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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

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | MIDDLE EAST, Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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.”

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

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

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/

November 18, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | politics, Religion and ethics, USA | Leave a comment

Chris Hedges: The Horror, The Horror

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.

November 13, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

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.

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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.

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A state whose existence requires the mass murder of children every few years is not a state that should continue to exist.

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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.

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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.

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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

November 10, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

A Dangerous Conflation -an open letter from Jewish writers

n+1 magazine, 25 Oct 23

WE ARE JEWISH WRITERS, artists, and activists who wish to disavow the widespread narrative that any criticism of Israel is inherently antisemitic. Israel and its defenders have long used this rhetorical tactic to shield Israel from accountability, dignify the US’s multibillion-dollar investment in Israel’s military, obscure the deadly reality of occupation, and deny Palestinian sovereignty. Now, this insidious gagging of free speech is being used to justify Israel’s ongoing military bombardment of Gaza and to silence criticism from the international community.

We condemn the recent attacks on Israeli and Palestinian civilians and mourn such harrowing loss of life. In our grief, we are horrified to see the fight against antisemitism weaponized as a pretext for war crimes with stated genocidal intent.

Antisemitism is an excruciatingly painful part of our community’s past and present. Our families have escaped wars, harassment, pogroms, and concentration camps. We have studied the long histories of persecution and violence against Jews, and we take seriously the ongoing antisemitism that jeopardizes the safety of Jews around the world. This October just marked the five-year anniversary of the worst antisemitic attack ever committed in the United States: the eleven worshipers at Tree of Life – Or L’Simcha in Pittsburgh, who were murdered by a gunman who espoused conspiracy theories that blamed Jews for the arrival of Central American migrants, and in so doing, dehumanized both groups. We reject antisemitism in all its forms, including when it masquerades as criticism of Zionism or Israel’s policies. We also recognize that, as journalist Peter Beinart wrote in 2019, “Anti-Zionism is not inherently antisemitic—and claiming it is uses Jewish suffering to erase Palestinian experience.”

We find this rhetorical tactic antithetical to Jewish values, which teach us to repair the world, question authority, and champion the oppressed over the oppressor. It is precisely because of the painful history of antisemitism and lessons of Jewish texts that we advocate for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people. We refuse the false choice between Jewish safety and Palestinian freedom; between Jewish identity and ending the oppression of Palestinians. In fact, we believe the rights of Jews and Palestinians go hand-in-hand. The safety of each people depends on the other’s. We are certainly not the first to say so, and we admire those who have modeled this line of thinking in the wake of so much violence. …………………………………………………………………………..

We call for a ceasefire in Gaza, a solution for the safe return of the hostages in Gaza and Palestinian prisoners in Israel, and an end to Israel’s ongoing occupation. We also call on governments and civil society in the United States and across the West to stand up against the repression of support for Palestine.

And we refuse to allow such urgent, necessary demands to be suppressed in our names. When we say never again, we mean it.

Names: ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/a-dangerous-conflation/ #Israel #Palestine

November 5, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The Moral Complexities Of Bombing A Concentration Camp Full Of Children

Caitlin’s Newsletter, CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, NOV 4, 2023

They’re dropping bombs on a concentration camp full of children. THEY’RE DROPPING BOMBS ON A CONCENTRATION CAMP FULL OF CHILDREN.

Not in the past. Right now. They’re still doing it. They show no signs of stopping.

No part of opposing this should be remotely controversial.

They’re dropping bombs on a concentration camp full of kids. Even shitlibs and pseudo-leftists who get every other foreign policy issue wrong are managing to get this one right, it’s that obvious. Anyone getting this issue wrong can be permanently dismissed without any real loss

No matter how much you talk about October 7, it will still be a fact that Israel is raining military explosives upon a concentration camp full of children, and that it urgently needs to stop.

No matter how much you talk about how evil and bad Hamas are, it will still be a fact that Israel is raining military explosives upon a concentration camp full of children, and that it urgently needs to stop.

No matter how much you say the words “human shields”, it will still be a fact that Israel is raining military explosives upon a concentration camp full of children, and that it urgently needs to stop.

No matter how much you accuse Israel’s critics of loving terrorists, it will still be a fact that Israel is raining military explosives upon a concentration camp full of children, and that it urgently needs to stop.

