In one year of genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed, wounded, detained or otherwise rendered missing at least 10 percent of Palestinians in Gaza. Since October 7, 2023, over 50,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 100,000 have been injured, per the latest counts by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor in a report released for the anniversary of the start of the genocide.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
In Judaism, the first 10 days of the new year — a period we are observing this week — are a time of committed reflection. As I reflect on this year of death and destruction, I think of all the lives that have been taken — 1,189 Israelis were killed or taken hostage and at least 42,000 Palestinians and likely far more were killed. Every human killed in the past year was someone else’s entire world.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Today is a difficult day. Israel’s U.S.-sponsored war on Gaza has been relentlessly raging on for a whole year — with no end in sight. On October 7, 2023, Hamas and other resistance fighters broke through their open-air prison wall and launched a massive assault that killed 1,140 Israelis. They also took 250 hostages, of whom 101 remain in custody awaiting an elusive ceasefire and hostage…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates.”
Genesis 15:18
“You must not let any living thing survive among the cities of these people the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. 2:17 You must completely destroy them the Hethite, Amorite, Canaanite, Perizzite, Hivite, and Jebusite as the Lord your God has commanded you.”
Deuteronomy 2:16 2:17J
“And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.”
Joshua 6:21
“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (Christian Standard Bible)
Samuel 1 15:3
The Jerusalem Post states: “Rabbi Dov Lior, a national- religious leader and the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and Hebron, published a letter on Monday saying that Jewish law permits destroying the entire Gaza Strip.”
A rabbi whose yeshivah is being funded by the government shamelessly calling for the murder of an entire population. Wiping them all out. This happened. And nothing is being done to stop him or silence him or even defund this guy yet to this historian’s knowledge.
Israeli pilots know that they kill children when dropping massive amount bombs on city centers, the bombardment these pilots carry out resulting in the death of exponentially monstrously more civilians, including children, than died in the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Western media outlets portray the pilots as heroes who did not intend to kill non-combatants, but they have bombed homes, residential buildings, mosques, schools, universities, bakeries, shops, hospitals, U.N. facilities etc. As of October 13, 2024, the U.N. has reported over 41,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes since October 7, 2023. [A Lancet article from 10 July 2024 reported a much higher estimate: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death9 to the 37 396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186 000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.” — DV ed.]
Have the pilots been made to feel that God is on their side in any and all circumstance?: during the 2014 bombing that took 2,200 lives? during Operation Cast Lead (2008–2009) when approximately 1,400 Palestinians were killed, including a large number of civilians, while Israel lost 13 soldiers? during Operation Pillar of Defense (2012) when over 160 Palestinians were killed, while only six Israelis died? during Operation Guardian of the Walls (2021) wherein over 250 Palestinians were killed, including women and children, and 13 people in Israel died? during the long merciless Israeli invasion 1982 war in Lebanon in which from 10,000 to 20,000 were killed and which led to the abominable bloody massacre at Sabra and Shatila?[statistics provided by AI ChatbotGTP]
All to seize the land ‘God gave their ancestors’ more than seventeen centuries ago.
Albert Einstein letter to Jewish philosopher Eric Gutkind dated January 1954
“For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people” I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.”
Albert Einstein wrote a letter to the New York Times on December 4, 1948, co-signed by several prominent intellectuals and Jewish figures. The letter specifically referred to the Deir Yassin massacre (April 1948), in which over 100 Palestinian civilians were killed by the Irgun and other forces, calling it an example of the group’s brutality. It also warned against Menachem Begin’s politics of expansionism and aggression. The letter represented a moral appeal against the rise of extremist nationalist movements within Zionism (but Menachem Begin came to be Israel’s sixth prime minister).
In spite of Einstein’s efforts, the Palestinian Arabs, while still suffering British military occupation as a colony since the end of the First World War, were expelled and/or re-colonized after the Second World War by another group of armed Europeans through a genocidal civil war planned and provoked by Anglo-American machinations.
Subsequently the U.N. General Assembly told Israelis to return the land and homes and to compensate Palestinians! Resolution #194 12/11/1948, ignored by Israel.
The State of Israel from its creation has been in bed with a US war investing business elite that once heavily invested in Hitler, was itself anti-Semitic in outlook, coldly indifferent and even complicit during the Holocaust its investments had made possible.
The billions of US dollars spent on munitions and weapons of mass destruction to kill Palestinians who keep on attacking fighting for rectification of the heartless injustice done them, could have been used to begin to compensate Arabs made destitute refugees by the criminal seizure of their lands, homes and properties.
But then where would faith in the Bible be? And U.S. support for Israel’s military with the latest high tech bombs and war planes? And Israeli support of the many U.S./NATO regime change wars in the oil rich nations of the Middle East? And the billions in profits for the investors in U.S. and European giant weapons manufacturing corporations like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and BAE Systems (UK), Airbus Defense and Space (EU), Leonardo (Italy), Thales Group (France) and Rheinmetall AG (Germany), whose CEO’s are most probably well educated and knowledgeable about the Bible.
Post Script
Great Fun?
As journalists in the West sought to portray the war on Gaza as complex and nuanced rather than the genocide it was accused of approaching by a U.N. court, a flood of social media posts from Israeli soldiers suggested they regarded it as anything but.
Apparently, for a considerable amount of Israeli soldiers war against defenceless Palestinian civilians can be great fun, and worth sharing with society at large.
An Al Jazeera feature length investigation exposed Israeli war crimes in the Gaza Strip through the medium of photos and videos posted online by Israeli soldiers themselves during the year-long conflict.
Israeli troops laugh as they blow up a mosque in Gaza. For the most part, soldiers posted material in their own names on publicly accessible platforms and often gave details of when and where the incidents depicted took place.
Al Jazeera began collecting these videos and photos, compiling a database of more than 2,500 social media accounts.
A soldier told about a man being tortured: “Nothing prevents us from killing you. We could just kill you all. That’s normal. No one will deter us, and no one will call us to account.”
The behaviour displayed in the photos and videos ranges from crass jokes and soldiers rifling through women’s underwear drawers to what appears to be the murder of unarmed civilians.
It reveals a range of illegal activities, from wanton destruction and looting to demolitions of neighbourhoods and murder featuring wildly joyous grins and laughing while watching terrifyingly huge fiery explosions.
Could it possibly be Bible-based Schadenfreude?
*****
ADDENDUM 1
“The Oppressed Will Rise!” Eventual Rebellion of Those Who Have Been Subjugated
Back in 1956, Moshe Dayan, Israeli military leader and politician, commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War spoke thusly at a funeral.
“Let us not cast the blame on the murderers today. Why should we deplore their burning hatred for us? For eight years they have been sitting in the refugee camps in Gaza, and before their eyes we have been transforming the lands and villages, where they and their fathers dwelt, into our estate” a sea of hatred and desire for revenge is swelling.”
OCTOBER 7, 2023!
As Reported in Hegemonic Western Media
On Oct. 7, the militant Palestinian organisation Hamas based in Gaza led a brutal invasion of Israel. Israel accuses Hamas of killing 1,200 people, mainly civilians, however the major Hebrew newspapers have carried Israeli military admissions that firing from Israeli Apache Helicopters and tanks accounted for some of the Israeli civilian deaths. Hamas, which is also the democratically elected government of the Israeli open air prison of Gaza, claims most Israeli casualties were military.
By October 17, ten days later, the Israeli armed forces had bombed to death more than 5,000 Palestinians in Gaza, mostly women and children, at times dropping 2,000 pound bombs on apartment buildings, and had cut off all water, food and fuel to Gaza.
On that same 17th day of October 2023, Dr. Norman Finkelstein gave a talk at the University of Massachusetts labeled, “The Struggle for Justice in Palestine: Past, Present, and Future.”
“Palestinians have been trapped in a concentration camp for twenty years” as “the international community had abandoned them, and whatever tactic they attempted, including nonviolent resistance, had no impact on freeing them from that concentration camp.”
China to International Court of Justice:
“Palestine has ‘inalienable right’ to armed resistance. Palestinian ‘use of force to resist oppression is an inalienable right’ and cannot be equated with terrorism.”
UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, tweeted on X, April 8, 2023: “Israel can’t claim it has a right to defend itself from the people it oppresses and whose land it colonizes.”
Right away, on October 9, Israel’s defence minister announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, describing the Palestinian fighters who attacked Israel over the weekend as “human animals.” “We are imposing a complete siege on Gaza,” Gallant said. “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel. Everything will be closed.” (Oct. 9, 2023 HuffPost)
Once Reported – Thereafter Made to be Forgotten
‘Erase Gaza’: War Unleashes Incendiary Rhetoric in Israel
Nov 15, 2023 – “Erase Gaza. Don’t leave a single person there,” Yair Golan an Israeli politician and senior military officer, said in an interview with Channel 14 on Oct. 15. New York Times Nov. 15, 2023
An Israeli rabbi urged the killing of women and children in the Gaza Strip and said he considered it a response to the teachings of halakha, or Jewish law.
It came from Eliyahu Mali in a video that was widely circulated Thursday on social media.
Mali heads the Shirat Moshe religious school in Jaffa in central Israel, where students serve in the army.
He claimed that those described as “vandals” in today’s war are “the children of the previous war whom we kept alive, and in reality, it is the women who produce terrorists.”
“Whoever comes to kill you with this concept does not only include the young man aged 16, 18, 20, or 30 who is now pointing a weapon at you, but also the future generation (the children of Gaza), and those who produce the future generation (women of Gaza), because there is really no difference,” he said.
Since October 7, 2023
‘Hamas beheaded 40 babies, baked another in an oven, carried out mass, systematic rapes, and cut a foetus from its mother’s womb.’
An Israeli first responder to the October 7 terror attack has claimed that Hamas terrorists roasted a baby in an oven in shocking video testimony. Asher Moskowitz, of the United Hatzalah first responder group, published a video of himself speaking to a camera, delivering his witness account.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken describing in graphic detail – an incredible Hamas attack on an Israeli family watched and heard by this writer on C-Span, but now blacked out of the Internet.
“The father’s eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed.Then their executioners sat down and had a meal.”
Efforts by the United Nations to investigate these claims are being obstructed by Israel and have largely gone unreported.
Le Monde April 3, 2024: “On October 10, official Israeli accounts relayed a sordid but unfounded allegation. Six months later, it continues to circulate, fuelling accusations of Israeli disinformation.”
Western Media Journalists Avoid Mention of IDF Videos Showing Israeli soldiers Laughing as Universities, Mosques, Hospitals, and Apartment Buildings Are Blown Up
As hegemonic news media makes sure this macabre inhuman slaughter in Gaza goes on and on, we can recall what hero publisher of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, said during the U.S.-UK-led war on Iraq. Assange suggested we ask ourselves:
That is war by media. Let us ask ourselves of the complicit media, which is the majority of the mainstream press, what is the average death count attributed to each journalist?
“When we understand that wars come about as a result of lies peddled to the British public and the American public and the publics all over Europe and other countries then who are the war criminals? It is not just leaders, it is not just soldiers, it is journalists; journalists are war criminals. And while one might think that that should lead us to a state of despair, that the reality that is constructed around us is constructed by liars, is constructed by people who are close to those that they are meant to be policing, it should lead us also to an optimistic understanding because if wars can be started by lies, truth can be started, peace can be started by truth.
Julian Assange spoke succinctly about those media journalists who read us selected, bent and twisted one-sided news to disinform, blind or subtly trick the public to support, accept or ignore ongoing atrocity wars even when massive amount of lives are being taken.
Julian Assange has brought to our attention the pleasant-looking evening news anchor who captivates TV audiences with alternating joviality and gravitas, asking whether they should be seen as insidiously evil as they generate support for horrific suffering, death, maiming and destruction.
Media Falsified ‘Search for Peace in the Holy Land
For seventy-five years, the powerful media of the ‘Colonial Powers renamed ‘Free World’ and finally ‘the International Community of Nations’ have kept up a murderously deceitful pretence of trying to bring peace to Palestine and the oil rich Middle East. A quick glance at the provisions of the 1946 proposed UN partition that were fully expected and obviously intended to incite violence and create deadly conflict, permanent hostilities, destabilisation and facilitate Western imperialist penetration, exposes this pretending to search for a peace which that financial element that rules the United States and Wall St. has never wanted.
75 years of pro-Israel journalism for the same U.S. war investing business elite that once heavily invested in Hitler, was itself anti-Semitic in outlook, coldly indifferent and even complicit during the Holocaust its investments had made possible.
