Catholic activists arrested for anti-nuclear protest outside UN
BY LIAM MYERS, National Catholic Reporter 18 Dec 23
Agroup of Catholic activists blocked the entrance to the United States Mission to the United Nations in New York City on Nov. 30, drawing attention to its lack of participation in UN meetings discussing nuclear disarmament that week.
This nonviolent direct action took place during the Nov. 27-Dec. 1 meeting of the nations who are party to the UN’s Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit nuclear arms.
Those gathered for the action included the Atlantic Life Community, Catholic Worker communities, NukeWatch, and War Resisters League.
The group met together at the Isaiah Wall — a monument near the UN headquarters inscribed with the famous quotation “They shall beat their swords into plowshares” — before processing toward the U.S. Mission to the UN. At the front of the group, they held aloft a sign that read “Everything to do with nuclear weapons now illegal,” referencing the 50-plus countries who have ratified the nuclear prohibition treaty.
The activists clearly called upon their Catholic faith throughout the action, as another sign featured a quote from Pope Francis: “The use of Nuclear Weapons as well as their mere possession is immoral.”
Upon arrival at the U.S. Mission, these groups created a human blockade of all three public entrances to the building. …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Throughout the blockade, which lasted over two hours, there were a number of people standing alongside the sidewalk and supporting those doing the blockade. These people were leafleting, shouting “Sign the Treaty!,” “No More Nukes,” and singing songs.
As the New York Police Department began to move in to make arrests, Bud Courtney, a member of the New York Catholic Worker, led everyone in song playing his guitar as they were being arrested, singing “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” https://www.ncronline.org/news/catholic-activists-arrested-anti-nuclear-protest-outside-un
Staying in Gaza as an act of love: Stories from the Catholics who risk their lives to serve
“These are our people and we will not abandon them.” Selfless acts like these have earned the small Christian communities in Gaza the respect of all those living in Gaza.
Jeffery Abood December 15, 2023, https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/12/15/gaza-israel-catholic-churches-246728?pnespid=t7VpGntebvMdwqbN9jG9FpKNvhOyTJJuMvXjkPUztB1mpgpXs8W0TdlrA_YDiged3nSYb4fJyw
Tens of thousands of Gazans are pressed against the border with Egypt at Rafah. Told that this was a safe place for them to flee, they are still under attack. Almost the entire population has been displaced by the fighting—1.9 million people, according to latest United Nations figures. Gazan health authorities say that more than 18,000 people have been killed since the fighting began; about 70 percent of the casualties are women and children. More than 49,000 people have been wounded.
How can we recover a sense of their individual sacredness that might lead to a stronger demand for an end to this violence and suffering? Perhaps if more people had the opportunity, as I have, to visit Gaza and meet with the Gazan people, they would have a different perspective about the violence raining down on the innocent people living in Gaza.
Media headlines often invoke only negative images whenever Gaza is mentioned. Yet just beneath these headlines, like a seed waiting to sprout, are inspiring examples of love and faith in humanity. It is vital we recognize and build on these, as love stands as the only force capable of ultimately ending the violence.
Gazans are incredibly warm and loving. My visits to Gaza reminded me of growing up in a Lebanese household and the warm hospitality for which Middle Easterners are famous. Family has always been at the center of their lives.
In fact, these robust and loving family connections are one of the main reasons Gazans have been able to endure 17 years of a brutal military blockade. Another reason is their deep faith. The sacred beliefs of both Muslims and Christians living together in Gaza provide a stable bedrock upon which they all depend.
Some recent instances of people embodying both this love and faith can be seen amid the ongoing bombing campaign in Gaza.
A common assumption is that people only remain in Gaza, and especially in the north, because they have no other choice. Yet, despite the very real dangers to themselves because they are remaining in an active war zone, some make the conscious decision to stay as an act of love.
Holy Family Parish in Gaza City is situated on a campus that houses the church, a school, three convents and a home for severely disabled children. Every few years, amid periodic bombing, the various religious orders living and working in Gaza receive evacuation orders.
Yet, despite many having the passports that would allow them to leave, the women religious in Gaza, many of whom come from abroad, choose not to. Instead, according to Father Mario Da Silva, a priest once assigned to the parish, they say, “These are our people and we will not abandon them.” Selfless acts like these have earned the small Christian communities in Gaza the respect of all those living in Gaza.
During the bombing in 2014, the Sisters at Holy Family faced a harrowing situation where they had to carry all the disabled children under their care (about 60) into the church’s courtyard. Their hope was that Israeli warplanes would notice them and refrain from dropping their bombs. The tactic proved successful then. However, a few weeks ago, the warplanes not only inflicted damage on Holy Family but also bombed nearby St. Porphyrius Church, killing or maiming nearly 100 people sheltering there.
In an interview with the Catholic news site Crux, Father Francis Xavier Rayappangari, commissary of the Holy Land in India, said he had recently spoken with the sisters at Holy Family.
“In the convent, there are three sisters and 60 residents, including handicapped and mentally challenged children and bedridden older people, who have no food, water, medicine, electricity or gas. Communication from outside is cut off, and the entire area is surrounded by the [Israeli] army.”
Regarding the current situation of the nuns, he further relayed, “Sometimes some generous and courageous people [in the neighborhood] bring something for them to eat. Whatever they receive from outside, the sisters first serve the residents. If there is anything left, they eat. Most of the time it is just one meal a day.… One day they had just one loaf of bread shared among the three…. The other day it was just an orange, and the three sisters shared it among them.”
In the Kuwaiti Hospital—similar to all Gaza hospitals, including Al-Ahli, the Anglican hospital—there were also Israeli military orders to evacuate. Many hospital directors, doctors and staff, most of whom are Muslim, have publicly stated that they refuse to abandon their patients, who due to their fragile medical status cannot be evacuated. They have chosen rather to put their own lives at a very real risk and stay.
In a separate interview, one doctor at the hospital stated, “Where should we evacuate these children? They are attached to ventilators. They are completely dependent on them and it is impossible to move them. If you want to kill us, kill us while we continue working here. We will not leave.”
The hospitals as well as the churches report receiving small amounts of aid from local residents, both Muslim and Christian, who contribute whatever food and basic supplies they can spare for patients or others seeking refuge. These acts are amazing examples of generosity from people who are in just as precarious a position. More than that, they are examples of bravery, as the simple act of crossing the street to deliver this aid can result, as it has with many others, in being killed by Israeli snipers.
In a recent email, a parishioner from Holy Family expressing his unshakable faith said, “I wish this would end very soon, because we are drained [from] seeing the suffering of all these innocent people, who are living with us in an open-air prison. We see cruel fire falling from the sky and can have no hope. We only know God will listen to all our prayers.”
Currently, the sisters of the various communities, as well as a priest from the Institute of the Incarnate Word, are caring for 700 displaced people, including 100 children and another 70 disabled children and adults with various neurologic and birth disorders at Holy Family.
Sister Nabila Saleh, the principal of the Rosary Sisters School in Gaza, told Aid to the Church in Need that it would be logistically impossible to move the elderly, children, sick and those with disabilities. She explained: “We will not go and leave our people. We are here to accompany them; we cannot possibly abandon them.”
So, despite the order for all civilians in Gaza City to evacuate to the south of the Strip, she stressed her decision to remain with the community in the parish “until the end,” knowing full well what that could mean.
In focusing only on the negative images depicted by the media about Gaza, we miss these beautiful and inspiring acts of love. We see people’s decisions to stay for others even when they are faced with their own likely deaths. This kind of dedication is only possible when the seeds of faith sprout out of a resilient love for both God and for others.
In failing to see that, we also fail to see the presence of the only force more powerful than any bomb, the only force that can and will ultimately win over hate and violence: love. In honor of that truly sacrificial love, it is crucial for us, as advocates of justice and peace, to actively pursue a genuine pro-life stance, and work for an immediate ceasefire before these beacons of faith, love and light are snuffed out.
Jeffery Abood is a member of the leadership council of Churches for Middle East Peace. He can be reached at jabood@att.net.
