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Patrick Lawrence: Biden’s Frankenstein

SCHEERPOST, November 8, 2023

The new wave of violence in Israel and Gaza now enters its second month. More than 10,000 people have been killed, The Associated Press reports, 40 percent of them children. Where is this catastrophe going? What are the limits of Israel’s inhumanity? Does the Biden regime, in its unforgivable support and encouragement of this ethnic-cleansing operation, have another Frankenstein on its hands—a monster it cannot control?

The new wave of violence in Israel and Gaza now enters its second month. More than 10,000 people have been killed, The Associated Press reports, 40 percent of them children. Where is this catastrophe going? What are the limits of Israel’s inhumanity? Does the Biden regime, in its unforgivable support and encouragement of this ethnic-cleansing operation, have another Frankenstein on its hands—a monster it cannot control?

It starts to look as if Biden and his foreign policy people have lost what control they may have had over Bibi Netanyahu and the fanatical regime he directs. Last week Antony Blinken, on his second trip to Israel since the Hamas assault on southern Israel October 7, asked the Israeli prime minister to “pause”—we must not propose a ceasefire—Israel’s daily bombing campaign up and down the Gaza Strip. Netanyahu refused the American secretary of state more or less point blank. Ask yourself: Who was in charge of that meeting, who was running the show? I have to say, Blinken does come over as a diplomatic pipsqueak time and time again, as he did last summer in Beijing, when the Chinese leadership actually scolded him before sending him home with nothing but lectures to show for his effort. 

The Biden White House has been making sotto voce requests such as Blinken’s for the past couple of weeks, all to very little avail. Dim and wanting in all subtlety, even Biden, Blinken and the rest of the regime’s national security crew are now aware that Biden’s open-door, open-wallet support for Bibi’s frenzied violence against Palestinians has turned into a political disaster from which it will be difficult to recover. West Asian nations may not stand with Palestinians to the extent one would like to see, but the old client relationships with Washington appear to have been altered more or less permanently. 

It all looks so very bad. Last week the Latin Americans began recalling their ambassadors to Tel Aviv, Bolivia going so far as to sever relations, and bravo for the Bolivians. This week Jordan, Bahrain, Turkey, Chad and South Africa followed suit. The Israelis show no sign of giving a damn, but look at the names: America has traditionally counted these nations among its friends (or clients). Now they stand among those treating apartheid Israel as the pariah state it deserves to be called. Think about where this will leave Washington out in the middle distance. It will be another case of U.S. support for South Africa before the apartheid regime gave up the ghost in 1990, or for Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe 10 years earlier. It will be embarrassing and costly. 

There are cracks in the façade at home, too. There are murmurs in Congress that the Israelis have gone too far, although very few have made the daring leap from ineffectually suggesting a “temporary pause” in the bombing to demanding a ceasefire. Unnamed officials now acknowledge that Israel’s hysterical violence has nothing to do with self-defense and everything to do with preserving the Israeli Defense Force’s reputation for merciless retribution. I read these sorts of admissions as indications of dissatisfaction and disapproval, if not disgust. 

…………………..There is an election now one year away, after all, and I am reading opinion surveys indicating the majority of Americans favor humanitarian aid to Gaza rather than military aid to Israel. I read that 300,000 people marched in Washington last weekend. The risk seems clear, then, that Biden’s Israel-über-alles policy—so devoid of imagination, so betraying of his limited intelligence—could jeopardize his chances next November 5. This is not, obviously, a candidate with room to spare for major policy errors, and fielding the Israel–Gaza crisis as Biden has is a very, very major error.

…………………………….Biden is stuck. This is the simple answer. He has—and far from alone is he in this—painted the U.S. into a corner with the Israelis. They know very well Israel is America’s true Frankenstein and that Washington cannot possibly cut the current.  Please tone down the violence against innocents, and here is $3.8 billion in annual military aid, and a new $14.3 billion atop it, so you can keep on going: How else are Bibi and his fanatic ministers supposed to read this if not as a license to continue bombing and starving Palestinians?

What we witness as the second month of this atrocity begins, and this is the (slightly) complicated read, is a two-sided, impossibly contradictory policy. The U.S. needs to control a political and public-relations disaster while supporting the savagery that produces the disaster. ………………………….

American policy toward Israel has nothing to do with protecting Israeli people, “honest brokering,” or any such notion. It has to do with maintaining the imperium’s presence in West Asia—this the objective since at least the 1967 war. In my read we can count this the first, second, third and only priority of the policy cliques in Washington. This is why it is fine that the post–1967 leadership in Tel Aviv has turned Israel into a garrison state just as Harold Lasswell memorably defined this in 1941. The Israelis are “specialists in violence,” precisely as Lasswell used this term. It is what the U.S. wants them to be. 

And depends on them to be. The rest—please pause, please use smaller bombs and so on—is merely to trifle pointlessly with a monstrous regime that needs to be unplugged altogether. https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/08/patrick-lawrence-bidens-frankenstein/ #Israel #Palestine

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, USA | Leave a comment

Chris Hedges: Israel’s Endgame is ‘Destruction of the Idea of Palestine’

The arms manufacturers are thrilled. They’re making money in Ukraine, they’re making money with Israel, because remember, most of this money is going straight to Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, and that’s who’s making the money.

the Palestinians really don’t have many friends. Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, Syria to a certain extent, but not… Am I, if I had to make an educated guess, I think Israel’s going to get away with it.

Pushing most of the Palestinians out of Gaza and turning most of Gaza into a moonscape, which is they’ve already done with the North.

 I know that’s what they want to do. I mean, that is without question. The question is whether they can be stopped, but I don’t see the forces that are going to stop them.

What Netanyahu’s government aims to achieve in Gaza today is something akin to the Armenian genocide.

SCHEERPOST, 8 Nov 23

One month since the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on Oct. 7, the Israeli military has slaughtered more than 10,000 Palestinians, including over 4,000 children. International condemnation is growing, with multiple governments withdrawing their ambassadors from Israel and organizations around the world calling for Israel’s leaders to be prosecuted for war crimes. In an Oct. 28 resignation letter, Craig Mokhiber, former Director of the New York Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that there is “no room for doubt or debate” that the Israeli government is intentionally perpetuating a genocide of the Palestinian people with the support of the US, EU, and other international actors. Drawing on his decades of experience as a war correspondent and years living in and reporting on Gaza, Chris Hedges joins The Marc Steiner Show to discuss Israel’s endgame: the full elimination and depopulation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and eventually the West Bank.

TRANSCRIPT

Chris Hedges:

Well, most of the people in the Netanyahu government, including Netanyahu himself, have been quite clear for, often decades, what the end game is, and that’s the destruction of the state or even the idea of Palestine. And that will be accomplished through acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing. 