Since October 7, Israel has blocked, food, water, electricity and fuel from entering Gaza, with the unholy desired effect of the present famine with children now dying of malnutrition. This has been rarely mentioned in pro-Israel journalism.
Commercial newscast time is almost entirely devoted to the hostages, with almost never a word regarding the thousands of Palestinians, many children, the hostages were taken to exchange.
Journalists of the U.S.-led hegemonic West are responsible for prolonging the Genocide of fellow Human Beings — almost half of them children! — by delaying the world from putting an end to Israel’s American provisioned and supported slaughter of Palestinians through air strikes and famine.
How many more children will soon die because Journalists working for the giant entertainment/news corporation conglomerates of the U.S.A. led hegemonic colonialist West have for twelve months been underreporting
This article is dedicated to the indescribably inhuman horror of death and destruction being brought down upon Palestinians, especially on thousands of their children.
For one whole year Israel has rained down death, maiming, and terror upon more than 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. As of early October 2024, the ongoing conflict in Gaza has resulted in the deaths of around 17,000 Palestinian children since October 2023, according to reports from local authorities and humanitarian organisations, with UNICEF warning of the unimaginable horrors faced by Gaza’s children during the relentless Israeli attacks. Many of these children are not only victims of the violence but also suffer from severe psychological trauma, physical injuries, and the loss of parents.
Today’s seemingly ubiquitous accessory to wars CIA overseen hegemonic international media must and will eventually be taken down by a growing alternate media and new media from powerful greatly populated countries like China, India and other prospering nations of the awakening South. Today’s twisted realities and their mass murderous history will soon be apparent even to Americans, who, along with the victims of its wars, will benefit from the truth.
The post A God Ordered Theft of Land and Genocide first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
In the first half of the show, international human rights lawyer Karnig Kerkonian joins the show to discuss Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of the Artsakh Armenians from the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Karnig outlines the genocidal intent of President Ilham Aliyev, what the US knew and didn’t do to stop it, and how the international community should respond, not least of all as this year’s climate summit, COP29 is being held so ironically in what Karnig calls the petrol-dictatorship of Azerbaijan. Next up, journalist, researcher and policy director at Defending Rights and Dissent Chip Gibbons joins the show to discuss Israel’s targeted and mass killing of journalists on the ground in Gaza. Chip highlights the vehement hypocrisy with which the US pretends to uphold freedom of the press while not only ignoring the murder of journalists but while pushing for a media blackout and censorship of reports from Gaza.
The post Greenwashing Genocide in Armenia & Targeting the Truth in Palestine appeared first on Project Censored.
This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Kate Horgan.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
I’ve appended an excellent article by Mike Whitney, which I read as I was starting to write this. It makes mine much shorter because it says much of what I intended, and better, with good references. It’s worth reading carefully, even if you find that much of it simply confirms what you suspected, with more evidence and argument. What I would like to add, nevertheless, is what the future bodes and what Palestine/Israel may finally look like.
1. Israel will not defeat Hamas or its allies in the Palestinian resistance. Hamas is becoming stronger, not weaker, with a growing number of recruits among survivors in Gaza whose families Israel has wiped out. Hamas weapons are largely harvested from the limitless supply of unexploded Israeli ordnance and abandoned arms, which are repurposed as needed in small factories deep underground, in mostly impenetrable and well defended sealed tunnels.
2. Hamas also cannot defeat Israel, but Israel is becoming weaker, not stronger. It may have unlimited US arms and money, but its mostly reserve forces are exhausted, and its economy is in tatters. Roughly 10% of its population has left the country in the last year. Until now, Israel’s military strategy for the last 77 years has been to fight short, intensive wars that quickly crush the enemy. Today it finds itself in a protracted war of attrition. That is why it is failing. Palestinians are ready to endure and sacrifice. Israelis are pampered by comparison.
3. Israel also cannot defeat Hezbollah, Ansarallah (Houthis), Iran, or any of the Axis of Resistance, nor can any or all of them defeat Israel. So why is Israel trying to bring them into the war? One reason is that Netanyahu and his government need to show the discouraged and increasingly angry Israeli public that they have options other than the stalemate in Gaza, i.e. a reason to cheer. The other reason is to attempt to bring the US military more directly into the war. Even the US cannot win without ground troops, for which they have no trained or properly armed forces, but under cover of a wider war, Israel perceives an opportunity to more intensively eliminate a larger portion of the Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza. As in the past, this will not bring peace, but it will fulfill some Zionist expansionist dreams and assure a place for Netanyahu in the Zionist pantheon. It is also a potential doomsday scenario that could threaten the entire world as we know it.
4. If (a very big IF) Israel succeeds that far – and even if it does not – its future will nonetheless be very different from its past. It will no longer be the glamorous, trendy place that attracts celebrities and hosts international events. It will be shunned by much of the world, both economically and culturally. It will become a redoubt of Zionist fanatics, with a reduced domestic population as well as diminishing support among both the Jewish and non-Jewish population of the world with whom the fanatics have little in common. It will become more of a pariah than it is now, isolated and more dependent than ever on support from the US and a handful of other countries. It will be a rough existence, not very appealing.
5. How will it end? One possibility is that Israel will eventually fade away, as the crusaders did a millennium ago, its population dwindling to nothing, due to lack of support and reinforcements. Another is that they will finally leave by force, as the hated French did from Algeria, with few traces other than their edifices. The third possibility is that they will accept a single non-Zionist state in all of Palestine, where Jews are not a majority, based on the South African model. Although this last is probably the best for all concerned, it is by no means necessarily the most likely outcome. Then, there is ethnic cleansing, genocide, expulsion and/or eradication of the Palestinians, on a scale that leaves few if any in Palestine, but opens the possibility of future expansion into Lebanon, Syria, the East Bank (Jordan), Sinai (again, in Egypt) and even parts of Saudi Arabia. Some Zionists consider it Manifest Destiny.
I wish I could say that the situation in 2025, on the second anniversary of the al-Aqsa Flood, will be better than on the first, but it might look much the same, only with greater death and destruction. Nevertheless, I suspect that it is the beginning of the end for Israel as we know it – however long it takes – and that the long Palestinian sacrifice may finally achieve freedom, liberation and national sovereignty.
The post The End Game in Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Before October 7, 2023, I was Abdallah. Afterward, I’m still Abdallah, according to my ID, but I can’t recognize this new version of myself. Displaced by bombing from my home in eastern Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza Strip, to the al-Mawasi neighborhood of Khan Younis, I have lost so many loved ones to Israel’s attacks over the past year: I am mourning 60 family members…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israel killed 20 Palestinians in an airstrike on Tulkarem refugee camp in the northern West Bank late on Thursday, October 3, the Palestinian Health Ministry reported. Several children and an entire family were among the dead, as the strike targeted a three-floor residential building in the center of the camp. The strike, conducted with an Israeli fighter jet using a heavy missile…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
As the anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza approaches, a group of nearly 100 American health care workers back from Gaza have estimated that the true death toll in Gaza is at least four times higher than the official reported count, if not far higher. In a devastating letter sent to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this week, 99 health workers who…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Last year, just days into Israel’s genocide in Gaza, a bureau within the State Department raised objections to over a dozen arms shipments to Israel, citing “gross violations” of human rights by the unit slated to receive them. But these objections were ignored, a new report finds, and that unit would later be involved in the single deadliest massacre of the genocide so far.
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
New York City Mayor Eric Adams is facing a sweeping indictment on federal corruption charges accusing him of taking bribes, committing fraud and soliciting illegal foreign campaign donations. The charges, which involve a long-running conspiracy with Turkish officials, allege that Adams accepted lavish gifts and campaign contributions in exchange for political favors…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Read Part 1.
The events described in previous articles ─ pro-Israel influence that enabled rapid recognition by the U.S. government of the Israel regime in 1948 and an American murder of 29 Palestinians at the Cave of Patriarchs in Hebron in 1994 are not isolated relics of the past. They link to events that occur in contemporary times and remain alive as if happening today ─ salient features in the historical narrative that a world ignored and served to claim more victims.
Pro-Israel influence that enabled rapid recognition by the U.S. government of the Israel regime initiated the trend that guaranteed almost continuous support by the U.S. government for Israel’s mounting crimes. Made in America Baruch Goldstein, in his murderous rampage, set the stage for continuous murders of Palestinians and for the made in America bombs that extinguished the life of Hezbollah Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah.
The constant drumming of arranged epithets and twists of reality, where an Israel committed atrocity becomes an Israel sacrifice, continues to manipulate minds. Hezbollah and its deceased leader, Hassan Nasrallah, are not portrayed as fighting to prevent the genocide of the Palestinian people by the terrorist Israeli government; they are labelled as terrorist Hezbollah and terrorist Nasrallah urging genocide of nuclear-armed Israel and as individuals who deserve the ultimate fate.
In his speech to the United Nations (UN), Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, displayed the deranged and manipulative mind that governs Israel’s actions. He said “more resolutions have been passed by the General Assembly against Israel in the last decade than against the rest of the world’s countries,” and accused the UN of being a “house of darkness” and a “swamp of antisemitic bile.” The avalanche of UN resolutions condemning Israel’s genocidal actions prove that Israel is a “house of darkness,” a nation that has no regard for international law, and has leaders who feed upon hating other peoples. In his purposeful upside-down world, Netanyahu attempted to use valid condemnation of Israel’s actions by those who have been trusted to safeguard the world against criminal actions to prove Israel is a “shining light on the hill.”
From Netanyahu,
Hezbollah is the quintessential terror organization in the world today. It has tentacles that span all continents. It has murdered more Americans and more Frenchmen than any group except Bin Laden. It’s murdered the citizens of many countries represented in this room.
Netanyahu alludes to one incident, the 40 year-old 1983 bombings of French and American barracks in Beirut. On October 23, 1983, a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives into the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and killed 241 U.S. military personnel. That same morning, another suicide attack killed 58 French soldiers in their barracks. The barracks were components of contingents of U.S. Marines and French forces that arrived in Lebanon as part of a peacekeeping mission. After the Sabra and Shatila massacres, which killed between “1,300 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias,” and French and U.S. naval bombardments of the Shouf hills, Lebanese militants perceived the French and U.S. presences in their land as intruding forces that protected Israel’s invasion. The militants wanted these forces to leave, and, not too long after the bombings, they left. No confirmed information is available of who authorized and carried out the bombings. A formal Hezbollah did not exist at that time.
There is definite information that Israeli air force jet fighter aircraft and navy motor torpedo boats attacked the USS Liberty on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War, killed 34 and wounded 171 crew members. Many Americans have been arbitrarily murdered by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank and Gaza, about ½ dozen this year.
Heart breaking to learn that Turkish-American woman, Aysenur Eygi, who radiates beauty, was shot and killed while protesting near Nablus. Disturbing to know the U.S. government does not hold Israeli officials responsible. Pulverizing to understand that Israel uses slaughter to send a message ─ come to Israel to help the Palestinians and you will be killed — young, old, man, woman, or child. Her life should not be forgotten, and her image should appear on every protest mechanism.
Apply Netanyahu’s statement to situations that caused U.S. casualties, and we have, “Israel is the quintessential terror organization in the world today. It has tentacles that span all continents. It has murdered more Americans than any group except Bin Laden. It’s murdered the citizens of many countries represented at the UN.”
Reality, truth, and facts are rarely considered by Israel’s puppets. Reading a paper placed before him, US President Joe Biden says the same as his leader.
Hassan Nasrallah and the terrorist group he led, Hezbollah, were responsible for killing hundreds of Americans over a four-decade reign of terror. His death from an Israeli airstrike is a measure of justice for his many victims, including thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians.”
“Hundreds of Americans,” and “thousands of Americans, Israelis, and Lebanese civilians?” Some Israeli civilians have been killed in the tit-for-tat hostilities, a minute number compared to Lebanese civilians and UN workers killed by Israel. Ex-president Joseph Biden, please name one American proven to be killed by Hezbollah since it became an official organization in 1985.
The Israeli Prime Minister, who believes that the function of the peoples of the world is to make certain Israeli Jews live and survive well, regardless of the murders of others, recites,
After generations in which our people were slaughtered, remorselessly butchered, and no one raised a finger in our defense, we now have a state. We now have a brave army, an army of incomparable courage, and we are defending ourselves.
