Category: Genocide

  • Gaza now has the largest population of child amputees per capita in the world, the UN has reported, as a result of 14 months of Israel’s genocide, which has especially targeted children in relentless bombings and attacks. Israel’s genocide in Gaza has “caused an epidemic of traumatic injuries with no rehabilitation services available,” the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israel killed more than 200 Palestinians in Gaza on Saturday, including 40 members of a single family. The official death toll in Gaza is now over 44,000, although experts believe that is a vast undercount of the true figure. Israel’s onslaught has continued to kill medical and aid workers in recent days, including three people with World Central Kitchen, the head of the intensive care unit at…

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  • Israel’s war on Gaza — marked by extensive war crimes, and widely seen as an ongoing genocide — has been backed by the U.S. government, which has provided Israel with billions of dollars in weapons to be used against Palestinians. On the ground and from the air, the genocidal siege has been carried out by Israel’s military, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), whose soldiers regularly post videos and…

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  • Racism is at the core of Western societies complicity in Israeli’s genocide against the Arab Palestinians. That is self-evident. The United States and Britain are more than accomplices; they are co-belligerents. The behavior of all has been constant over 14 months of graphic depiction day-by-day of atrocities of the most heinous kinds.

    Racism, though, is a multifaceted phenomenon. It encompasses a wide range of attitudes and actions. They should be parsed as a precondition for analyzing which have been operative in this case, how they shaped policies and interventions, how reconciled with the values of liberal democracies, and how sustained in the face of such glaring criminal abuses of humanity.

    Nazi extermination of Jews is at one extreme of racism. The negative weighing of ethnic identity in vetting candidates for a position of town supervisor also is racism. Using disparaging terms about a particular ascriptive group in casual conversation is racism. Apartheid is racism – whether in the form of ghettoes, Bantustans, or the Gaza concentration camps. Thoughts can be racist, words can be racist, actions can be racist. There are connections among these three expressions of racism – but to varying degrees and not always.

    Let us take a look at these ambiguities and discontinuities with a view to getting a better fix on the ways that racism has driven Western countries’ involvement in the Palestine genocide.

    1. It is normal for social groupings to differentiate themselves. This is an affirmation of solidarity. It need not be accompanied by an ascription of the other’s intrinsic inferiority. Nor be hostile and aggressive.)
    2. The diversity among larger, more organized societies changes things in two respects: variations in race, color, language, ethnicity are frequently encountered; the capacity for stereotyping grows along with interactions that can lead to contention and rivalry.
    3. Competition and conflict generate a need for justification of ‘winners’ exploiting/subordinating/abusing losers. Prejudice serves this person.
    4. That experience once institutionalized, as it was historically in Western societies’ domination of non-Western peoples, leaves an enduring residue of prejudicial feelings among both parties in the relationship.
    5. Those feelings can fade over time while remaining dormant with the latent potential to resurface.
    6. A dramatic event instigated by a formerly subordinate/inferior that inflicts pain is the surest catalyst for that recrudescence – for it is acutely humiliating as well as painful. The intensity of the reaction (emotional, physical) to such an offense can be commensurate with the sublimated guilt one feels about past abuse of the perpetrator.

    Back to the contemporary situation. The facilitating, background factors that help explain Western elites’ willing embrace of the Palestinian genocide are easy to identify. The long history of colonial domination of ‘inferior’ peoples; their systematic exploitation; a widespread sense of diminishing status relative to emerging new centers of strength and influence – as punctuated by the 1973 oil crisis and ensuing dependency on the ‘hajjis’; a reflexive disposition to perform penance for historical sins committed against Jews in Europe by turning a blind eye to the sins of the previously sinned against; 75 years of painting the Arabs as the ‘black hats’ in their struggle against the Israeli settler state; revulsion at earlier acts of terror abroad by PLO and PFLP.

    Stunning events over the past two decades have stirred a potent mix of negative emotions about Arabs. 9/11 punctuated the opening of the Terrorism Era. Reciprocation of violent acts on Western soil and the brutal, indiscriminate retaliation of the so-called War on Terror drew a line of blood not only between the Westerners on the one side, and terrorist groups along with their perceived state ‘sponsors’, on the other. It also imprinted powerful images of Arabs/Muslims as fanatics, as a menace to their comfortable social order, as people ‘beyond the pale’ – to coin a phrase – who can be dealt with only through strength and a readiness to follow the admonition of “an eye for an eye.”

    This depiction of the ingredients that have formed the psyche of our political class in regard to Arabs, and the Palestinians in particular, goes aways toward explaining the West’s current abhorrent behavior. The extremity of their actions and inactions could be seen as the outcome of a dynamic wherein enmity turns into hatred (albeit expressed in the quiet tones of normality) and dehumanization of the ‘other.’ A paradoxical feature of this dynamic is that as past shameful abuses of the ‘other’ are aggravated by new ones, there is a compulsion to continue farther down that path. For doing provides a perverse form of reassurance that somehow they must have deserved such extreme ill treatment. This relentless punishment of our victims becomes a displacement of suppressed self-hatred – among a few.

