2 favorites]
I’m curious which countries you think meet that criteria.
my colleague is maybe being too conciliatory; my answer is that a normal (but not universal, and "normal" merely in the sense of "historically typical") process of state formation involves some amount of brutality, demagoguery, colonisation, genocide, hatred, lies, theft, erasure, exploitation, coercion, exceptionalism, bullshit, hubris, insanity, and greed. we're just talking about one instance, since it's the topic of the goddamn thread, and the one whose downstream effects include a genocide enabled by states with which a large proportion of mefites are affiliated. the so-called legitimacy of the state of israel is freshly buried under a layer of pulverised concrete in khan younis, sort of like the innumerable mass graves under which the notional legitimacy of the US or the UK or Russia or whatever is buried. that's distinct from the legitimacy of useful state institutions erected for actual practical purposes but this idea of abstract national legitimacy as something independently real and holy, rather than a historically specific expedient political mobilisation tool with major backfire potential, to be deployed like all weapons temporarily and with care, is just fucking disastrous and it's getting old watching people have to pay lip service to it in this one specific instance of a country that should somehow simultaneously never be singled out as unique in any way.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:27 PM on April 9 [3 favorites]
my colleague is maybe being too conciliatory; my answer is that a normal (but not universal, and "normal" merely in the sense of "historically typical") process of state formation involves some amount of brutality, demagoguery, colonisation, genocide, hatred, lies, theft, erasure, exploitation, coercion, exceptionalism, bullshit, hubris, insanity, and greed. we're just talking about one instance, since it's the topic of the goddamn thread, and the one whose downstream effects include a genocide enabled by states with which a large proportion of mefites are affiliated. the so-called legitimacy of the state of israel is freshly buried under a layer of pulverised concrete in khan younis, sort of like the innumerable mass graves under which the notional legitimacy of the US or the UK or Russia or whatever is buried. that's distinct from the legitimacy of useful state institutions erected for actual practical purposes but this idea of abstract national legitimacy as something independently real and holy, rather than a historically specific expedient political mobilisation tool with major backfire potential, to be deployed like all weapons temporarily and with care, is just fucking disastrous and it's getting old watching people have to pay lip service to it in this one specific instance of a country that should somehow simultaneously never be singled out as unique in any way.
posted by busted_crayons at 4:27 PM on April 9 [3 favorites]
That it was founded by terrible people who did terrible things, while also creating a new nation with all the good and bad that entails, is flat out the dumbest and least relevant criticism possible, because that's how virtually all modern states started, many in circumstances far, far worse than Israel's.
I'm so perplexed by this argument. It is circuitous and hard to follow. The fact that Israel was "founded by terrible people who did terrible things" (thank you for that acknowledgement!) is "dumb and least relevant" to what, exactly? I don't think it's dumb and irrelevant to dispossessed Palestinians fighting for the right of return. There are people alive today who were ethnically cleansed from the lands they grew up in by those visionary and inspiring statesmen.
And sorry, gotta contest that "far, far worse than Israel's." Ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing. Settler colonialism is settler colonialism. Mass murder is mass murder.
I truly don't understand why we must list out all the sins of every country on Earth before we can talk about the horrific and evil acts that were required for Israel to exist on a thread that is about the horrific and evil acts that Israel is currently committing. What am I missing here?
Also, the notion that "terrible people doing terrible things" is "virtually how all modern states started" shows a really profound level of historical ignorance. Virtually all modern states did not start in similar ways! In most of the global South, our states were imposed on us by colonizers. I don't understand how the origin stories of, say, South Africa and Bangladesh are in any way similar to those of white settler colonial states like Australia and the US (because I've noticed that most of your historical blanket statements seem to completely ignore any states that are not either European or white settler colonial states in the Anglosphere).
posted by lizard2590 at 4:29 PM on April 9 [11 favorites]
I'm so perplexed by this argument. It is circuitous and hard to follow. The fact that Israel was "founded by terrible people who did terrible things" (thank you for that acknowledgement!) is "dumb and least relevant" to what, exactly? I don't think it's dumb and irrelevant to dispossessed Palestinians fighting for the right of return. There are people alive today who were ethnically cleansed from the lands they grew up in by those visionary and inspiring statesmen.