And I fully expect things to get worse in Gaza. I mean, they’re bombing the hospitals now. There’s not enough food or water. Israel is impervious to requests from Washington because of the Israel lobby. They have, traditionally Israel, because of the power of the Israel lobby, it doesn’t really matter what any administration wants. They humiliated Biden when he was Vice President and called for a moratorium on settlements, and then the day he was in Jerusalem, announced an expansion of settlements. They bypassed the White House to go speak, by Netanyahu, to go speak before Congress to denounce the Iran deal.

They know that, in essence, the Biden administration can’t touch the military aid and has no ability to really pressure the government to halt this massive bombing campaign. 

…………………the first two weeks, they damaged or destroyed 45% of the housing stock. They’ve dropped, I think, it was just in the first two weeks, 20,000 tons of bombs. I mean, this is a Stalin grad level. It’s as bad as Sarajevo was. It doesn’t come close.

Thousands of Palestinians are trapped under the rubble and they have surrounded the northern part. I mean, they will do it piecemeal. They learn that from the Americans, in Fallujah. You don’t essentially attack on a wide front. You break up your urban areas into sectors that you then dominate. So, they’ve cut off Gaza City from the South, which is Gaza’s largest city, about 700,000 people.

………. I think that it’s saturation bombing. I mean, they will keep the northern part of Gaza corded off, surrounded, but I expect them to kind of bomb their way to victory, or what they’re going to continue or call victory.

……..They don’t really want to start crawling through the rubble fighting Hamas fighters. The tunnels are an issue. We don’t know how big, but they’re big. But they need generators in order to pump down air into the tunnels.

……….I think most of the hostages are probably in the tunnels. This is also a very cynical decision on the part of the Netanyahu government. I don’t think many of those hostages are going to come back. I think they know that and they don’t care. So, they’ve cut off food. In essence, they’ve cut off water. I mean, the trucks that have come over through Rafan are, it’s negligible. It’s a very cynical kind of public relations ploy, but it doesn’t do anything to alleviate the tremendous suffering.

So, I expect that they will push what remains of the Gaza population over the border into the Sinai, into Egypt, and they will never come back. And there have been reports in the Egyptian press that the Americans have approached the CC government. The Egyptian economy is in a mess at over $160 billion in debt. And they will offer financial incentives, and probably if that doesn’t work though, use threats and to do Israel’s bidding. And in essence, Gaza as we know it, and I spent seven years covering Gaza, my office was right in the center of Gaza City, just won’t exist.

……………………………………………………………….. Marc Steiner:

So, I’m thinking about the American end in this, and I know it’s not going to happen, but it seems like the only way conceivably to stop Israel from doing what it’s doing at this moment would be the threat of a cutoff of aid. And when you see inside the Jewish world in America, in the United States, I see it all the time, is a growing body of Jews saying, ‘No, not in our name. We don’t agree,” And whether it’s marches or articles and organizations being developed. So, I mean, that seems to me the only way to stop the madness.

Chris Hedges:

Well, that would be the only way, even that might not work because Israel needs that aid to essentially replenish stockpiles. But they have a pretty robust arsenal. Well, those are the Jews that don’t count. I mean, J Street and Jewish voices for peace don’t count. I mean, for me, they count quite a bit. But I’m talking about in terms of the power structure, and it’s money. I mean, it’s APAC and these Sheldon Adelson type retrograde Jewish billionaires. By the way, they funded Netanyahu. I covered that campaign. Netanyahu was their baby. They created him and they bankrolled him against Rabin.


So, yes, I mean, I think ultimately that’s why I support the Boycott, Divestment, Sanction movement, that it is about severing aid and imposing sanctions on Israel. That’s the only weapon we have. We’re very far from achieving that. Even most of the liberal groups don’t support BDS. And the Israel lobby is just so well-funded and so powerful, and they represent a political strain of a very right wing political strain within the American population that it does not, I would guess, represent the political leanings of probably most American Jews.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………for them, it’s the final solution, or their version of the final solution, which is, and they won’t stop. And once they finish with Gaza, they will turn on the West Bank. And they want to create, these are their own words, a kind of religiously pure state, which means the forced exile, ethnic cleansing, whatever you want to call it, of millions of Palestinians, including Christians. I mean, there’s a significant Christian population among the Palestinians. They think they’re going to finish with this problem once and for all.

………………………… the United States is actively backing and supporting the genocide with intelligence, with military support, vetoing, the calls for the ceasefire at the UN, etc. I mean, what you will, you will certainly create blow back probably in the form of terrorism. But once these people are pushed out of their land and permanently thrust into the diaspora, which I think is the plan……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

 Well, I mean, it’s not my job to sell hope. That’s not journalism, by the way.

It’s my job to assess the situation as clearly as I can.

………………………………………………….. Israel will become a fascistic state ruled by the ultra orthodox, kind of Jewish version of Iran.

……………………………..Netanyahu’s dismantling of the judiciary is, of course, a huge step in that. But people who speak out against the Netanyahu assault against democracy or the slaughter in Gaza are attacked as traitors and silenced. And I mean, there’s been a huge campaign preceding October 7th against Israeli human rights workers at B’Tselem.

……. And that will just now accelerate. There’ll be no room for dissent

Marc Steiner:……………………………………. And what’s happening in the Palestinian world, I think people don’t really grasp the intensity, the madness, the murder that’s taking place among Palestinians now…………………..

Chris Hedges:

Well, Israel’s cut off all the internet and cell phone service because when you carry out genocide, you block the ability of the victims to reach the outside world. That’s standard.

……….. it’s about the wholesale destruction of people, and all of the mechanisms by which you can destroy a people. The denial of food, the denial of water, the denial of safety, the ability to flee, fleeing to the south. They’re bombing the south. They’re bombing the supposedly corridors that they set up to go to the south. It’s indiscriminate, dropping 2,000 pound bombs on Jabalia, on refugee camps. Jabalia, I’ve been in, spent a lot of time in Jabalia. So, Gaza is one of the most densely packed spots on the planet, but Jabalia is the most densely packed spot in Gaza, and I think they bombed it three times. Nobody knows the number of dead because-

……… … thousands are under the rubble. So, that indiscriminate, they’re bombing hospitals. I mean, they say, “Well, they’re terrorist command centers, or Hamas command centers.” They’re bombing hospitals, they’ve cut off the fuel. The babies in incubators are dying. I mean, that’s genocide.