    Suppose that the analysis offered above makes sense. That still leaves us with an inadequate understanding of what is happening. We should bear in mind the unprecedented features of the present situation. One, Western governments have no strategic interest in supporting Jerusalem’s project of creating a Greater Israel by eliminating the Palestinians. No security or economic stakes encourage that. On the contrary, Western interests in the region, and in the wider world, manifestly have been seriously damaged by their close association with all parts of the Israeli campaign. Two, there is no uncertainly about the gross crimes against humanity being committed before our eyes daily or the genocidal intent of the Israeli government. Indeed, cabinet ministers advertise what their plans are. Three, the means to prevent the bloody onslaught existed at the outset, and have been available throughout. Without abundant provision of arms and money from the United States and allies, Israel could not have prosecuted its diabolical strategy. Sanctions are also an available option, although unnecessary. Four, Western societies – particularly the European – are timorous, complacent and risk averse; therefore, to act in a manner that erodes their legitimizing foundations is incongruous, and needs explanation.

    Conclusion: the behavior of Western societies is pathological – that is to say, abnormal. It is perverse. We all share the natural instinct to protect the young of the species, and – to a somewhat lesser extent – the vulnerable aged and infirmed. This instinct, in fact, can be observed in the behavior of all mammals. Our supposedly enlightened societies go well beyond instinct to proclaim our dedication to those humane values, and to stipulate them in laws and conventions. This instinct/principle normally overrides prejudice when confronted, in the mortified flesh, with the realities of atrocity. Yet, we are acting in the diametrically opposite manner. And we ruthlessly repress those among us who point out that contradiction because their witness to our perfidy is intolerable.

    Therein lies a great puzzle. No conventional political or sociological analysis can solve it. Filling that void is the compelling challenge – and precondition for restoring a collective ethical sense that abhors rather than embraces evil. There is no scarcity of anthropologists, psychiatrists and psychologists. With luck, a few talented and motivated persons among them might step forward.

    The post Racism and Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Over the past year, analysts and writers in the mainstream press as well as in some left-wing media have argued that China has upended its relationship with Israel in its defense of Palestine in the wake of October 7. But China’s relationship with Palestine is not so clear-cut: While it has offered moderate rhetorical criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, China has maintained investments in…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • After the election, I received several texts and email messages expressing a deep sense of sorrow, angst, dread and heartbreak. Personally, I felt that sense of anger. Specifically, I share Audre Lorde’s frankness: “My response to racism is anger.” My claim is not that every single person who voted for Donald Trump is a racist, a card-carrying white supremacist. I do hold, however…

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  • Rana Nabeel Baalousha is a 23-year-old woman with a beautiful face that reflects deep compassion. She is imprisoned in a slender and frail body, clinging to the hope of experiencing just one day of normalcy. Amid the relentless atrocities of war that have ravaged Gaza for more than 400 soul-crushing days, Rana strives to survive. For five long years, Rana has been battling a rare…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israel ‘Defense’ Forces, with unconditional support of the United States, have been waging a genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023, resulting in an unparalleled humanitarian catastrophe. They dropped over 85,000 tons of bombs, exceeding the amount of explosives used in World War II.

    More than 44,000 Palestinian have been killed, including over 16,000 children, 190 journalists, 1,000 health workers, 230 United Nations staff members and many others. Over 104,000 are wounded – most of them children and women – while at least 11,000 are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes.

    As part of its genocide, Israel is also committing sporticide, killing more than 500 Palestinian athletes, including over 344 footballers. Two of them were on the Palestinian National Team, including Mohamed Barakat, the first Palestinian to score over 100 goals professionally. Israel also jailed footballers, referees, and club owners.

    Israel’s air strikes in Gaza have resulted in extensive destruction of stadiums and, sports facilities in Gaza and the West Bank. They turned football stadiums into concentration camps where they detain and humiliate thousands of Palestinians who are paraded almost naked on television screens.

    Thus, the Al Yarmouk stadium was turned into a makeshift concentration camp for Palestinian detainees. Men, women and children were rounded up, stripped down to their underwear, and blindfolded, while armed soldiers and tanks encircled the field. Blindfolded men and women were forced to kneel in front of a goal with the Israeli flag attached to the net.

    Israel allows football clubs based in illegal settlements in West Bank to compete in official Israeli leagues in violation of international law. In the occupied Jerusalem they mounted a violent attack on the headquarters of the Palestinian Football Association (PFA).

    In Apartheid Israel, sports is rampant with racism and dehumanization of Palestinians. At an Israeli match, a banner is displayed saying the lives of Palestinian children are worth nothing. Israeli football fans’ favorite anthem is “Death to the Arabs!” Such practices were noticed when Israeli team was playing in Netherland

    At the same time, Palestinian football teams, including the national team, are denied freedom of movement between the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza. They are prevented from joining the national team in regional and international matches.

    Detentions and restrictions on movement force the Palestine Football Association (PFA) to suspend football leagues in Palestine, while it hinders setting up camps for the national team abroad to participate in FIFA World Cup qualifiers.

    While FIFA allows Israeli football clubs based in illegal settlements in the West Bank to compete in official Israeli leagues, the sports body has failed to take action against Israel for its inclusion of these illegal teams in its official leagues, and for its attacks on Palestinian football. It is sportswashing Israel’s decades of forced displacement of Palestinians, its apartheid regime and its genocide against Palestinians. It is thus complicit in Israel’s breach of international law, while continuing to shield Israel’s decades-old regime of apartheid, and now genocide, from accountability.

    Actually, FIFA is violating its own statute which states that discrimination of any kind against a country, a person or group on account of race, color, ethnicity, nationality, social origin, gender, disability, language, religion, political opinion, or any other reason is strictly prohibited and punishable by suspension or expulsion.