An insolent and degrading insult to all those who fought and died in World War II. The United States, Soviet Union, and their allies fought bravely to defeat the Nazi state in World War II. They raised more than their fingers; they sacrificed themselves in defense of all the European peoples. If there was a strategy to liberate anyone from the camps and secure their lives — Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, gypsies, political opponents of the Nazi regime, and Jews — they would have implemented the strategy.
In war and immediate post-war years, communication and access to news, including firsthand knowledge was limited — no Internet, no 100 channels of television, no electronic mail, no You Tube, no digital cameras, no smart phones, no Facetime, no WhatsApp, and no social media. The ubiquitous, daily, and on site images of the violence we see today were not available to stir the mind to action. Unbelievable, that despite the enormous information that describes the genocide in Gaza, the world remains relatively passive and little effort is being applied to prevent the genocide. Just the opposite is occurring; societies are helping and encouraging it. Mr. Netanyahu, nobody encouraged the Holocaust; Mr. Netanyahu stand up and tell us why you are encouraging the genocide, requesting the Western world to contribute to your gruesome cause, and are ready to extend it to Lebanon?
The unwary world, still unable to confront its malaise, has allowed the Israeli Jews to judge who lives and who dies, slaughtering others with impunity and without redress. Netanyahu has said it with bravado, vowing to destroy anyone in the world who harms an Israeli citizen. Recent events indicate nobody is safe from the Zionist Jews who murder with ease, without remorse, and without facing justice. Give it perspective by citing a few examples.
The goat and sheepherders in the South Hebron Hills live a simple and basic life on semi-desert land, which is barely sufficient to feed their small herds. They don’t ask anything from anybody, don’t harm anybody, and just want to do their daily chores. Settlers from Brooklyn, New York, who never saw a goat or sheep in their life, have suddenly become herders who need room and land for their pet goats. Simple way to get it ─ forcibly evict these simple people and ruin their lives by telling them the land is now a closed “firing zone.” If they protest, well, just shoot them. A video (scroll down) shows a settler arguing with a Palestinian herder on the herder’s land in the village of al-Tawani and arbitrarily shooting him. Israeli soldiers nonchalantly regard the incident and nobody detains the assailant.
Gaza has its daily atrocities. Israeli snipers and soldiers wantonly murder men, women, and especially children. In one episode, Israeli soldiers search a building, going from apartment to apartment. They enter an apartment and order several men to strip and then execute them. No reason and no concern for the killings. Go to “The Night Won’t End,” a film that investigates civilian killings in Gaza. View from 1:00.01 to 1:04.50 and be prepared to witness a horror.
In the West Bank town of Qabatiya, soldiers murder several Palestinians and then commit a gruesome act — treat the lifeless bodies as rubbish and throw them off the roof into the street below.
The New York Times reports,
According to Wafa (Palestine News Agency), seven Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military during a 10-hour raid into Qabatiya, south of the city of Jenin, on Thursday. Among them, Wafa said, were the three people — believed to be men — captured in the video.
Wafa reported that, after being thrown from the building, the bodies were mutilated on the ground by the claw of an Israeli excavator before being taken away by the military.
In describing the exploding pagers that killed about 10 people and injured several thousand in Lebanon, media, as usual, inserts a description of Hezbollah as the “terror group.” Here we have one of the most horrific terror attacks in recorded history, with innocent civilians suddenly blinded while doing their daily activities and the victims are called the terrorists.
Biggest atrocity
The greatest atrocity has been done to Jewish people. Since its inception, Israel Jews have been used as pawns to oppress and subjugate others and been subjected to constant attacks. Thanks to Netanyahu and his compatriots, the Jews have become the most hated people in the world. Not just animosity or mild disapproval; venomous hatred of not wanting to associate and wishing disappearance. World Jewry may not realize it but this animosity comes from democratic, freedom loving, and liberal persons, people fighting for human rights who now express belief that Zionist Jews are inhuman. Many decent and well-meaning people are following the suggestion by Palestinian poet Remi Kanazi.
Do not cower to Zionists. Shame them. Do not welcome them in your spaces. Why should these genocide loving fascists be treated any different than any other flat out racist.
Can the world confront its malaise? Activists should keep doing what they are doing and try to overcome the Zionists and their worldwide conspirators who find antidotes by converting protests against their malevolent actions into malevolent protests by the protestors. The latest trickery has the New York Times, Sept. 4, 2024, publish, “Across the United States this spring, Iran also used social media to stoke student-organized protests against Israel’s war in Gaza, with operatives providing financial assistance and posing as students, according to American intelligence assessments.” What nonsense.
Well known that Israeli operatives flood social media with derogatory information on campus protestors and flattering information on their counter protestors, and hundreds of millions of dollars of donations are used to shape college presidents’ and government officials’ decisions. The Iranian agents, if they existed, probably could not buy a government or college official a cup of coffee.
Mentioning the atrocities committed by Israel leads to the question, “What can be done to stop Israel?” Arguments to the eventual demise of the Zionist nightmare are more wish fulfillment than reality.
The Times of Israel (TOI) features an article, “Derelict economy could sink ‘Titanic’ Israel, experts warn,” which relates, “New research paints worrying picture of decades of neglected national priorities leaving the country without the resources to face existential threats.” TOI is perspicacious, Intel has halted expansion of its facilities in Israel, delaying construction of a $25 billion factory for chip production. This pessimism gives optimism to those who believe that a disastrous economy will not be able to support a strong military. After Israel’s military decimates Hezbollah as a fighting force, Israel will no longer need a world class military to protect it from fulfilling its self-guided mission. This mission does not have a high-flying economy as its prominent feature; the Israel economy will always receive assistance from its benefactors — United States, Germany, and Jewish billionaires around the world. The salient feature of the Zionist mission is Irredentism ─ uniting of Jews around the world, physically or morally, in a supposedly united Biblical kingdom of Judah and Israel. That mission is almost completed and only enforcers composed of a small military and a large settler population will be needed to contain the Palestinians on the plantation. The shrinking labor force, due to emigrating Israelis, will be filled by the slave labor of compliant Palestinians.
Another argument for defeating Israel treats collapse of its principal supporter, the United States of America. Accomplishing that internally does not seem plausible. A possible solution to Israel’s maddening of the civilized world lays with leaders of several nations. A world realignment of blocs, those contending American hegemony and those blindly supporting it, is occurring. The U.S. faces economic decline from Chinese competition. If a substantial number of nations are convinced that moving away from the United States and aligning with China is less dangerous than allowing the modern Israelites and their Joshua leader to continue the revival of the Biblical Conquest, slay the inhabitants of the “promised Land,” and lead the world to continuous conflagrations, they could take action and give the U.S. an offer it cannot refuse ─ stop aiding Israel or we start aiding China. Successful rearrangement of the contending blocs requires a three-way endeavor.
We have a complex subject that needs discussion beyond this article. Wait, there may be a solution on the way. I don’t recommend it but ex-President and future felon, Donald Trump, proposes weakening the dollar, increasing tariffs, and providing less security to other nations.
Will a Trump victory bring about the international realignment that forces the United States to compromise its protection of Israel to guarantee protection of its economy? What a dilemma!
The post Part II: The World Confront its Malaise first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The Canadian government needs to put the Israeli military on its terrorist list. And no Canadian should assist that organization in any way.
Over the past year the IDF has committed a holocaust in Gaza. The IDF has destroyed most of the occupied coastal strip’s buildings, water sources and agricultural land. According to the UN Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), 66% of buildings in Gaza have been damaged and “68% of the permanent crop fields in the Gaza Strip exhibited a significant decline in health and density in September 2024.”
The Israeli military has killed over 50,000 Palestinians directly (42,000 named and nearly 20,000 unidentified or disappeared). According to Oxfam, more women and children have been killed in Gaza than during the same period than any conflict over the past two decades. If you include excess mortality the full Gaza death toll is likely 200,000.
At the same time the Israeli military has brutalized Palestinians in the West Bank. The IDF has killed more than 700 there over the past year while enforcing an illegal occupation. They’ve also detained 10,000 in the West Bank.
Unsatisfied with slaughtering Palestinians, the IDF has killed nearly 2,000 Lebanese since last week. They’ve also injured thousands more and displaced almost a quarter of the country.
Last week the IDF bombed the port of Hodeidah in Yemen as they did in July. In April the Israeli military bombed Iran and Iran’s diplomatic compound in Syria. The IDF has been bombing Syria weekly for nearly a decade. During that time, they’ve blown-up hundreds of targets and people in Syria.
While its recent actions are extreme, IDF violence is not new. Over the decades the Israeli military has also bombed Jordan, Iraq, Sudan, Tunisia and Egypt (and other countries’ properties). The Israeli military has launched many invasions of its neighbours. Nearly seventy years ago the IDF invaded Egypt in a bid to reverse decolonization and weaken progressive Arab nationalism. As Zeev Maoz notes in Defending The Holy Land: A Critical Analysis of Israel’s Security & Foreign Policy the IDF has engaged in the “threat, display, or limited use of force with its neighbors” every year since the country’s founding. The IDF was the outgrowth of the Haganah and Irgun paramilitary forces, which attacked the British and ethnically cleansed the Palestinians.
No organization on Canada’s terrorist list is responsible for nearly as much death and destruction as the IDF. It is responsible for dozens of times more deaths than any listed Palestinian or Lebanese organization. One of the groups listed, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is a sizeable secular leftist political organization that has engaged in little armed struggle for decades. The Toronto-based International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN) is also on the list even though no one claims it has ever committed violence (the former registered charity supported orphans and a hospital in Gaza through official Hamas controlled channels).
While it is true that Canada’s terrorist list overwhelmingly consists of non-state actors, in June the Trudeau government listed part of Iran’s military, the 100,000 strong Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as a terrorist entity. Its smaller Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force was listed in 2012. Again, the IDF is responsible for far more death and destruction than either. It has also flouted international law for the majority of its existence.
If a terrorism list is to have any legitimacy, it should be about saving lives and infrastructure that human societies need rather than pro-US geopolitics. As a country that claims to believe in an international rules-based order, Canada should add the Israeli military to its terrorism list.
If it does not, the stench of hypocrisy will grow stronger and stronger.
Please take a minute to ask the Canadian government to list the IDF as a terrorist organization.
The post An Honest Terrorist List Would Include Israel Military first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
As Israeli officials were vowing to retaliate against Iran and plotting an invasion of Lebanon, the Israeli military was carrying out attacks across Gaza, killing dozens in 24 hours, Gaza officials said on Wednesday. Overnight on Wednesday, Israeli forces dropped bombs across the strip and undertook a ground incursion in Khan Yunis, killing at least 90 Palestinians and injuring dozens of…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israel’s foreign minister said Wednesday that United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres is “persona non grata in Israel” and barred him from entering the country after the U.N. chief issued a brief statement condemning all escalatory military actions in the Middle East. In a social media post, Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz accused Guterres of failing to “unequivocally condemn”…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Next month will see the commemoration in Israel of the tragic events of October 7, 2023. For Israelis, that day has taken on a degree of sanctity. It is seen as an event that was unprecedented, unforeseen and unconnected to all that came before. To look for causes, beyond antisemitism and military and political culpability or incompetence, is to question the sacred. To link it to one hundred years of war against Palestine is to provide succor to the barbarians at the gate.
Israeli media platforms – the webpages, the rolling news channels – provide a constantly updated count of days from that moment. They endlessly replay and (only partially) examine the event through stories which fit the consensus narrative. October 7 has become shorthand for unparalleled tragedy suffered by Israelis, a sacred mantra. It has been chiseled into stone and cast in bronze. As Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has put it, October 7 has become Israel’s longest day, one that has not yet ended. It has also become part of a long addiction to a narrative of victimhood, a habit which the State of Israel seems reluctant to kick.
Israel is a young country concerned with building a shared narrative of the past. Memorialization plays a large part in this. Milestones in the national calendar include the Remembrance Day for Fallen Soldiers, Jerusalem Day which celebrates the ‘reunification’ of the city, and Independence Day. There are days marked in the calendar to honour Zionist icons and there is Holocaust Remembrance Day. Now, a new day has been consecrated.
The coming anniversary follows on from a year of almost constant commemoration in the Israeli media. Tales of tragedy and heroism relating to October 7 dominate the daily news landscape. Personal sorrow and national trauma are highly visible. Levy, never one to mince his words, asserts that Israel has been wallowing in October 7 non-stop. The latest manifestation of this is the heated (but limited) debate in Israel concerning rival ceremonies to mark the first anniversary of October 7. Levy has questioned the very need for a ceremony to mark the day: ‘Is there anyone who doesn’t remember? And has anyone learned lessons from it?’