………………………… the wild card is whether it ignites a regional conflagration. So, that would begin in Lebanon with Hezbollah, but it wouldn’t begin unless Iran green-lighted it. I don’t think that Iran or Hezbollah wants to ignite a regional conflagration, but that’s the wild card. I mean, things can just go wrong. I’ve covered enough war that once you open that Pandora’s box and let all those evil spirits out, they control you. It doesn’t control… You don’t control it.

So yeah, things could go wrong that way. The arms manufacturers are thrilled. They’re making money in Ukraine, they’re making money with Israel, because remember, most of this money is going straight to Raytheon and Northrop Grumman, and that’s who’s making the money. So, I don’t… The Palestinians have always been friendless, powerless. And the Arab states are very duplicitous about their commitment, which is largely rhetorical, and they’re quite happy to sell the Palestinian’s outing. There’s a lot of animus towards, I mean, for instance, Egypt hates Hamas because Hamas was born out of the Muslim brotherhood, and they, CC with us and Israeli backing, seized power to essentially prevent a Muslim brotherhood government from running Egypt.

So, the Palestinians really don’t have many friends. Iran, Qatar, Hezbollah, Syria to a certain extent, but not… Am I, if I had to make an educated guess, I think Israel’s going to get away with it.

Pushing most of the Palestinians out of Gaza and turning most of Gaza into a moonscape, which is they’ve already done with the North.

I  know that’s what they want to do. I mean, that is without question. The question is whether they can be stopped, but I don’t see the forces that are going to stop them.

…………………..Marc Steiner:

Mainstream media is not really giving the people here [inaudible 00:25:15]…………………………………………………………………………………more https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/08/chris-hedges-israels-endgame-is-destruction-of-the-idea-of-palestine/ #Israel #Palestine

November 9, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Wikileaks cable: Israeli intelligence chief encouraged Hamas takeover of Gaza Strip

 DEC 22, 2010 , By Saed Bannoura   https://imemc.org/article/60238/

In the latest revelation to come out of the hundreds of thousands of leaked diplomatic cables provided by the website ‘Wikileaks’, a diplomatic exchange between then Israeli Director of Military Intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, and US Ambassador to Israel Richard Jones showed Israeli support for a Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip which Israel could then declare Gaza to be a ‘hostile entity’.The Hamas party won Palestinian parliamentary elections in January 2006, but was prevented from forming a government as required by the Palestinian constitution. In June 2007, after months of attempted takeovers by the US-supported Fateh party, the Hamas party was able to form their government in Gaza. The cable in question was recorded just hours before the Hamas government was formed in Gaza in June 2007.

In the transcript, Yadlin told the US Ambassador that he would be “very happy” if Hamas formed a government in Gaza “as long as they have no (air or sea) port.” He added that Israel would then work with the rival Palestinian political party, Fateh, to form a government in the West Bank and work to undermine the Hamas government in Gaza.

That is exactly what took place, just after the meeting between Yadlin and Ambassador Jones, as Hamas created its government in Gaza and Israel launched a massive siege, and the largest-ever assault on Gaza in late December 2008.

In another leaked cable, Yadlin spoke with US Congressmember Robert Wexler in December 2008, saying ‘Abu Mazen ‘(Mahmoud Abbas) and (Salam) Fayyad are controlling the West Bank while the Hamas has established a terror entity in Gaza”. #Israel #Palestine

November 9, 2023 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties | Leave a comment

“Doomsday weapon” Israel’s worst kept secret

‘That’s one way’: Israeli cabinet minister says nuking Gaza is an option

Fears that the war against Hamas could spiral into a wider regional conflict have again raised the spectre of Israel’s “worst-kept secret”.

Frank Chung, news.com.au 6 Nov 23

A far-right minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has sparked fury after suggesting Israel could nuke Gaza.

The comments, which made headlines in Arab and Israeli media, were quickly disavowed by Mr Netanyahu, who immediately suspended Mr Eliyahu from cabinet meetings……………………………………………………………………….

Israel’s nukes

Fears that the war between Israel and Hamas could spiral into a wider regional conflict have again raised the spectre of nuclear weapons — and Israel’s own “worst kept secret”.

Israel is widely believed to have around 80 to 90 plutonium-based nuclear warheads, and enough material for more than 200, making it one of only nine nuclear-armed countries alongside Russia, the US, China, France, the UK, Pakistan, India and North Korea.

The arsenal consists of an estimated 30 gravity bombs for delivery by aircraft, with the remainder of the warheads for delivery by missiles.

The Jericho II medium-range ballistic missile and Jericho III intermediate-range ballistic missile “are believed to be based with their mobile launchers in caves at a military base east of Jerusalem”, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute says.

According to Professor Clive Williams from the ANU’s Centre for Military and Security Law and Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Jericho II has an estimated range of 1500 to 1800 kilometres, while the Jericho III can reach more than 4000 kilometres.

Israel also operates a fleet of around half a dozen Dolphin-class diesel-electric submarines out of the northern port city of Haifa.

A number of the German-built submarines are commonly thought to have been adapted to carry cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads to maintain a second-strike option.

“An estimated 30-40 nuclear weapons have been allocated to the submarines, with a possible missile delivery range of up to 1500 kilometres,” Prof Williams writes.

While never openly acknowledging its capability, Israel has issued veiled threats in the past.

“Our submarine fleet is used first and foremost to deter our enemies who strive to extinguish us,” Mr Netanyahu said in 2016. “They must know that Israel is capable of hitting back hard against anyone who seeks to hurt us.”

‘Nuclear ambiguity’

Officially, Israel refuses to confirm or deny its secret nuclear weapons program, and is not party to the international Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

The policy, known as “nuclear ambiguity” or “nuclear opacity”, dates back more than five decades to a 1969 Oval Office meeting between Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir and US President Richard Nixon, after nearly a decade of tension between the two countries over the issue.

The two leaders reached an unwritten agreement that effectively amounted to “don’t ask, don’t tell” — Israel would agree not to declare, test or threaten to use nuclear weapons, and the US would not pressure Israel to sign the NPT, which had been co-sponsored and signed by the US the previous year.

Despite this, Israel is suspected to have carried out an illegal nuclear test in 1979, roughly halfway between South Africa and Antarctica — an incident quickly swept under the rug by the Carter White House.

Israel began developing its nuclear program in the 1950s and is believed to have produced its first nuclear weapon in the late ‘60s.

The US government had first caught wind of Israel’s secret nuclear reactor — located in the Negev desert near the city of Dimona and built with the assistance of the French — in 1960.

The Americans, fearful of a Middle East arms race, for several years put pressure on the Israelis to inspect Dimona, with Israel going so far as to build a fake control centre at the plant to mask its true purpose.