    FIFA member associations and their clubs are not allowed to play on the territory of another member association without the latter’s approval. Yet FIFA allows Israeli sports clubs based in illegal settlements built on stolen Palestinian land to play in its official leagues. This is despite the International Court of Justice ruling that the settlements are illegal and a war crime.

    FIFA allows outright racism and dehumanization in Israeli sports. This happened when mobs of racist, genocide-inciting Israeli football fans went on a violent rampage in Amsterdam. They stole Palestinian flags from private buildings, burned them, while chanting racist slogans, and attacked people appearing to be Arab in the streets.

    And so we see global calls on FIFA to ban Israel. Such calls came, for example, from the 47-member Asian Football Confederation, as well as a petition that gathered over one million signatures. Almost 60 rights groups accused FIFA of applying “a different yardstick to Israeli actions,” undermining its credibility and exposing it “to allegations of political bias and hypocrisy.”

    The protestors included Human Rights Watch, UN Special Adviser on Sport, 66 members of European Parliament, 38 British MPs, 41 Danish MPs, and 30 Swiss MPs. They all called upon FIFA to exclude Israeli team from illegal settlements.

    ‘The Democracy in Europe Movement 2025’ ran a petition that gathered more than 112,000 signatures, calling for an immediate suspension of Israel from all international sports “until it fully complies with international law and sports regulations.” In Palestine itself 174 sports clubs wrote a letter calling on FIFA to suspend the Israel Football Federation (IFF).

    A report presented to FIFA by FairSquare, a human rights organization, said there were numerous grounds to expel the IFA, such as “the holding of matches in occupied Palestinian territory, systematic racial discrimination, Israel’s killing of Palestinian players and the systematic destruction of PFA facilities.” Most of these have been taking place well before 7 October 2023, the report asserted.

    In March 2024, PFA submitted a draft resolution, supported by six member associations, calling for FIFA to hold Israel accountable for sports rights and human rights violations against Palestinians. The resolution was to be tabled before the FIFA Congress scheduled to take place in Thailand in May.

    At the time PFA president, Jibril Rajoub, told the Congress:

    “For 15 years we have consistently raised the same concerns with FIFA, only to see them repeatedly deferred from one Congress to another, from one committee to the next. Now, as our football faces the same existential threat as our Palestinian people, FIFA must make a choice either to passively stand by, or uphold its core values and human rights obligations, and stand firmly on the right side of history.”

    Rajoub made a passionate plea to the delegates from 211 member associations to vote for suspension of Israel from FIFA, adding: “The suffering of millions of Palestinians, including thousands of footballers, deserves as much. If not now, then when? The ball is in your court.”

    In response to Rajoub’s submission, FIFA ordered an “urgent and independent” legal assessment, promising to table it for voting at an extraordinary meeting of its council in July. It didn’t happen. Instead, FIFA said the assessment would be presented to its next council meeting in August. The vote was again rescheduled to October.

    But when FIFA met in Zurich on 3rd October it once again postponed the decision to ban Israel. This time it said its disciplinary committee will “review the allegations of discrimination” raised by the PFA. Thus FIFA has repeatedly delayed taking action, procrastinating the vote, and shielding Israel from accountability.

    One wonders what “legal assessment” FIFA is seeking. Back in 2016 Wilfried Lemke, then UN special adviser on sport for development and peace, wrote to FIFA stating that the UN regards Israeli settlements, and by extension Israeli football teams that play in them, to be “illegal under international law”. He thus urged FIFA to suspend the IFA.

    Actually, what was done clandestinely became evident when, on 5 May 2024, prior to the FIFA Congress in Bangkok, an Israeli news outlet YNet reported that, “the Israeli military is working around the clock with the aim of arriving as prepared as possible and torpedoing the initiative of the Palestinian Association, which has already succeeded twice – in 2015 and 2017 – in raising the Israeli issue for discussion.”

    The report stated that legal advisors of the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, and ministry of culture and sports plus the IFA Chairman, were among the members of a WhatsApp group formed, calling itself “remaining in FIFA”.

    Under these circumstances, In May 2024, the Israeli Foreign Minister threatened to imprison Rajoub, and revoke his travel pass. The minister published a statement in social media, saying:

    “Jibril Rajoub, a terrorist in a suit who openly supported Hamas’s crimes, is working around the clock to get Israel removed from the international soccer association. We will work to thwart his plans, and if he doesn’t stop—we will imprison him.”

    And so, in June 2024, Australian authorities denied Rajoub a visa to enter the country, when Palestine was set to play Australia in a World Cup qualifier. And while returning home from Paris 2024 Olympic Games in August, Israeli forces detained Rajoub as he was entering Palestine at the Karama crossing with Jordan. They confiscated his passport, searched him, and handed him a summons for interrogation.

    FIFA’s double standard becomes unambiguous when we consider that sanction was imposed on Russia immediately after its forces invaded Ukraine. FIFA took stern and strict measures against Russia without vacillating, suspending it from all competitions. On the other hand, FIFA turns a blind eye and refuses to hold Israel accountable for it decades long record of war crimes against Palestinians.

    Thus, FIFA invents lame excuses, allowing Israel to participate freely in international competitions. Israel is not held accountable for it decades of military occupation, illegal settlements and grave crimes against Palestinians, including genocide. FIFA refrains from applying the same sanction on Israel that it has done in the case of Russia.