So, what is the point? It seems natural to wish to commemorate the victims of October 7, certainly from the viewpoint of the families. But perhaps the vehement arguments over the format of the commemoration point to an anxiety linked to how the nation sees itself. In part, Israel’s national self-identity is based upon the Revisionist Zionist notion of the Iron Wall, which conceives of a strong independent state that has no choice but to live by the sword. However, coexisting with this there has always been a sense of an identity rooted in the idea of victimhood. An idea reinforced by Israeli politicians’ regular invocation of the Holocaust.
Let us not be mistaken: the events of October 7 were tragic for those who died on that day, for the hostages and their families since then. They are victims. But so too are the Palestinians in Gaza and beyond.
Whilst Israel’s national trauma is highly visible within the Israeli media, there is at the same time an absence of coverage of the suffering of Gazans. Beyond officially sanctioned IDF footage and the contributions of embedded local journalists, the situation in Gaza is not broadcast. Israelis inhabit a very different media reality to the rest of the world. In Israel, alongside commemoration and memorialization there has always been erasure and forgetting. There is an Independence Day but there was no Nakba.
The current opposition to Netanyahu within Israel is an opposition to the man and his policies, particularly regarding the hostages. It does not represent a fundamental questioning of Zionism or the beginnings of a discussion as to the links between the massacre of October 7 and the years of occupation. Based on monitoring of the Israeli media over the past year, it’s possible to conclude that Israelis have no current interest in complex truth, in cause and effect. They do not want a form of commemoration that stimulates discussion and critical reassessment. Instead, there’s a clear preference for a form of remembering that creates myth; one that reinforces a self-image rooted in a victim mindset that serves to justify an act of revenge on a genocidal scale.
There seems to be an overwhelming need for Israel to perceive itself as an innocent victim in a world where October 7 came out of nowhere, or was a result of the unchanging nature of the indigenous population. Netanyahu articulated this viewpoint recently when chiding the UK government for suspending some arms export licenses to Israel. In his view, Britain should be supporting Israel, ‘a fellow democracy defending itself against barbarism.’ As he put it, ‘Just as Britain’s heroic stand against the Nazis is seen today as having been vital in defending our common civilization, so too will history judge Israel’s stand against Hamas and Iran’s axis of terror.’ For Netanyahu, adoption of the role of heroic victim, a David fighting back against the odds, provides the legitimacy to complete the stated project in Gaza: the ‘elimination’ of Hamas, no matter what cost.
Israel explains Gaza to the world via an hasbara (or propaganda) project in which the state constantly seeks recognition of its victimhood. The sense of moral superiority, the absence of empathy and the obsession with past victimization together amount to a national victim mindset; a state of denial that the vast majority has bought into so that it can cope with the moral quagmire of life post-October 7. Zionism has become a cult that is dependent upon victimhood. This is not dismiss tragic events but it is one way of attempting to explain a collective indifference to Palestinian suffering and external criticism; to comprehend the moral isolation of Israelis as evidenced on a variety of media platforms.
It turns out that you don’t just need external legitimacy provided by the Biden administration and German philosemitism in the forms of diplomacy and arms. You need to see yourself as the heroic and misunderstood victim in order to keep feeding the monster of Zionism, to provide the motive for a genocidal revenge which may lead to other outcomes.
For the ugly truth is that the obscenely disproportionate action in Gaza is one which goes well beyond any right to self-defense.
The IDF has shifted most of the Gazan population to the south and created a buffer zone together with ‘clean’ corridors, Philadelphi and Netzarim, which divide and enclose Gaza. The accompanying erasure of places and people, a recent Haaretz editorial observes, has created the infrastructure to enable Israeli resettlement in Gaza. These are not security measures, but are part of an ongoing settler-colonial project which covets all the occupied territories. These actions are consistent with the policies of a country which has not yet declared where its borders are, which continues to steal, build, settle and oppress whilst denying any link between an established state of apartheid and the growth of Hamas.
Of course, commemoration is important to address the grief of the families and collective trauma. However, judging by the current discourse of denial in Israel and arguments surrounding the plans, October 7 this year will be a wasted opportunity.
The commemoration of an event as if it were an unforeseeable act of barbarism occurring in a vacuum suggests that the sanctification of October 7 will become another pillar supporting the Israeli temple of perpetual victimhood. Ideally, remembrance should be an opportunity for mourning and self-examination, for a linking of cause and effect. A commemoration which bolsters a national self-identity based on victimhood will do no one any favors. Ultimately, Israel’s victim mindset sits uneasily with overwhelming military might and international support and funding. It facilitates the continuation of uncritical internal support for the genocidal operation in Gaza, and ongoing collusion in de facto annexation and apartheid.
The post The Longest Day: Israel’s Victim Mindset first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Is it acceptable for Israel to wipe Palestine and Palestinians off the map? On 5 November 2024, Americans have an opportunity to signal whether genocide is anathema for the majority of its citizens.
So, how can Americans signal their abhorrence for genocide?
Americans have been locked in a pattern of voting for the political duopoly: either wing of the business party. It is widely held that on most major matters there is little to separate the Democrats and Republicans. And this has led to many Americans voting based on whichever party is perceived to be the lesser evil.
Despite this lesser evilest-inspired voting, the election results have resulted in the presidency and congressional majority rotating between the Democrats and Republicans with little change in the US trajectory. As far as the US economy is concerned, the country has continued to increase its debt burden. As far as US foreign policy is concerned, the US has continued to wage wars abroad. As far as support for democracy is concerned, the US has continued to initiate coups against governments it does not approve of. As far as Israel is concerned, it continues to enjoy steadfast support from the duopoly.
One commonly heard refrain posits that continually resorting to the same action with expectation of a different result meets the definition of insanity. The expectation of lesser-evilist voting producing a significantly different outcome on the political scene given that such action has never brought about a change before speaks disparagingly to the strategy of lesser-evilist voting.
Being considered insane, however, is less disparaging than being considered immoral. That would be shameful.
Given the nugatory outcomes of lesser-evilist voting, another proposition comes to mind:
Fool me once, shame on you;
fool me twice, shame on me.
There are two candidates seen as frontrunners for the presidency of the United States. However, the Democratic Party candidate, Kamala Harris, and the Republican Party candidate, Donald Trump. Both stand solidly behind the Zionist entity dba as the state of Israel, and neither of these candidates will exert pressure on Israel to cease and desist in its commission of war crimes. In fact, the US funds Israel, arms Israel, and has situated its military and armaments in the region in support of Israel. This is despite Israeli officials openly calling for the eradication of Palestinians, causing a case to be brought against Israel charging it with genocide in the International Court of Justice.
The upshot of this is that a vote for either Harris or Trump must be considered as a vote for genocide. The only out for a voter to escape criticism for supporting genocide is, pathetic as it may be, ignorance.
What can Americans do to avoid supporting genocide? One can always abstain from voting. That, however, would not be fighting against genocide. Moreover, abstaining would still allow the supporters of genocide to vote for a genocidaire as president.
Strangely enough, many Americans seem oblivious to the existence of other presidential candidates that one can vote for. One can even cast a vote for a candidate opposed to Israeli crimes against Palestinians. To wit, there is candidate Cornel West who calls 7 October a “counter-terrorism response“; Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver has pledged to end the genocide; candidate Jill Stein has a platform Pledge to Stop Genocide.
Unfortunately, in a winner-take-all voting system, one must consider how the strong individual desire to attain political office plays against a tactical and selfless decision to coalesce around one anti-genocide candidate to increase the chances of shutting down a genocide in progress.
Voting in the US elections on 5 November 2024 is an opportunity to indicate one’s abhorrence to genocide. Elementary morality demands a vote for an opponent of genocide.
The post A Moral Imperative for the 2024 US Elections first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
After months of cross-border attacks and a week of heavy bombardment, Israel has announced a ground invasion in Lebanon in the latest stage of its war against the country. “Israel has been trying to carpet bomb the south as much as possible before invading,” Sintia Issa, editor-at-large of Beirut-based publication, The Public Source, told Truthout. “Israel will try to invade and occupy the south…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip has been the deadliest year of conflict for women and children anywhere in the world over the past two decades, according to an analysis released Tuesday as Israeli forces continued to bombard the Palestinian enclave and launched a ground invasion of Lebanon. The global humanitarian group Oxfam noted in its new report that Israel’s U.S.-backed assault on Gaza…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
An organization representing anti-war U.S. veterans urged the Justice Department on Monday to immediately impanel a grand jury to investigate — and, if necessary, indict — Secretary of State Antony Blinken for lying to Congress, unlawfully refusing to cut off American military aid to Israel, and “conspiring to cause genocide of Palestinians.” The call from Veterans for Peace (VFP) comes days…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
The ongoing Israeli operation against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group so dominant in Lebanon, is following a standard pattern. Ignore base causes. Ignore context. Target leaders, and target personnel. See matters in conventional terms of civilisational warrior against barbarian despot. Israel, the valiant and bold, fighting the forces of darkness.
The entire blood woven tapestry of the Middle East offers uncomfortable explanations. The region has seen false political boundaries sketched and pronounced by foreign powers, fictional countries proclaimed, and entities brought into being on the pure interests of powers in Europe. These empires produced shoddy cartography in the name of the nation state and plundering self-interest, leaving aside the complexities of ethnic belonging and tribal dispositions. Tragically, such cartographic fictions tended to keep company with crime, dispossession, displacement, ethnic cleansing and enthusiastic hatreds.
Since October 7, when Hamas flipped the table on Israel’s heralded security apparatus to kill over 1,200 of its citizens and smuggle over 200 hostages into Gaza, historical realities became present with a nasty resonance. While Israel falsely sported its credentials as a peaceful state with dry cleaned democratic credentials ravaged by Islamic barbarians, Hamas had tapped into a vein of history stretching back to 1948. Dispossession, racial segregation, suppression, were all going to be addressed, if only for a moment of vanguardist and cruel violence.
To the north, where Lebanon and Israel share yet another nonsense of a border, October 7 presented a change. Both the Israeli Defence Forces and Hezbollah took to every bloodier jousting. It was a serious affair: 70,000 Israelis displaced to the south; tens of thousands of Lebanese likewise to the north. (The latter are almost never mentioned in the huffed commentaries of the West.)
The Israeli strategy in this latest phase was made all too apparent by the number of military commanders and high-ranking operatives in Hezbollah the IDF has targeted. Added to this the pager-walkie talkie killings as a prelude to a likely ground invasion of Lebanon, it was clear that Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, figured as an exemplary target.
Hezbollah confirmed the death of its leader in a September 27 strike on Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh and promised “to continue its jihad in confronting the enemy, supporting Gaza and Palestine, and defending Lebanon and its steadfast and honourable people.” Others killed included Ali Karki, commander of the organisation’s southern front, and various other commanders who had gathered.
Israeli officials have been prematurely thrilled. Like deluded scientists obsessed with eliminating a symptom, they ignore the disease with habitual obsession. “Most of the senior leaders of Hezbollah have been eliminated,” claimed a triumphant Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called the measure “the most significant strike since the founding of the State of Israel.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated with simplicity that killing Nasrallah was necessary to “changing the balance of power in the region for years to come” and enable displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the north.
Various reports swallowed the Israeli narrative. Reuters, for instance, called the killing “a heavy blow to the Iran-backed group as it reels from an escalating campaign of Israeli attacks.” Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr opined that this “will be a major setback for the organisation.” But the death of a being is never any guarantee for the death of an idea. The body merely offers a period of occupancy. Ideas will be transferred, grow, and proliferate, taking residence in other organisations or entities. The assassinating missile is a poor substitute to addressing the reasons why such an idea came into being.
A dead or mutilated body merely offers assurance that power might have won the day for a moment, a situation offering only brief delight to military strategists and the journalists keeping tabs on the morgue’s latest additions. It is easy, then, to ignore why Hezbollah became a haunting consequence of Israel’s bungling invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Easy to also ignore the 1985 manifesto, with its reference to the organisation’s determination to combat Israel and those it backed, such as the Christian Phalangist allies in the Lebanese Civil War, and to remove the Israeli occupying force.
Such oblique notions as “degrading” the capacity of an ideological, religious group hardly addresses the broader problem. The subsequent shoots from a savage pruning can prove ever more vigorous. The 1992 killing of Hezbollah’s secretary-general Abbas al-Musawi, along with his wife and son, merely saw the elevation of Nasrallah. Nasrallah turned out to be a more formidable, resourceful and eloquent proposition. He also pushed other figures to the fore, such as the recently assassinated Fuad Shukr, who became an important figure in obtaining the group’s vast array of long-range rockets and precision-guided missiles.