“The Israelis, who are one of the few peoples whose survival is genuinely threatened, are probably more likely than almost any other country to actually use their nuclear weapons,” national security adviser Henry Kissinger told President Nixon in a declassified 1969 memo.

“This is one program on which the Israelis have persistently deceived us and may even have stolen from us.”……………………………………………………………….

Successive US presidents honoured this unwritten agreement until it was formalised into a secret letter during the Clinton administration.

According to a 2018 report in The New Yorker, the letter — first signed by President Bill Clinton and known only to a handful of senior officials — amounted to an American pledge not to pressure Israel to give up its nuclear weapons as long as it continued to face existential threats in the region.

“In the letter, according to former officials, President Bill Clinton assured the Jewish state that no future American arms-control initiative would ‘detract’ from Israel’s ‘deterrent’ capabilities, an oblique but clear reference to its nuclear arsenal,” investigative journalist Adam Entous wrote…………..

Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump each signed updated versions of the letter.

Vanunu scandal

The existence of Israel’s nuclear program was only revealed to the general public in 1986 when UK newspaper The Sunday Times published a bombshell story featuring whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu, a former Dimona technician.

Vanunu provided the paper with details and photos of the inner workings of the nuclear plant.

“Based on his revelations, some experts estimated that Israel had built between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons of varying yields and complexity,” writes the Nuclear Threat Initiative……………………………………………………………………………..

‘Doomsday weapon’

In the wake of the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas, which left 1400 Israelis dead and more than 240 taken hostage, fears have grown that any widening of the conflict could involve nuclear weapons……………………

Mr Eliyahu is not the first Israeli politician to suggest using “doomsday” weapons against the Palestinian terror group.

“Jericho missile! Jericho missile! A strategic alert, before we consider introducing our forces. A doomsday weapon!” Revital Gotliv wrote in a post on X two days after the attacks. “This is my opinion. May God preserve all our strength.”

Ms Gotliv, a member of Mr Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party with a history of making inflammatory comments, wrote in a follow-up post that Israel should show no mercy in battling Hamas.

“Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country’s dignity, strength, and security! It’s time to kiss doomsday,” she said.

“Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza. Otherwise, we would have done nothing. Not with passwords, with penetrating bombs. Without mercy! Without mercy!”

The post was tagged with a disclaimer by the social media platform that its visibility had been limited as it “may violate X’s rules against Violent Speech”, Insider reported.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), warned last month that “Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons significantly increases the risks associated with the conflict and contributes to regional tensions”.

“Escalation is a real danger,” a spokeswoman told The South China Morning Post frank.chung@news.com.au https://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/military/thats-one-way-israeli-cabinet-minister-says-nuking-gaza-is-an-option/news-story/7822218dceeb4c77e2204d30e1da292b #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #Israel #Palestine

November 8, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

1,500+ Israelis Urge International Criminal Court Action on ‘War Crimes and Genocide’ in Gaza

“Persistent impunity has created the conditions for the consolidation of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is intent on committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian population,” says the open letter.

By Jessica Corbett / Common Dreams, 5 Nov 23,  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/05/1500-israelis-urge-icc-action-on-war-crimes-and-genocide-in-gaza/

Israelis Against Apartheid, a group representing more than 1,500 citizens, this week urged the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor “to take accelerated action against the escalating Israeli war crimes and genocide of the Palestinian people” in Gaza.

“For the safety and future in the region, all elements of international law must be enforced and war crimes should be investigated,” declares the letter to the ICC’s Karim A. A. Khan, noting his ongoing Palestine investigation and recent remarks on the war.

The letter, dated Thursday, explains that “as Israeli anti-colonial activists, we have joined our voices to the voices of Palestinians for decades warning on the dangerous course of action pursued by the Israeli state and repeatedly called for international intervention.”

“Persistent impunity has created the conditions for the consolidation of the Israeli apartheid regime, which is intent on committing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Indigenous Palestinian population,” the letter continues. “The acute deterioration in basic conditions of life that we are now witnessing could have been avoided if Israel had not been continuously granted impunity for its ongoing crimes.”

Officials believe Palestinian militants took around 240 hostages in a Hamas-led surprise attack on Israel October 7, which sparked Israeli forces’ retaliatory air and ground assault of Gaza. Since the war began, more than 1,500 Israelis and 9,400 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, along with at least 133 Palestinians in the West Bank, which has seen a surge in Israeli settler violence.

Over the past four weeks, as Israeli forces have killed thousands of civilians and bombed residential, medical, educational, and religious buildings, allegations of war crimes have mounted. Critics worldwide have accused Israel of committing “a textbook case of genocide,” citing not only the bloodshed but also comments from Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We are extremely concerned by the Israeli institutional calls for genocide that are being loudly and clearly voiced in Hebrew and believe that they should be seriously taken into consideration as thousands, if not millions, of lives are at stake,” says the letter to the ICC prosecutor.

“Israeli military personnel and journalists are now openly calling for ethnic cleansing and genocide,” the letter adds. “It is evident that Israel is disregarding the lives of civilians in Gaza, ordering them to evacuate vast areas even as there is no safe place in Gaza to which people can flee.”

The letter to Khan details the remarks from Netanyahu and others calling for or justifying genocide, and urges him to:

  • Issue immediate arrest warrants against Israeli political and military-security leaders who are committing war crimes and crimes against humanity;
  • Accelerate your investigation into the ongoing crimes being perpetrated at this very moment by the state of Israel, its military forces, and armed Israeli citizens under military protection; and
  • Be a validated and balanced platform for alleged crimes arising from the current situation, rather than making reference to unvalidated and unverified claims.

While applauding some of Khan’s statements in Egypt after his trip to the Rafah border crossing with Gaza last weekend, the letter also says that “we deeply regret that, despite the opening of an investigation, followed by the Pre-Trial Chamber I’s 2021 decision that the court may exercise its criminal jurisdiction over the situation in Palestine, you have so far failed to take concrete action to stop the tragic trajectory of events in our region by holding Israel accountable.”

Khan said that “we need the law more than ever. Not the law in abstract terms, not the law as a theory for academicians, lawyers and judges. But we need to see justice in action. People need to see that the law has an impact on their lives. And this law, this justice, must be focused on the most vulnerable. It should be almost tangible. It is something they should be able to cling on to. It is something that they should be able to embrace when they are faced with so much loss, pain, and suffering.”

The prosecutor spoke about both the Hamas-led attack on Israel, including hostage-taking, and the Israeli war on Gaza, where civilians have been cut off from essentials like food, water, electricity, and medicine. He also highlighted an online portal to which anyone can submit information on alleged war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and crimes of aggression.