    Rather than following its principles, FIFA kowtows to the West’s blatant hypocrisy and double standards.

    The post FIFA is Whitewashing and Sportswashing Israeli Genocide and Sporticide first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Asia Pacific Report

    Palestinian diaspora poets, singers and musicians gathered today with solidarity partners from Aotearoa New Zealand, African nations — including South Africa — in a vibrant celebration.

    The celebration marked the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and similar events have been happening around New Zealand today, across the world and over the weekend.

    Images by David Robie of Asia Pacific Report.


    This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • For months, residents of northern Gaza have been living in extremely harsh and inhumane conditions. The situation has worsened recently. Initially, our goal was to find food, but now even finding clean drinking water is considered a stroke of luck. One woman recently told me while we were waiting in line for aid, “Days have passed, and I could only get bread and water for my children.

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  • For many Americans, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with loved ones, share a meal, watch football and express gratitude. Some Native Americans celebrate Thanksgiving this way as well, because feasting is Indigenous — we also love eating and watching football. Still, the holiday carries a much heavier weight: It is a stark reminder of the violent colonization that began with the arrival of…

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  • Beginning on November 29, the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, a weeklong event will foreground the plight and power of Palestinian cultural production amid the ongoing genocide in which Israel has killed over 44,970 people. The event, called Read Palestine Week (#ReadPalestineWeek), features online and in-person events across North America, Europe and the Middle East…

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  • The world ponders at the destruction that Israel has inflicted upon the Middle East and North Africa and questions why the United States serves as a surrogate force that assists Israel in accomplishing its purposes. How did a relatively few Zionists deceive an unknowing world to trust its cause and actions were legitimate, convince the United States government to aid and abet in the genocide of the Palestinian people, and achieve decisive power? If there were an obvious answer, and the answer predicted the future, then alerted governments would take remedial action. This has not happened. Approaches to ascertain the cause of the genocide of the Palestinian people and finding the solution to prevent it warrant scrutiny.

    Zionism succeeded as a concept and failed as a mission. Starting with spurious premises, Zionism fulfilled promises to its followers, enabled some Jews to obtain a better life, and added little to what the established Jewish community had already achieved and was continuing to achieve. It traded destruction, oppression, and decades of suffering of the Palestinian community for a contrived state, an ideal nation where Jews could easily integrate and be safe from persecution and physical danger. The latter has not happened. The narrative consisted of unproven and fantastic propositions that scattered Jewish communities throughout the world, who spoke different languages, had different histories, ate different foods, and practiced different customs, constituted a nation. Although a limited number of Jews lived, visited, or had any interest in the area for 2000 years, this nation had a national home in Palestine. The latter concept succeeded from another preposterous supposition ─ 19th century Jews, separated by 100 generations, were descendants of Hebrew tribes that wandered the area, and their wanderings, which left no significant footprints on the soil, were mesmerizing connections, beckoning Jews to return. The preposterous narrative remains relatively unchallenged in a preposterous world.

    Palestinians watched helplessly as Zionists seized their lands and kept them in submission. Caught between “heads I lose,” and ”tails you win” choices, the Palestinians had no choice but to participate in meetings of  “peace proposals” that offered establishment of two states, while knowing  that the Israeli government never intended to fulfill a “two state agreement.” If the PLO refused to continue with the farce, it faced accusations of sabotaging peace; going along with the farce meant diverting from countering Israel’s aggressions that prevented peace. This had become obvious during the 1980s, when Palestinians in the West Bank were hopeful, willing to cooperate with Israeli authorities, and eager to pave a path to self-governance. During that decade, Jewish terrorists planted bombs in the cars of elected Mayors Karim Khalaf of Ramallah and Bassam Shakaa of Nablus. Khalaf lost a foot and Shakaalost both of his legs. A third bomb planted in the car of Ibrahim Tawil, elected Mayor of El Bireh, was discovered before detonation. Between 1980 and 1984, Jewish terrorists killed 23 and injured 191 Palestinians in 354 attacks. The terrorist attacks on Palestinians motivated Hamas, a charity organization, to rebrand itself into an organization fighting for Palestinian rights. As usual, the Zionists used the charges against them for their benefit; the terrorist Israelis who murdered Palestinians provoked Hamas to retaliate and Hamas became known as a terrorist organization murdering innocent Israelis.

    Not until recent years, after several Israeli invasions brought death and destruction to the Gazans, not until illegal settlers stole land, proliferated throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem, and casually murdered Palestinians, and not until the 2023 invasion of Gaza has the world’s populace realized the extent of Israel’s murderous rampages and intent to commit genocide of the Palestinian people. Not until contemporary times has the extent of a worldwide propaganda machine that obscured the truth of the Zionist endeavor been completely recognized. There is no Israeli state, no Israeli people, no Israeli government with which to deliberate and arbitrate. They refuse all entreaties and, by doing that, deny their existence. Three salient characteristics describe the Zionism that led to the establishment of Israel:

    (1)   The Zionist adventure is best characterized as an enterprise, which became criminal in its manifestation. An enterprising band of discontented and idealistic Jewish outliers organized themselves as a business enterprise. Their Histadrut, the General Organization of Workers in Israel, became one of the most powerful institutions in the British mandate and turned into a state sponsored enterprise. As an enterprise, the marauding Zionists resembled the Puritans; their sponsors, Jewish entrepreneurs throughout the world, duplicated the Massachusetts Bay Company, financiers of the Puritan voyage.