95 Democrats and 216 Republicans Support Resolution Conflating Anti-Zionism and Antisemitism
“This extreme and cynical Republican resolution does nothing to combat antisemitism,” said Rep. Ilhan Omar, stressing the importance of “legitimate criticism” of the Israeli government and its war on Gaza.
By Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams, 6 Dec 23, https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/06/95-democrats-and-216-republicans-support-resolution-conflating-anti-zionism-and-antisemitism/
As Israel continued to wage what critics are calling a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, just 13 U.S. House Democrats and one Republican on Tuesday voted against a GOP resolution that conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
House Resolution 894 passed with support from 95 Democrats and 216 Republicans, including its sponsors, Reps. David Kustoff (Tenn.) and Max Miller (Ohio), who are both Jewish. Almost as many Democrats—92—voted present.
The resolution, which embraces the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s controversial working definition of antisemitism, was widely condemned by progressive and Jewish groups this week ahead of the vote.
Republican Congressman Thomas Massie (Ky.) joined the 13 Democrats who opposed H.Res. 894: Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Gerry Connolly (Va.), Jesús “Chuy” García (Ill.), Raúl Grijalva (Ariz.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Rashida Tlaib (Mich.), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (N.J.).
“This extreme and cynical Republican resolution does nothing to combat antisemitism, relies on a definition that conflates criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, paints critics of the Israeli government as antisemites, and falsely states that anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” Omar said in a statement about her vote. “We must stand against any attempt to define legitimate criticism of this war and the government perpetrating it as antisemitism.”
According to The Hill, Bowman said after the vote that while he “strongly condemn[s] antisemitism and hate in all of its forms,” he voted against H.Res. 894 because “it fuels division and violence, conflates criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism, and ignores one of the greatest threats to the Jewish community, white nationalism.”
Bowman and Omar are among the House progressives facing serious primary challenges for the next cycle, in part because of their criticism of the Israeli government and its war on Gaza that has killed nearly 16,000 Palestinians in under two months.
They joined with Bush, Lee, Massie, Ocasio-Cortez, Ramirez, Tlaib, and Reps. André Carson (D-Ind.) and Al Green (D-Texas) in October to oppose a bipartisan resolution, which declared that the House unconditionally “stands with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists,” and did not mention Palestinian suffering.
Nuclear disarmament a ‘critical pro-life issue,’ warns Archbishop Wester
National Catholic Reporter, STEVEN SCHWANKERT, New York — December 4, 2023
The threat from nuclear weapons is as great now as ever, and their destructive power is more immediate than climate change, said Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, at a Nov. 29 Mass in Manhattan that remembered Catholic activist Dorothy Day, a candidate for sainthood recognized by the church as a “servant of God.”
Wester was visiting New York for the United Nations’ second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, held from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 at U.N. headquarters in Manhattan. The visit also came four years to the week of Pope Francis’s visit to Japan, when the pontiff declared that the possession, construction and use of nuclear weapons are all immoral.
The Mass at Church of Our Saviour on Park Ave. also coincided with the 42nd anniversary of Day’s death…………………………………………………………………………..
“Catholics should establish disarmament as a critical pro-life issue,” Wester said, referring to his own Archdiocese of Santa Fe as “the birthplace of nuclear weapons.”
………………………………”The trouble with this issue is that it’s in the background. We’ve been lulled into a false sense of complacency really since the 1980s. Climate destruction is indeed very important, but this is equally important — in some ways more important — because while climate change is gradual, this would be instantaneous. This would be the destruction of human civilization within about 24 hours,” he said.
…………………………………………….The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — the first legally binding international agreement to prohibit and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons — took effect Jan. 22, 2021. Only 93 countries out of the U.N.’s 193 member states have signed it, and the nine states known to have military nuclear programs have not. They are Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea……………………………………………………………. more https://www.ncronline.org/news/nuclear-disarmament-critical-pro-life-issue-warns-archbishop-wester
Holy See advocates collaboration on nuclear disarmament
Archbishop Gabriele Cacccia, the Holy See’s Permanent observer to the United Nations, highlights the disproportionate impact of nuclear weapons on women and girls, and urges synergy between the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and existing disarmament measures.
By Francesca Merlo, https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2023-12/archbishop-caccia-united-nations-nuclear-weapons-disarmament.html—
Nuclear weapons have catastrophic humanitarian and environmental consequences, multiply risks and offer only ‘an illusion of peace’.
Thus, the the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons reminds us that a world free of atomic weapons “is possible and necessary and offers us a means to achieve this goal through dialogue”.
These were the points made by Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, at the second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty, signed in 2017 and ratified by 56 countries around the world.
The Archbishop focused on two addresses concerning two fundamental aspects of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: “Implementing the gender provisions of the treaty” and “Complementarity of the Treaty with the existing nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime”.
Gender disparity
Speaking on the issue of gender disparity, Archbishop Caccia noted that, for a long time, it was believed that nuclear weapons affected those exposed equally through blast, heat and radiation. However, he said, “newer scientific evidence has shown that this is not the case, and that the radiation effects of nuclear weapon detonations are disproportionately affecting women and girls”.
Archbishop Caccia noted that the Treaty rightly recognises this and “calls for the provision of assistance to victims to be provided in a manner that takes into account the particular needs of each individual”.
The effects on women
Girls exposed to radiation from birth to age five are almost ten times more likely to develop cancer compared to the typical European male. Further research into the factors causing this disproportionate impact on women and children, such as on intergenerational consequences like maternal and fetal health, is essential, said Archbishop Caccia.
This understanding is crucial “to ensure that women exposed to ionizing radiation receive adequate care to preserve their health and the health of their babies”.
The Archbishop went on to stress that “The absence of a solid scientific foundation will hinder States Parties’ effective implementation of the Treaty’s positive obligations, especially those concerning women and girls”, before going on to highlight some queries the Holy See has with the same Treaty.
Use of language
These are the use of unclear language regarding gender, using non-legal terms in discussing assistance for victims, divisive language concerning medical care, and referencing a UN text that hasn’t been negotiated. Because of these issues, “the Holy See cannot support the recommendations outlined in the Report”, said Archbishop Caccia.
Concluding his speech on the implementation of gender provisions in the Treaty, Archbishop Caccia stressed that, due to these significant concerns, “the Holy See considers that the inclusion of a Gender Focal Point in the intersessional structure of the Treaty may need to be reconsidered in the future.”
Relationship between Treaty and existing non-proliferation regime
Addressing the relationship between the Treaty and existing nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation regime, Archbishop Caccia noted that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) bolsters Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by enforcing the Additional Protocol and the Revised Small Quantities Protocol for states that have signed them. “Despite the NPT’s lagging implementation efforts, particularly under the disarmament pillar, it remains the cornerstone of the disarmament and non-proliferation regime”, he said.
All treaties together
Archbishop Caccia went on to emphasise the potential synergy between the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the TPNW. He highlighted the importance of leveraging data from the International Monitoring System (IMS) to support the TPNW’s obligations, urging collaboration between TPNW States Parties and CTBT Signatories. “Since the objects and purposes of the TPNW and the CTBT complement and advance one another, it follows that they should be promoted in parallel”, he explained.
Archbishop Caccia concluded that “the Holy See supports greater engagement between TPNW States Parties and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR)”, explaining that this could advance understanding of the human and environmental harms caused by nuclear weapons activities “and contribute to efforts to address such harms”.
“Nuremberg Trial” for Israel’s Crimes Against Palestinians?
, https://www.thepostil.com/a-nuremberg-trial-for-israels-crimes-against-palestinians/
Make no mistake. Israel has committed massive crimes in Gaza and in the West Bank against the Palestinians. When will the thousands killed get justice? Or are we all supposed to just go on with our lives and pretend that it’s all the pursuit of “the right of self-defense?” Who are these IDF snipers who anonymously shoot children, and no one is even curious to know who these killers are? Is this the way of war now, according to the “international rules based order” that we should be so proud of in the West, which is supposedly the hallmark of our “civilization?”