Khan asked civil society organizations “to send us any and all evidence that underpins their reports or their communiques or their notices that they issue,” stressing that “reports by themselves are, of course, not evidence and I cannot and will not act pursuant to my oath of office without reliable evidence that we can validate that can stand up in a court of law.”

“I also want to be clear that my office is in the business of conducting credible, relevant, professional, and independent criminal investigations,” he said. “And so I don’t, I haven’t, and I won’t be giving a running commentary on social media, or anywhere else for that matter, regarding the state of investigations in this or any other situation. But the absence of commentary does not mean the absence of investigations.” #Israel #Palestine

November 8, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Showboating for War: Johnson and Morrison in Israel

November 7, 2023,  Dr Binoy Kampmark,  https://theaimn.com/showboating-for-war-johnson-and-morrison-in-israel/

Banished Prime Ministers are an irritation. They clog the airwaves of punditry with their views about how things were and how things should be. But even there, degrees of severity and competence should be observed. The more noble sorts would pursue the goals of peace, even as they bag large wads of cash in stating the obvious. With former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and his disgraced counterpart from the UK, Boris Johnson, the cash is being forked out for war.

That Israeli authorities thought it suitable to invite these two men to bolster their war against Hamas shows a degree of deep desperation. Johnson, a serial rule breaker when it came to his own government’s pandemic regulations, was forced to resign as PM by his own Conservative party in June this year. He proved to be persistently and pathologically mendacious, a ragtag mix of contemptuousness and buffoonery.

Only Australia’s own Morrison could have possibly kept up, secretly commandeering, without knowledge of his own Cabinet, up to five different ministries in addition to his own. Despite losing the May 2022 election to Labor’s Anthony Albanese, he remains a sitting federal member, when not avidly think-tanking for anti-China causes and the US imperium.

As Gaza City is being systematically liquidated, pulverised, demolished and destroyed by Israeli firepower, these two men have decided to cheer matters on with their equivalent of pompoms and drums. The Israeli Defence Force needs all the help it can get in destroying any vestige of Palestinian political power in the small settlement, and history lessons are not what interests them. While Johnson is infinitely more informed about history than Morrison, both were united in their cheap showboating exercise.

Their Israeli hosts, assured that they would never be questioned, took the men to Kibbutz Kfar Aza, the place where 100 residents met their fate at the hands of the al-Qassam Brigade, the military wing of Hamas, on October 7. Here was a chance to compress and cleanse history, to give it that ethical clarity Morrison and Johnson always resisted as prime ministers. It was Johnson’s wish that the world would be able to see what had taken place “so people could be under no illusion about the savagery, the sadism, the lack of humanity of Hamas terrorists.”

That word, again: humanity. The humanity exorcised from any assessment of Palestinian worth, sovereignty, liberty. A humanity reserved for a certain type of privileged victimhood, one rarified in the cool atmosphere of exceptionalism known as God’s chosen people drawn from a document part fiction, part history. It follows that the retaliatory steps taken in prosecuting any response will be justified. “Of course,” Johnson emphasises, “it is right for Israel to take the necessary steps… to stop that happening again.”

On Channel 12 news, Johnson stressed the need to keep the moral compass steady and free of any regard for the Palestinians or their cause: “[S]ince that appalling massacre of October 7, you’re seeing a kind of fog descend, a moral fog, and I just want to remind people of the absolute barbarism of what took place and to make it clear that Israel has the right to defend itself.” With emphasis, he stated that, “There can be no moral equivalence between the terrorism of Hamas and the actions of the Israeli Defence Forces.”

When given the chance to talk about pursuing a ceasefire in the name of ecumenical grace, Johnson was curt. Think of those 240 hostages held by Hamas. “[W]hen you have a crime of this scale, and when there’s the possibility of it happening again, I don’t think it’s the business of the world to tell Israel to stop.” Forget international law, humanitarian restraint on the use of force, proportionate response, and conduct might just find itself within the margins of the tolerable.

Morrison, for his part, saw the trip as “an opportunity to understand firsthand what is occurring on the ground, honour those who have been lost, show support for those who have suffered and are now engaged in this terrible conflict and discuss how to move forward.” He also argued against a ceasefire, as this would only “advantage Hamas to be able to strengthen their positions and make this war go on for even longer”.

As for the matter of making sure the attacks of October 7 are never repeated, the point is all too obvious. It will keep happening again with dreary, bloody predictability. If not next year, then the next decade. Or generation. Eliminating Hamas will simply be a bloody pruning exercise verging on genocide, allowing fresh vegetation to thrive. The forest of vengeance will continue to grow; the thousands of children who survive will never forgive the IDF for what they have done and continue to do. Each dead family brings with it a family of converts for the Palestinian cause. Israel’s publicity relations wonks would be best advised to pay Johnson and Morrison and wish them on their merry way. #Israel #Palestine

November 7, 2023 Posted by | Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

Israeli minister Amichai Eliyahu says nuclear attack on Gaza is ‘an option’

The New Arab Staff, 05 November, 2023,  https://www.newarab.com/news/israel-minister-says-nuclear-attack-gaza-option

While the Israeli military pounds Gaza without relent, Israel’s far-right Minister for Heritage has said that a nuclear attack on Gaza is ‘an option’.

An Israeli minister said on Sunday that using a nuclear weapon on Gaza is “an option” in Tel Aviv’s ongoing war on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Amichai Eliyahu belongs to the far-right Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party, led by Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, and has been the Minister for Heritage in the Israeli government since 2022. 

‘There are no non-combatants in Gaza,” Eliyahu told Radio Kol Berama as the death toll from Israel’s bombardment of Gaza nears 10,000 – including 3,900 children.

Asked if it was therefore permissible to launch a nuclear attack on Gaza, he replied: “that’s one way … that’s an option.”

Eliyahu also likened Palestinians to Nazis and openly endorsed collective punishment, telling the radio station “we would not have provided humanitarian aid to the Nazis… there is no such thing as uninvolved people in Gaza.”

The far-right politician further claimed that Gaza had no right to exist, and said that anyone waving a Palestinian or Hamas flag “shouldn’t continue living on the face of the earth.”

He said the rest of the population in Gaza “can go to Ireland or deserts,” in what appears to be a jab at the steadfast support that much of the Irish public and government have lent Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has rejected calls for Israel to stop bombing Gaza, dismissed his minister’s nuclear strike comments as “divorced from reality” and has suspended him from cabinet meetings.

Israel has dropped thousands of bombs on the Gaza Strip, killing almost 10,000 people in less than a month and flattening much of the enclave, which is home to more than two million people.

Even Israel’s unshakeable ally, the US, has allegedly been pushing Tel Aviv to use smaller bombs to lessen the number of civilian deaths in Gaza.