No matter how much you accuse Israel’s critics of hating Jews, it will still be a fact that Israel is raining military explosives upon a concentration camp full of children, and that it urgently needs to stop.

No matter how many words you use or how much narrative spin you try to put on it or how many ad hominems you throw at the people criticizing what Israel is doing, it will still be a fact that Israel is raining military explosives upon a concentration camp full of children, and that it urgently needs to stop.

Yeah I’m gonna go ahead and assume that the people arguing that it’s necessary to keep dropping military explosives on a giant concentration camp full of children are on the side that will be judged negatively by history.

❖

A huge amount of western depravity hides behind the unexamined assumption that killing people with bombs is somehow less evil than killing them with bullets or blades. By waging nonstop foreign bombing campaigns, the west desensitized the public to the reality of what bombs do.

❖

Hamas are in the ambulances. Hamas are in the hospitals. Hamas are underneath the refugee camps. Hamas are behind the children. Maybe they’re just massacring civilians.

If a military power was just massacring thousands of civilians and then making up propagandistic lies to cover its massacres, would it look any different from what Israel’s actions and statements look like right now?…………………………………………………………………..
more https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-moral-complexities-of-bombing?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=138565169&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email #Israel #Palestine

November 5, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | MIDDLE EAST, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

World Council of Churches head meets with new director of International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

https://www.oikoumene.org/news/wcc-general-secretary-meets-with-new-executive-director-of-international-campaign-to-abolish-nuclear-weapons 27 Oct 23

World Council of Churches general secretary the Rev. Jerry Pillay on Oct. 26 met with Melissa Parke, the new executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).

Discussions centered around how disarmament work, though often carried out with an emphasis on security, also requires an approach that embraces humanitarian concerns, human rights, environmental issues and health.

“We welcome the ongoing collaboration with ICAN and look forward to working with the new executive director Melissa Parke and her team as we seek to work together, to advocate for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons which is, alarmingly becoming a major concern and threat to peaceful living in the world. Our joint work in this area requires the breaking down of silos and interdisciplinary collaborations to engage in meaningful action and advocacy for nuclear disarmament,” said Pillay.

Parke reflected on why it is critical to have even more endorsements from partners at this stage of the campaign.

“At this time of heightened tensions and outright conflict, it has never been more urgent or important to take action to eliminate nuclear weapons,” she said. “Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction, the very existence of which constitute a moral injury to our beautiful earth and all of its inhabitants. We welcome individuals and partners around the world to join with us to make our planet safer, healthier and more sustainable.”

Parke noted that faith-based organisations understand with their minds and their hearts the interconnectedness of humanity and nature.

Parke reflected on why it is critical to have even more endorsements from partners at this stage of the campaign.

Parke noted that faith-based organisations understand with their minds and their hearts the interconnectedness of humanity and nature. #nuclear #antinuclear #NoNukes

October 29, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Holy See urges renewed efforts to advance nuclear disarmament

Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia, the Vatican’s Permanent Observer to the UN in New York, says that despite the “dark clouds” of growing conflict and “escalatory rhetoric”, there is still space for hope that progress in nuclear disarmament can be achieved.

Vatican News, By Lisa Zengarini 20 Oct 23

The Holy See has decried the current “downward spiral of arms control and disarmament policies”, urging for “renewed efforts to advance progress on nuclear disarmament at a time when the risk of nuclear war becomes again a reality.”

Speaking on 17 October at the First Committee of the UN 78th General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, which addresses disarmament and international security matters, Archbishop Gabriele Giordano Caccia lamented that the international community “has collectively moved in the wrong direction, discarding important treaties on arms control, disarmament and transparency”, with “the international disarmament machinery remaining in deadlock.”

Stall in talks on the review of the NPT

Since 2010, periodic talks for the review of the landmark 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) have stalled, as international tensions have increased.

Following the failure of the 2015 Review Conference, the 2022 review conference ended again without agreement as Russia blocked consensus on the negotiated outcome document.

This poses significant risks for the global non-proliferation regime with some states, including Iran, increasing their interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Increased polarization and distrust between States

In his statement, Archbishop Caccia expressed the Holy See’s disappointment “at the increased levels of polarization and mistrust at the First Session of the Preparatory Commission for the 11th Review Conference of on NPT due to take place in 2026.