A day of reckoning will come. There are good men and women who are wokring to make that a reality.
And what are we to make of our politcal class that utters not a peep about the slaughter that Netanyahu is doing, but who earlier could not get the ICC to issue an arrest warrant for President Putin fast enough, because Putin was assumed to have “kidnapped” Ukrainian orphans that they might have a decent life in Russia. But Netanyahu can kill as many children as he wants, since that is not a crime according to the “rule of law,” so the “jurists” at the ICC stay busy identifying “Russian crimes” that might be spotted at the backs of their cereal boxes.
Kurt Tucholsky was paraphrasing a French joke when he observed that “the death of one person: that’s a catastrophe. One hundred thousand dead: that’s a statistic!”
What Israel has done for over a month in Gaza is now a matter of statistics, for they have killed over 15,000 so far, more than 4000 of them children. It is the Palestinian Holocaust, because there are many more thousands buried under all those pancaked buildings where people once lived. And now that the Israeli assault continues, many thousands more will die.
Given these grim statistics, it becomes more and more important to remember the one person, rather than mention in passing the vast number of the now faceless thousands dead.
One such person was Elham Farah, a Christian Palestinian, living in Gaza, where she had taught music all her life. She was 84 years old and was the daughter of the Palestinian poet, Hannah Farah.
On November 12, 2023, an Israeli sniper shot her in the leg, as she came out of the Holy Family Church in Gaza City, where she had been sheltering to escape the bombing. She wanted to make sure that her home had not been hit. A sniper was waiting who are trained to shoot in the leg.
Those inside the church tried to rescue her, as she cried out for help, but people were afraid of Israeli snipers who long have had a reputation for being merciless. Elham Farah bled to death over several days. No one came to help her because of the sniping. She had just survived the bombing of Saint Porphyrios, the 850-year-old church in Gaza, which took the lives of 18 other Christians. Is such a death for a gentle old lady acceptable to those who see themselves as “civilized?” And why no one even knows about the crimes of Israeli snipers is unimaginable.
The hell unleashed by the Herod of our time in the Holy Land escapes the mind’s ability to describe horror—to see little children torn apart by bombs, dropped by pilots in their sophisticated flying machines is beyond the reach of words…
Then Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry: and sending killed all the menchildren that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently inquired of the wise men.
Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremias the prophet, saying:
A voice in Rama was heard, lamentation and great mourning; Rachel bewailing her children, and would not be comforted, because they are not (Matthew 2:16-18).
Rama” or “Ramah” is the name of several Palestinian towns, and “Rachel” stands in for all mothers whose children have been slaughtered by the powerful. Such killing was “righteous revenge” because the Hamas razzia of October 7th was fabricated as brutal, with beheaded babies and babies in ovens, when it was the IDF that did most of the slaughter of Israelis that day. Why the need to lie by Israel? The full truth about what really happened on October 7th is now coming out: Hamas killed IDF soldiers in combat. It was not a “terrorist” attack:
Thus on October 7th:
The IDF killed anything that moved;- Many Israeli captives were still alive, two days after October 7;
- Israelis were killed by the IDF with heavy shelling of houses and cars;
- Most of the civilian deaths happened because of the IDF;
- It was a razzia by Hamas because most of the captives taken were IDF officers.
And in the West, we have the war enthusiasts, eagerly cheering on Netanyahu and his ilk to kill more, to kill without compunction, for there will be no red lines drawn, because Israel is for “civilization,” because that is how you fight wars, by killing as many babies as you can with bombs.
Perhaps in the months or even years ahead, there will come a time for a “Nuremberg Trial” for the murderers that are now in power in Israel—and for the IDF soldiers snipers who shot down Elham Farah and the two liitle Christian Palestinian boys, and also for the many “journalists” and “scholars” who justified and whitewashed the crimes against humanity now permanently recorded for the world to see. Remember, they did hang Julius Streicher, even though he perosnally had killed no one.
Palestine is the genocide that we as Jewish people can halt.
Amanda Gelender, 24 November 2023 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/israel-palestine-genocide-jewish-people-can-halt—
We cannot allow the moral soul of Judaism to perish with our collective silence on Israel’s genocidal war on Palestinians in Gaza.
sit down to write this – a love letter for my treasured Jewish people – as a genocide unfolds on my screen.
This letter pours from my heart to yours. It is a call to action to rise in solidarity with Palestine. I have such deep tenderness for us, our history, and the proud traditions we have preserved through centuries of unspeakable injustice.
Like some of you, I grew up attending synagogue in a progressive American Jewish community. Celebrating and supporting Israel was part of what it meant to be culturally and religiously Jewish.
When I first came to understand what was actually happening in the occupied Palestinian territories, I was 18 and enrolled in my first year of college. A Jewish peer told me about the abuse Israel commits in our name.
I’m not proud to admit that the fact she was Jewish is likely the only reason I listened: I was taught by my community that only Jewish people can truly understand how important Israel is for our safety and wellbeing. Looking back, I wish I had believed Palestinians sooner.
Palestinians are the authorities on their own freedom struggle. But the indoctrination and fear instilled in me as a Jewish child was too strong to overcome, until the bubble of Zionism burst.
When I first came to learn about the extent of Israel’s ongoing brutality against the Palestinian people, I struggled to believe it. My Jewish elders taught me about justice, human rights and the Jewish moral mandate to cultivate social change and “repair the world” (tikkun olam).
How is it possible that my own people could omit the truth about Israeli apartheid and occupation? I was taught that Israel was founded on an empty plot of land, not that Zionist terrorist squads raided villages, killing 15,000 Palestinians and forcibly displacing 750,000 more in the Nakba. Like me, did they just not know?
Zionist fallacy
The line that “everyone who criticises Israel is antisemitic” felt increasingly flimsy in the face of a mounting list of war crimes committed by Israel. If everything taught to me about Israel wasn’t true, what else was a lie?
And what would this mean for participation in the Jewish community going forward, given that virtually all of my Jewish peers are still tacitly or actively invested in the fallacy of Zionist nationalism?
Once the denial faded, the rage set in. We have been lied to by people we trusted; deceived so that we would cheer on an apartheid state that abuses children and tortures mercilessly in our name. Jewish youth, including myself, have been implicated in a 75-year, ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people.
There have been tremendous, unfathomable human rights abuses committed under the guise of protecting Jewish livelihood – when in reality, a settler’s quiet peace is made possible only by continued Palestinian repression. There is no safety for anyone under occupation.
We were taught that Israel represented a whisper of refuge carved out for Jews after the Holocaust – something precious that we must protect at all costs. It was “the only nation for Jewish people”, our homeland, our birthright: Israel.
We were taught intrinsic entitlement over a piece of land on the other side of the earth. Israel was a second, optional home for us – but the story conveniently omitted that Palestine is the one and only home for Palestinians, who have tended to the land for generations.
Israel still denies Palestinians visitation rights and the inalienable right to return home, but as a Jewish person born in California, I can visit whenever I want, and Israel will even pay me to move there and live on stolen Palestinian land.
I wasn’t taught that Israel is funded to the teeth by the US, functioning as a strategic western imperial outpost for natural resource extraction, weapons testing, US police training, and more. No one told me that the birth of Israel required the death of Palestinians, an ethnic cleansing conveniently swept under the rug so that Jewish people could have something shiny and clean; that it was a militarised nation founded on piles of scorched Palestinian bodies, a Jewish homeland built on mass indigenous graves.
Decolonial freedom struggle
The story of Israel is not new. It is deeply familiar to colonised peoples the world over. It perpetuates the same white supremacist, colonial lie that settlers arriving to Turtle Island (North America) told themselves to justify the genocide of indigenous peoples: that in the name of progress, modernity and democracy, the coloniser must demolish, kill and destroy.
Under this lie, the coloniser must pillage the land as manifest destiny, from “sea to shining sea”, and violently execute as many of the “savage native terrorists” as possible to expand territorial gains and build safe homes for settler families.