And sorry, gotta contest that "far, far worse than Israel's." Ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing. Settler colonialism is settler colonialism. Mass murder is mass murder.
I truly don't understand why we must list out all the sins of every country on Earth before we can talk about the horrific and evil acts that were required for Israel to exist on a thread that is about the horrific and evil acts that Israel is currently committing. What am I missing here?
Also, the notion that "terrible people doing terrible things" is "virtually how all modern states started" shows a really profound level of historical ignorance. Virtually all modern states did not start in similar ways! In most of the global South, our states were imposed on us by colonizers. I don't understand how the origin stories of, say, South Africa and Bangladesh are in any way similar to those of white settler colonial states like Australia and the US (because I've noticed that most of your historical blanket statements seem to completely ignore any states that are not either European or white settler colonial states in the Anglosphere).
posted by lizard2590 at 4:29 PM on April 9 [11 favorites]
I mean, I'm not sure if your point is that all modern states have had leaders that have engaged in bad acts because of the demands of realpolitik etc. etc.? If it is, that point seems so banal and obvious that I'm not sure why it's being made? I mean, okay. So what?
But the idea that every modern state is a settler colonial state founded on ethnic cleansing is an outright lie.
I cannot now forgo this opportunity to appeal from this rostrum directly to the American people, asking it to give its support to our heroic and fighting people. I ask it whole-heartedly to endorse right and justice, to recall George Washington to mind, heroic Washington whose purpose was his nation's freedom and independence, Abraham Lincoln, champion of the destitute and the wretched, and also Woodrow Wilson, whose doctrine of Fourteen Points remains subscribed to and venerated by our people. . — Yasser Arafat speaking at the UN 13 Nov 1974.
Wow, @interrogative mood, you've completely destroyed all the many passionate Yasser Arafat stans in this thread.
posted by lizard2590 at 4:32 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
But the idea that every modern state is a settler colonial state founded on ethnic cleansing is an outright lie.
I cannot now forgo this opportunity to appeal from this rostrum directly to the American people, asking it to give its support to our heroic and fighting people. I ask it whole-heartedly to endorse right and justice, to recall George Washington to mind, heroic Washington whose purpose was his nation's freedom and independence, Abraham Lincoln, champion of the destitute and the wretched, and also Woodrow Wilson, whose doctrine of Fourteen Points remains subscribed to and venerated by our people. . — Yasser Arafat speaking at the UN 13 Nov 1974.
Wow, @interrogative mood, you've completely destroyed all the many passionate Yasser Arafat stans in this thread.
posted by lizard2590 at 4:32 PM on April 9 [7 favorites]
In news that should surprise absolutely nobody, Israel made a bunch of shit up about the flour massacre, and now that it's obvious even to the mainstream media that they made shit up, is refusing to provide unedited video.
(i say "the", but i mean "the one that made world news"; they've done at least one of these basically every day since then.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:17 PM on April 9 [11 favorites]
(i say "the", but i mean "the one that made world news"; they've done at least one of these basically every day since then.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:17 PM on April 9 [11 favorites]
many passionate Yasser Arafat stans in this thread.
that's actually funny. now do Ho chi Minh and Sun Yat-Sen.
posted by clavdivs at 7:40 PM on April 9
that's actually funny. now do Ho chi Minh and Sun Yat-Sen.
posted by clavdivs at 7:40 PM on April 9
Oh this comment is probably going to get booted but here goes...
Claiming that every modern state is a settler colonial state that absolutely had to be founded on ethnic cleansing is pretty akin to suggesting that all children must be conceived via rape.