    A small congregation of Puritans refused to reconcile their independent organization with the established Church of England. Desiring to preserve their identity and feeling constantly persecuted, they sought new places to live their unique social and communal life. In the year 1621, they concluded Europe would never accept them and sought an opportunity in America. The Massachusetts Bay Company sponsored the Puritan settlements and constructed the Massachusetts Bay Colony, whose fatal encounter with the local native population set the stage for the settlement of the entire coast-to-coast American territory and the decimation of the native peoples.

    The Zionist experience is not being detoured and, because the result may be the same ─ decimation of the native population ─ it is important that the crisis be accurately characterized. Israel is a criminal state that willfully murders Palestinians, steals their lands, ethnically cleanses them, buries their villages under rubble, and destroys their history and heritage.

    One word summarizes the taking of another person’s property, livelihood, and dignity – theft! In this case, there is a specific type of theft, Raubwirtschaft, German for “plunder economy.” In Raubwirtschaft, the state economy is partially based on robbery, looting and plundering conquered territories. States that engage in Raubwirtschaft are in continuous warfare with their neighbors and usurp the resources of their conquered subjects, while claiming security objectives and defensive actions against defenseless people.

    (2) Israel is a mirror image of the Nazi state.
    Comparisons of Israel to Nazi Germany result from its constant wars and policies that insinuate Israel as a repressive and militaristic nation.

    • Virulent nationalism ─ Israel, similar to Nazi Germany, combines a virulent nationalism with militarism.
    • Irredentism ─ Annexation of territories administered by another state on the grounds of common ethnicity or prior historical possession, drove the Third Reich. Israel’s irredentism regains mythical lands and joins a single folk in these lands.
    • Military adventures ─ The Third Reich fought continuous wars for about eight years. Israel has been fighting continuously for 75 years. The former explained their military thrusts as revenging a “stab in the back” loss in World War I. Israel explains its battles by warranted reprisals, defensive, and security measures.
    • Using overwhelming military force to subdue powerless antagonists ─ The Nazis and its Panzer troops went full attack against all opponents, regardless of their strengths. Israel uses a strategy that minimizes its casualties, and despite its claim of being a humane army, has always attacked with pulverizing force, with kill ratios of tens to one and having civilians constitute a large proportion of casualties
    • Racist laws ─ The Nazis had their Nuremberg laws. In Israel, a Jew cannot marry a non-Jew within the boundaries of Israel, similar to a Nuremberg Law that prohibited marriage between Jews and other Germans. The Nakba Law, states that “groups or institutions that mourn Israel’s Independence or deny the state’s Jewish and democratic nature” can be denied state funds. The Citizenship Law allows the state to revoke citizenship and imprison anyone convicted of acting against “the sovereignty of the state.” Few Palestinian Israelis can rent housing or buy property in West Jerusalem. Immigrant Jews are able to acquire property and not allowed to sell the property to Arab citizens. Few, if any Arabs, have been able to purchase government sponsored housing and obtain mortgages. A separation of ethnicities results in the separation of their activities, recreation centers, schools, and education.
    • Severe repression in occupied territories ─ Israel duplicates Nazi repression of conquered people, and construction of ghettoes to house them. Repression of Palestinians under occupation includes confiscation of Palestinian lands for military use, destruction of wells, olive trees and agriculture, raids on villages, obtrusive checkpoints, mass arrests of opposition, and denial of highway use. Walls separate Palestinian communities and families and farmers from livestock and fields, choke the Palestinian economy, and obstruct daily exchanges between people.
    • Killing of opposition and punitive measures after an attack ─ The Nazis used punitive measures and collective punishment to terrorize its captive peoples and crushed resistance. Israel has done the same. The Nazis had Lidice, a village destroyed after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi leader in Bohemia and Moravia. In 1953, in retaliation for a Palestinian guerrilla incursion into Israel that killed several Israeli civilians, the Israeli military raided the West Bank village of Qibya, killed 67 Palestinians and destroyed 56 houses. Palestine has been victim to tens of Lidicies ─ destruction of areas and houses due to accusations of being the homes of suicide bombers.
    • Ethnic cleansing ─ The Nazis planned to move populations in Eastern European nations and repopulate the areas with Germans. After the 1948 and 1967 wars, Israel destroyed 412 Palestinian villages and eventually created 1.2 million refugees who were not permitted to return to their homes. Palestinian bank accounts, land, homes, and industries were confiscated. Incursions have destroyed patrimony, archives, and cultural identity of the Palestinians. Israel military seized the Palestinian archives in Beirut during the war in Lebanon and, under international pressure, eventually returned them.
    • Propaganda ─ Due to its international reach, the Israel propaganda machine exceeds that of the Nazis, churning out each day books, films, plays, music, and articles that extend memories of the Holocaust, references to anti-Semitism, and the greatness of little Israel who needs support as it fights against the world’s evils. An army of several hundreds of thousands of Israeli supporters include planted “emigrants” to the United States and Germany, who invade civic life and institutions throughout the western word, lobby support for Israel, criticize opponents, spread false charges of anti-Semitism, and convince the world of Israel’s cause.
    • Genocide ─ The Nazis are identified with a genocide of European Jews. Israel’s policies are paving a route to destruction of the Palestinian people. Hopelessness, despair, immobility, lack of redress for the loss of their lands, economic insecurity, and constant attacks against their persona and livelihood drive the Palestinians to a difficult existence. Israel’s occupying force shows no care for the rights of the occupied people and no desire to address the fatal issues concerning them; even reinforcing the misery.