While Israel using nuclear weapons in Gaza is hugely unlikely, a senior US official told The New York Times that since the bombardment began on 7 October, nearly 90 percent of Israeli bombs dropped on the enclave have been satellite-guided bombs weighing between 1,000 and 2,000 pounds, which the US claims are not suitable for attacks in densely populated urban areas such as Gaza. 

This accounts for the horrific scale of Israel’s attacks and the unprecedented number of Palestinian civilian deaths. #Israel #Palestine

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Rejects US-Proposed Temporary Halt to Fighting

Secretary of State Antony Blinken pushed Tel Aviv to allow a humanitarian pause to allow aid into Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the proposal.

SCHEERPOST, By Kyle Anzalone / Antiwar.com November 5, 2023

During a trip to Israel, America’s top diplomat pushed Tel Aviv to agree to limited “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid into Gaza and facilitate negotiations for Hamas to release prisoners. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu said there would not be a temporary pause in the fighting.

On Friday, Secretary of State Blinken met with Netanyahu in Tel Aviv for the second time since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7. During the face-to-face with Netanyahu, the American diplomat requested that Israel allow for humanitarian pauses to take place in Gaza.

After the Hamas attack, Tel Aviv ordered a complete siege of the Gaza Strip. The region’s 2.3 million residents have had their communication, food, water, and fuel cut off by Israel. Tel Aviv has allowed only a small percentage of humanitarian assistance needed to sustain the enclave’s population.

Blinken explained that humanitarian pauses could be utilized to deliver crucial aid to the Palestinian people and facilitate the release of prisoners held by Hamas. …………………………………………….

A humanitarian pause is different from a ceasefire. While a ceasefire would bring an end to fighting, the pause proposed by the White House would only halt fighting in select areas of Gaza for a few hours at a time. Still, Netanyahu rejected the proposal. “Israel refuses a temporary ceasefire that does not include the return of our hostages,” he said.

On Thursday, White House National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration remains firmly against a ceasefire……………..

Blinken suggests a pausing in fighting is a slight shift in White House policy. After the Hamas attack, Biden offered his full-throated support for Israel. “We stand with Israel. And we will make sure Israel has what it needs to take care of its citizens, defend itself, and respond to this attack,” Biden said at the time, adding that “if the United States experienced what Israel is experiencing, our response would be swift, decisive and overwhelming.”

However, Israeli military operations in Gaza have killed thousands of civilians and created a humanitarian catastrophe. The death toll in Gaza has crossed 9,000, including nearly 4,000 children. Israeli strikes have targeted communication centers, ambulances, densely populated refugee camps, and bakeries distributing humanitarian aid.

………………………If Washington sought to exert pressure on Israel, it could curtail the billions in military assistance it provides to Tel Aviv. Israel receives $3.8 billion in security assistance annually. Additionally, The White House has proposed a $14 billion aid package for Tel Aviv in response to the Hamas attack. On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris said, “We are not going to create any conditions on the support that we are giving Israel to defend itself.”  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/05/israel-rejects-us-proposed-temporary-halt-to-fighting/ #Israel #Palestine

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Israel, 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.

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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 | MIDDLE EAST, Religion and ethics | Leave a comment

The Invisible Slaughter of Palestinian Children

CHARLES HIRSCHKIND11/03/2023  https://www.juancole.com/2023/11/invisible-slaughter-palestinian.html

Berkeley, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – According to our most reliable news sources, the children of Gaza are being slaughtered at a horrific rate. No, you will not find the terms “slaughter” or “horrific” in Western media accounts of Israel’s current assault on the Palestinians residents of Gaza (these terms are reserved for Israeli deaths), but nonetheless, there is little disagreement among media professionals that nearly half of the deaths resulting from Israel’s current assault on Gaza are children, as I write, close to 4000 of them. And the killing of 4000 children by aerial bombardment in the short span of 3 or 4 weeks is nothing if not a horrific and terrible slaughter.

Statements made by politicians or military personnel to mitigate the significance of this number—that Israel is making every possible effort to spare civilian lives, that collateral damage is sadly unavoidable in war, that Hamas is to blame for forcing Israel to defend itself, or, most perversely, Biden’s baseless caution about the numerical accuracy of the data—all of these qualifications seem morally obscene when weighed against the fact that close to 4000 children have been blown to shreds in a few short weeks.

According to the charity, Save the Children, “More children have been killed in the Gaza Strip over the last three weeks than in every other armed conflict annually since 2019.” Whatever viewpoint one may hold in regard to Israel’s military actions in Gaza, in one very real and empirical sense, this has been a war carried out -— to a stunning and unprecedented degree -— on the bodies of children. This, I would argue, is a salient moral fact of the conflict, one that any attempt to come to terms with Israel’s assault necessarily confronts.

Or perhaps not. For when our major news media update us on the results of Israel’s relentless bombing campaign, we hear, not that 100 Palestinian children were crushed in the day’s rubble, a now daily occurrence, but rather, that Israel successfully destroyed more of the “terrorist infrastructure,” that “terror tunnels” were eliminated, that 15 Hamas terrorists were killed by the Israeli Army and Air Force, and so on.

We are presented, in other words, with a narrative that conceals the very slaughter that we know from the available casualty statistics is occurring. The massive carnage in children’s lives -— again, an inescapable moral fact of the conflict, whatever one’s point of view—is replaced by the so-called “war on Hamas,” and presented in a language ever more obedient to Israeli military speak, where protocol seems to demand that every third word in a sentence be “terror” or one of its derivative terms.

From the standpoint of Western media, Palestinian lives are relevant precisely in proportion to their ability to resist Israel’s crushing grip upon them. Insomuch as Hamas is the primary institution of organized resistance in Gaza, it is they -— not dead children -— who are the only significant Palestinian casualties in this war. It is this perceptual regime that lays behind comments such as the following, made by a US government official, just a few days ago: “We believe that a ceasefire right now benefits Hamas, and Hamas is the only one that would gain from that right now.” The thought that thousands of Palestinian children might also derive some benefit from a ceasefire, namely by not being blown to pieces, is not even to be entertained.

The erasure of enemy deaths is an established practice within war, and the deaths of children are no exception. Thousands of children were killed by the US in the “War on Terror.” These deaths never achieved significant visibility within American public discourse, never weighed heavily on the American political conscience.