Palestine is not engaged in a holy war; it is a decolonial freedom struggle. Palestinians did not choose Jewish people to colonise their land, and they have a moral and legal right to resist occupation, regardless of who the occupier is. Jewish safety is a non-starter, so long as the violent occupation of Palestine persists. Our liberation is bound together as one.
We are at an unprecedented moment in history. A genocide is unfolding before our eyes, as bodies pile up in mass graves outside of bombed hospitals and refugee camps. A global solidarity movement for Palestine has pierced through the veil of western comfort – a jailbreak from the prison of blockade.
And as the US-backed Israeli military continues to rain down bombs on the besieged people of Gaza, many of my fellow Jewish people are sitting back and watching, or actively cheering it on.
With our silence, Jewish people globally are co-signing this genocide. Many have calculated that it’s “too complicated”, with the threat of being alienated from friends, family and colleagues. We don’t want to risk anything real.
Delusional asymmetry
But Palestinian families are being murdered while they sleep, brutalised with burning white phosphorous, sniped in hospital maternity wards, starved and made to suffer from dehydration and a lack of clean water, and forced on death marches. They are pulling dead, bloodied children from the dusty ruins of bombed rubble.
And yet, my Jewish peers in the West say they are the ones who fear genocide. This delusional asymmetry must end so that we can point resources and attention towards those who face an actual threat of extinction in this completely preventable massacre of human dignity.
The call from Palestinians at this moment is clear: ceasefire now. End the siege on Gaza and the illegal occupation. Respect the right of return. Palestinians are asking us to bear witness to their genocide, pressure our representatives for an immediate ceasefire, and boycott those profiting from the illegal occupation. Every day without a ceasefire, the death toll increases and Israel wipes more lineages from the public record.
Palestine is the genocide that Jewish people can halt. We couldn’t intervene to stop millions of our ancestors from perishing in death camps, but we can and must stop this genocide from continuing one more day. Let us not squander our urgent, sacred duty by exploiting Jewish suffering as a shield and cudgel for violence against Palestinians.
If you consider yourself a Jewish person of conscience, understand that there is no moral or legal justification for this massacre. The time to speak is now. Palestinians can’t wait for history to redeem them, because the air strikes continue to beat down as I write this letter of love and rage to you, my Jewish kin.
We cannot allow the moral soul of Judaism to perish with the sound of our collective silence on genocide. Let our voices be a prayer for our Jewish ancestors and a blessing for our descendants to say once and for all: never again.
Influential Israeli national security leader makes the case for genocide in Gaza
In an Op-Ed titled “Let’s Not be Intimidated by the World,” Israeli ret. Major General Giora Eiland argues that all Palestinians in Gaza are legitimate targets and that even a “severe epidemic” in Gaza will “bring victory closer.”
Mondpweiss, BY JONATHAN OFIR
Since October 7, there has been no shortage of genocidal calls from Israeli leaders, as well as clear plans, also at ministerial level, for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza. And while the usage of biblical euphemisms like Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “Amalek” reference may appear too vague for some, even if the story suggests killing infants, on Sunday ret. Major General Giora Eiland, former head of the National Security Council and current advisor to the Defense Minister decided to spell out genocide more explicitly.
In a Hebrew article on the printed edition of the centrist Yedioth Ahronoth titled “Let’s not be intimidated by the world,” Eiland clarified that the whole Gazan civilian population was a legitimate target and that even “severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer.” His bottom line leaves no doubt as to his view:
“They are not only Hamas fighters with weapons, but also all the ‘civilian’ officials, including hospital administrators and school administrators, and also the entire Gaza population that enthusiastically supported Hamas and cheered on its atrocities on October 7th.”
Eiland speaks against humanitarian concern and the whole principle of distinction:
“Israel is not fighting a terrorist organization but against the State of Gaza.”
Therefore, per Eiland, “Israel must not provide the other side with any capability that prolongs its life.”
Eiland mocks the idea of “poor women” as the representation of uninvolved civilians:
“Who are the ‘poor’ women of Gaza? They are all the mothers, sisters or wives of Hamas murderers”.
The formulation is reminiscent of the far-right former Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, who, during the 2014 onslaught, suggested that Israel’s enemy was the entire Palestinian people:
“Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”
Eiland speaks against surrendering to American sensibilities. Humanitarian pressure (that is, cutting off all basic life necessities) is a legitimate means of war, he claims:
“The Israeli cabinet must take a harder line with the Americans, and at least have the ability to say the following: as long as all the hostages are not returned to Israel, do not talk to us about the humanitarian aspects”.
Also, the rest of the international community, with its humanitarian concern, must be resisted – even the spread of severe epidemics is a legitimate means of warfare:
“The international community warns us of a humanitarian disaster in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from this, as difficult as that may be. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Gaza Strip will bring victory closer and reduce casualties among IDF soldiers”
But no, Eiland is not a sadist nor a genocidaire — all of this is but a means towards a supposedly good end:
“And no, this is not about cruelty for cruelty’s sake, since we don’t support the suffering of the other side as an end but as a means.”
Eiland’s outrageously genocidal piece was endorsed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who tweeted the full article and said he “agreed with every word.” Smotrich is known for, among other things, calling to “wipe out Huwwara” in the West Bank, so it should come as no surprise that he would now endorse Eiland’s call to do the same in Gaza.
A concentration camp
Eiland has a long history of being surprisingly forthright about his view on the state of the Gaza Strip. In 2004, then as head of the National Security Council, he regarded the Gaza Strip as “a huge concentration camp” as he advocated for the U.S. to force Palestinians into the Sinai desert as part of a “two-state solution.”
As per a U.S. diplomatic cable leaked to Wikileaks here:
Repeating a personal view that he had previously expressed to other USG visitors, NSC Director Eiland laid out for Ambassador Djerejian a different end-game solution than that which is commonly envisioned as the two-state solution. Eiland’s view, he said, was prefaced on the assumption that demographic and other considerations make the prospect for a two-state solution between the Jordan and the Mediterranean unviable. Currently, he said, there are 11 million people in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip, and that number will increase to 36 million in 50 years. The area between Beer Sheva and the northern tip of Israel (including the West Bank and Gaza) has the highest population density in the world. Gaza alone, he said, is already “a huge concentration camp” with 1.3 million Palestinians. Moreover, the land is surrounded on three sides by deserts. Palestinians need more land and Israel can ill-afford to cede it. The solution, he argued, lies in the Sinai desert.
It is interesting to see Eiland recognizing such a reality even before the Gaza “disengagement” of 2005, before the election of Hamas in 2006, and before the genocidal siege of 2007, which has only been upped in its severity since October 7. At this point, regarding Gaza, as a concentration camp appears perhaps too weak a term — it has become an extermination camp.
Here is the full translated* text of Eiland’s piece: (on original)………………………………….. more https://mondoweiss.net/2023/11/influential-israeli-national-security-leader-makes-the-case-for-genocide-in-gaza/
Putin Was Declared A War Criminal For *Relocating* The Same Number Of Children Israel Just *Killed*
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, NOV 24, 2023
It’s probably worth noting at this point in history that the total number of children killed in Gaza has just surpassed the number of children the International Criminal Court indicted Russian president Vladimir Putin for relocating out of a war zone.
A recent estimate by Gaza authorities puts the number of Palestinian children killed by Israel’s bombing campaign over the last seven weeks at just above the six thousand mark. This number comes from the Gaza Media Office, which is only able to make unconfirmed estimates since the Gaza Health Ministry who normally reports such numbers has lost the ability to count the dead effectively due to communications collapse caused by the bombing.
In March of this year — ironically on the 20th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq — ICC judges issued an arrest warrant charging Putin with war crimes in Ukraine. The allegations? The “unlawful deportation” of some six thousand Ukrainian children to a network of “re-education” camps inside Russia.
As The Grayzone documented at the time, the ICC charges were based on a Yale HRL report which is rife with contradictions, plot holes, and the fairly significant conflict of interest of being funded by the US State Department. The report itself acknowledges that it found “no documentation of child mistreatment,” and that nearly all of the children were returned to their families in a timely manner.