    (3) Psychologically disturbed ─ Widely known and not widely discussed, are the disturbing comments and activities of Jewish Israelis and Zionist Jews around the world. Rarely censored by the Israeli government and their native countries, they give an impression that Zionist Jews are morally corrupt, psychologically disturbed, and gain pleasure in lying, deceiving, and harming others, even murdering innocents. Zionist Jews elevate themselves to a superior and unique place in the firmament, the chosen people to whom all others must give homage. Claiming to be eternal victims of anti-Semitism, they daily demand restitution and forgiveness for mostly fabricated crimes committed against them.

    Nowhere and never in the civilized world have a preponderance of a nation’s leaders and its citizens expressed hatred and violence against others equivalent to the expressions from Israel’s leaders and citizens. Without shame, without control, and without concern of their malevolent appearance to others, their detestable utterances have become commonplace and are well known.

    • Israeli Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu suggested that dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was “one of the possibilities” in the current conflict.
    • Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant referred to Palestinians as “human animals.”
    • Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “The Palestinian village of Huwwara should be wiped out. The state needs to do it and not private citizens.”
    • David Ben-Gurion said, “it doesn’t matter what the gentiles say, only what the Jews do.
    • Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We will turn Gaza into an island of ruins.”
    • Former Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave orders “to break the bones of Palestinian inciters.”
    • Ariel Kallner, a member of Israel’s parliament, said, “Right now, one goal: Nakba! A Nakba that will overshadow the Nakba of ’48. Nakba in Gaza and Nakba to anyone who dares to join! Their Nakba, because like then in 1948, the alternative is clear.”

    Israel’s citizens reflect an indoctrination of hate and violence that complement their government’s expressions. Maccabi Tel Aviv fans arriving at Ben Gurion airport from Amsterdam sang: “Ole ole, ole ole ole, Why is school out in Gaza? There are no children left there!” An X user commented, “These people are deranged. They have lost all humanity. A culture of murder and theft doesn’t come without cost.”

    A rocket hit the northern Israel home of Safa Awad, a Palestinian Israeli schoolteacher, and killed her. The Middle East Eye reports that a volunteer at Magen David Adom, an Israeli rescue service organization, wrote, in a post that has received more than a thousand likes, that, “There is nothing to feel sorry for. She is a terrorist in every respect. She is not in our favour in any way. May her getting fucked be blessed.”

    Go to Quora, and observe a string of comments by Israeli propagandists who plant  question and then answer it: “Gaza has a fertility rate of 3.38 in 2023. In 2005 its fertility rate was 6.2. Islam at its finest. They breed like cockroaches.”

    Contending  those defending Israel’s genocidal tactics as geopolitical power politics (USA), guilt for the Holocaust (Germany), and as a settler colonial state (Western nations) have legs, but are counterproductive and have not moved nations to contend Israel. Accusing nations of duplicity only makes them defend themselves and reinforce their duplicity. Showing that Israel cannot be defended and is an immoral, social, economic, and military threat to humanity ─ well, who wants to defend a nation of that description?

    Unless others share in the proceeds, a criminal nation has no defenders. What benefit is it for the Western nations to support criminal activities that negatively affects them?

    Western nations and the Soviet Union fought a World War to defeat Nazism and bring order to the world.

    • How can nations allow the transfer of the racist and genocidal doctrines of the German Nazis to a similar regime? Why did we fight the war?
    • How can Germany claim to makes amends for its past Nazi experience and support the transfer of that experience to another nation?
    • How can nations allow Israel serve as a model and catalyst for ultra-reactionary regimes?

    The mentality that perpetrates the genocide and regales in it is unacceptable. Turning protests against genocide into attacks on Jews, and using the anti-Semitism word are delusionary. We need protection against people who exhibit murderous, racist, venomous, and delusionary characteristics and not offerings of invitations for them to manipulate our society.

    The analysis may seem overkill, but for understanding the critical situation, it is necessary to place in proper perspective the nature of the Israeli regime. Treating it as a despotic nation is incomplete. People make a country and the Israeli people and their worldwide supporters are not the empathetic and cordial populace that guarantees healthy living.

    The post Bringing Reality to the Palestinian Struggle first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Dan Lieberman.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Palestine’s UN ambassador issued a strong rebuke of the high-powered UN Security Council (UNSC) for failing to stop the genocide in Gaza after the U.S. vetoed a ceasefire proposal for the fifth time on Wednesday, questioning whether the council has decided that it is acceptable to sacrifice Palestinian lives. “There is no right to mass killing of civilians. There is no right to starve an…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued long-awaited arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. The ICC said in a statement that there are “reasonable grounds to believe” that Netanyahu and Gallant have violated international law in using starvation as a method…

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  • This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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  • On Wednesday, less than a fifth of the Senate voted to block weapons sales to Israel in a key vote orchestrated by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) that will be remembered for decades to come as a show of U.S. lawmakers’ deep complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Senators overwhelmingly rejected the resolutions, with around 79 voting against blocking the sales of tank rounds…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Seg5 peoplesplenarybanner 2