“At a time when flexibility is most needed, the lack of a chair’s summary will be detrimental in working towards consensus” in 2026, the Vatican Permanent Observer to the UN said. …………………………………………………………………….

Condemnation of rhetoric that threatens use of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing

Archbishop Caccia furher relayed the Holy See’s unequivocal condemnation of all rhetoric that threatens the use of nuclear weapons, recalling that such threats “increase tensions and elevate the risk of both intentional and unintentional use, placing humanity at the precipice of calamity.”……………………………

Archbishop Caccia concluded his intervention by saying that despite the “dark clouds of growing conflict and escalatory rhetoric there is ample space for hope.”

In this regard, he said the Holy See looks forward to the convening of the Second meeting of States Parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It also welcomes the deliberations of the NPT Working Group on Further Strengthening the Review Process.

Listen to our report https://www.vaticannews.va/en/vatican-city/news/2023-10/holy-see-urges-renewed-efforts-to-advance-nuclear-disarmament.html #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

October 22, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Israel’s Violence Will Never Bring “Safety” to Anyone, Including Jews

As the horrific siege against Gaza escalates, we need to confront the violence of Israel’s ethnonationalist militarism.

By Sarah Lazare & Maya Schenwar , TRUTHOUT, October 18, 2023

he horror and heartbreak in Gaza reaches new proportions each minute: Israel’s siege has killed at least 3,400 people and injured more than 12,000 in the past week and a half, and a possible ground invasion threatens unspeakable levels of new violence. The Israeli forces and settlers have also killed 61 and injured 1,250 in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. The death tolls climb even as Palestinians and those in solidarity with them are marching and rallying worldwide in powerful and urgent protests.

For us, as anti-Zionist Jewish journalists, the past week and a half has been a flood of many griefs.

We grieve and struggle against the ongoing, now catastrophically heightened violence of Israeli colonization, occupation, apartheid and genocidal campaign against Palestinians, carried out by a government that is cynically invoking the names of Jews to intensify the oppressive policies it was already invested in.

And we watch with rising horror as the Israeli government instrumentalizes the grief of Jewish people who’ve lost loved ones in the Hamas attacks, which killed 1,400 people and injured 3,400. The Israeli government is fashioning this grief into a weapon, exploiting it to justify the annihilation of Gaza (even as some Israelis who lost loved ones in the attacks urge against taking vengeance against Palestinians).

Indeed, it is in the name of Jewish “safety” and Jewish grief that not only Israel but almost all of Europe, and certainly the United States, are marching lockstep behind the new unity government’s maximalist war, as it kills thousands and carries out a potential second Nakba, forcing an estimated 1.1 million people from their homes. Jewish “safety” is the rationale for deploying white phosphorus, which can cause severe toxic burns, in Gaza and Lebanon, as Israel’s defense minister declares “we are fighting human animals.” President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, nearly every member of Congress, and the likes of Lindsay Graham, an open affiliate of antisemitic pastor John Hagee, are all invoking Jewish safety to lend their unqualified support to what is clearly a massacre.

But a growing number of Jews — including many descendants of Holocaust survivors and pogrom survivors — are rejecting the idea that colonial violence ever brings “safety” for anyone. This includes, for some, recognizing that the political ideology of modern Zionism, and the military apparatus that has developed alongside it, is a danger to all, including Jews.

The actions of the state of Israel, whose 75-year history was forged in British colonialism, steeped in the blood and ethnic displacement of Palestinians, and politically and financially upheld by the U.S., are a tragic illustration of this reality. The events of the last week and a half clarify this further. Israel’s systems of occupation and apartheid, which have built upon an infrastructure of ever-increasing militarism and subjugation of Palestinians, are a deep well of violence. The roots of the tragic deaths we saw unfold on October 7 are, as Jewish Voice for Peace has pointed out, apartheid and systemic colonial oppression.

And Israel’s apparent lack of concern even for its own people, as it attacks Gaza wholesale while 199 Israelis are reportedly held hostage there, should remind us that human lives (including the lives of Jews) are not its top priority.