But even if these points were all false and Vladimir Putin did just illegally kidnap six thousand Ukrainian kids to turn them into Russians, would that be worse than murdering them by dropping powerful military explosives on areas known to be packed full of children? Why is one a war crime and the other apparently fine? Russia is no more a party to the ICC’s Rome Statute than Israel is, after all.
A recent United Nations report says that “Since 7 October, when Hamas fighters attacked Israel, 67 per cent of the more than 14,000 people killed in Gaza are estimated to be women and children.” If we assume it’s an even 14,000 and make the obscenely generous assumption that every single one of the men killed by Israel were Hamas combatants, 67 percent puts the total number of civilians killed at 9,380 in just seven weeks of bombing.
In the 21 months of the war in Ukraine, the UN estimates the number of civilians killed at around ten thousand. The total number of children killed? Around 560.
The numbers show that Israel is plainly behaving in a way that is far, far more murderous and criminal in Gaza than Russia is in Ukraine, but we good and faithful members of the international community are meant to desire only the Russian leader’s prosecution at The Hague………………………………….more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/putin-was-declared-a-war-criminal?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=139127737&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
‘Burn Gaza now’ – top Israeli MP
Nissim Vaturi has argued his country is “too humane” towards Palestinians
A senior lawmaker in Israel has urged the military to “burn” Gaza and not allow any fuel into the Palestinian enclave unless all hostages held by Hamas are released.
The comments made on Friday by Nissim Vaturi, deputy speaker of the Knesset, are the latest in a string of incendiary remarks by Israeli politicians on the deadly fighting with Hamas.
“All of this preoccupation with whether or not there is internet in Gaza shows that we have learned nothing. We are too humane,” Vaturi, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
“Burn Gaza now, nothing less! Don’t allow fuel in, don’t allow water in until the hostages are returned!”
Earlier this month, Netanyahu suspended Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu from cabinet meetings after he suggested using nuclear weapons against the Palestinian enclave.
Hamas took more than 200 hostages during its October 7 attack on Israel, in which it killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel responded by launching a bombing campaign and a ground invasion of Gaza.
Israel has also imposed a near total blockade of the Palestinian enclave, which the UN and human rights groups say has only exacerbated the catastrophic humanitarian situation there.
Gazan Healthy Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told reporters on Friday that 24 patients at Al-Shifa hospital, the enclave’s largest medical facility, died during an Israeli raid on the compound. The IDF has accused Hamas of using Al-Shifa and other hospitals for military purposes.
More than 11,000 people have died in Gaza since October 7, according to local officials. After long debates, the UN Security Council passed a resolution on Wednesday calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting and the “immediate and unconditional release of all hostages held by Hamas.”
Wars end in defeat for everyone: A reflection on Gaza
The selection of images is at the heart of the implacable demand from both sides for uncritical solidarity, for support for the right to self-defense and legitimation of the means used against the other. In this battle for public opinion, many stand with Israel and many others with the Palestinians.
The portrayal of the other side as demonic justifies the means used to fight it. The enemy is dehumanized, commonly likened to savage animals that have lost any shadow of humanity, morality or logic, killing machines that can only be stopped by brutal and merciless war.
Violence and victory
Fed by what seems like an unquenchable thirst for revenge, both sides to the conflict propose that violence will bring victory. The belief that victory is attainable by defeating the enemy in pitiless warfare is at the heart of the rhetoric of war. This is perhaps the most venomous myth in any conflict.
America, the Jesuit Review David Neuhaus, November 16, 2023
In the early morning of Saturday, Oct. 7, 2023, for Jews not only Sabbath but also Simchat Torah, a holy day celebrating the reading of the Torah, hundreds of armed Palestinian militants from Hamas broke through the barriers between the Gaza Strip and Israel or floated above them, pouring into Israel. They were accompanied by a barrage of missiles fired into Israel. They sowed terror and wreaked havoc, killing about 1,200, wounding thousands more and kidnapping over 240 Israeli soldiers and civilians.
The planning, implementation and ferocity of the attack took Israel by surprise—not only because Israeli intelligence had not uncovered the plot beforehand but also because the army took such a long time to neutralize the threat. Israelis were left shocked and horrified, while many Palestinians watched with a certain sense of vindication and some even rejoiced. Israel immediately responded with an intensive bombardment of Gaza, calling up its military reserves and massing its troops on the border with Gaza. The pounding intensity of the Israeli response was not only a reaction to the horrors that had been committed but also an attempt to restore some sense of security in military superiority after the shameful negligence that had allowed the attacks to take place.
The next day, Sunday, Oct. 8, Pope Francis addressed the world in his Angelus address:
I am following apprehensively and sorrowfully what is happening in Israel where violence has exploded yet more ferociously, causing hundreds of deaths and injured. I express my closeness to the families of the victims. I am praying for them and for all who are living hours of terror and anguish. May the attacks and weapons stop. Please! And may it be understood that terrorism and war do not lead to any resolutions, but only to the death and suffering of many innocent people. War is a defeat! Every war is a defeat. Let us pray that there be peace in Israel and in Palestine.
The Israeli Embassy to the Holy See reacted to this statement and those that followed with unease, claiming that the Holy Father and Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Holy See’s secretary of state, were using a discourse that manifested “linguistic ambiguities and terms that allude to a false symmetry.” In insisting that Israel had a legitimate right to self-defense but should not indiscriminately bomb Gaza, the Holy See, the Israeli Embassy argued, was “suggesting parallelisms where they do not exist.”
The issue raised is a serious one. What language should one use to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? This is especially urgent at this time when the conflict takes on dimensions of violence that are unprecedented and emotions run high. How does one try to formulate a discourse that can encourage moderation, support dialogue and promote reconciliation even in the midst of battle? The issues involved are complex, but one must first recognize the morally problematic discourse that is being used by both sides in the conflict in order to dominate the narrative and garner uncritical support.
Whose side are you on?
The two sides to the decades-long conflict, Israelis and Palestinians, not only oppose each other with military arsenals but also attempt to mobilize public opinion at home and abroad in order to justify their actions. The military battle is parallel to the battle to control the images, sounds and words that are broadcast from the battlefield.
On the one hand, terrifying images of armed and masked Hamas militants pouring into Israel and wreaking destruction, killing, raping and maiming in a drunken orgy of vengeance began to appear in the media. These images capture the massacres of the Israeli men, women and children who were mowed down in the area bordering the Gaza Strip, among them hundreds of young people killed while at a music festival and dozens slaughtered, including babies in their cribs, in the taking of the small village of Kfar Aza. The scenes show bodies strewn in public places and in homes, with countless body bags displayed for all to see the enormity of the carnage. Photographs and short videos document the elderly women and young children taken hostage by Hamas, dragged back into the Gaza Strip together with dozens of others, provoking profound terror and searing rage.
On the other hand, Israel’s pummeling of the Gaza Strip with its sophisticated armory of precision weapons has provided a parallel and very different canon of images. Neighborhoods have been erased and high-rise buildings reduced to rubble in seconds, with thousands of Gazan men, women and children buried in the ruins. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans fleeing their homes provide more images of panic and desperation. On Oct. 13, the Israeli army ordered Gazans to evacuate the entire northern part of the Gaza Strip. Images of the flow of people carrying a few precious belongings added to the collection of heart-rending scenes.
The military battle is parallel to the battle to control the images, sounds and words that are broadcast from the battlefield.
This roll of images shows daily the extraction of an unending stream of bodies of men, women and children from their bombed homes, the writhing agony of the wounded carried off to overcrowded, underdeveloped and grossly overloaded hospitals, the non-stop shrieks of parents or children of the dead, their relatives and friends, gathered around the corpses of their loved ones.
The selection of images is at the heart of the implacable demand from both sides for uncritical solidarity, for support for the right to self-defense and legitimation of the means used against the other. In this battle for public opinion, many stand with Israel and many others with the Palestinians.