Ibrahim Al-Marashi of California State University, San Marcos, summarises the efforts of Israel’s high-profile killing strategy as shortsighted feats of miscalculation. “History shows every single Israeli assassination of a high-profile political or military operator, even after being initially hailed as a game-changing victory, eventually led to the killed leader being replaced by someone more determined, adept and hawkish.” Another Nasrallah is bound to be in tow, with several others in incubation.
The post Killing Hassan Nasrallah first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The ongoing Israeli operation against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia group so dominant in Lebanon, is following a standard pattern. Ignore base causes. Ignore context. Target leaders, and target personnel. See matters in conventional terms of civilisational warrior against barbarian despot. Israel, the valiant and bold, fighting the forces of darkness.
The entire blood woven tapestry of the Middle East offers uncomfortable explanations. The region has seen false political boundaries sketched and pronounced by foreign powers, fictional countries proclaimed, and entities brought into being on the pure interests of powers in Europe. These empires produced shoddy cartography in the name of the nation state and plundering self-interest, leaving aside the complexities of ethnic belonging and tribal dispositions. Tragically, such cartographic fictions tended to keep company with crime, dispossession, displacement, ethnic cleansing and enthusiastic hatreds.
Since October 7, when Hamas flipped the table on Israel’s heralded security apparatus to kill over 1,200 of its citizens and smuggle over 200 hostages into Gaza, historical realities became present with a nasty resonance. While Israel falsely sported its credentials as a peaceful state with dry cleaned democratic credentials ravaged by Islamic barbarians, Hamas had tapped into a vein of history stretching back to 1948. Dispossession, racial segregation, suppression, were all going to be addressed, if only for a moment of vanguardist and cruel violence.
To the north, where Lebanon and Israel share yet another nonsense of a border, October 7 presented a change. Both the Israeli Defence Forces and Hezbollah took to every bloodier jousting. It was a serious affair: 70,000 Israelis displaced to the south; tens of thousands of Lebanese likewise to the north. (The latter are almost never mentioned in the huffed commentaries of the West.)
The Israeli strategy in this latest phase was made all too apparent by the number of military commanders and high-ranking operatives in Hezbollah the IDF has targeted. Added to this the pager-walkie talkie killings as a prelude to a likely ground invasion of Lebanon, it was clear that Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, figured as an exemplary target.
Hezbollah confirmed the death of its leader in a September 27 strike on Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh and promised “to continue its jihad in confronting the enemy, supporting Gaza and Palestine, and defending Lebanon and its steadfast and honourable people.” Others killed included Ali Karki, commander of the organisation’s southern front, and various other commanders who had gathered.
Israeli officials have been prematurely thrilled. Like deluded scientists obsessed with eliminating a symptom, they ignore the disease with habitual obsession. “Most of the senior leaders of Hezbollah have been eliminated,” claimed a triumphant Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant called the measure “the most significant strike since the founding of the State of Israel.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated with simplicity that killing Nasrallah was necessary to “changing the balance of power in the region for years to come” and enable displaced Israelis to return to their homes in the north.
Various reports swallowed the Israeli narrative. Reuters, for instance, called the killing “a heavy blow to the Iran-backed group as it reels from an escalating campaign of Israeli attacks.” Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr opined that this “will be a major setback for the organisation.” But the death of a being is never any guarantee for the death of an idea. The body merely offers a period of occupancy. Ideas will be transferred, grow, and proliferate, taking residence in other organisations or entities. The assassinating missile is a poor substitute to addressing the reasons why such an idea came into being.
A dead or mutilated body merely offers assurance that power might have won the day for a moment, a situation offering only brief delight to military strategists and the journalists keeping tabs on the morgue’s latest additions. It is easy, then, to ignore why Hezbollah became a haunting consequence of Israel’s bungling invasion and occupation of Lebanon in 1982. Easy to also ignore the 1985 manifesto, with its reference to the organisation’s determination to combat Israel and those it backed, such as the Christian Phalangist allies in the Lebanese Civil War, and to remove the Israeli occupying force.
Such oblique notions as “degrading” the capacity of an ideological, religious group hardly addresses the broader problem. The subsequent shoots from a savage pruning can prove ever more vigorous. The 1992 killing of Hezbollah’s secretary-general Abbas al-Musawi, along with his wife and son, merely saw the elevation of Nasrallah. Nasrallah turned out to be a more formidable, resourceful and eloquent proposition. He also pushed other figures to the fore, such as the recently assassinated Fuad Shukr, who became an important figure in obtaining the group’s vast array of long-range rockets and precision-guided missiles.
Ibrahim Al-Marashi of California State University, San Marcos, summarises the efforts of Israel’s high-profile killing strategy as shortsighted feats of miscalculation. “History shows every single Israeli assassination of a high-profile political or military operator, even after being initially hailed as a game-changing victory, eventually led to the killed leader being replaced by someone more determined, adept and hawkish.” Another Nasrallah is bound to be in tow, with several others in incubation.
The post Killing Hassan Nasrallah first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Israel is genociding the Palestinians one neighborhood at the time, one hospital at the time, one school at the time, one refugee camp at the time, one ‘safe zone’ at the time
– Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt,
10 August 2024
One would expect that human rights organisations would spring into action during an impending or unfolding genocide – the ultimate violation of human rights. Maybe human rights NGOs actions should be proportional to the level of the crimes they are concerned with. Thus, the more killing, torture, arbitrary imprisonment, bombing…, etc., that is plainly evident, the more action one would expect. So, what is the output of some of the leading human rights organisations in the face of the genocide in Gaza? Below is an analysis of Amnesty International’s press releases and announced actions [1].
First things first. To assess the credibility of any organisation, one should know their relationship with Israel and the United States – both participants in the unfolding genocide. On this account, Amnesty International has never come clean about its relationship with the Israeli government. Uri Blau, a Haaretz investigative journalist, recently revealed that Amnesty_Intl.-Israel was taken over and run by Israeli operatives paid for by the Foreign Ministry. [2] They ran interference in reporting on the situation in the occupied territories, participated in conferences, and even set up a "human rights" institute at Tel Aviv university. This was a nice way to co-opt the human rights industry. The principal who ran AI-Israel even gave an interview boasting of his exploits.
And did AI-Israel have a hand editing any Amnesty reports about the situation in the occupied territories or its many wars in the region? Some Palestinian lawyers reported having problematic encounters with AI-Israel officials, to the extent that they refused to have any dealings with it thereafter. One could well imagine AI-Israel officials reporting on Palestinians who reached out to them. So how ethical is it for Amnesty International to expose Palestinians contacting AI-Israel to imminent danger? When will Amnesty International acknowledge this dirty relationship and ensure that it maintains the requisite distance from the Israeli government in the future?
Next, one must establish if what we witness amounts to a genocide. Craig Mokhiber, the former UN official in the High Commission for Human Rights, resigned because his agency was not reacting given the unfolding situation in Gaza, and stated in his resignation letter; "this is a textbook case of genocide". NB: the letter was submitted on 28 October 2023. Mokhiber stated that it is usually difficult to establish whether a genocide is taking place because one doesn’t know the motivation of the leading military and political leadership. [3] In the current context, there is no doubt about the motivation; one only has to listen to Netanyahu, Gallant, Ganz, Smotrich, Ben Gvir… And also most of the parliamentarians – they made genocidal statements in the Knesset; they were competing with each other to see who would be most truculent.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) statement on the case brought in front of the court by South Africa also suggests that we are witnessing a genocide – at least most of the justices urged Israeli action to forestall a genocide.
Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas in the world, and in particular, the refugee camps exhibit a high population density. The Israeli military is bombing these locations using huge bombs recently delivered by 500+ of American military cargo planes. [4] There is no doubt about this, one can even witness the bombing realtime on Al Jazeera. Civilians are directed to evacuate areas only to be bombed in locations that had been putatively named "safe areas," hospitals, schools, UN compounds, etc. Fleeing civilians were targeted; all bakeries were destroyed; hundreds of wells destroyed; scores of chicken farms ravaged; entire families wiped out…. Thus it is not only the level of killing, but also the destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure that is happening now. The weaponry is very accurate, thus the targeting was done intentionally; so it is not an issue of "collateral damage," but it is intentional and indiscriminate targeting. A principle of International humanitarian law is that actions should be proportionate, but Israeli military and politicians revel at the disproportionate nature of the destruction; it is the Dahiya doctrine applied to Gaza. [5] This doctrine refers to the disproportionate violence perpetrated against the Lebanese population in the Dahiya neighbourhood in Beirut in 2006; the neighbourhood was entirely flattened with huge bombs. Alastair Crooke, the former British diplomat, summarises the situation succinctly: "Gaza is already a monument to callous inhumanity and suffering. It will get worse…" [6]
One thing is certain: if it quacks like a duck, waddles like a duck, then it is genocide. [7] Under these circumstances, one would expect all human rights organisations to spring into action and demand court actions, UN Security Council resolutions, calls for key officials to be held accountable for crimes against humanity, and for the US, UK, Germany… and others to stop enabling Israel’s genocidal actions.
A few things are evident when reviewing AI’s press releases: one is struck by the paucity of coverage, the trite and generic form of statements, the unwillingness to call out the nature of some crimes, and unwillingness to debunk some of the crass Israeli propaganda meant to further de-humanise the Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s crimes.
Since 7 October 2023, there have only been 60 press releases – none of any substance. One is struck also that there are a number of press releases about Israel/OPT that don’t mention the ongoing genocide at all! [8] Or the commentary is part of a discussion of human rights in general.
Gaza has been subject to numerous massacres – several not even registering in the media accounts in the so-called West. There were several of the post-2006 attacks (aka "mowing the lawn" operations) usually referred to by their Israeli sugar-coated operation names. After each such operation AI dutifully produced its trite reports, but was rather circumspect in calling out Israeli crimes; and whenever it did issue a statement about a particular crime, it was immediately offset by references to Palestinian crimes.
A good historical starting point to assess the current violations of international humanitarian law would be the Goldstone report (2008) – which documented and established serious Israeli crimes during "Operation Cast Lead". [9] Alas, one is struck by the ahistorical nature of AI’s press releases and reports. It is as if history started yesterday, but then this is the nature of the "rights-based reporting," where there is virtually no reference to history. When it suits Amnesty it will ignore history. [10] Would one’s assessment of a criminal be altered by the fact that he was a serial criminal? If so, then it behooves AI to emphasise Israel’s long history of mass crimes against the Palestinian population. But acknowledging the long history of dispossession and brutality against the native population would suggest that "we" should be in solidarity with the Palestinians. Alas, that is not a position Amnesty is willing to take. It prefers to utter its clucking sounds, and admonish "both sides" as if there were a moral equivalence between the violence perpetrated by oppressor and oppressed.
Amnesty wants to appear impartial, and clamours for both Palestinian and Israeli rights. Thus AI will issue a report outlining some of the Israeli crimes, but will then issue a report on the "Palestinian war crimes". In general, according to AI, most of the actions perpetrated by the Palestinians are ipso facto war crimes; there is no need for further investigation or discussion. A disgraceful example is an article discussing Palestinian war crimes published on 12 July 2024. Thus after more than nine months of bombings, maybe 186,000+ dead [11], calculated starvation, summary executions and evidence of rampant mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners… Amnesty chose to demand the release of the Israeli hostages! According to Erika Guevara Rosas, AI’s "Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns," holding Israeli civilian hostages is a war crime. [12] Lost in this narrative is an explanation as to why the hostages are held – they are the only means to obtain the release of some of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners. And true to form, a few days later AI released a longish press release critical of the Israeli brutal treatment of prisoners. Producing reports critical of "both sides" are attempts to claim impartiality.
It is rather odd that when Palestinians take hostages, Amnesty considers this a war crime. Yet when Israel imprisons thousands without charges, routinely kidnaps and keeps prisoners in deplorable conditions, then this is not a war crime. In the West Bank, Israeli military take the parents of “wanted” Palestinians hostage, but Amnesty doesn’t condemn this practice to the same extent.
Amnesty ignores the 1960 UNGA resolution acknowledging the right for an oppressed/colonised population to defend themselves – this includes armed struggle; and that Israel has an obligation to protect the oppressed population. The nature of the violence suggests that it is not possible to assume a “neutral” position. Thus, Amnesty’s proclivity to admonish “both sides” is ethically suspect.