    At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, civil society members held a People’s Plenary called “Pay Up, Stand Up: Finance Climate Action, Not Genocide” outside negotiation rooms in which U.N. member states attempted to hammer out a global climate finance deal. In the face of the conference’s restrictions on protest, civil society members unfurled the names of Palestinians who have been killed, reading out the names of those killed by Israel’s military aggression and calling for an end to ecocidal violence worldwide. We hear from three people who participated in the action, including Palestinian activist Jana Rashed and Sudanese activist Leena Eisa — both of whom call on nations to stop providing fuel for genocides being perpetrated against Palestinian, Lebanese and Sudanese people — and the plenary’s co-chair Lidy Nacpil, who calls the gathering a “celebration” of marginalized voices at the climate summit.


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

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  • Israeli forces are explicitly allowing — and, in some cases, giving protection to — armed gangs in Gaza that are looting aid trucks and creating major obstacles for humanitarian groups to reach Palestinians in need, reports reveal. According to The Washington Post, an internal UN memo from last month found that looting gangs “may be benefiting from a passive if not active benevolence” from…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • One of the largest unions in the U.S. has thrown its weight behind Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vermont) bid this week to block a huge tranche of weapons sales to Israel amid its genocide in Gaza. The Service Employees International Union, or SEIU, announced on Monday that it supports Sanders’s joint resolutions of disapproval to halt the deals, in compliance with U.S. humanitarian law. The union…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Israeli forces are carrying out field executions of civilians in north Gaza and causing dozens to die under the rubble as Israel carries out its horrific all-out siege of the region, a rights group has reported. According to a report by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israeli forces are “terrorizing” civilians in north Gaza, forcing them to evacuate their homes and killing Palestinians on…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Asia Pacific Report

    A West Papuan advocacy group for self-determination for the colonised Melanesians has appealed to the United Kingdom government to cancel its planned reception for new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.

    “Prabowo is a blood-stained war criminal who is complicit in genocide in East Timor and West Papua,” claimed an exiled leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda.

    He said he hoped the government would stand up for human rights and a “habitable planet” by cancelling its reception for Prabowo.

    Prabowo, who was inaugurated last month, is on a 12-day trip to China, the United States, Peru, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

    He is due in the UK on Monday, November 19.

    The trip comes as Indonesian security forces brutally suppressed a protest against Indonesia’s new transmigration strategy in the Papuan region.

    Wenda, an interim president of ULMWP, said Indonesia was sending thousands of industrial excavators to destroy 5 million hectares of Papuan forest along wiith thousands of troops to violently suppress any resistance.

    “Prabowo has also restarted the transmigration settlement programme that has made us a minority in our own land. He wants to destroy West Papua,” the UK-based Wenda said in a statement.

    ‘Ghost of Suharto’ returns
    “For West Papuans, the ghost of Suharto has returned — the New Order regime still exists, it has just changed its clothes.

    “It is gravely disappointing that the UK government has signed a ‘critical minerals’ deal with Indonesia, which will likely cover West Papua’s nickel reserves in Tabi and Raja Ampat.

    “The UK must understand that there can be no real ‘green deal’ with Indonesia while they are destroying the third largest rainforest on earth.”

    Wenda said he was glad to see five members of the House of Lords — Lords Harries, Purvis, Gold, Lexden, and Baroness Bennett — hold the government to account on the issues of self-determination, ecocide, and a long-delayed UN fact-finding visit.

    “We need this kind of scrutiny from our parliamentary supporters more than ever now,” he said.

    Prabowo is due to visit Oxford Library as part of his diplomatic visit.

    “Why Oxford? The answer is clearly because the peaceful Free West Papua Campaign is based here; because the Town Hall flies our national flag every December 1st; and because I have been given Freedom of the City, along with other independence leaders like Nelson Mandela,” Wenda said.

    This visit was not an isolated incident, he said. A recent cultural promotion had been held in Oxford Town Centre, addressed by the Indonesian ambassador in an Oxford United scarf.

    Takeover of Oxford United
    “There was the takeover of Oxford United by Anindya Bakrie, one of Indonesia’s richest men, and Erick Thohir, an Indonesian government minister.

    “This is not about business — it is a targeted campaign to undermine West Papua’s international connections. The Indonesian Embassy has sponsored the Cowley Road Carnival and attempted to ban displays of the Morning Star, our national flag.

    “They have called a bomb threat in on our office and lobbied to have my Freedom of the City award revoked. Indonesia is using every dirty trick they have in order to destroy my connection with this city.”

    Wenda said Indonesia was a poor country, and he blamed the fact that West Papua was its poorest province on six decades of colonialism.

    “There are giant slums in Jakarta, with homeless people sleeping under bridges. So why are they pouring money into Oxford, one of the wealthiest cities in Europe?” Wenda said.

    “The UK has been my home ever since I escaped an Indonesian prison in the early 2000s. My family and I have been welcomed here, and it will continue to be our home until my country is free and we can return to West Papua.”

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • The Biblical Book of Job chronicles a string of catastrophes relentlessly plaguing the main character, Job, who loses his prosperity, his home, his health, and his children. Eventually, an agonized Job curses his own existence as well as the god that created him.

    Numerous interpretations of the story exist, and more than one version has circulated through the ancient Near East. One version concludes with Job avowing repentance. “I know that my redeemer liveth, and so I repent in dust and in ashes.”