In the aftermath of the initial Hamas attack, President Biden declared that his country’s support for Israel was “rock solid and unwavering.” Leaders from major Western European countries followed suit. Israeli suffering was showcased to explain these unilateral manifestations of support. Israeli victims have names, faces, families and voices that cry out their pain in the media. Massive demonstrations have supported Israel, screaming out their condemnation of Hamas, some using expressions redolent of racism, anti-Arab sentiment and Islamophobia.
Palestinian suffering, although seemingly passed over by those who support Israel, is showcased in Arab, Muslim and many other countries, again galvanizing the sense that the world is unjust, that the powerful side with the powerful and the poor continue to be mercilessly exploited. Massive demonstrations of supporters of the Palestinians screamed out their condemnation of Israel, some using expressions redolent of antisemitism, and manifested a fury at what was termed the hypocrisy of mourning Jewish victims and ignoring Palestinian ones.
Who started it?
Israelis and Palestinians produce very different narratives concerning who is to blame for what is happening. In times of war, it is comforting to know who are the good and who are the bad; that way, the aggressor and the aggressed can be clearly separated from one another, one cheered on and the other excoriated.
On Oct. 7, Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel, proclaimed: “We will take mighty vengeance,” as Israel launched its military campaign, named “Operation Swords of Iron.” For those supporting Israel, it is clear that the narrative begins on that black Saturday morning. Israeli President Isaac Herzog stated the following in his meeting with the press on October 12 : “There was no reason at all for this flaring up which ended in the worst tragedy that was ever inflicted in the history of Israel, and the highest number of Jews killed since the Holocaust, including Holocaust survivors
………………………………………………………… . The proportions of what happened on Oct. 7, however, not only raised a very acute question about the invincibility of Israel’s military and intelligence network but also raised the terrifying question about whether the state of Israel is after all a safe haven for Jews fleeing violence in a world in which they were a marginal and often persecuted minority.
Muhammad Dayf, the supreme commander of Hamas’s military wing, named this stage of the ongoing conflict “Al-Aqsa Storm” and declared: “Enough is enough!” Hamas declared that this incursion into Israel was itself a response to an ongoing occupation and repression that have been going on for decades. More precisely, Palestinians pointed to increasing Israeli attacks and repressive policies directed against Palestinians throughout the territories Israel had occupied since the Netanyahu rightwing coalition came to power, as well as the intensifying activity of Jewish extremists in the area of Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif (what Jews often call the Temple Mount). For those supporting the Palestinians, the success of Hamas’s attack surprised them as much as it did Israel. Well planned, well executed and devastatingly successful in its initial aims, the attack is not seen as a beginning but as a response to a long series of Israeli acts of violence.
Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, said a few days before the present events that the Gaza Strip was “an open-air prison.”
The attack is justified by Hamas supporters as a reaction to the regime that has kept them enclosed in an overpopulated strip of land, mostly filled with sprawling refugee camps; Israel, they argue, has kept the Gaza Strip under a stranglehold siege. Refugees in Gaza constitute about 70 percent of the population, people driven out of the territories of the new state of Israel in 1948 and their descendants. The dire living conditions since then, worsened by periodic periods of confrontation with Israel since Hamas came to power in 2006, have left it battered and bruised, its population bleeding and its infrastructure regularly devastated. Furthermore, since 2006, the strip has been under a siege that deprives its residents of minimal conditions for life, prosperity and development. The newly-instituted Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, whose diocese includes Gaza, said a few days before the present events that the Gaza Strip was “an open-air prison.”
……………………………………………………………………………… The two sides are eager to show the other as demonic.
The Israeli point of view
In the media battle, supporters of Israel portray Hamas as Nazis, as ISIS, as servants of the evil empire of Islamic Iran. The use of images of some Palestinians rejoicing in the horrors visited upon Israelis solidifies the sense of horror and the contempt. Supporters of Israel point out that the people of Gaza elected Hamas and so argue that they are responsible for their own misfortune. Pointing to the long history of antisemitism and contempt for Jews in so many parts of the world, supporters of Israel present Israelis as the victims of unprovoked violence at the hands of bloodthirsty Palestinian terrorists, continuity in the suffering of the Jews throughout history.
……………………………………………………………………………………………. In the light of the fight against evil, the divisions that marked Israeli society in the past months have evaporated. Furthermore, the marked reservations that the Biden administration expressed with regard to Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition have also vanished, as Mr. Biden not only regularly calls in to express his support for Israel but also sends a steady stream of officials to manifest that support concretely, bringing assurances of diplomatic, military and economic assistance.
The Palestinian point of view
However, in the Arab and Muslim worlds and in many countries that have known colonialism, racism and exclusion, the Palestinians have succeeded in linking their struggle to a worldwide liberation struggle against colonialism, imperialism and white supremacy. Israelis are presented as colonial supremacists engaged in decades of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homeland. Hamas justifies the cruelty of its militants by portraying Israelis as colonial settlers whose only interest is the oppression and eventual extinction of Palestinians. Hamas has explained that it does not target civilians, chillingly adding that the elderly, babies, children and youth are all part of the colonial Zionist project to deprive Palestinians of their rights and banish them from the stage of history.
The portrayal of the other side as demonic justifies the means used to fight it. The enemy is dehumanized, commonly likened to savage animals that have lost any shadow of humanity, morality or logic, killing machines that can only be stopped by brutal and merciless war.
Violence and victory
Fed by what seems like an unquenchable thirst for revenge, both sides to the conflict propose that violence will bring victory. The belief that victory is attainable by defeating the enemy in pitiless warfare is at the heart of the rhetoric of war. This is perhaps the most venomous myth in any conflict.
……………………………………………… . Might the intensity of the present conflict and the terrible losses on both sides take us beyond the horizon of endless war with a growing recognition that victory is illusive and continued violence is ultimately suicidal?
The word of the church
The international community seems to have given up on trying to play a moderating role in the conflict, and those peace plans that were proposed by various international parties have gone nowhere…………………………………………………………..
In this context, the presence of the Catholic Church is particularly needed. Free of the constraints of political interests and avoiding as much as possible the games of international diplomacy, the church can be prophetic in reminding all that every human being—yes, even a Hamas militant or a Zionist settler—is created in the image and likeness of God.
………………………………………….. In a dramatic response to a question from a journalist, Cardinal Pizzaballa offered himself in exchange for the Israeli children held hostage by Hamas. In solidarity with the suffering, he would no doubt also offer himself in exchange for the Palestinian children buried under the bombs dropped in Gaza. In a letter he addressed to the faithful on Oct. 24, 2023, Cardinal Pizzaballa expressed his anguish:……………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2023/11/16/gaza-israel-palestine-war-narratives-246530?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=vag3FzocbKcfiuORqCylQp_J5RnxT4Jqd.rsx7th9gNmlvjlt_Lr8Z_7o_sm2symfUDQ03iQFg
What a Catholic peace studies expert thinks is the way out of war in Gaza
America, the Jesuit Review Kevin Clarke, November 17, 2023
“So how do you draw people off, to stop thinking that their only possibilities are to become martyrs, [that] it doesn’t matter if they die or they take everyone in Gaza with them? Some of their supporters have to get through to them.”
The patrons of the combatants—the United States and Germany for Israel, and Iran and Qatar for Hamas, must pressure their clients to accept a cease-fire, she said. The agony at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, where 36 infants cling to life after the hospital lost power to run their incubators, could prove a pivotal moment when maximum leverage can be brought to bear, according to Dr. O’Connell.
Kevin Clarke, November 17, 2023
As tensions mount across the Middle East because of the continuing bloodshed in Gaza, the remnant forces of the United States in Syria and Iraq have come under fire from militant groups in sympathy with Hamas. More than 50 U.S. service members have suffered what have been described as minor injuries in the rocket attacks. On Nov. 11, U.S. aircraft conducted the third in a recent series of raids on Iran-backed militants in retaliation—this latest U.S. strike on a training facility and a safe house was perhaps the most devastating, and likely produced casualties.