This disregard for human life, including Jewish life, is rooted in a specific history. Theodor Herzl, a founder of modern Zionism, said in his 1896 pamphlet The Jewish State that Israel will be “neutral” and will require only a “professional army.” However, the concept of “neutrality” on colonized land is a contradiction in terms, and predictably, Israel was established as a heavily militarized society in which, from the beginning, military service has been compulsory for Jews. In The Jewish State, Herzl called for the creation of a company to liquidate the business interests of Jews departing their home countries and organize commerce in the new country. To raise capital for this company, he wrote, “Not only poor Jews, but also Christians who wanted to get rid of them, would subscribe a small amount to this fund.” British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour, who issued the declaration announcing Britain’s support for a Jewish state in Palestine, was motivated by his fear of what he termed the “undoubted evils” of Eastern European Jewish migration to Britain.

For the colonizers who pushed for the creation of Israel, safety for Jews was never the real goal. Instead, Israel presented a convenient alternative to welcoming large numbers of Jewish refugees into their own countries. The U.S. turned away and persecuted thousands of Jewish refugees, including those seeking asylum from Nazi Germany. The “Jewish state,” which is often portrayed as having emerged as a peaceful answer to antisemitic violence, was partly forged to serve the interests of actors who were either antisemitic or callous to the suffering of Jews. In supporting Israel, the U.S. and other colonizers were pursuing geopolitical power in a colonial context, a reality that continues today, at the expense primarily of Palestinians, as racist dehumanization undergirds modern Zionism.

While most Jews in the U.S. report that they view Israel as an important part of their Judaism, a significant number do not, and in fact forcefully reject the political ideology reinforcing an ethnonationalist state. It’s worth remembering that ever since modern Zionism has existed, it has had critics, including from the Jewish left.

Today, many such critics are involved in efforts, in coalition with Palestinian activists, to reject ethnonationalism and colonization, and instead work toward building a society based on justice and equality, in which Palestinians are neither besieged, occupied, exiled, nor treated as second-class citizens, and all can live in safety.

In the decades leading up to World War II, many leftist Jews did not want to throw in their lot with British imperialism, to which political Zionism was inextricably tied. And some recognized the antisemitism that propelled colonial powers to support the establishment of Israel, while others understood that imposing an exclusivist Jewish state was contrary to democratic principles……………………………………………………………

Anti-Zionist Jews recognize that we must do the opposite: Reject the negation of Palestinians, in all its forms.

While Jewish anti-Zionism isn’t a majority position, it is an undeniable force in U.S. politics today. Jewish Voice for Peace, a U.S. organization, released a statement in 2019 explaining why it takes an anti-Zionist position.

“Zionism has meant profound trauma for generations, systematically separating Palestinians from their homes, land, and each other,” it states. “Zionism, in practice, has resulted in massacres of Palestinian people, ancient villages and olive groves destroyed, families who live just a mile away from each other separated by checkpoints and walls, and children holding onto the keys of the homes from which their grandparents were forcibly exiled.”

The statement goes on, “In sharing our stories with one another, we see the ways Zionism has also harmed Jewish people. Many of us have learned from Zionism to treat our neighbors with suspicion, to forget the ways Jews built home and community wherever we found ourselves to be.” And the number of U.S. Jews who are willing to openly critique and question Israel’s occupation, even if they might not consider themselves anti-Zionists, has swelled since the Trump administration.

In the U.S., anti-Zionists, alongside critics of the Israeli government’s actions, also point to the massive military complex that sustains Israel — which spent $23.4 billion on its military in 2022, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute — and our own country’s complicity: Israel receives about $3.3 billion in military aid from the U.S. annually.

Today, members of Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow, and other Jews and allies are taking action in Washington, D.C., urging President Biden to use his leverage to force Israel to halt its assault on Palestinians in Gaza. They are saying, “No genocide in our name,” and many are taking arrests in acts of civil disobedience……………………………………………………………………………….

Some within Israel’s political system are moving to crack down on Israelis who oppose the siege on Gaza. Haaretz reported on October 15 that “Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi is promoting regulations that would allow him to direct police to arrest civilians, remove them from their homes, or seize their property if he believes they have spread information that could harm national morale or served as the basis for enemy propaganda.”

And there are some reports that Israelis who oppose the killing of Palestinian civilians are facing physical threats and firings. These are not the signs of a state that is truly invested in the safety of all Jews, let alone the 18 percent of Israeli citizens who are Palestinian.