Sure, consensual sex might exist in a parallel universe somewhere, but conception by rape gives the guaranteed outcome, so let's teach that to the next some generations of kids ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's like when good ol' Canadian folk suggest to me that arranged rape doesn't work when brown people do it, but when wh*te people do it for African, Indigenous, Indian, Native, Pacific Islander, etc., children, that's different cuz that's "God's will" or whatever it takes to carry on the older generations' collective war on children's genitals at a species level.
At the end of the day, it sure sounds like the problem comes down to one party at the table who simply just doesn't want to have to try.
posted by human ecologist at 4:23 PM on April 10 [6 favorites]
Claiming that every modern state is a settler colonial state that absolutely had to be founded on ethnic cleansing is pretty akin to suggesting that all children must be conceived via rape.
Sure, consensual sex might exist in a parallel universe somewhere, but conception by rape gives the guaranteed outcome, so let's teach that to the next some generations of kids ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's like when good ol' Canadian folk suggest to me that arranged rape doesn't work when brown people do it, but when wh*te people do it for African, Indigenous, Indian, Native, Pacific Islander, etc., children, that's different cuz that's "God's will" or whatever it takes to carry on the older generations' collective war on children's genitals at a species level.
At the end of the day, it sure sounds like the problem comes down to one party at the table who simply just doesn't want to have to try.
posted by human ecologist at 4:23 PM on April 10 [6 favorites]
‘Come out, you animals’: how the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital happened (Mondoweiss):
The army also gathered people who were suspected of belonging to Hamas or the PIJ and separated them from the rest. They were not given bracelets, but were separated from the injured and hospital staff, who were sent to a different building.also
A third much larger group was ordered to leave the hospital entirely — thousands of displaced persons who had been sheltering in the compound, in addition to some members of the hospital staff. Some of the staff members, including doctors, refused to leave. Those who persisted in refusing orders were executed immediately and without argument.
The army then brought out a huge number of men from the group of suspected Hamas and PIJ members and employees, gathering them in the center of the courtyard. It then proceeded to execute them, one after the other. When the slaughter was done, army bulldozers piled up their corpses in the dozens, dragging them through the sand and burying them.
The Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the massacre at al-Shifa was one of the largest in Palestinian history, estimating that at least 1,500 people had been killed, about half of whom were women and children. The organization also confirms that at least 22 patients were shot while in their hospital beds, while the number of displaced persons sheltering at the hospital who were forced to evacuate southward was estimated to include 25,000 people. Moreover, 1,200 housing units in the vicinity of al-Shifa were destroyed.posted by kmt at 8:03 AM on April 11 [12 favorites]
What do we even say about that? Nobody can justify it and even pay lip service to human rights and international law.
It wouldn't matter if all those executed were proven October 7 criminals, it's still a crime to just execute them once under IDF control, and anyone defending it is a monster.
posted by Audreynachrome at 8:03 PM on April 11 [7 favorites]
It wouldn't matter if all those executed were proven October 7 criminals, it's still a crime to just execute them once under IDF control, and anyone defending it is a monster.
posted by Audreynachrome at 8:03 PM on April 11 [7 favorites]
In the last 72 hours:
Israel is bracing for a potential direct attack from Iran within days as Iran has vowed revenge for the attack on the Syrian embassy.
The Top IDF commander in the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers is a settler who called for Gaza to be deprived of aid.
The UN Security Council has failed to achieve consensus on full UN membership for the Palestinians, which would amount to Palestinian statehood.
Israeli forces assassinated 3 sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh; in statements afterwards, he said that he is still seeking to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release. It should be noted that 2 of his grandchildren were also killed in the airstrike as these men were visiting their families for Eid.
I resigned from World Central Kitchen because it refused to tell the truth about the Israeli genocide in Gaza:
At the time I resigned in early March, I was the only staff member of Palestinian descent at World Central Kitchen (WCK). I resigned in protest of extensive, unexplained censorship regarding Gaza at the organization. WCK leadership is taking a stand six months too late, only after 7 of its personnel were killed.