One useful function AI could play would be to debunk Israeli propaganda meant to dehumanise Palestinians to serve as a pretext for its genocidal campaign. The day after the Palestinian incursion, the Israeli propaganda machine was ready to push stories about rapes, babies cooked in microwave ovens, brutal murders, and so on. However, Amnesty has not countered these fabricated stories; in fact it has helped propagate the Israeli narrative. For example, it repeatedly referred to the 7 October attack as "horrific" – a term almost exclusively used to describe Palestinian actions. It doesn’t account for the fact that it was the Israeli military who killed more than half the Israeli civilians on that day. [13] There were no babies cooked to death or impaled on bayonets. Alas, even with a pompous sounding "Evidence Investigation Unit," Amnesty doesn’t seem to care to separate facts from hateful slander. If the latter is meant to dehumanise the Palestinians, then exposing this propaganda would go some way to humanise the victim. It seems that that is not in Amnesty’s purview.
In the press release demanding the release of Israeli hostages, Erika Guevara Rosas stated: "Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza that has resulted in the death of over 38,000 Palestinians". This is factually correct, but contextually challenged. Guevara is using the Palestinian Health ministry’s figures that are based on the actual recovery of bodies; it misses all the victims under the rubble. The Lancet study estimates that about 8% of the Gazan population has been killed – that is in the order of 186,000 dead. Furthermore, the deaths attributable to epidemics, starvation, etc., are also missed in the Health Ministry’s statistics. The London School of Hygiene and Johns Hopkins University have attempted to estimate this mortality rate. [14]. Their estimates and methodology are complex, and it is best to read it directly from their reports. Suffice it to say that the mortality rate has increased dramatically.
Maybe a clearer explanation of the available statistics would be in order.
There are plenty of daily criminal attacks, but it is only the particularly outrageous ones when AI feels compelled to utter some comment. The discovery of mass burial sites near hospitals that had recently been invaded by the Israeli military elicited some commentary [15]. Instead of pointing a finger at Israel, and suggesting serious crimes had been perpetrated, it calls for an "independent investigation". If only AI’s sanctimonious investigators could enter the scene, then one could establish what really happened. The other implication of AI’s call for investigation is that it doesn’t value the voice of the victims of Israeli crimes. Thus it is not up to Palestinians to call out their oppressor, but some "independent" body has to take its jolly good time determining whether a crime was committed; a report will follow a few years later. In the meantime, all Israeli crimes are merely "alleged" crimes.
There is a more problematic aspect to AI’s call for investigations, namely, that it is giving credence to Israeli exculpatory claims and justifications for its attacks. Thus bombing the Al Shifa hospital was justified on the spurious grounds that there was an Al Qassam bunker in the vicinity. Or, bombing a location with many refugees in tents by stating that some of the resistance commanders were in the area. Given the history of Israeli lies about all the massacres that it has perpetrated, one would think that Amnesty would be more sceptical of Israeli claims, and to challenge them outright. Instead it calls for investigations. Furthermore, when is it justified to kill 100+ civilians in order to kill two fighters? It is curious that a human rights organisation doesn't reject this outright – there is no need for an investigation. Maybe an analogy could clarify the objection. Imagine that a rapist justified his crime by stating that the victim wore provocative clothing. Amnesty’s actions are akin to investigating if the victim’s clothing was actually sexy.
On 26 August 2024, AI issued a press release on two of the bombings of camps of displaced people killing hundreds. [16] A priori, one would say that it is a welcome report, but one is struck by the fact that these incidents "need to be investigated as war crimes". Amnesty even reviewed the statements made by the Israeli military to justify the bombing. And to add a comic element, Amnesty sent a note to "Ministry of Justice officials," i.e., Hamas, to determine if its fighters were sheltering in the bombed locations. In other words, it is asking the Palestinians whether the Israeli bombings were justified! And to top things off, Amnesty regurgitated its accusation that the Palestinian actions, e.g., taking hostages amounted to clear war crimes. On the one hand, AI asks that Israeli actions be investigated, yet for the Palestinians the accusation is clear: these are war crimes.
Amnesty usefully states that using civilians as human shields is "prohibited under international law." Suggesting that if any fighter mingles with the civilian population, this amounts to a crime. The Palestinian fighters have little choice about where they can operate given that the population is constantly forced to move – the fighters included. But there is a difference between fighters being in close proximity to civilians, and the Israeli practice of placing Palestinian civilians on top of military vehicles or forcing them to enter houses ahead of Israeli soldiers. The difference is the coercion involved, and the fact that the fighters are in the midst of their own people. Thus in the press release, Amnesty wags its finger about fighters finding themselves together with civilians. However, Amnesty has yet to issue one of it missives about the civilians Israeli military forces to act as human shields. We await another press release.
The crimes perpetrated against the Palestinians, i.e., genocide, crimes against humanity, and so on, must be described as mass crimes – referent to the population at large. However, Amnesty’s favourite technique to avoid mentioning the mass crimes is to dwell on individual stories to the exclusion of the totality of the crimes. On 19 August 2024, Amnesty issued a press release about the flouting of the Arms Trade Treaty. Thus: "Amnesty International has long been calling for a comprehensive arms embargo on both Israel and Palestinian armed groups because of longstanding patterns of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including war crimes…". True to form Amnesty bleats about an embargo on "both sides," as if there were hundreds of military cargo airplanes delivering weapons to the Palestinians. But instead of mentioning the total tonnage of bombs dropped on Gaza, it provides two examples [17]:
According to Euromed Human Rights: "Israel dropped 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza Strip since last October, exceeding World War II bombings in Dresden, Hamburg, London combined." [18] Maybe providing such statistics would be more effective.
Similarly, on 18 July 2024, AI released a rather lengthy report on prison conditions. [19] To its credit, the press release was better than most AI output, but again, after a cursory mention of the total number of cases, it emphasises a few examples of prisoner’s conditions. It is dwelling on a few items to the exclusion of the mass injustice condition.
Ever since 7 October 2023, there have been many incidents that didn't elicit a single comment by Amnesty International. Here are a few items:
Amnesty issues a few press releases and maybe a report thereafter, but there is no meaningful action. Thus far Amnesty has organised a petition calling for a ceasefire! One can fill the petition form with gibberish, and press the button however many times, and it will register in this preposterous exercise. [21] Liberal souls will be assuaged.
There have been three instances where AI urged its members to write very polite letters to Israeli officials. Thus mass crimes are happening at present, and these "urgent actions" merely plead for the fate of three individuals. All sample letters start with "Dear General…"; that is the way Amnesty likes its members to address the genocidal creeps. These letter writing campaigns are a means to get young idealistic activists to engage in "actions" that are of virtually no consequence.
Every year Amnesty claims to have more members – in the millions. Appealing to this membership base to do something meaningful could possibly be more effective. Palestinian civil society groups have long clamoured for BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions). Why can’t AI urge its members to boycott Israeli products? The answer is evident: the mega donors (e.g., Harvey Weinstein, Hollywood’s notorious sex predator and Israel cheerleader; the Sackler Foundation) funding Amnesty’s activities would revolt. [22]
Amnesty has produced several press releases advocating intervention in Syria, even using holocaust memes ("never again") to emphasise its point. It even produced a melodramatic multimedia production on the "horrors" at a notorious prison. [23] When it comes to Israel, Amnesty doesn’t call for intervention; it certainly doesn’t refer to holocaust memes as "never again" seems not to apply to the Palestinians. Amnesty also doesn’t produce melodramatic videos on the most notorious Israeli prisons where inmates are tortured, brutalised and killed.
Regarding the situation in Venezuela, Amnesty demands "urgent actions from ICC prosecutor”. [24] When it comes to Israel doesn’t call upon the international courts to prosecute Israel for war crimes or worse. According to Donatella Rovera, a senior AI investigator, Amnesty doesn’t issue such calls. [25] Another standard applies.
On 21 May 2024, Amnesty issued a press release urging the ICC to issue arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant and three Palestinian resistance leaders. What Agnes Callamard, AI’s Secretary General, doesn’t explain is the fact that whereas an arrest warrant was issued for Putin, when it comes to Netanyahu, the prosecutor merely petitioned the court to consider issuing a warrant. Given the uproar and threats issued by US politicians, the ICC quietly dropped the matter – thus there are no warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant at present. There is scant evidence of a moral backbone at the ICC. But the ICC statements allows Amnesty to posture by wagging its finger at “both sides”.
On 2 September 2024, Amnesty issued a demand for Mongolia to arrest President Putin, and did so in a rather hectoring tone. [26] And although the ICC no longer seeks to prosecute Netanyahu, this doesn’t stop other organisations to call on governments hosting Netanyahu for his arrest. Alas, Amnesty didn’t send a similar demand to the US. Maybe such a call would have tarnished Netanyahu’s reputation during his recent address to the US Congress.
On the eve of the Gulf War against Iraq, Amnesty produced a report on the purported case of Iraqi soldiers “throwing babies out of incubators”. President Bush appeared on TV showing this report and using it as a justification for war. After the hoax was exposed Amnesty didn’t issue any apology or explanation. But now we face a real situation in Gaza where the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of Gaza’s largest hospital and consequently dozens of newborns had to be taken off incubators or other equipment. The doctor attending the children noted that most of them would die. One would say that this would provide emotive material to campaign to obtain a ceasefire; the plight of babies might resonate with Western liberal souls. Alas, Amnesty was silent in this instance.
One must marvel at the long list of press releases and reports Amnesty produces on a regular basis. No corner of the planet is exempt of an Amnesty commentary or reprimand. From commenting on transexual rights in Mongolia, sex workers rights, climate change, migrant rights and discrimination, etc. And many of its missives wag a finger at the offending state with titles including "… must do this". Amnesty frequently waves its human rights magic wand. Somehow they think they have the standing of a UN-like organisation to pontificate on any topic anywhere in the world.
But one encounters blind spots in AI’s coverage. There are very few admonishing press releases regarding US, UK, or Israeli atrocious behaviour. When offending actions are mentioned at all, one finds them couched with terms such as "alleged"; and certainly not calling for a tribunal to hold criminals to account. The war in Ukraine has elicited minor critical commentary except chastising Russia; the US role in causing and fuelling the war are not mentioned. In general, AI’s position on issues aligns with US, UK and Israeli state policy. There is no criticism or even mention of the US’s penchant for forever wars; for waging violent actions in many places in the world. These seem to be just fine by Amnesty’s standards.
The United Nations Security Council has become a joke – where one finds the US and its acolytes brazenly lying, and exhibiting monumental hypocrisy and cynicism. Any relevant resolution delivering a modicum of justice is routinely vetoed. This is plainly evident regarding calls for a ceasefire in Gaza with such resolutions vetoed. On 21 December 2023, the US put forth a "compromise" resolution regarding a ceasefire and humanitarian aid. The curious thing is that on the same day the diplomats acknowledged that Israel would not be bound by the resolution – it was merely an exercise of hypocrisy on steroids. Yet the next day, Agnes Callamard, AI’s Secretary General, stated that: "This is a much-needed resolution…”!
[27]. To her credit, she also stated: "It is disgraceful that the US was able to stall and use the threat of its veto power to force the UN Security Council to weaken a much-needed call for an immediate end to attacks by all parties.”
An important role any organisation could play would be to confront local supporters of regimes involved in mass crimes. There are notorious cases:
Maybe these outrageous statements and actions would elicit critical commentary. It is not only a generic trite statement about what is happening “over there,” but what is also necessary is to challenge the local enablers of mass crimes. Alas, Amnesty would rather consort with US politicians rather than to confront them.
In Europe, various governments and NGOs provide scholarships for students to specialise in Human Rights. The courses are offered in several countries, and hundreds of students attend Human Rights centres each year. Italians get to study in Finland for a year…. And we find the grotesque situation of Dutch students studying human rights in Israel; it is a bit like going for education on animal rights to a slaughterhouse. This is all courtesy of EU largesse. The graduates then work for hundreds of NGOs or government agencies. Each of them will then wave their human rights wand over a topic that may be fashionable, invariably gay/trans rights, women’s reproductive rights, sex worker’s rights, etc. Further fuelling the human rights industry is the lavish funding obtained from various lottery funds – much of the profits from such institutions are disbursed to NGOs. The human rights industry experiences subsidised growth. Thus each NGO with its own warped agenda receives funds directly or indirectly. The directors of some NGOs command six figure salaries – a favourite for out-of-office politicians seeking a sinecure. [28]
In the Netherlands where this process has been in place for decades, the human rights lobby has mushroomed in size and now manifests a dysfunctional dynamic, i.e., the NGOs bring incessant lawsuits against the government tying it down in court.