Meanwhile, there is a deficit of coverage in the U.S. of what Palestinians are facing right now. Most U.S. press outlets are telling the stories of Israeli civilians killed but still giving shockingly little airtime to Palestinian civilians, even as Israel embraces war on a scale we have not seen in our lifetime.

Palestinians in Gaza, in the West Bank and throughout the world have been speaking out about this atrocity, sometimes at great personal risk to themselves……………

It is the “deadliest time for journalists in Gaza,” with at least 12 journalists already killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

With rising horror, we witness what Palestinians are facing — the immediate threat of annihilation. Accordingly, we should recognize that, even as we talk about how the reality of the modern Zionist project, helmed by a right-wing government, hurts Jews by offering a false promise of safety and peace, we must never obscure that the group of people most targeted by this political system is Palestinians. They are the ones who have been colonized, displaced and besieged even before Israel launched its relentless bombing campaign and cut

off electricity, food and water to a strip that is home to 2 million people, the majority of them children.

Palestinians are the ones living under military occupation in the West Bank, and as second-class citizens in Israel, thrown into administrative detention, evicted from their homes, facing tear gas canisters and live fire for the mere act of protest, forced to navigate apartheid structures that leave them traveling on different roads, suffering systematic dispossession.

Palestinians are the ones who have been exiled from their homes for generations, denied the most basic right to return. And now they are facing an extermination campaign.

There is no safety for anyone in a society based on ethnonationalist militarism. Safety can only come through collective liberation, throwing our grief into the struggle against Palestinian genocide, apartheid and colonization, toward a society premised on justice and equality. We have to confront the brutal history of Zionism and unequivocally reject the unspeakable violence against the Palestinian people carried out in our name. https://truthout.org/articles/israels-violence-will-never-bring-safety-to-anyone-including-jews/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=431d0bc2ba-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-431d0bc2ba-650192793&mc_cid=431d0bc2ba&mc_eid=73e1cd43d0 #Israel #Palestine

October 19, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Israel, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

#Ukraine ‘very cheap way’ to fight Russia, NATO state claims

“It is very much in our interest to support Ukraine, because they are fighting this war, we are not fighting it,”

https://www.rt.com/news/584053-dutch-nato-ukraine-cheap/ 6 Oct 23

The Dutch defense minister made a case for funding Kiev at a conference in Poland

Arming Kiev is a cost-effective way of preventing Moscow from threatening NATO, Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on Wednesday at the Warsaw Security Forum.

Ollongren was asked whether the US and its allies can continue supporting Ukraine “for as long as it takes,” given the political in-fighting in Washington.

“We cannot pretend that we’ll just wait and see how the American elections are going,” she said. “Because they have the same interest, in a way. Of course, supporting Ukraine is a very cheap way to make sure that Russia with this regime is not a threat to the NATO alliance. And it’s vital to continue that support.”

“It is very much in our interest to support Ukraine, because they are fighting this war, we are not fighting it,” Ollongren noted, while admitting that NATO has “skin in the game.”

Ollongren explained that she had recently visited the US and that political developments there are cause for concern, but that Western Europeans need to talk with their American colleagues and persuade them to stay the course.

“I think that we are capable of a lot, and we have proven that in the past year and a half, and the only thing we have to do is keep it up,” the minister said, adding that the scale of military assistance to Kiev has surprised Ukraine, Russia, and even NATO itself.

The US and its allies have channeled a large amount of money, weapons, ammunition, and supplies to Ukraine since the conflict with Russia escalated in February 2022.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell revealed earlier this week that the bloc has sent Ukraine €85 billion ($89.8 billion) so far, of which more than €25 billion was military aid.

The most recent estimates of US spending were from the end of July, and amounted to $46.6 billion in military aid, $3.9 billion in humanitarian aid, and $26.4 billion in loans and cash payments to keep the government in Kiev going.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that the deliveries of heavy weapons and other aid are tantamount to direct involvement in the hostilities. Washington and Brussels, however, insist they are not actually a party to the conflict. Russia has said that foreign weapons will not change the course of the fighting and will not deter Moscow from achieving its goals in Ukraine.