In outward-facing materials, every reference to the Gaza offensive as a “siege” was changed to “conflict.” Roth requested that a reference to the blockades of Gaza be removed from a post collectively written by the Communications team, asking, “What blockades?” Most disturbingly, two employees witnessed Roth remove every use of “Palestinian” in a blog post directly after Palestinian Chef Corps members emphasized to her the importance of referring to Gazans as “Palestinians.”
Again, it is unclear where in the chain of command these actions originated, but the refusal of the entire executive team to discuss the requests raised on December 7 paints a clear picture. Instead of using its standing to influence the parameters of acceptability, WCK leadership elected to euphemize the situation, and repeatedly withhold footage and stories demonstrating the severity of the reality in Gaza. Per the COGAT data, these sanitization tactics did not make WCK more effective than organizations that have taken a much stronger stance earlier on.
posted by toastyk at 6:58 AM on April 12 [11 favorites]
Israel is bracing for a potential direct attack from Iran within days as Iran has vowed revenge for the attack on the Syrian embassy.
The Top IDF commander in the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers is a settler who called for Gaza to be deprived of aid.
The UN Security Council has failed to achieve consensus on full UN membership for the Palestinians, which would amount to Palestinian statehood.
Israeli forces assassinated 3 sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh; in statements afterwards, he said that he is still seeking to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release. It should be noted that 2 of his grandchildren were also killed in the airstrike as these men were visiting their families for Eid.
I resigned from World Central Kitchen because it refused to tell the truth about the Israeli genocide in Gaza:
At the time I resigned in early March, I was the only staff member of Palestinian descent at World Central Kitchen (WCK). I resigned in protest of extensive, unexplained censorship regarding Gaza at the organization. WCK leadership is taking a stand six months too late, only after 7 of its personnel were killed.
In outward-facing materials, every reference to the Gaza offensive as a “siege” was changed to “conflict.” Roth requested that a reference to the blockades of Gaza be removed from a post collectively written by the Communications team, asking, “What blockades?” Most disturbingly, two employees witnessed Roth remove every use of “Palestinian” in a blog post directly after Palestinian Chef Corps members emphasized to her the importance of referring to Gazans as “Palestinians.”
Again, it is unclear where in the chain of command these actions originated, but the refusal of the entire executive team to discuss the requests raised on December 7 paints a clear picture. Instead of using its standing to influence the parameters of acceptability, WCK leadership elected to euphemize the situation, and repeatedly withhold footage and stories demonstrating the severity of the reality in Gaza. Per the COGAT data, these sanitization tactics did not make WCK more effective than organizations that have taken a much stronger stance earlier on.
posted by toastyk at 6:58 AM on April 12 [11 favorites]
Israel is bracing for a potential direct attack from Iran within days as Iran has vowed revenge for the attack on the Syrian embassy.
If Israel has "a right to defend itself", then surely Iran does, too.
The Top IDF commander in the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers is a settler who called for Gaza to be deprived of aid.
Deprivation of aid and deliberate infliction of famine as a tactic of war obviously has the endorsement of the highest echelons of Israeli leadership; pretending otherwise is just grotesque, at this point.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:32 AM on April 12 [8 favorites]
If Israel has "a right to defend itself", then surely Iran does, too.
The Top IDF commander in the strike on the World Central Kitchen workers is a settler who called for Gaza to be deprived of aid.
Deprivation of aid and deliberate infliction of famine as a tactic of war obviously has the endorsement of the highest echelons of Israeli leadership; pretending otherwise is just grotesque, at this point.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 7:32 AM on April 12 [8 favorites]
Oh I also wanted to add some American perspectives, as there seems to have been a definite change in American media and politics:
Jon Stewart on America's support of Israel: "Real friends take away the keys." He also interviewed Christiane Amanpour on the same episode.