Our mainstream media present us today with two events that cannot be squared, the war on Palestinian children and the war on Hamas, and then proceed to coach us in how not to see one of them. This is the task in perception management that today sets their agenda. #Israel #Palestine

November 4, 2023 Posted by | Israel, media, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Rights group: Israel dropped equivalent to 2 nuclear bombs on Gaza


November 3, 2023  https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231103-rights-group-israel-dropped-equivalent-to-2-nuclear-bombs-on-gaza/

Israel has dropped more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives on the besieged Gaza Strip since the start of its large-scale bombardment on 7 October, equivalent to two nuclear bombs, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said in a press release issued Thursday.

The rights group said the Israeli army has admitted to bombing over 12,000 targets in the Gaza Strip; pounding the enclave with roughly 10 kilogrammes of explosives per resident.

Euro-Med Monitor highlighted that the weight of the nuclear bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of World War II in August 1945 was estimated at about 15,000 tonnes, adding that due to technological developments affecting the potency of bombs, the explosives dropped on Gaza may be twice as powerful as a nuclear bomb.

“This means that the destructive power of the explosives dropped on Gaza exceeds that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima,” Euro-Med Monitor said.

According to the statement, Israel uses bombs with huge destructive power, some of which range from 150 to 1,000 kilogrammes, and cited a recent statement by Israeli War Minister Yoav Gallant that declared that more than 10,000 bombs have been dropped on Gaza City alone.

The Geneva-based rights group has also documented Israel’s use of internationally banned weapons in its attacks on the Gaza Strip, especially the use of cluster and phosphorus bombs, which can cause severe fatal burns. #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #Israel #Palestine

November 4, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Netanyahu Rejects Calls for Ceasefire as Gaza Death Toll Surpasses 8,300

By Chris Walker , TRUTHOUT, October 31, 2023  https://truthout.org/articles/netanyahu-rejects-calls-for-ceasefire-as-gaza-death-toll-surpasses-8300/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=cd5af912ac-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_3_20_2023_13_41_COPY_06&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-cd5af912ac-650192793&mc_cid=cd5af912ac&mc_eid=73e1cd43d0

Hundreds of thousands of protesters worldwide have demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the occupation.By Chris Walker , TRUTHOUTPublishedOctober 31, 2023

sraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected international calls for an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza during a press conference on Monday.

Since the Hamas-led infiltration attack on October 7 that killed around 1,400 people, Israeli forces have waged a genocidal bombing campaign against Palestinians, killing more than 8,300 people in Gaza — more than a third of whom are children, according to the latest figures from the Gaza Health Ministry. Thousands more Gazans are estimated to be trapped under the rubble.

Israeli airstrikes have displaced millions of Gazans from their homes, many of whom are now struggling to survive — and resorting to drinking contaminated sea water — as Israel blocks food, water, electricity and medicine from entering Gaza.

“Just as the United States would not agree to a cease-fire after Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7,” Netanyahu told reporters on Monday.

Netanyahu’s comments come as hundreds of thousands of protesters worldwide have demanded an immediate ceasefire and for Israel to allow desperately needed aid into Gaza, as well as for an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land. Although Netanyahu has claimed that aid has been reaching those in need, observers on the ground have disputed these claims.

“Very few trucks, slow processes, strict inspections, supplies that do not match the requirements of UNRWA and the other aid organizations, and mostly the ongoing ban on fuel, are all a recipe for a failed system,” read a report from Thomas White, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency’s top official for Gaza.

Hundreds of thousands of people protested against the Israeli military’s siege of Gaza in cities across the globe over the weekend, including in Melbourne, Australia; London, United Kingdom; Toronto, Canada; New York, United States; Rome, Italy; Amman, Jordan; Berlin, Germany; Pretoria, South Africa; and more.

Netanyahu, who faces calls to resign from his role as prime minister for failing to prevent the October 7 attack from Hamas, didn’t appear to be moved by the calls for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation. “This is a time for war,” he said instead.

Meanwhile, residents of Israel appear to be changing their views on the attacks in Gaza. Polling from last week, taken prior to the Israeli military launching a ground campaign, indicates that close to one in two Israeli residents (49 percent) wanted the Israel Defense Forces to pause consideration of such moves, with only 29 percent stating they wanted the military to immediately launch a ground campaign, a decrease from a poll asking the same question a week before.

Other polling taken earlier this month found that the vast majority of Israeli residents agree that Netanyahu was largely responsible for failing to prepare for an attack from Hamas, with 80 percent in that poll saying so.

Evidence suggests that Netanyahu did in fact have advance warning about the Hamas attack on October 7. Egyptian officials say they repeatedly warned the prime minister days ahead of the attack that the action from Hamas was imminent. Netanyahu’s office has denied that they received any information from Egypt, although the chairman of the U.S. House Intelligence Committee, Texas Republican Rep. Michael McCaul, has said that he and other members have seen evidence of the warnings. #srael #Palestine

November 3, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | 1 Comment

Israel in Search of Its Hiroshima: Massive Bomb Wipes Out 20 Apt. Buildings, Kills, Wounds 400 Civilians

The flaw in the Israeli government stance is that we are not living in 1943. After World War II, the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions and other international instruments were enacted by the nations of the world to prevent the atrocities of WW II from being repeated. It was to this “rules-based international order” that the Biden administration appealed when it tried to rally the world to oppose Russian war crimes in Ukraine. In a gob-smacking act of supreme hypocrisy, the Biden administration has decided to throw the same rules-based international order on the garbage heap of special pleading when it comes to Israel.

By Juan Cole / Informed Comment

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In one of the biggest massacres it has so far committed, the Israeli Air Force on Tuesday bombed the Jabaliyaa refugee camp in Gaza, killing or wounding at least 400 persons and destroying the Block Six residential complex, felling 20 buildings. More victims are believed to be under the rubble.

An Israeli military spokesman said that the strike was directed at Hamas leader Ibrahim Biari, a mastermind of the October 7 attack on Israel. Although Israeli authorities proclaimed that they had succeeded in killing Biari, Hamas announced that he was still very much alive.

Killing and wounding 400 noncombatants and destroying 20 residential buildings to get at one target, even if the target is a wanted terrorist, is strictly forbidden under the post-World War II laws of war and International Humanitarian law. These laws are codified in the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute that underpins the International Criminal Court.

For instance, Rome Statute:

Art. 8 (2) (b) (iv) Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated. (4th Geneva Convention Art. 85 (3) (b) of AP I.)

Art. 8 (2) (a) (iv) Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly (mirrored from Geneva Conventions Art. 50/51/147 of GC I, II and IV).

Art. 8 (2) (b) (i) Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities (4th Geneva Convention Art. 85 (3) (a), plus Art. 51(2) AP I).

Art. 8 (2) (b) (v) Attacking or bombarding, by whatever means, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended and which are not military objectives. (4th Geneva Convention, Art. 85 (3) (d) of AP I).