Russian officials have cited NATO’s expansion eastward as one of the root causes of its conflict with Ukraine and the standoff with the West.

October 8, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | EUROPE, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

The Pope speaks out against climate deniers

The Pope has warned the world is “collapsing” in a stark new document
about the perils of climate change in which he takes aim at deniers and
backs “radicalised” environmental protesters.

Times 4th Oct 2023

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/pope-francis-synod-2023-environment-nature-28p9swmmk

October 7, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Canada’s Honoring of Nazi Vet Exposes Ottawa’s Longstanding Ukraine Policy

Following the war, Canada’s Liberal government classified thousands of Jewish refugees as “enemy aliens” and held them alongside former Nazis in a network of internment camps enclosed with barbed wire, fearing that they would infect their new country with communism. At the same time, Ottawa placed thousands of Ukrainian veterans of Hitler’s army on the fast-track to citizenship.

By celebrating a Waffen-SS volunteer as a “hero,” Canada’s Liberal Party highlighted a longstanding policy that has seen Ottawa train fascist militants in Ukraine while welcoming in thousands of post-war Nazi SS veterans. Canada’s second most powerful official, Chrystia Freeland, is the granddaughter of one of Nazi Germany’s top Ukrainian propagandists.

SCHEERPOST, By Max Blumenthal / The Grayzone 1 Oct 23

In the Spring of 1943, Yaroslav Hunka was a fresh-faced soldier in the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS Galicia when his division received a visit from the architect of Nazi Germany’s genocidal policies, Heinrich Himmler. Having presided over the battalion’s formation, Himmler was visibly proud of the Ukrainians who had volunteered to support the Third Reich’s efforts.

80 years later, the Speaker of Canada’s parliament, Anthony Rota, also beamed with pride after inviting Hunka to a reception for Volodymyr Zelensky, where the Ukrainian president lobbied for more arms and financial assistance for his country’s war against Russia.

“We have in the chamber today Ukrainian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98,” Rota declared during the September 22 parliamentary event in Ottawa.

“His name is Yaroslav Hunka but I am very proud to say he is from North Bay and from my riding of Nipissing-Timiskaming. He is a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service,” Rota continued.

Gales of applause erupted through the crowd, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Zelensky, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, Canadian Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre and leaders of all Canadian parties rose from their seats to applaud Hunka’s wartime service.

Since the exposure of Hunka’s record as a Nazi collaborator – which should have been obvious as soon as the Speaker announced him – Canadian leaders (with the notable exception of Eyre) have rushed to issue superficial, face-saving apologies as withering condemnations poured in from Canadian Jewish organizations.

The incident is now a major national scandal, occupying space on the cover of Canadian papers like the Toronto Sun, which quipped, “Did Nazi that coming.” Meanwhile, Poland’s Education Minister has announced plans to seek Hunka’s criminal extradition.

The Liberal Party has attempted to downplay the affair as an accidental blunder, with one Liberal MP urging her colleagues to “avoid politicizing this incident.” Melanie Joly, Canada’s Foreign Minister, has forced Rota’s resignation, seeking to turn the the Speaker into a scapegoat for her party’s collective actions.

Trudeau, meanwhile, pointed to the “deeply embarrassing” event as a reason to “push back against Russian propaganda,” as though the Kremlin somehow smuggled an nonagenarian Nazi collaborator into parliament, then hypnotized the Prime Minister and his colleagues, Manchurian Candidate-style, into celebrating him as a hero.

To be sure, the incident was no gaffe. Before Canada’s government and military brass celebrated Hunka in parliament, they had provided diplomatic support to fascist hooligans fighting to install a nationalist government in Kiev, and oversaw the training of contemporary Ukrainian military formations openly committed to the furtherance of Nazi ideology.

Ottawa’s celebration of Hunka has also lifted the cover on the country’s post-World War Two policy of naturalizing known Ukrainian Nazi collaborators and weaponizing them as domestic anti-communist shock troops. The post-war immigration wave included the grandfather of Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who functioned as one of Hitler’s top Ukrainain propagandists inside Nazi-occupied Poland.

Though Canadian officialdom has worked to suppress this sordid record, it has resurfaced in dramatic fashion through Hunka’s appearance in parliament and the unsettling contents of his online diaries.