Where is America's rule-based order now? NYT op-ed by Spencer Ackerman
The reality is that Washington is now arming a combatant that the United Nations Security Council has ordered to stop fighting, an uncomfortable position that helps explain why the United States insists 2728 isn’t binding.
And that reality isn’t lost on the rest of the world. The slaughter in Gaza has disinclined some foreign officials and groups to listen to U.S. officials about other issues. Annelle Sheline, a State Department human-rights officer who recently resigned over Gaza, told The Washington Post that some activist groups in North Africa simply stopped meeting with her and her colleagues. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible” while the United States aids Israel, she said.
The politics of Israel are changing: Politico interview with President and CEO for Center for American Progress Patrick Gaspard:
You don’t see a two state solution as a plausible outcome?
I firmly believe Israel must exist as a state. But I also believe Palestinians — if we are going to solve this problem — need to exist in an Israel that is inclusive of their full rights.
The pushback has always been that if you have a single state, you can’t have a Jewish majority state that is democratic in Israel.
I think that taking out the possibility of coexistence is, in itself, really cynical and tragic.
Apparently there is an Apple bug that shows the Palestinian flag emoji when you type in Jerusalem - to be "fixed", of course.
Gonna admit I'm getting a lot of links from BlueSky right now, esp emissaryofnight. (Thanks, if you're reading this.)
posted by toastyk at 8:30 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
Jon Stewart on America's support of Israel: "Real friends take away the keys." He also interviewed Christiane Amanpour on the same episode.
Where is America's rule-based order now? NYT op-ed by Spencer Ackerman
The reality is that Washington is now arming a combatant that the United Nations Security Council has ordered to stop fighting, an uncomfortable position that helps explain why the United States insists 2728 isn’t binding.
And that reality isn’t lost on the rest of the world. The slaughter in Gaza has disinclined some foreign officials and groups to listen to U.S. officials about other issues. Annelle Sheline, a State Department human-rights officer who recently resigned over Gaza, told The Washington Post that some activist groups in North Africa simply stopped meeting with her and her colleagues. “Trying to advocate for human rights just became impossible” while the United States aids Israel, she said.
The politics of Israel are changing: Politico interview with President and CEO for Center for American Progress Patrick Gaspard:
You don’t see a two state solution as a plausible outcome?
I firmly believe Israel must exist as a state. But I also believe Palestinians — if we are going to solve this problem — need to exist in an Israel that is inclusive of their full rights.
The pushback has always been that if you have a single state, you can’t have a Jewish majority state that is democratic in Israel.
I think that taking out the possibility of coexistence is, in itself, really cynical and tragic.
Apparently there is an Apple bug that shows the Palestinian flag emoji when you type in Jerusalem - to be "fixed", of course.
Gonna admit I'm getting a lot of links from BlueSky right now, esp emissaryofnight. (Thanks, if you're reading this.)
posted by toastyk at 8:30 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
The pushback has always been that if you have a single state, you can’t have a Jewish majority state that is democratic in Israel.
Avowed religious/ethnic supremacy is incompatible with actual democracy. Israel is no more an democracy than the Jim Crow South was. If you insist on having an ethnic supremacist state then you don't want an actual democracy.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:50 AM on April 12 [8 favorites]
Avowed religious/ethnic supremacy is incompatible with actual democracy. Israel is no more an democracy than the Jim Crow South was. If you insist on having an ethnic supremacist state then you don't want an actual democracy.
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 8:50 AM on April 12 [8 favorites]
If you do have a single state with proportional representation (and, presumably, right of return), then how do you prevent...I don't know what to call it, vengeance legislation? Is the idea that there would be international oversight to make sure the democracy actually works?
posted by mittens at 9:22 AM on April 12
posted by mittens at 9:22 AM on April 12
I think that's where the South Africa example can be instructive, because it's not like the demographic majority of black South Africans meant that the whites are shut out. But western recollection would rather recall Zimbabwe perhaps?