Mary Ellen O’Connell, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and of international peace studies at the university’s Kroc Institute, believes this tit-for-tat strategy is precisely the wrong response if regional de-escalation is indeed the desire of the Biden administration. “The airstrikes in Syria and Iraq by the United States need to stop immediately,” she said, describing them as “blatant violations of international law.”
If regional containment of the conflict remains a primary objective, she said, U.S. forces should refrain from military strikes outside acknowledged armed conflict zones. And, she said, the United States needs to be clear with Israel that U.S. assistance “is premised on Israel complying with international law across the board.”
An air strike on targets in Syria is precisely the wrong response if regional de-escalation is indeed the desire of the Biden administration.
But how to restore peace in Israel and Gaza after this historic outbreak of violence and mutual suffering? Dr. O’Connell said that it will take outside pressure on both parties. Israeli leadership seems determined—at least for now—to ignore a worldwide outcry over the human suffering it is creating in response to the Hamas attack on Oct. 7. And for its part, Hamas appears to be “in suicide mode.”
“So how do you draw people off, to stop thinking that their only possibilities are to become martyrs, [that] it doesn’t matter if they die or they take everyone in Gaza with them? Some of their supporters have to get through to them.”
The patrons of the combatants—the United States and Germany for Israel, and Iran and Qatar for Hamas, must pressure their clients to accept a cease-fire, she said. The agony at Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, where 36 infants cling to life after the hospital lost power to run their incubators, could prove a pivotal moment when maximum leverage can be brought to bear, according to Dr. O’Connell.
Patients and staff have endured for days without electricity and basic medical necessities as fighting raged around the hospital compound. The spectacle provoked a surge of negotiations in Riyadh, Doha and Cairo aimed at conflict pauses and hostage exchanges. On Nov. 15, I.D.F. soldiers seized control of Al-Shifa, searching for evidence of a Hamas presence inside and beneath the facility.
What in the end puts a stop to conflict is “always a negotiation,” Dr. O’Connell said. “It’s always trusted partners who come in.”
Over the long term, however, in Gaza and other hotspots in the Middle East like northern Iraq and Syria, peace will be the outcome of processes that require time and patience. Dr. O’Connell called “good governance” the real solution to the problem of terrorism because it “builds an economy where young people have a job, [where they] have a chance for a future.”
She lays partial blame for the violations of international norms evident in the Hamas assault on southern Israel and Israeli tolerance for high numbers of noncombatant casualties in its Gaza campaign on the example set by the United States. During its prosecution of the so-called war on terror and in follow-up campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan that effort set in motion, violations of international law in “targeted killing of all kinds” by U.S. forces became routine, she charged.
The United States has created a template for such military strikes, she said, deploying dubious appeals to international law to rationalize use of force. The strategy, she said, has been demonstrably counterproductive. “If we need to carry out this kind of warfare for 22 years, it’s obviously not effective,” Dr. O’Connell said.
Not only has the approach “not suppressed terrorism,” she said, it has “helped create a metastasizing new set of virulent organized armed groups across the north of Africa, into Somalia and other places,” including “the great catastrophe in Afghanistan.”
It has also significantly weakened esteem for the international rule of law related to human rights and war-making, according to Dr. O’Connell, connecting that decline to the utter disregard for norms demonstrated by the Russian Federation in Ukraine. “People don’t even understand anymore what the provisions of the U.N. Charter are, and they don’t take them seriously anymore because of these constant attempts at justifying [use of force] using looser and looser arguments under international law.”
The best sociological research on reversing the diminishing adherence to norms like the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, according to Dr. O’Connell, calls for “a leading sovereign state modeling norm compliance.” She hopes the United States may accept that role.
Specialists on peacemaking like Dr. O’Connell could be forgiven if they grow frustrated that their expertise is only sought when conflicts turn hot or when the persisting geopolitical insistence on a “realist” use of force fails yet again. But Dr. O’Connell said she remains undeterred……………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2023/11/17/hamas-israel-gaza-al-shifa-hospital-246524?utm_source=piano&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2928&pnespid=qrpnUCZIJrkL2.TZtDWsGJPRohi2WJ0tLvqmwrN0.kBmd2Cx.K9U3PLA_pRIgzMAF7MdqdfHEQ
Ukraine war a ‘good investment’ for US – Trump rival
“the Ukrainian army has degraded 50% of the Russian military capability without one drop of American blood. Seems to me that’s a pretty good return on investment for us, and one we should double down on,“
Chris Christie made the case for “doubling down” on funding for Kiev
Former New Jersey governor and aspiring Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie has condemned “isolationism” and urged Americans to double down on funding the Ukrainian war effort, describing it as a good “return on investment.”
Speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington on Wednesday, Christie argued he was the only “serious” Republican presidential candidate showing “moral clarity” to the world, often praising US President Joe Biden while taking potshots at GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
Our strategy in Ukraine is driven by a principled commitment to support Ukrainians fighting and dying for their country,” Christie said at one point. He added that he would have provided “more weapons, and sooner” than Biden…….
Christie pointed out that he has visited Kiev and met with President Vladimir Zelensky, who told him that “without American help, Ukraine would now be occupied by Russia.” Zelensky also said that Ukraine did not need any American soldiers, only weapons to win the war by itself, Christie added.
“We’ve done that, but with less than 4% of one year’s military budget. And with that, the Ukrainian army has degraded 50% of the Russian military capability without one drop of American blood. Seems to me that’s a pretty good return on investment for us, and one we should double down on,” the former governor concluded………………………………………..
Faced with the growing opposition from some Republican lawmakers to continued spending on the Ukraine conflict, the White House has recently changed its “messaging” to present it as stimulus for the American defense industry. The supposed economic benefits have yet to materialize, however……………………more https://www.rt.com/news/587448-us-ukraine-chris-christie/
Chris Hedges: The Horror, The Horror
Israel and Washington’s cynicism is breathtaking. There are no differences in intent. Washington only wants it done quickly. Humanitarian corridors? Pauses in the shelling? These are vehicles to facilitate the total depopulation of northern Gaza. The handful of aid trucks allowed through the border at Rafah with Egypt? A public relations gimmick. There is only one goal – kill, kill, kill. The faster the better
Israel’s genocidal attacks, which are killing hundreds of Palestinians a day, including some 160 children, have expanded to shelling the remaining hospitals in Gaza.
By Chris Hedges ScheerPost , https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/11/chris-hedges-the-horror-the-horror/
DOHA, Qatar: I am in the studio of Al Jazeera’s Arabic service watching a live feed from Gaza City. The Al Jazeera reporter in northern Gaza, because of the intense Israeli shelling, was forced to evacuate to southern Gaza. He left his camera behind. He trained it on Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex. It is night. Israeli tanks fire directly towards the hospital compound. Long horizontal red flashes. A deliberate attack on a hospital. A deliberate war crime. A deliberate massacre of the most helpless civilians, including the very sick and infants. Then the feed goes dead.
We sit in front of the monitors. We are silent. We know what this means. No power. No water. No internet. No medical supplies. Every infant in an incubator will die. Every dialysis patient will die. Everyone in the intensive care unit will die. Everyone who needs oxygen will die. Everyone who needs emergency surgery will die. And what will happen to the 50,000 people who, driven from their homes by the relentless bombing, have taken refuge on the hospital grounds? We know the answer to that as well. Many of them, too, will die.
There are no words to express what we are witnessing. In the five weeks of horror this is one of the pinnacles of horror. The indifference of Europe is bad enough. The active complicity by the United States is unfathomable. Nothing justifies this. Nothing. And Joe Biden will go down in history as an accomplice to genocide. May the ghosts of the thousands of children he has participated in murdering haunt him for the rest of his life.
Israel and the United States are sending a chilling message to the rest of the world. International and humanitarian law, including the Geneva Convention, are meaningless pieces of paper. They did not apply in Iraq. They do not apply in Gaza. We will pulverize your neighborhoods and cities with bombs and missiles. We will wantonly murder your women, children, elderly and sick. We will set up blockades to engineer starvation and the spread of infectious diseases. You, the “lesser breeds” of the earth, do not matter. To us you are vermin to be extinguished. We have everything. If you try and take any of it away from us, we will kill you. And we will never be held accountable.