“WE WELCOMED GERMAN SOLDIERS WITH JOY”

The March 2011 edition of the journal of the Association of Ukrainian Ex-Combatants in the US contains an unsettling diary entry which had gone unnoticed until recently.

Authored by Yaroslav Hunka, the journal consisted of proud reflections on volunteering for the 14th Grenadier Division of the Waffen-SS Galicia. Hunka decribed the Nazi Wehrmacht as “mystical German knights” when they first arrived in his hometown of Berezhany, and recalled his own service in the Waffen-SS as the happiest time in his life.

“In my sixth grade,” he wrote, “out of forty students, there were six Ukrainians, two Poles, and the rest were Jewish children of refugees from Poland. We wondered why they were running away from such a civilized Western nation as the Germans.”

The Jewish Virtual Library details the extermination of Berezhany’s Jewish population at the hands of the “civilized” Germans: “In 1941 at the end of Soviet occupation 12,000 Jews were living in Berezhany, most of them refugees fleeing the horrors of the Nazi war machine in Europe. During the Holocaust, on Oct. 1, 1941, 500–700 Jews were executed by the Germans in the nearby quarries. On Dec. 18, another 1,200, listed as poor by the Judenrat, were shot in the forest. On Yom Kippur 1942 (Sept. 21), 1,000–1,500 were deported to Belzec and hundreds murdered in the streets and in their homes. On Hanukkah (Dec. 4–5) hundreds more were sent to Belzec and on June 12, 1943, the last 1,700 Jews of the ghetto and labor camp were liquidated, with only a few individuals escaping. Less than 100 Berezhany Jews survived the war.”

When Soviet forces held control of Berezhany, Hunka said he and his neighbors longed for the arrival of Nazi Germany. “Every day,” he recalled, “we looked impatiently in the direction of the Pomoryany (Lvov) with the hope that those mystical German knights, who give bullets to the hated Lyakhs are about to appear.” (Lyakh is a derogatory Ukrainian term for Poles).

In July 1941, when the Nazi German army entered Berezhany, Hunka breathed a sigh of relief. “We welcomed the German soldiers with joy,” he wrote. “People felt a thaw, knowing that there would no longer be that dreaded knocking on the door in the middle of the night, and at least it would be possible to sleep peacefully now.”

Two years later, Hunka joined the First Division of the Galician SS 14th Grenadier Brigade – a unit formed under the personal orders of Heinrich Himmler. When Himmler inspected the Ukrainian volunteers in May 1943 (below), he was accompanied by Otto Von Wachter, the Nazi-appointed governor of Galicia who established the Jewish ghetto in Krakow.

“Your homeland has become so much more beautiful since you have lost – on our initiative, I must say – those residents who were so often a dirty blemish on Galicia’s good name, namely the Jews…” Himmler reportedly told the Ukrainian troops. “I know that if I ordered you to liquidate the Poles … I would be giving you permission to do what you are eager to do anyway.”

“HITLER’S ELITE TORTURERS AND MURDERERS HAVE BEEN PASSED ON RMCP ORDERS”

The Ukrainian Canadian newsletter lamented on April 1, 1948, “some [of the new citizens] are outright Nazis who served in the German army and police. It is reported that individuals tattoooed with the dread[ed] SS, Hitler’s elite torturers and murderers have been passed on RCMP orders and after being turned down by screening agencies in Europe.”

The journal described the unreformed Nazis as anticommunist shock troops whose “‘ideological leaders’ are already busy fomenting WWIII, propagating a new world holocaust in which Canada will perish.”

In 1997, the Canadian branch of the Simon Wiesenthal Center charged the Canadian government with having admitted over 2000 veterans of the 14th Volunteer Waffen-SS Grenadier Division.

That same year, 60 Minutes released a special, “Canada’s Dark Secret,” revealing that some 1000 Nazi SS veterans from Baltic states had been granted citizenship by Canada after the war. Irving Abella, a Canadian historian, told 60 Minutes that the easiest way to get into the country “was by showing the SS tattoo. This proved that you were an anti-Communist.”

Abella also alleged that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (Justin’s father) explained to him that his government kept silent about the Nazi immigrants “because they were afraid of exacerbating relationships between Jews and Eastern European ethnic communities.”