Do NGOs advocating Palestinian human rights get to play in this merry-go-round? Fat chance!
When confronted with mass crimes what is needed is justice, and not one of its bastardised, neutered, malleable and ineffective substitutes. If one wants justice then it behooves one to speak in terms of justice, and to avoid the human rights mumbo jumbo. This is specially the case when human rights have been cynically exploited and weaponised by the US and UK. [29] A framework that can be used to justify wars, the so-called humanitarian interventions, cannot be a framework that advances justice or motivates people to act against mass crimes. The criminals react accordingly, i.e., they aren’t bothered if they are called transgressors of human rights, but may fear being accused of mass crimes.
The current wars in Gaza, Ukraine, etc., and the reactions surrounding them has torn off the mask of the American empire revealing its hypocrisy, cynicism and sadism. Many of the "values" so dear to the neoliberals have been shown to be a sham. "Democracy," "International law," "freedom of speech,"…., and of course "human rights” have fallen off their pedestals. The collateral damage of the collapse also tears into the United Nations, the ICC, ICJ, and also the human rights industry because they also have been shown to be so ineffective and compromised. Amnesty International is demonstrably a conflicted organisation steeped in hypocrisy. It is a tool used by the UK and US governments to weaponise “human rights” to suit its own ends: the justification of wars, and the demonisation of "regimes," i.e., the governments that the empire doesn’t like. It has been a conduit for pro-war propaganda in the past, and even calling for so-called humanitarian military interventions.
What is needed are critical voices that highlight the daily massacres, that call for the criminals and their enablers to be held to account, and to sue for a modicum of justice. Calling for a ceasefire is the bare minimum. Alas, most human rights NGOs don’t even fulfil this task. When Amnesty International postures about all sorts of trendy human rights everywhere in the world, but then doesn’t cover genocide and spring into effective action, then let it shut up entirely.
One thing is certain: Amnesty International is not part of the solution, it is part of the problem.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has produced increasing calls for an immediate ceasefire, while a pro-Israel, U.S.-based group has waged an increasing war on democracy with little public scrutiny and no end in sight.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most politically and electorally influential groups in this country. They have bombarded our “democratic” system spending over $100 million just in 2024 to punish opponents of Israeli policies, including the military assault on Gaza that’s claimed over 40,000 deaths and displaced 2.3 million people.
Our democracy has always been incomplete at best, but peoples’ movements have won voting and political rights for those without property, people of color, women and young people.
But the political and electoral influence of the super rich and their corporations, including non-profit ones like AIPAC, frustrate and preempt We the People who try to have human needs addressed.
AIPAC lobbies for U.S. support of Israel. Its related entities include a regular Political Action Committee (AIPAC PAC), and a Super PAC, (United Democracy Project, UDP).
Regular PACs are limited to contributing $3,300 per candidate per election. Super PACs can spend unlimited sums on elections, but must be spent “independently” from any candidate or candidate campaign.
AIPAC has spent $19.6 million for lobbying in the 2023-24 election cycle (through July, 2024). The AIPAC PAC has spent over $44.8 million while UDP has spent $55.4 million. AIPAC exceeded its 2024 goal to raise $100 million.
AIPAC entities threaten our elections and our limited democracy in multiple ways.
1. AIPAC’s PACs have spent millions of dollars supporting conservative Democratic challengers running against incumbent progressives in Congressional primaries, especially candidates of color – who are the strongest supporters of VFP’s calls to stop the war on Gaza and of Move to Amend’s We the People Amendment, HJR54 that will end the insane doctrines of corporate “personhood” and money is the same as speech. In the recent primaries, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, members of the progressive “Squad,” were the latest victims and there will be more. UDP targeted $14.5 million to defeat Bowman in July and another $8.6 million to take down Bush in August. Bowman and Bush are HJR54 cosponsors and two of Congress’s most vocal critics of the Israeli war on Gaza.
2. Such massive corruption of elections includes paying for Congressional delegations to Israel and an army of lobbyists who peddle a peace and democracy narrative for Israel while pressing for massive arms shipments, including the recent U.S. decision to provide $20 billion more in weaponry. AIPAC lobbyists are joined by U.S. weapons makers as a “force multiplier” with no Palestinian counterweight. The Arab American PAC spent $36,200 in the 2021-22 election cycle and 0 in the 2023-24 cycle.
3. AIPAC-entity donors include super rich Republicans, some of whom are billionaires, such as Paul Singer, who bankrolled a free luxury vacation trip for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and later had cases before the High Court.
AIPAC’s clear goal is to defeat every progressive Democrat it can this year. AIPAC also supports many Republican Congressional candidates, including many who voted against certifying the 2020 election. How exactly does all this further democracy?
4. The enormous sum of expected AIPAC spending, especially in the primaries, has been too much to overcome for many progressive incumbents. J Street, a progressive pro-Israel group that defended candidates against AIPAC in the 2022 primaries, can’t compete with AIPAC and has sat out the 2024 primaries. AIPAC often doesn’t mention Israel in their targeted ads, but rather attacks incumbents on personal issues or on their progressive voting record.
It’s not just AIPAC that has invaded and is occupying our elections and democratic spaces. Corporate entities and the super rich have waged war on our elections and in Congress, causing injustices, mass violence and environmental carnage.
Simply passing laws calling for greater financial disclosure or campaign finance “reform” isn’t enough to end the war on democracy by AIPAC and other corporate entities.
Enacting the We the People Amendment to abolish the constitutional doctrines that “money equals speech” and “a corporation is a person” is essential to create authentic democracy and to reduce the military industrial complex drive for perpetual wars and occupations. The latter is not only applicable in elections, but across the board as corporate entities have hijacked multiple constitutional amendments permitting them to preempt democratic efforts to protect people. communities and the natural world.
AIPAC, like so many other corporate-funded groups, will no doubt continue its assault on the election process in 2026.
It’s ultimately up to us to go beyond merely resisting the violence and harm they cause, and take appropriate actions that can stop the corrupting, anti-democratic and violent impact of the super rich and their corporations that have captured elections and public policy.
The post AIPAC’s War on Democracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza has produced increasing calls for an immediate ceasefire, while a pro-Israel, U.S.-based group has waged an increasing war on democracy with little public scrutiny and no end in sight.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is one of the most politically and electorally influential groups in this country. They have bombarded our “democratic” system spending over $100 million just in 2024 to punish opponents of Israeli policies, including the military assault on Gaza that’s claimed over 40,000 deaths and displaced 2.3 million people.
Our democracy has always been incomplete at best, but peoples’ movements have won voting and political rights for those without property, people of color, women and young people.
But the political and electoral influence of the super rich and their corporations, including non-profit ones like AIPAC, frustrate and preempt We the People who try to have human needs addressed.
AIPAC lobbies for U.S. support of Israel. Its related entities include a regular Political Action Committee (AIPAC PAC), and a Super PAC, (United Democracy Project, UDP).
Regular PACs are limited to contributing $3,300 per candidate per election. Super PACs can spend unlimited sums on elections, but must be spent “independently” from any candidate or candidate campaign.
AIPAC has spent $19.6 million for lobbying in the 2023-24 election cycle (through July, 2024). The AIPAC PAC has spent over $44.8 million while UDP has spent $55.4 million. AIPAC exceeded its 2024 goal to raise $100 million.
AIPAC entities threaten our elections and our limited democracy in multiple ways.
1. AIPAC’s PACs have spent millions of dollars supporting conservative Democratic challengers running against incumbent progressives in Congressional primaries, especially candidates of color – who are the strongest supporters of VFP’s calls to stop the war on Gaza and of Move to Amend’s We the People Amendment, HJR54 that will end the insane doctrines of corporate “personhood” and money is the same as speech. In the recent primaries, Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, members of the progressive “Squad,” were the latest victims and there will be more. UDP targeted $14.5 million to defeat Bowman in July and another $8.6 million to take down Bush in August. Bowman and Bush are HJR54 cosponsors and two of Congress’s most vocal critics of the Israeli war on Gaza.
2. Such massive corruption of elections includes paying for Congressional delegations to Israel and an army of lobbyists who peddle a peace and democracy narrative for Israel while pressing for massive arms shipments, including the recent U.S. decision to provide $20 billion more in weaponry. AIPAC lobbyists are joined by U.S. weapons makers as a “force multiplier” with no Palestinian counterweight. The Arab American PAC spent $36,200 in the 2021-22 election cycle and 0 in the 2023-24 cycle.
3. AIPAC-entity donors include super rich Republicans, some of whom are billionaires, such as Paul Singer, who bankrolled a free luxury vacation trip for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and later had cases before the High Court.
AIPAC’s clear goal is to defeat every progressive Democrat it can this year. AIPAC also supports many Republican Congressional candidates, including many who voted against certifying the 2020 election. How exactly does all this further democracy?
4. The enormous sum of expected AIPAC spending, especially in the primaries, has been too much to overcome for many progressive incumbents. J Street, a progressive pro-Israel group that defended candidates against AIPAC in the 2022 primaries, can’t compete with AIPAC and has sat out the 2024 primaries. AIPAC often doesn’t mention Israel in their targeted ads, but rather attacks incumbents on personal issues or on their progressive voting record.
It’s not just AIPAC that has invaded and is occupying our elections and democratic spaces. Corporate entities and the super rich have waged war on our elections and in Congress, causing injustices, mass violence and environmental carnage.
Simply passing laws calling for greater financial disclosure or campaign finance “reform” isn’t enough to end the war on democracy by AIPAC and other corporate entities.
Enacting the We the People Amendment to abolish the constitutional doctrines that “money equals speech” and “a corporation is a person” is essential to create authentic democracy and to reduce the military industrial complex drive for perpetual wars and occupations. The latter is not only applicable in elections, but across the board as corporate entities have hijacked multiple constitutional amendments permitting them to preempt democratic efforts to protect people. communities and the natural world.
AIPAC, like so many other corporate-funded groups, will no doubt continue its assault on the election process in 2026.
It’s ultimately up to us to go beyond merely resisting the violence and harm they cause, and take appropriate actions that can stop the corrupting, anti-democratic and violent impact of the super rich and their corporations that have captured elections and public policy.
The post AIPAC’s War on Democracy first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Palestinians from Beita, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, have been gathering every week since October for demonstrations against the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and Israeli occupation of Palestine more broadly. The villagers gather to pray, then march to the Israeli soldiers stationed at a nearby Israeli settlement — one of 300 throughout the West Bank…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Note: Update of my previous article from March 2008.
Except for a brief interlude during the Eisenhower administration, United States’ support for Israel, in its genocide of the Palestinian people, has been an ongoing process since the Truman administration recognized the state. Contemporary events prompt a review of the post-World War II history that resulted in the formation of a nation that had no visible name until David Ben Gurion proclaimed, on May 14, 1948, the state as Israel.
Books, articles, documents, memoirs and letters from past generations detail how a small group of insiders prevailed over recommendations from an experienced and famous U.S. State Department of “wise men.” It is the story of the Zionist mission. It is the story of apartheid Israel.
The impact, legacy and relevance of the 1946-1948 events to today’s occurrences have not been sufficiently explored. Under the surface are the hidden messages and obscure drives that shaped the past and extended into the future. A more complete analysis of the legacy from Truman’s rapid recognition of the state of Israel explains the past and clarifies the present.
In the initiation of a trend, supporters of those who derailed State Department Near East policy were able to integrate themselves into Middle East policy and subsequently shape global policies. Turmoil from initial events provoked a continuous turmoil in the Middle East. Almost all administrations framed Middle East polices to favor the Zionist cause.
The Truman State Department consisted of leading luminaries of U.S. State Department history. George C. Marshall, United States military chief of staff during World War II, first military leader to become Secretary of State and later a Nobel Prize recipient, had Loy Henderson, Robert A. Lovett, Dean Rusk, Warren Austin and other known figures in his department. Many of them were not entirely supportive of the UN partition plan; their State Department followed Truman’s directives until sensing the partition plan would be counterproductive and cause more violence than it intended to resolve. The record indicates the State Department attempted to modify Truman’s policy that favored partition. They sought a temporary UN trusteeship.