We are not hated for our values. We are hated because we have no values. We are hated because rules only apply to others. Not to us. We are hated because we have arrogated to ourselves the right to carry out indiscriminate slaughter. We are hated because we are heartless and cruel. We are hated because we are hypocrites, talking about protecting civilians, the rule of law and humanitarianism while extinguishing the lives of hundreds of people in Gaza a day, including 160 children.
Israel reacted with indignation and moral outrage when it was accused of bombing the al-Ahli Arab Christian hospital in Gaza, which left hundreds of dead. The bombing, Israel claimed, came from an errant rocket fired by Palestine Islamic Jihad. There is nothing in the arsenal of Hamas or Islamic Jihad that could have replicated the massive explosive power of the missile that struck the hospital. Those of us who have covered Gaza have heard this Israel trope so many times it is risible. They always blame Hamas and the Palestinians for their war crimes, now attempting to argue that hospitals are Hamas command centers and therefore legitimate targets. They never provide evidence. The Israeli military and government lie like they breathe.
Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), which has staff working in Al-Shifa, issued a statement saying patients, doctors and nurses are “trapped in hospitals under fire.” It called on the “Israeli government to cease this unrelenting assault on Gaza’s health system.”
“Over the past 24 hours, hospitals in Gaza have been under relentless bombardment. Al-Shifa hospital complex, the biggest health facility where MSF staff are still working, has been hit several times, including the maternity and outpatient departments, resulting in multiple deaths and injuries,” the statement read. “The hostilities around the hospital have not stopped. MSF teams and hundreds of patients are still inside Al-Shifa hospital. MSF urgently reiterates its calls to stop the attacks against hospitals, for an immediate ceasefire and for the protection of medical facilities, medical staff and patients.”
Three other hospitals in northern Gaza and Gaza City are encircled by Israeli forces and tanks, in what a doctor told Al Jazeera was a “day of war against hospitals.” The Indonesian Hospital has reportedly also lost power. The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 20 of 36 hospitals in Gaza no longer function.
Israel and Washington’s cynicism is breathtaking. There are no differences in intent. Washington only wants it done quickly. Humanitarian corridors? Pauses in the shelling? These are vehicles to facilitate the total depopulation of northern Gaza. The handful of aid trucks allowed through the border at Rafah with Egypt? A public relations gimmick. There is only one goal – kill, kill, kill. The faster the better. All Biden officials talk about is what comes next once Israel has finished its decimation of Gaza. They know Israel’s slaughter will not end until Gazans are living in the open without shelter in the southern part of the strip and dying because of a lack of food, water and medical care.
Gaza before Israel’s ground incursion was one of the most densely populated spots on the planet. Imagine what will happen with 1.1 million Gazans from the north piled on top of over 1 million in the south. Imagine what will take place when infectious diseases such as cholera become an epidemic. Imagine the ravages of starvation. The pressure will build to do something. And that something, Israel hopes, will be to push the Palestinians over the border into the Sinai in Egypt. Once there, they will never return. Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Gaza will be complete. Its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank will begin.
That is Israel’s demented dream. To achieve it, they will make Gaza uninhabitable.
Ask yourself, if you were a Palestinian in Gaza and had access to a weapon what would you do? If Israel killed your family, how would you react? Why would you care about international or humanitarian law when you know it only applies to the oppressed, not the oppressors? If terror is the only language Israel uses to communicate, the only language it apparently understands, wouldn’t you speak back with terror?
Israel’s orgy of death will not crush Hamas. Hamas is an idea. This idea is fed on the blood of martyrs. Israel is giving Hamas an abundant supply.
Getting Called A Nazi For Opposing A Genocide
CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, NOV 8, 2023 https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/getting-called-a-nazi-for-opposing?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=138684087&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email
It’s the most 2020s thing in the world that there’s an active genocide currently underway and it’s the people who oppose it who are being called Nazis.
Gaza isn’t one of those issues where you have to respect the other side’s opinions. Supporting a genocidal massacre is not an acceptable opinion for anyone to have. This is worth hurting people’s feelings over. Worth losing friends over. Worth disrupting Thanksgiving dinner over
Anyone who looks at these numbers and still opposes a ceasefire is saying something significant about who they are as a person. They’re saying their conscience has not formed properly. That they never developed into mature adults. That they have wasted their time on this planet.
❖
Ah shit you guys we gotta let Israel keep murdering thousands of kids, turns out if you squint really hard at the phrase “from the river to the sea” the words transform into “genocide the Jews”.
It is right to call for the abolishment of the murderous apartheid ethnostate of Israel, in the same way it was right to call for the end of apartheid South Africa. Only by the most determined mental gymnastics does calling for all Palestinians to be freed from apartheid, murder and abuse due to their ethnicity sound like a call for the genocide of Jews.
❖
A state whose existence requires the mass murder of children every few years is not a state that should continue to exist.
It is right to call for the abolishment of the murderous apartheid ethnostate of Israel, in the same way it was right to call for the end of apartheid South Africa. Only by the most determined mental gymnastics does calling for all Palestinians to be freed from apartheid, murder and abuse due to their ethnicity sound like a call for the genocide of Jews.
❖
A state whose existence requires the mass murder of children every few years is not a state that should continue to exist.
It’s a crazy coincidence how Israel bombing Hamas in ambulances, hospitals, mosques, schools, refugee camps, water towers and buildings full of children looks exactly the same as what it would look like if Israel was just massacring civilians with bombs.
This belief that it’s fine and good for a government to keep massacring children by the thousands until its enemies give it what it wants is just about the most evil position you can possibly imagine anyone espousing. And it’s very, very mainstream among Israel apologists.
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I’ve been writing for years about the murderous foreign policy of the US and its sidekicks Australia and the UK, but when Israel starts massacring children by the thousands its apologists tell me I’ve got a hateful fixation on Israel for writing about it. These people are ridiculous, and do not deserve to be taken seriously.
BREAKING: Sources say some Hamas fighters may have been injured in crossfire from Israeli airstrikes on children and civilian infrastructure.
You don’t understand man, Hamas uses human shields. Really really advanced human shields, the kind where there aren’t even any Hamas members anywhere near them. It’s just 100% human shield with 0% combatant, the most secure kind of shield there is.
❖
Everyone who advocates de-escalation and ceasefire is always accused of treacherous loyalism to the other side. Always, always, always. It happened with Ukraine, and it’s happening again with Gaza.
Ever since the war in Ukraine started those of us who called for peace talks were accused of being Putin lovers and Russian agents. Almost two years and mountains of human corpses later and the US is starting to push Kyiv to accept a peace deal that will almost certainly be worse than the one that was on offer at the beginning of the conflict.
All that death and destruction, for absolutely nothing. The only ones who benefitted from that nightmare were the war profiteers who raked in vast fortunes and the empire managers who used it to advance their geostrategic agendas in Eurasia. Those of us who called for peace negotiations were objectively correct, and those who shouted us down and accused us of treasonous Kremlin loyalism were objectively wrong.
Those calling you an anti-semitic baby-cooking terrorist lover for supporting a ceasefire are wrong in exactly the same way for exactly the same reasons. All the arguments being made against peace right now will only end up serving the rich and powerful, at the cost of unfathomable oceans of human suffering.
You get peace by making peace. That’s how you do it. You stop shooting, you sit down, you have conversations and you make deals. The deals won’t feel perfect, because they won’t be, but they will be better than slaughtering children by the thousands for no justifiable reason and killing off parts of our own humanity in the process. You set your intention toward peace and harmony, and you start walking in that direction, one step at a time.
It really is that simple. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying for the benefit of the rich and powerful.
❖
I feel sorry for Zelensky. The US abandoning your country for Israel is like your husband leaving you for his first wife. #Palestine #Israel #Ukraine
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