It has to hinge on honest brokers running something like a truth and reconciliation process. And let's be honest, if I'm sceptical of that succeeding it's only because likely personas to carry that forward have been systematically and violently removed from the chessboard.
posted by cendawanita at 9:26 AM on April 12 [12 favorites]
It has to hinge on honest brokers running something like a truth and reconciliation process. And let's be honest, if I'm sceptical of that succeeding it's only because likely personas to carry that forward have been systematically and violently removed from the chessboard.
posted by cendawanita at 9:26 AM on April 12 [12 favorites]
In practice, once everybody has equal civil and political rights, the majority tends to lose interest in vengeance pretty damn quick.
Most people just want to be able to live in peace. The idea that the colonized would of course remain motivated to exact endless horrible revenges against former colonizers is almost entirely a spurious fear that colonizers bruit about in order to make it seem defensible - necessary, even - to perpetuate the very injustices that motivated any desire for revenge in the first place.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 AM on April 12 [14 favorites]
Most people just want to be able to live in peace. The idea that the colonized would of course remain motivated to exact endless horrible revenges against former colonizers is almost entirely a spurious fear that colonizers bruit about in order to make it seem defensible - necessary, even - to perpetuate the very injustices that motivated any desire for revenge in the first place.
posted by flabdablet at 9:32 AM on April 12 [14 favorites]
It has to hinge on honest brokers running something like a truth and reconciliation process. And let's be honest, if I'm sceptical of that succeeding it's only because likely personas to carry that forward have been systematically and violently removed from the chessboard.
There are workable and relevant examples of people creating reasonably fair and just one-state and two-state solutions, like in your South African example. But like you say, it takes having relatively reasonable people at the table on both sides, and I share your doubt about their availability currently. (I mean, reasonable people definitely exist on both sides, but they have been sidelined and marginalized to the point that there are major changes that would be needed just to get to the point where you could have reasonable people talking to reasonable people and trying to come up with an ok outcome. The distance between where things are at now, and where things would need to be, is distressingly vast.)
posted by Dip Flash at 9:35 AM on April 12
There are workable and relevant examples of people creating reasonably fair and just one-state and two-state solutions, like in your South African example. But like you say, it takes having relatively reasonable people at the table on both sides, and I share your doubt about their availability currently. (I mean, reasonable people definitely exist on both sides, but they have been sidelined and marginalized to the point that there are major changes that would be needed just to get to the point where you could have reasonable people talking to reasonable people and trying to come up with an ok outcome. The distance between where things are at now, and where things would need to be, is distressingly vast.)
posted by Dip Flash at 9:35 AM on April 12
But also, I'm old enough to remember when both apartheid South Africa and the conflict in Northern Ireland seemed completely intractable and seemed like widening violence was the only option, for the longest time. And then there were shifts and people made conscious and difficult decisions to take steps towards some imperfect form of reconciliation. So I don't want to sound overly pessimistic, despite how far away a just solution seems right now. People have the capacity to do better and to change course.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:43 AM on April 12 [5 favorites]
posted by Dip Flash at 9:43 AM on April 12 [5 favorites]
And of course both the ANC and the IRA were designated as terrorist organizations because both conducted terror campaigns.
After the British did start floating the possibility of talks with Gerry Adams, the media consistently used the phrase "Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA" to refer to the party. Never once do I recall an unadorned "Sinn Féin" emerging from my radio or TV or written in the papers before the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Even afterwards, it took years.
Israel continues to do its level best to make sure no mainstream media outlet anywhere in the world would dream of acknowledging that Hamas even has a political wing. To do so would immediately trigger the electric fence.