The presence of one senior Hamas commander, or even a platoon of them, among hundreds of noncombatants clearly would not justify recklessly endangering innocent civilians on the scale of Jabaliyaa. This is a war crime pure and simple.

In a CNN interview by Wolf Blitzer of an Israeli military spokesman, Blitzer is clearly astonished that he straightforwardly admitted that the Israelis knew that the strike would kill the refugees in the camp, but did it anyway.

The complete disregard of Israeli authorities for the laws of war and International Humanitarian Law enacted after World War II — intended to prevent atrocities of the sort committed during that war — was manifest in remarks to the New York Times, reported Monday:

“It became evident to US officials that Israeli leaders believed mass civilian casualties were an acceptable price in the military campaign. In private conversations with American counterparts, Israeli officials referred to how the United States and other allied powers resorted to devastating bombings in Germany and Japan during World War II – including the dropping of the two atomic warheads in Hiroshima and Nagasaki – to try to defeat those countries.”………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

this claim, of killing noncombatants in self-defense, which the German officers resorted to, is precisely the claim some Israeli officials are making today, that all Palestinians in Gaza are terrorists, all are dangerous to the survival of Israel, and therefore slaughtering them en masse is permissible. These arguments were rejected by the war crimes tribunal after WW II, and they should be rejected today. Of course, extremist Israelis really mind being compared to Nazis. But there is an easy way to avoid that: don’t act like Nazis.

The flaw in the Israeli government stance is that we are not living in 1943. After World War II, the United Nations, the Geneva Conventions and other international instruments were enacted by the nations of the world to prevent the atrocities of WW II from being repeated. It was to this “rules-based international order” that the Biden administration appealed when it tried to rally the world to oppose Russian war crimes in Ukraine. In a gob-smacking act of supreme hypocrisy, the Biden administration has decided to throw the same rules-based international order on the garbage heap of special pleading when it comes to Israel.

Unfortunately, the Biden administration is letting the fascist government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu get away with mass murder. As a result, no one in the global South will ever listen to Biden or Secretary of State Antony Blinken say the words “rules-based international order” again without falling down laughing. The US attempt to cut Russia off from the world economy will now completely fail.  https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/01/israel-in-search-of-its-hiroshima-massive-bomb-wipes-out-20-apt-buildings-kills-wounds-400-civilians/ #Israel #Palestine #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes
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November 2, 2023 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | 6 Comments

U.S. QUIETLY EXPANDS SECRET MILITARY BASE IN ISRAEL

Government documents pointing to construction at a classified U.S. base offer rare hints about a little noted U.S. military presence near Gaza

The Intercept, Ken Klippenstein, Daniel Boguslaw, October 27 2023,

TWO MONTHS BEFORE Hamas attacked Israel, the Pentagon awarded a multimillion-dollar contract to build U.S. troop facilities for a secret base it maintains deep within Israel’s Negev desert, just 20 miles from Gaza. Code-named “Site 512,” the longstanding U.S. base is a radar facility that monitors the skies for missile attacks on Israel. #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

On October 7, however, when thousands of Hamas rockets were launched, Site 512 saw nothing — because it is focused on Iran, more than 700 miles away.

The U.S. Army is quietly moving ahead with construction at Site 512, a classified base perched atop Mt. Har Qeren in the Negev, to include what government records describe as a “life support facility”: military speak for barracks-like structures for personnel.

Though President Joe Biden and the White House insist that there are no plans to send U.S. troops to Israel amid its war on Hamas, a secret U.S. military presence in Israel already exists. And the government contracts and budget documents show it is evidently growing. 

The $35.8 million U.S. troop facility, not publicly announced or previously reported, was obliquely referenced in an August 2 contract announcement by the Pentagon. Though the Defense Department has taken pains to obscure the site’s true nature — describing it in other records merely as a “classified worldwide” project — budget documents reviewed by The Intercept reveal that it is part of Site 512. (The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)…………………….

Rare acknowledgment of the U.S. military presence in Israel came in 2017, when the two countries inaugurated a military site that the U.S. government-funded Voice of America deemed “the first American military base on Israeli soil.” Israeli Air Force’s Brig. Gen. Tzvika Haimovitch called it “historic.” He said, “We established an American base in the State of Israel, in the Israel Defense Forces, for the first time.” 

A day later, the U.S. military denied that it was an American base, insisting that it was merely a “living facility” for U.S. service members working at an Israeli base

The U.S. military employs similar euphemistic language to characterize the new facility in Israel, which its procurement records describe as a “life support area.” Such obfuscation is typical of U.S. military sites the Pentagon wants to conceal. Site 512 has previously been referred to as a “cooperative security location”: a designation that is intended to confer a low-cost, light footprint presence but has been applied to bases that, as The Intercept has previously reported, can house as many as 1,000 troops.

Site 512, however, wasn’t established to contend with a threat to Israel from Palestinian militants but the danger posed by Iranian mid-range missiles.

The overwhelming focus on Iran continues to play out in the U.S. government’s response to the Hamas attack. In an attempt to counter Iran — which aids both Hamas and Israel’s rival to the north, Hezbollah, a Lebanese political group with a robust military wing, both of which are considered terror groups by the U.S. — the Pentagon has vastly expanded its presence in the Middle East. Following the attack, the U.S. doubled the number of fighter jets in the region and deployed two aircraft carriers off the coast of Israel…………………………………………………. more https://theintercept.com/2023/10/27/secret-military-base-israel-gaza-site-512/

November 2, 2023 Posted by | Israel, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

As The Lights Go Out In Gaza

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, 2 Nov 23,  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/as-the-lights-go-out-in-gaza?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=138506461&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&utm_medium=email

In America they killed all the buffalo just to take away food from the natives,
made mountains of their skulls and posed proudly in photos
like they posed proudly in front of burnt bodies after lynchings in the south.

In Australia they stole the brown children and gave them to pale families
and watched their ancient civilization disappear into the toxic fumes of industry
like a sailboat into the mist.

In Israel teenagers play with buttons that cause explosions on screens
and look forward to the end of the Gaza operation
so they can leave and go play better video games.

In Gaza mothers clutch tattered pieces of flesh and clothing to their chests
and scream names that will never again be answered
and call out questions to the heavens that will also go unanswered.

And the ghosts of the buffalo roam through the ruins 
looking for their heads
while the people of Gaza comb through the rubble 
looking for their dead,
and the rest of us stare at screens and cry like babies
and ask our own unanswered questions 
of heavens clouded by the fumes of industry,
vanishing stars above a dying world
as the lights go out in Gaza
one by one. #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes

November 2, 2023 Posted by | culture and arts, MIDDLE EAST | Leave a comment

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