President Truman postured himself as motivated by a conviction — the displaced Jews who had survived the World War II Holocaust needed and deserved an immediate home. The U.S. president vacillated in his arguments and contradicted himself in statements. He railed vehemently against the steady stream of advocates for a Jewish state and retained several presidential advisors who pursed one purpose; promoting a new Jewish state. A suspicion remains that his humanitarian motives had a political content; the Democratic Party craved the financial and voting support of Zionist organizations and their allies.
Clark Clifford, Truman’s chief consul and ardent promoter for a Jewish state, quickly became one of the president’s closest assistants. He was not Truman’s principal assistant, a post held by John Roy Steelman, and behaved as if he were titular chief of staff by acting unilaterally and somewhat dubious in actions that proved decisive. The evidence points to Clifford favoring election expediencies in developing policies that led to the creation of the state of Israel.
The story begins at the closing shots of World War II and with the refugees in displaced persons camps.
The plight of the displaced persons could not be easily resolved. The United States was involved in returning millions of its armed forces to their homes, in the repatriation of captured enemy soldiers, and in preventing mass starvation in Europe. A possibility of a post-war depression and mass unemployment guided America’s political thinkers. In addition, the U.S. immigration laws did not permit the immediate admittance of the displaced persons, nor could it show favoritism. Unable to find a legal mechanism that would bring them to America, Truman petitioned Great Britain to allow them to immigrate to Palestine. British Prime Minister Clement Attlee cited the 1939 White Paper, which specified a definite number of applicants, as a limiting factor. He also suspected new immigrants would burden Britain’s over-stressed mandate and add troubles to the existing emergency.
Truman could not prevail over Attlee. What to do? After presentations by an Anglo-American inquiry commission and a joint cabinet committee (Morrison-Grady) failed to achieve welcoming peace proposals, a tired and irked British government requested the UN General Assembly to consider the Palestine problem. On May 15, 1947, the UN created the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). The committee outlined a partition plan with the city of Jerusalem under a UN trusteeship. Truman instructed the State Department to support the partition plan. UN Ambassador Warren Austin and the state department’s Near East Division, led by Loy Henderson, doubted that partition could resolve the situation.
During the months of UNSCOP’s efforts, Truman complained of pressure by pro-Zionist groups. In Volume II of his Memoirs, p.158, the former president relates:
The facts were that not only were there pressure movements around the United Nations unlike anything that had been there before but that the White house too, was subjected to a constant barrage. I do not think I ever had as much pressure and propaganda aimed at the White House as I had in this instance. The persistence of a few of the extreme Zionist leaders — actuated by political motives and engaging in political threats — disturbed and annoyed. Some were even suggesting that we pressure sovereign nations into favorable votes in the General Assembly.
This harsh rhetoric was mild compared to other Truman’s statements concerning the Zionists and its American leaders, especially Cleveland’s Rabbi Silver. In a memorandum to advisor David K. Niles, the president wrote, “We could have settled this whole Palestine thing if U.S. politics had been kept out of it. Terror and Silver are the contributing cause of some, if not all of our troubles.”
On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly approved the UNSCOP Partition plan. Approval only meant agreement in principle. No effective means for transferring the principle into an operational result had been determined. The lack of enforcement provoked more conflict in Palestine. Each side strived to gain territory and advantage. The uncontrolled mayhem steered the U.S. State Department to adopt the concept of a temporary trusteeship for the area. Believing it had President Truman’s approval, the State Department instructed the U.S. delegation to the United States to petition for a special session of the General Assembly and reconsider the Palestinian issue. In his presentation, UN Ambassador Warren Austin proposed the establishment of a temporary trusteeship for Palestine.
Truman denied giving a green light for the presentation and wrote in his diary, which has been quoted in “The Private Papers of Harry S. Truman, P.127. “This morning I find that the State dept. has reversed my Palestine policy. The first I knew about it is what I see in the papers. Isn’t that hell!” His infuriation arose from embarrassment of having assured Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, whom he highly regarded, that the U.S. would not depart from the Partition Plan and would not entertain a temporary trusteeship. George McKee Elsey, in his memoir, An Unplanned Life, p.161, supplied evidence of Truman’s awareness and permission for the speech. White House staff member Elsey writes:
In fact, as I quickly learned in delving into the record and querying White House and State Staff, Truman had personally read and approved some days earlier the Austin speech, which outlined a plan for U.N. trusteeship of Palestine when the British Mandate ended in May in lieu of partitioning the area into separate Jewish and Arab territories.
The May 15 date for the British exit neared, and the Zionists prepared to declare their state and present their credentials for recognition. Contradictions in U.S. Near East policy led to policies that became completely confusing.
In a speech to the UN General Assembly, March 25, 1948, President Truman clarified his nation’s temporary endorsement of a UN Trusteeship for Palestine that did not prejudice partition. The pleased State Department instructed Ambassador Austin to proceed with deliberations of the Trusteeship proposal. As if not cognizant of the UN trusteeship discussion, Truman prepared to recognize the soon to be formed state. On May 12, two days before an expected announcement by the Jewish Agency in Palestine, an angered George C. Marshall and his assistant Robert Lovett confronted Truman and demanded reasons for the haste in wanting to grant recognition. The president selected his counsel Clark Clifford, who was not involved in foreign policy, to clarify the reasons for the intended recognition.
Clifford’s principal reasons for instant recognition: The UN Security Council could not obtain a truce in hostilities; partition would happen in fact; the U.S. would eventually have to recognize a new state, and it was preferable to get the jump on the Soviet Union.
Clifford’s arguments are easily rebutted. (1) More significant than whether or not the Security Council could obtain a truce was that the UN council was engaged in discussions hoping to achieve a truce. Recognition would close the discussions and prevent the truce. (2) If the Trusteeship was approved and implemented, an entity unilaterally invoking a partition scheme would violate the UN dictates. (3) Clifford’s simple explanation that the U.S. must recognize the new state quickly because the U.S. must recognize the new state was a statement and not a clarification. (4) As for the Soviet Union, Clifford echoed the alarm of Phillip C. Jessup, a member of the U.S. delegation to the UN, who, according to Robert J. Donovan in his book Conflict and Crisis, The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, p.380, cabled UN affairs officer Dean Rusk that the Soviet Union wanted recognition to use Article 51 of the UN charter to protect the new state and thus gain a foothold in the Middle East. This view is specious — Article 51 pertains to defense of member states and the new nation did not become a UN member until one year later. Besides, wasn’t it advantageous for the U.S. to have the Soviet Union recognize the new state before it did? The State Department could then claim it had no choice and would lose less favor with the Arab states.
Marshall questioned why a domestic affairs advisor was determining foreign policy. Truman replied that he had invited Clifford to make a presentation. Obviously, Truman did not want history to record his words and asked his campaign manager to speak for him. Sensing that politics and the forthcoming presidential election had become overriding factors in a significant foreign policy decision, the dedicated George C. Marshall uttered one of the most insulting words ever directed by a cabinet official to a president, “If you follow Clifford’s advice, and if I were to vote in the next election, I would vote against you.” Clark Clifford’s Memoir, Council to the President, P.13, mentions that the Secretary also insisted that these personal remarks be included in the official state department record of the meeting. Whew! (Vice President Harris take note.)
Fearing that the transfer of advice on Near East affairs from the state and defense departments to inexperienced advisors and non-professional lobbyists would continue, Assistant Secretary of State Robert Lovett determined to change Truman’s intentions. For some unknown reason, rather than calling the president directly, he channeled his inquiries through Counselor Clark Clifford. The president’s counselor didn’t speak to the president about Lovett’s urgencies, but assumed a new role ─ he spoke for the president. In response to Lovett’s request to ask Truman to delay recognition, Clifford confesses in his memoir, P.22,
Saying (to Lovett) I would check with the President, I waited about three minutes and called Lovett back to say that delay was out of the question. It was about 5:40 and the State Department has run out of time and ideas.
Within a few minutes, one of the most bizarre sequence of events that had ever occurred in U.S. diplomacy unfolded.
Clifford states he called Dean Rusk and asked the UN affairs officer to inform Warren Austin, chief of the U.S. delegation to the UN, that the president intended to recognize the new Near East state within fifteen minutes. His called bypassed protocol; usually the assistant secretary of state should be informed and that person has the obligation to inform other staff members of decisions. Clifford quotes a surprised Rusk as retaliating with the remark, “This cuts directly across what our delegation had been trying to accomplish in the General Assembly, and we have a large majority for it.” Rusk supposedly called Warren Austin who went home without bothering to inform the U.S. delegation of the news.
Truman’s rapid signing (within 11 minutes) of the document that gave de facto recognition to the ‘new state of Israel’ angered members at a United Nations meeting on the Trusteeship. After learning the new state would be called Israel, the words ‘Jewish state’ were crossed out and the words ‘state of Israel’ were inserted.
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May 14 was an enviable day for the new state of Israel, but an unpleasant day for the 160 year old American republic. The diplomatic solution to the Near East crisis had been settled, but the conflict has not been resolved.
What does history show?
History supports the conviction that the Partition Plan would not resolve the hostilities. The State Department concern for rapidly recognizing a new state, without knowledge of its constitution or composition, was diplomatically correct and prescient. The quick recognition of a state for the Jewish population prevented the UN from finishing a discussion of providing mechanisms to prevent more bloodshed and providing proper protection for the state’s large Palestinian population. George Marshall’s State Department acted honestly, with knowledge, and with the conviction it served the interests of the United States
President Harry S. Truman correctly perceived the tenacity of the Zionists. He erred in his judgment that the Partition Plan would resolve the conflict. The unusual rapid response for recognition of the new state, without awareness of its composition, signified a pardon of the excesses committed by Irgun and Haganah against civilian populations and certified the exclusion of any Palestinian voice in the new government. Truman never asked what would happen to the 400,000 Palestinians who had no representation in the new state. Evidently, he didn’t consider that the placing of 100,000 displaced Jews into Palestine would also mean the placing of weapons in the hands of many of these persons and, together with instant recognition, would reinforce the eventual displacement of 900,000 Palestinians. The European DP camps were temporary shelter for those who would undoubtedly find permanent homes and citizenship; the UNWRA refugee camps became permanent homes for several million Palestinian displaced persons who languish with stateless identification.
The post-election provided Truman with an opportunity to show he was not captive to the Zionist enterprise. What did he do? He only half-heartedly pressured Israel in 1949 to resettle displaced Palestinians. This token maneuver is verified by Joshua Landis. In a paper published in The Palestinian Refugees: Old Problems – New Solutions, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, OK, 2001, p. 77-87, Landis writes,
McGee threatened the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. that if Israel did not accept 200,000 refugees, the US would withhold $49 million worth of Export-Import Bank loans to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador was unimpressed with McGhee’s threat and responded that McGhee “wouldn’t get by with this move.” The Israeli Ambassador boasted that “he would stop it.”
True to his word, the Ambassador was able to nip McGhee’s threat in the bud. That same afternoon, the White house phoned McGhee to say that the President would have nothing to do with withholding loans to Israel. Never again would a State Department official under President Truman attempt to intimidate Israel on the issue of refugees.
Landis claims the U.S. President tried to resolve the Palestinian DP problem by offering the Syrian government $400,000,000 dollars in exchange for settling up to 500,000 Palestinians in the fertile plains between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. A president of a nation was willing to burden his own nation in order to relieve Israel of its obligation to the Palestinian refugees. In retrospect, he behaved circumspect and his compassion for victims depended on their value to the Democratic Party.
A humanitarian light brightened the parade of lobbyists for partition and this light managed to convince many of the validity of their cause. Later U.S. government Middle East policies repeated the intense lobbying that guided Truman’s 1948 decisions and subdued the power and recommendations of government agencies.
The darkened perspective, due to Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians, has not deterred the forces who continue to obtain a U.S. foreign policy that favors their direction. The memory of Truman’s electoral victory, which defied all predictions, continues to make prospective candidates for national office sense that winning elections depends upon support from those who also support Israel.
The legacy of the 1946-1948 events is well described. Control of discussions pushed a previous U.S. administration to provide a legal frame for creation of the state of Israel. Control of discussions continued and impelled contemporary administrations to provide the support for that frame. Without U.S. support, Israel’s authentic moral, political, economic and military character would have been exposed and its structure weakened. The Israeli state might have collapsed.
The genocide started in 1947, from an improbable ‘there’ and has continued until the impossible ‘here.’ By supporting Israel, the democratic and freedom loving United States has made the improbable a sickening and frightful reality.
The post The 1948 Recognition of Israel: Impact, Legacy, and Relevance first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
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This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.