Apparently, the Powers That Be think world peace is best served by perpetuating the lie that Hamas is (a) monolithic (b) intransigent (c) purely evil. This despite the fact that all three of those attributes are far more accurate descriptors of the Israeli Government than of Hamas as of April 2024.
posted by flabdablet at 10:00 AM on April 12 [9 favorites]
After the British did start floating the possibility of talks with Gerry Adams, the media consistently used the phrase "Sinn Féin, the political wing of the IRA" to refer to the party. Never once do I recall an unadorned "Sinn Féin" emerging from my radio or TV or written in the papers before the Good Friday Agreement was signed. Even afterwards, it took years.
Israel continues to do its level best to make sure no mainstream media outlet anywhere in the world would dream of acknowledging that Hamas even has a political wing. To do so would immediately trigger the electric fence.
Apparently, the Powers That Be think world peace is best served by perpetuating the lie that Hamas is (a) monolithic (b) intransigent (c) purely evil. This despite the fact that all three of those attributes are far more accurate descriptors of the Israeli Government than of Hamas as of April 2024.
posted by flabdablet at 10:00 AM on April 12 [9 favorites]
Apparently there is an Apple bug that shows the Palestinian flag emoji when you type in Jerusalem
Not a bug; the internationally recognised capital of Israel is Tel Aviv, where the majority of embassies and diplomatic missions are (only five countries have embassies in Jerusalem, the USA was the first, under Trump). Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine (recognised as such by 140 of 193 members of the UN).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:17 AM on April 12 [14 favorites]
Not a bug; the internationally recognised capital of Israel is Tel Aviv, where the majority of embassies and diplomatic missions are (only five countries have embassies in Jerusalem, the USA was the first, under Trump). Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine (recognised as such by 140 of 193 members of the UN).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 10:17 AM on April 12 [14 favorites]
NYT: How the War in Gaza Mobilized the American Left (archived)
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:44 AM on April 12 [7 favorites]
posted by Noisy Pink Bubbles at 10:44 AM on April 12 [7 favorites]
And of course both the ANC and the IRA were designated as terrorist organizations because both conducted terror campaigns.
Yes, thanks for highlighting that. That was part of what made things seem so intractable, and yet there turned out to be a pathway back from the precipice, and things that were unforgivable turned out to be forgivable after all.
Israel continues to do its level best to make sure no mainstream media outlet anywhere in the world would dream of acknowledging that Hamas even has a political wing. To do so would immediately trigger the electric fence.
For whatever it's worth, that distinction is made all the time in mainstream US articles, like in the NYT. It comes up a lot in articles about the hostage/ceasefire negotiations, where the point keeps getting made that final Hamas sign off needs to come from the military leadership in Gaza, but it's the political arm that is at the table. (And again, this isn't very different from how the Northern Ireland negotiations happened, with the more palatable people at the table but always needing sign off from the military wing.)
posted by Dip Flash at 11:01 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
Yes, thanks for highlighting that. That was part of what made things seem so intractable, and yet there turned out to be a pathway back from the precipice, and things that were unforgivable turned out to be forgivable after all.
Israel continues to do its level best to make sure no mainstream media outlet anywhere in the world would dream of acknowledging that Hamas even has a political wing. To do so would immediately trigger the electric fence.
For whatever it's worth, that distinction is made all the time in mainstream US articles, like in the NYT. It comes up a lot in articles about the hostage/ceasefire negotiations, where the point keeps getting made that final Hamas sign off needs to come from the military leadership in Gaza, but it's the political arm that is at the table. (And again, this isn't very different from how the Northern Ireland negotiations happened, with the more palatable people at the table but always needing sign off from the military wing.)
posted by Dip Flash at 11:01 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
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I can't help but think we had time to start changing how we live, and we just didn't, and we all know the feeling and it's just a matter of proximity at this point. The Over There is very much Here and enough of us have our comforts and conveniences that we'll probably try to grasp at the last bits of distraction to the bitter end. Cue: The Royals (etc)
posted by elkevelvet at 7:49 AM on March 13 [5 favorites]