    The Latin root for the word ‘repent’ is pensare – to think. ‘Repent” suggests an effort to rethink.

    Job’s surprising repentance has been on my mind as calls increase, in 2024, for the United Nations to rethink its relation to Israel as a member state. Increasingly, civil society groups are pressuring Permanent Missions to the UN to eject Israel as a voting member of the General Assembly.

    To paraphrase Pankraj Mishra, writing for the New York Review of Books, a stunned world has watched with disbelief as the United States provisions Israel with weapons enabling a mass murder spree across the Middle East.

    Palestinians in the West Bank have recently urged all organizations demanding UN compliance with the International Criminal Court ruling of July 2024 to sign a letter available at World BEYOND War which urges Member States of the United Nations General Assembly to fulfill their duties.

    Following up on the potential of this letter, a new coalition, “Global Solidarity for Peace in Palestine” has issued a letter to His Excellency Mr. Philemon Yang, the President of the United Nations General Assembly asking him to convene an urgent meeting of the General Assembly to demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire, establish and secure humanitarian aid corridors and ensure the complete withdrawal of Israel from the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

    The letter additionally requests:

    • The revival of the UN Committee Against Apartheid to address systemic violations of international law and human rights in the OPT.
    • Consideration of targeted boycotts, sanctions, and divestments, particularly against illegal operations in the OPT.
    • The establishment of an arms embargo on Israel.
    • Exploration of suspending Israel from the General Assembly until it complies with international law.

    To further support these efforts, the letter calls for the establishment of an unarmed UN peacekeeping mission in the OPT under Chapter VII of the UN Charter to ensure the safety and dignity of all civilians.

    In a way, Israel has already removed itself from norms maintained by the UN Charter as it has consistently flouted UN treaties, Resolutions and Advisory opinions. We must not forget that Israel refuses to acknowledge to the UN its possession of nuclear weapons.

    I felt startled, during an initial planning call held with Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, when one of them spoke of the evacuation he and his family faced, that very day, and said, “We are facing the final solution. Israel is imposing the final solution on us.” Other participants spoke of having shuddered during bombings, day and night.

    Journalist Mehdi Hasan,  writes movingly in the Guardian of how absurd it is that the United Nations’ General Assembly agrees to seat Israel as a U.N. member nation.

    Israel’s abusive repudiation of the very idea of the United Nations, its escalating and lethal violation of countless international norms, its repeated, lethal attacks on U.N. sanctuaries and peacekeepers justifies its expulsion. Hasan reminds us that Israel’s outgoing Ambassador to the United Nations shredded the UN charter while standing at the General Assembly podium. This is the Charter that declares the UN mission to eradicate the scourge of warfare for future generations.

    It is time for the clouds to part above the burning lands of West Asia – for the suffering there to be comforted and their pitiless accusers rebuked by the gathered voice of humanity, by the agent that created Israel and can, when it wishes, “let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.” The work here is ours, and so let our United Nations demand, and not beg, humanity from Israel and from its imperial sponsor the United States.

    The post When Will the General Assembly Suspend Israel? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Michigan) is reiterating her call for Secretary of State Antony Blinken to resign after the Biden administration said there is no reason to suspend weapons transfers to Israel, despite evidence that the transfers are violating U.S. human rights law. In a speech on the House floor this week, Tlaib slammed the Biden administration for its decision this week not to withdraw…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • In the acclaimed new book Gaza Faces History, historian Enzo Traverso challenges Western attitudes toward Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza by reckoning with the larger historical context of the Holocaust and the Nakba. Traverso details how memorializing the Holocaust became a sort of “civil religion” that honored human rights and the values of Western liberal democracies after the Second World…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.


  • This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Seg3 guest book split

    In the acclaimed new book Gaza Faces History, historian Enzo Traverso challenges Western attitudes toward Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza by reckoning with the larger historical context of the Holocaust and the Nakba. Traverso details how memorializing the Holocaust became a sort of “civil religion” that honored human rights and the values of Western liberal democracies after the Second World War. However, in recent decades, Traverso warns, “the memory of the Holocaust experienced a paradoxical metamorphosis, and it was weaponized by Israel and by most Western powers in order to become a policy of an unconditional support of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.” Witnessing this distortion of history, “I was shocked by the way in which many words, many concepts had been abused and misunderstood,” says Traverso. “Now we are facing a paradoxical situation in which the perpetrator is Hamas and the Palestinians, and the victims are the Israelis. And this is a reversal of reality.”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • A UN special committee has found that Israel’s tactics of starvation and mass civilian slaughter in Gaza are “consistent with genocide,” in one of the strongest worded reports by a UN group yet on the Israeli siege. The 27-page report documented the first nine months of Israel’s assault and was prepared by a UN committee established in 1968 to investigate Israeli human rights practices in the…

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    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.


  • This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Seg2 gaza arwa

    We go to Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, where we get an update from Arwa Damon of the humanitarian organization INARA on “deteriorating conditions” as Palestinians are “slowly exterminated” by disease and starvation caused by Israel’s brutal siege. A special U.N. committee has found that Israel’s actions in Gaza are “consistent with the characteristics of genocide.” Palestinians in Gaza feel that “they are living through their own annihilation,” says Damon. “There is actually a real sense that the worst is yet to come.”


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.