Yaroslav Hunka was among the post-war wave of Ukrainian Nazi veterans welcomed by Canada. According to the city council website of Berezhany, he arrived in Ontario in 1954 and promptly “became a member of the fraternity of soldiers of the 1st Division of the UNA, affiliated to the World Congress of Free Ukrainians.”

Also among the new generation of Ukrainian Canadians was Michael Chomiak, the grandfather of Canada’s second-most-powerful official, Chrystia Freeland. Throughout her career as a journalist and Canadian diplomat, Freeland has advanced her grandfather’s legacy of anti-Russian agitation, while repeatedly exalting wartime Nazi collaborators during public events.

CANADA WELCOMES HITLER’S TOP UKRAINIAN PROPAGANDISTS……………………………………………………………………………………………………………. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/10/01/canadas-honoring-of-nazi-vet-exposes-ottawas-longstanding-ukraine-policy/

October 2, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Canada, politics, Reference, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Vatican at U.N. : Risk of nuclear war is ‘at its highest in generations’

September 27, 2023, By Justin McLellan, Catholic News Service, https://catholicreview.org/vatican-at-u-n-risk-of-nuclear-war-is-at-its-highest-in-generations/

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The international community must cooperate to advance disarmament rather than embrace the “false security” offered by nuclear weapons, the Vatican’s foreign minister said.

Speaking Sept. 26 during a high-level meeting on the elimination of nuclear weapons at the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican foreign minister, called eliminating nuclear weapons a “moral imperative.”

“Regrettably, the risk of nuclear war is at its highest in generations, featuring unconscionable threats of nuclear use, while an arms race runs unabated,” he said.

The archbishop lamented how countries “squander resources needed for pressing development concerns on nuclear weapons,” and said countries have “abandoned much of the arms control and disarmament structure that underpins international security.”

“In this context, it is clear that nuclear-weapons states are increasing reliance on nuclear deterrence” rather than disarmament, he said.

Archbishop Gallagher called for states to adopt disarmament measures including no-first-use policies, treaties managing materials that can undergo fission and assurances that nuclear-weapon states will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against states that do not possess them.

The same day, he also spoke during general debate at the opening of the U.N. General Assembly session, criticizing the “crumbling trust among nations” in recent years and how at the United Nations and other international bodies, “richer, more powerful countries attempt to impose their own worldview on poorer countries, promoting alien, cultural values they do not share.”

“The international community must maintain the universality of global multilateral forums and not turn them into clubs reserved for a few elites who think alike, and where some are simply tolerated as long as they do not bother anyone,” he said.

Archbishop Gallagher also called for legal instruments to regulate artificial intelligence, particularly AI-powered lethal autonomous weapons systems, and for religious freedom to be upheld worldwide.

“The true litmus test to see if human rights are being protected is the degree to which people have freedom of religion or belief in a country,” he said. “Religious freedom is one of the absolute minimum requirements necessary to live in dignity.”

September 28, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

Pope says world on brink of nuclear war like 1962 Cuban missile crisis

‘A world free of nuclear arms is possible and necessary,’ pontiff says

Beyza Binnur Donmez |20.09.2023 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/pope-says-world-on-brink-of-nuclear-war-like-1962-cuban-missile-crisis/2996411

GENEVA

Pope Francis warned Tuesday that the world is on the brink of a nuclear war like the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Francis conveyed the message at an international conference in Oslo commemorating the 60th anniversary of Pope John XXIII’s influential encyclical Pacem in Terris.

In his message, according to Vatican News, he said the conference is taking place “as our world continues to be in the grip of a third world war fought piecemeal, and, in the tragic case of the conflict in Ukraine, not without the threat of recourse to nuclear weapons.”

He drew a comparison between the present moment and the time that preceded the publication of Pacem in Terris, where the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962 brought the world perilously close to nuclear destruction.

Urging the conference to focus on the sections of Pacem in Terris that address disarmament and the ways to achieve long-lasting peace, the pontiff said that “a world free of nuclear arms is possible and necessary.”

He also recalled his statement from the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in 2019, when he said that “the use of atomic energy for purposes of war is immoral, just as the possessing of nuclear weapons is immoral.”

Regarding conventional arms, he said that they “should be used for defensive purposes only and not directed to civilian targets.”

September 21, 2023 Posted by Christina Macpherson | Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

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